Gadgets, Gizmos, and Games for Geeks

Now that the Nintendo Wii has been on the market for a little while, we’re starting to see to truly cool hacks using the Wii remote’s motion and accelerometer sensors to control things other than the original console.

Recently, it was revealed that Gears of War for the Xbox 360 had broken sales records with over 2 million copies sold since “Emergence Day” back in October 2006. Now it looks as if the dude with the disturbingly large head, the ruler of all things meat, Burger King may be giving Marcus Fenix and gang a run for their money.

In my never-ending quest to eliminate all wires, cords and other unsightly appendages from my life, I’m pleased to hear that Creative has revealed a new set of high-quality wireless headphones, designed to transmit audio using Bluetooth technology.

Until now, most carrying cases I’ve seen for the Nintendo DS Lite have been either ugly, impractical, cheaply constructed, or all of the above. One company has finally realized that there’s a huge market for a quality carrying case for the popular portable gaming console.

TokyoFlash Japan can always be relied upon for the latest in funky digital timepieces, and the new JLr7 LED Abstract Watch is no exception. The JLr7 (which gets its name from the top row of LEDs on the watch) displays a series “L”-shaped LED (either in green or blue) segments which reveal the current time in a sufficiently difficult to read way that you’ll need to refer to the diagram below to have any hope of figuring out what time it is.

At the Binary 2.0 Conference in Japan, a presentation was given using the Nintendo Wii remote controller to operate a Sony Playstation 3. The catch? The controller was installed as a device using a custom Python driver under Linux on the PS3.

In what seems like a cruel joke, the rumors that an “iPhone” would be announced today were true…. except the iPhone isn’t an Apple device at all, rather a line of rather pedestrian VOIP phone products coming from Linksys.

Looking for a way to get out your aggression while chained to your cubicle? Want to freak out your boss? Then you might want to check out this little gem. The ScreenSmasher is a goofy little desktop toy that comes with a foam “axe”, a special USB sensor and software (Windows only) which makes it look like you just smashed the screen on your monitor as you swing the weapon towards your monitor.

If you’re sick and tired of changing the AA batteries in your Wii-mote, you might want to check out Joytech’s new charging dock for Nintendo Wii controllers. The Joytech Wii Power Station comes with two rechargeable battery packs, and provides docking bays to charge two remotes at once.

LG Electronics has announced a new device that combines a widescreen LCD television with a full-fledged Windows PC. The computer adds virtually no bulk to the flat panel display. The first system in LG’s TVPC lineup will come with an Intel Celeron 430 CPU, 160GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM and on-board WiFi connectivity.

A while back we showed you the retro bluetooth handset you could use with your mobile phone. Well if you’re one of those people who didn’t think that took the concept far enough, you might want to check out the Portable Rotary Phone from Spark Fun Electronics.

The Torian InFusion lets you listen to thousands of Internet “radio” stations wirelessly, with no subscription fees by downloading programming over a built-in WiFi connection. For ease of use, the player comes pre-loaded with settings for thousands of Internet radio streams, so you won’t have to hunt these down for yourself.

Space Giraffe is the latest game from Jeff Minter’s Llamasoft, creator of such classics as Tempest and it’s various derivatives as well as the cool light show visualizations you see in the Xbox 360’s music player.

One of the best deals going in flat panel televisions has been from Vizio. Last year, I picked up one of their 50-inch plasma sets (1366×768 resolution) at Costco for around two grand, and have been duly impressed by the price-to-performance value on these sets.

Microsoft has released another update to add some titles to the Xbox 360 backwards compatibility list, enabling a variety of original Xbox titles to play properly on the 360. The newly added and updated titles include: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Burnout 3: Takedown (updated) Conker: Live and Reloaded Dead Or Alive Ultimate Destroy All Humans!

Gizmodo Editor Brian Lam claims to have the inside track on impending announcement of Apple’s mystery mobile phone. The post simply reads: “Gizmodo Knows: iPhone Will Be Announced On Monday – I guarantee it. It isn’t what I expected at all.