ARGOS IN CAPPADOCIA

NEVSEHIR, TURKEY. Is it a hotel in a monestery? In a cave? In a series of tunnels? Actually, Argos in Cappadocia is a bit of all three. Set in the breathtaking Pigeon Valley, this singularly unique hotel features 42 rooms, suites, and “splendid” suites spread out through five different mansions, ranging from 15 to 93 square meters, with the largest offering their own private cave pools. Also on site are a restaurant, lounge, and wine cellar, which is housed in a five-and-a-half kilomter tunnel that’s also home to lavish meeting rooms. Add in outstanding service and fantastic views, and you have something truly special.

Olympus PEN E-P5 Camera

Prime engineering goes into the look and feel of Olympus’s PEN cameras, and the new E-P5 is no different. Its handsome vintage-inspired body houses features like an ultra-fast shutter, 5-axis image stabilization and wi-fi compatibility. $1,000

TEA-JAY ON THE ROCKS ICE TEA MAKER

Ice tea is the best beverage (non adult beverage) to help stay cool on a hot summer day, and the Tea-Jay On The Rocks Ice Tea Maker is one of the finest tea makers we’ve ever seen.

Marketed as “the coolest way to make iced tea,” this thing certainly delivers. The matted stainless steel top portion paired to the clear glass bottom makes this one of the most beautifully designed tea makers on the market. Place the tea leaves into the top portion along with some hot water, let some time pass, turn the head, and the hot tea comes pouring onto the ice below, all the while keeping the tea leaves in the reservoir separated from the tea itself. See this thing in action below, and purchase yours through All Modern.

$90

Image: TOPSHOTS-CHINA-AUTO-CONSUMER-OFFBEAT

Mr.Wang smashes his $420,000 Maserati Quattroporte in protest of bad service

Quick! Make a list of those brands/companies that haven’t offered you good customer service. Yes, now assemble all those things you have brought from them, either put them on fire or hire sledgehammer-wielding men to smash them to pieces! Doesn’t seem like a great idea? Well that’s what a wealthy Chinese Maserati owner resorted to! Yes he did, and it’s no myth. Identifying himself only with his surname, Mr. Wang actually went on to hire four sledgehammer-wielding men to smash his $420,000 Maserati Quattroporte in protest to poor customer service. And that too after having gathered a crowd just outside the opening of an auto show in the eastern city of Qingdao in Shandong province! The end result was ‘a crippled vehicle’ (as opposed to the Maserati Quattroporte) with shattered windscreen and mirrors, the grille broken and dents on the bodywork. All this draped in a banner accusing the Italian manufacturer. Well, that’s quite an expensive protest don’t you think? And with all the press coverage this news has been getting, I’m sure Maserati has its ears and eyes open and has got the “underlined” message.

ZIPPO STAINLESS STEEL WALLET

Zippo knows an awful lot about making metal things that go in your pockets, so when we heard they were working on a wallet, we were rightly intrigued. The Zippo Stainless Steel Wallet ($50) looks great and does double duty as a tin foil hat, using its stainless steel outer shell to protect against RF theft. It also features a flexible polymer body, six credit card slots, an ID window, and a money pocket. At 1 cm thick, it’s right on the border of being front pocketable, so we’ll leave that decision up to you.

Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock for Mac

The sleek, aluminum-encased Thunderbolt Express Dock from Belkin lets you use a single cable and a “single connection to create high-speed, reliable transfers between your laptop and up to eight other devices, including FireWire, Ethernet, USB, and daisy chaining multiple Thunderbolt devices.” With two Thunderbolt connectors (one upstream, one downstream), you’ll be able to daisy-chain up to five more Thunderbolt devices to your computer. You can connect a total of eight devices to your computer using the USB 3.0 and Firewire 800 connectors in combination with the Thunderbolt port. You’ll also find a Gigabit Ethernet connector and audio jacks for headphones and a microphone.

The Thunderbolt Express Dock is $299.99, and it’s a easy way to add desktop features to your MacBook Pro or Air or even to add a lot of extra ports to your iMac or Mac mini.

Zachary Quinto vs. Leonard Nimoy: “The Challenge” Audi commercial

This is a long-form Audi commercial featuring Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto in a race of the Spocks to see who can get to the country club first. The video is 2:45 long which is hard to sit through but we did like the part when Nimoy was driving and reciting ‘The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins’ to himself, also making him the funner of the two drivers to ride with.

1953 FERRARI 250 EUROPA COUPE VIGNALE

It’s not just a 1950s Ferrari — it’s a one-of-a-kind 1950s Ferrari. And you can expect this 1953 Ferrari 250 Europa Coupe Vignale to fetch a one-of-a-kind price when it’s put up at the Bonhams Quail Lodge Auction in August. Designed by Giovanni Michelotti for Vignale, this coach built car recently underwent a painstaking restoration, and remains correct in every detail, down to its tobacco and burnt sienna livery. Produced at the very beginning of Ferrari’s legendary 250 model range, it’d be a crown jewel of any aficionado’s collection.

Thanks Uncrate

ADOBE MIGHTY & NAPOLEON PROJECTS

Drawing on a tablet or smartphone is nearly as easy as drawing on paper — but most styluses lack the intelligence to really streamline the process. The Adobe Mighty & Napoleon Projects ($TBA) seek to change all that. The Mighty is a pressure sensitive digital drawing tool that uses Bluetooth LE to stay connected to your devices and features a button that can bring up on-screen menus for selecting different tools and colors. It’s joined by Napoleon, a digital ruler that can create a digitally-projected edge used to draw shapes and lines. The plan is to use Adobe’s cloud to share drawings and assets between devices, but as this is all in the experimental stage, it’s hard telling what all might be included by the time they’re ready for you to buy.

Abu Dhabi International Airport is the world’s first to introduce ‘GoSleep’ sleeping pods

At Abu Dhabi International Airport, sleep comes for about $13/hour! A thoughtful initiative by Abu Dhabi Airports Company (ADAC), Abu International Airport terminals 1 and 3 is now hub to “GoSleep” sleeping pods for passengers to take a quick nap. Known to be the ‘World’s First Airport’ to offer a service as such, the ADAC seems to be on cloud nine launching their new initiative. As mentioned by Mohammed Al Bulooki, Chief Commercial Officer of ADAC, Abu Dhabi Airports Company believes in enhancing passenger experience and is always striving to provide its passengers “world-class levels of service”. The technologically advanced “GoSleep” pods have been installed in the airport to do exactly that.