Gadgets, Gizmos, and Games for Geeks

A little while back, I told you about Sony’s forthcoming round VAIO TP1 home computer. Now Sony has announced an additional wheel shaped component that lets you receive HDTV broadcasts and pipe them into a media center PC.

Looking for a way to get rid of your annoying neighbor? Why not shoot them 144 times?… not with bullets, but with rubber bands! The $395 Incredible Rubberband Machine Gun is a mechanical work of wonder that holds 144 individual rubberbands.

Klegg Electronics, known for their home audio gear has unveiled a series of Internet-enabled flat panel televisions in their “Genesis” product line. The new displays come in 40-inch and 46-inch LCD versions, and feature Windows XP (hopefully MCE) embedded chip that enables web surfing, e-mail and digital media file access.

Halo fanboys unite! It’s been revealed that the upcoming $99 Halo 3 Legendary Edition (due this October) will include a variety of special bonus features, including 3 bonus DVDs with behind-the-scenes footage, hi-resolution cinematics from Halo and Halo 2, Red vs Blue episodes and more.

For those of you who are fans of Matt Groening’s classic animated show, Futurama, here’s a computer casemod was just dying to be done. Modeled after everyone’s favorite acerbic, beer-swilling, foul-mouthed robot, Bender, this is one fine piece of casemodding work.

Back in May 2006, Sony filed a patent application, titled “Detectable and Trackable Handheld Controller,” which approaches motion sensing control in a totally different way than the Nintendo Wii does it. Unlike the Wii’s internal accelerometer and gyroscopic sensors, Sony’s patent uses a series of four LEDs on the front of the controller, which provide points of reference for a webcam device that sits on top of a TV.

After you sit around waiting for SEGA’s new Sonic game to load, nothing is more relaxing than a nice foot massage. Well, at least that’s what the game maker has got in store for visitors to one of their arcades in Shibuya, Japan.

Despite rumors to the contrary, it sounds like the Sony Playstation 3 console is still slated for release in the United Kingdom this March. GamesIndustry.biz is reporting a March 23, 2006 U.K. launch date after speaking with several reputable sources.

Between the iTunes DRM, a 2-year AT&T/Cingular contract commitment and a slim chance you’ll be able to write custom applications for the device, Apple’s iPhone is beginning to sound like one highly restrictive device. On the flip side, there’s the OpenMoko open source phone platform.

Yesterday, Saturday Night Live did a not-so-funny parody of Apple’s iPhone announcement during their Weekend Update segment. But that made me think about a couple of times in the past when SNL was a little more on the mark with their Apple parodies… McIntosh Junior: The Power To Crush the Other Kids McIntosh Post-It Notes New iPod Introductions by Steve Jobs Enjoy.

One happy side-effect of the relatively poor showing of Sony’s Playstation 3 so far is that it means good deals for consumers. While the PS3 isn’t cheap at $499 to $599, there’s now a way to pick one up for $100 off at your local EBGames/Gamestop stores.

While many of us were pretty wowed by the industrial design and user interface of Apple’s forthcoming iPhone, but with a bunch of other internet-media-smartphones out there, is it really all that unique? LG would like us to think that Apple’s beauty really isn’t all that different.

SanDisk’s latest entry into the mobile media player market does one thing that makes it stand out from the pack… it can download tracks directly via a Wi-Fi network. The Sansa Connect will let you access popular online music services without using a PC, letting you download and stream content over a wireless connection.

Now this idea has been bandied about before, but the rumor mill is abuzz today with talk that Microsoft may be nearing completion of a purchase of gaming giant Capcom. Certainly, Capcom has been producing some quality hit titles for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console of late, with games like Dead Rising and today’s release of Lost Planet receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback from gamers.

Why anyone would want to do this, I don’t know… Some guy with a lot of time on his hands decided to set up their Nintendo DS Lite so it could run Wii games on its tiny little screen.

I’ve seen plenty of devices that let you record digital notes, but all of the ones I know of require either special paper, special ink or a special pad. The IOGEAR Wireless Digital Scribe (GPEN200N) is the device I’ve come across that can capture handwriting from any surface.