New Products Oct. 16, 2009 - 03:32AM JST ( 2 )

Gone are the days when portable amplification meant lugging a ghetto blaster around with you: today’s mobile music junkies go for something a little more compact. And while Headphonies mini speakers can’t rival the phatness of an old-school boombox, they’re unlikely to threaten your street cred either.

Each 3-inch figurine packs a speaker powered by a rechargeable battery that can be topped up by jacking it into your computer’s USB port. Just to make them a bit more covetable, they come with a range of designs by artists including Jeremiah Ketner and Scribe.

Headphonies, 3,150 yen each. Available from AC Gears (http://japan.acgears.com/), Amazon Japan and Amazon U.S.

Metropolis magazine