The ChargeCard

A truly portable USB cable for phones that fits in your wallet

Few tech products are actually as portable as they claim to be. A hardware design team from San Francisco is out to make things right with tools designed for the “modern nomad.” By reducing a USB cable down to its core elements, the team created the ChargeCard. It’s a thin smartphone cable—perfect for charging and synching—that’s designed to fit in your wallet. The cable is …

Torque Audio Z Series Headphones

Interchangeable valves boost bass or treble depending on your listening needs

In a very crowded, celebrity-saturated area of the music accessory market, Torque Audio is carving out a place in the grounds of in-ear audio innovation. Their Zoom Series t103z earbuds come equipped with the usual high-end standards—a remote control, 4 sizes of ergonomic silicone ear-tips, weight-balanced metal housing, 10mm 16ohms high velocity, full bandwidth dynamic driver—but they’ve also introduced an amplifying technology that is all …

Rats Pop-Up Shop, Berlin

A wild sampling of American culture lands in the German capital

by Jen Miller Last summer, art director Gabriel Kuo was at a party in Berlin when he noticed a German guy wearing a Patrick Ewing Knicks Jersey. Encountering this celebration of American cultureand one so seemingly out of contextwas inspiring. He linked up with his friend Keren Richter, an illustrator and designer (and friend of CH), and they decided to test out German interest in …