Digital, analog collide in these tech toys

• iBell offers old-school alarm clock design for your iPhone
• Hipstamatic update takes advantage of larger iPhone 5 screen
• Evernote, Moleskine team up on a smart notebook

Past and present — digital and analog — collide this week as we take a look at anachronistic tech toys that are either out now or are in development.

An old-fashioned iPhone alarm

Is your iPhone's alarm not powerful enough to get you out of bed? If you're not ready to kick the snooze-button habit, maybe something with more oomph will do. The iBell from Japan Trend Shop integrates into the iPhone the design of old-school alarm clocks with metal bells. Twin bells ring gloriously in the morning, activated by the phone's vibrations. There are two versions: a small powered dock and a mini version that connects via the 30-pin connector. (iPhone 5s need not apply.)

Both cost $38 (tack on an additional $16 for international shipping) and are expected to be available in early November.

Scanning negatives at record speed

Last month, Berlin hosted Photo Hack Day, a 24-hour hackathon centered around images. The results ranged from the predictable (a photo mash-up app) to the imaginative (a camera for the blind that converts photos to sound). But taking first place is something that's very practical: Helmut, an Android app that helps simplify the negative-scanning process.

Shooting and developing on film has two main drawbacks: It's not instant, and it's expensive. But Helmut purports itself as an fastest film scanner in the world. The Android app takes seconds to scan and uses a custom algorithm to process the images and turn negatives into positives.

It's still a work in progress, so unfortunately, Helmut's not yet available.

Bring multiple exposure to digital photography

On the flip side of things, Hipstamatic attempts to bring the feel of old-fashioned film photography to the iPhone, letting users select different (virtual) lenses, films and flashes to compose funky photos.

Its newest update optimizes the app to take advantage of the iPhone 5's larger screen. In addition, Hipstamatic is bringing multiple exposure photography — typically a technique employed by film photographers — to the digital world, allowing people to snap several images and superimpose them to create a single photo. In the analog world, this is achieved by opening the shutter multiples times before winding the camera.

The multiple exposure kit is a $0.99 in-app purchase; Hipstamatic is available on iOS devices for $1.99.

A smarter Moleskine

Evernote is rooted in helping keep your thoughts, sketches and memos organized across all devices, but that doesn't mean people are ready to give up on paper quite yet.

The note-taking company and Moleskine — every writer's favorite — recently teamed up to bring a specially designed notebook that will blur the lines between analog and digital. So what makes this a smart notebook? The secret is in the dots. The notebook, which comes in ruled and square styles, uses a dotted line pattern designed to take advantage of Evernote's app features.

Compared with usual lined paper, Moleskin's dotted lines are less obtrusive to allow the Evernote app to capture clear images. The app's enhanced camera uses these dots as a guide to correct alignment while improving page contrast and removing shadows.

The Evernote Moleskine includes three months of Evernote Premium (normally $5 a month) and a backflap of stickers — arrows, x's, checkmarks and icons for travel, home and work — that the app automatically recognizes and appropriately tags.

The notebooks begin at $24.95.

Measuring pixels on paper

A ruler with no inches or centimeters? That's right, UI Stencils has the Pixel Ruler, with a 150 pixels-per-inch scale.

This will be much appreciated by Web and app designers who like working on paper. The 12-inch Pixel Ruler provides context with markers for different screen sizes (mobile phones, tablets, computers) in portrait and landscape modes. Made of stainless steel in the U.S., the Pixel Ruler includes stencil stickers and a Zebra mechanical pencil for $24.

It also comes in a bundle with a Hi-Tec pen pack for $32.95.

E-mail Alice Truong at techcomments@usatoday.com. Follow her on Twitter: @alicetruong.