Gadgets, Gizmos, and Games for Geeks

ThinkGeek is now offering these totally over the top Star Wars Force FX Lightsabers. They’re far more substantial and effect-laden than the cheapo toy lightsabers out there. Each lightsaber features a variety of cool effects, including: glowing blades with sliding power-up/down effect sound effects digitally recorded from the movie motion sensor controlled sound effects, Power-up, idle hum, clash, and power-down a heavy-duty metal hilt to looks and feels like a “real” lightsaber The come in 5 varieties, including: Darth Maul – DUAL Red Blade – $199.99 USD; Darth Vader – Red Blade – $99.99 USD; Anakin Skywalker – Blue Blade – $99.99 USD; Mace Windu – Purple Blade – $119.99 USD; and Obi Wan – Blue Blade – $119.99 USD.

Apple and Creative Technology, Ltd. today announced a broad settlement ending all legal disputes between the two companies. Apple will pay $100 million to license Creative’s patent in all Apple products. Apple can recoup a portion of its payment if Creative is successful in licensing this patent to others.

Sony’s latest attempt to combine a flat panel LCD with a PC has resulted in the svelte new VAIO LS1 TV/PC. The new system combines a reasonably powerful computer into the back of a flat-panel 19-inch WSXGA+ (1680 x 1050) LCD display.

Samsung Electronics has developed the first consumer 70″ LCD HDTV panel, besting Sharp’s 65″ panel introduced late last year. The set will feature a full 1080p resolution and a 180 degree viewing angle. In addition, the refresh rate is 120Hz vs 60Hz, which should result in less visible blurring and flicker.

The Ziovia CS510 Media Streamer differentiates itself from the crowd by offering the ability to stream high definition content from your computer to your HDTV via an HDMI or component connection, and also features optical and coax digital audio outputs.

IGN has posted this video showing a direct feed of the Sony Playstation 3’s “dashboard” user interface. At this point, it looks strikingly similar to the PSP’s interface: No real surprises here… The ability to pull up system menus while playing a game is really the only “new” thing for Sony, and this has already been done on the Xbox 360.

The upcomping RS Media robot from WowWee is the latest in their Robosapien line of programmable hobby robots, and this new model features a host of new capabilities for you to play with. The RS will feature the ability to program the ‘bot from your PC via an integrated USB port, and provided software.

Scheduled for a September 19th release, the Xbox Live Vision camera add-on was accidentally put out on the shelves of a Toys R Us store on August 18th, and this lucky buyer managed to get his hands on one over a month early.

Razer Pro|Solutions has announced the upcoming release of the Pro|Type line of multimedia keyboards which incorporate built-in docks for either Apple iPod or Microsoft Zune media players. The keyboards will also include 10 programmable hotkeys for macros (32k of onboard memory for macros), Media Center control keys, Line-level out for audio peripherals and two built-in USB ports.

While researching the topic of innovative musical devices, I came across the guys at Bleep Labs and their totally wacky Thingamagoop custom synthesizer series. These portable sythesizers generate electronica using a unique control interface: as you move a colorful LED over a photosensor, the sound’s waveform changes.

Australia’s Mungo Enterprises has engineered the “Infinite Horizon“, a concept device capable of programatically generating modern dance/trance music with, literally, the push of a button. Just press the BIG RED BUTTON, and out comes a track.

Dana Jongewaard, Managing Editor of the Official Playstation Magazine has posted a fascinating story on her blog which sums up the public (negative) sentiment surrounding the forthcoming Sony Playstation 3. She even went so far as titling the article “Why I am buying a 360 this November.”

Gamesradar has done a side-by-side comparison of the Sony Playstation 3 and the Microsoft Xbox 360, using an accurately sized display prop provided by Sony. I’m not sure what the Japanese market will think about this beast, given the past failure of larger consoles in that market.

SEGA has announce a Fall 2006 release date for their new compilation, the SEGA Genesis Collection. The title will be released for Sony’s Playstation 2 and Playstation Portable systems. The disc will include 30 titles from the Genesis system including classics such as Altered Beast, Sonic The Hedgehog, Shinobi III, Phantasy Star and Golden Axe.

Microsoft Games has posted the demo for its much anticipated Flight Simulator X. This version contains major upgrades from past releases including massively improved visuals, a dynamic world with insane amounts of detail, multiplayer skies with real-time online traffic from other flyers and many new planes to fly.

Reception was lukewarm to last year’s release of Sony’s ChromaVue front projection screen that provided the ability for Sony front projectors to work in brightly-lit rooms. The screens did improve image contrast, but exhibited problems with hotspotting and off axis viewing.