Thanko, the Japanese maker of all gadgets weird and sort-of wonderful, has just released its latest creation: the cranking MP3 player. On its surface, it's a pretty mediocre MP3 player, coming with 1GB of storage and no screen for sorting through your music. So basically, it's a bulky, ugly iPod shuffle.

But wait! See that crank on there? It allows you to keep your MP3 player charged without ever needing to be plugged in. Of course, it'll take 30 full minutes of winding to fully charge that battery up, so you'll want to plug it in sometimes, but it's a nice option for when you run out of juice like 30 seconds before the climax of Freebird and you just really want to hear it.

Via Far East Gizmos