Gadgets, Gizmos, and Games for Geeks

The race for miniaturization continues to produce some unbelievably small products. This time, we’ve got the Xun Chi 138 mobile phone. It’s just a tiny bit longer than a AA battery (2.64 inches long) and weight just 55 grams.

The new Kensington Vo300 USB Internet Speakerphone allows you to make Skype VOIP phone calls from your desktop using the familiar interface of a regular desktop speakerphone. The phone features a standard telephone keypad and volume controls, as well as an integrated LCD that lets you control Skype without looking at your computer screen at all.

About every 3 minutes a new iPod dock is born. At least this one is little creative. The $99 FUNKit is a dock for your iPod that features a small robotic “DJ” that moves between two tiny turntables and makes goofy comments while playing your tunes.

The Retro-Encabulator implements the crudely conceived idea of generating inverse reactive current for use in unilateral phase detractors and automatically synchronizing cardinal grammeters. Also it features modial interaction of magneto-reluctance and capacitive diractance. Huh?

I was doing some investigating on Microsoft’s Japanese Xbox site today, and stumbled across this cool feature called the “UserMap.” Much like Digg Swarm, the Flash-based application produces a very slick real-time map of player activity on Xbox Live.

There are plenty of devices out there these days that let you store all of your media on a hard disk, but the handful of devices capable of outputting high definition video are usually very expensive.

Looking for a cool way to incorporate technology into your interior design? These new Mood Light Shelves might be just the ticket. Each shelf is embedded with an array of red, green, and blue ultra-bright LEDs, and can be controlled by a remote to change colors.

What better way to wrap up your holiday presents but with those little invaders we all love so much. Whimsy Press is offering their “Paper Invaders” wrapping paper for all of your gift-giving needs. The wrap comes in 24 x 36 inch sheets for $4.50 each.

The folks over at New York’s DigitalLife consumer electronics and gaming show have extended the kind offer of free tickets to their show for all Technabob readers. Tickets are normally $15 each. The DigitalLife conference features consumer, gaming and entertainment technologies and runs from October 12th through October 15th, 2006 at the Jakob K.

Looking for a bookshelf speaker system for your digital music player that doesn’t suck? Audioengine’s Speaker System 5 has the specs and looks of a true audiophile speaker system but costs just $349, including free shipping.

Even though we all know by now that the Nintendo Wii will retail for $249.99 USD when it launches this November, that’s never the amount you really spend once you buy all your games and accessories.

What’s wrong with this picture? Looks like someone at Amazon made a pretty big freudian slip. I’m not sure how long this will remain up on their site, but here’s the original page. [via Digg]

It must be the season of giving. First Apple and Creative dropped their prices on their media players, then Microsoft cut the price on their Zune, now Sony has announced that their Playstation 3 (the low-end model,) will drop its price too.

Everyone’s getting into the digital camera accessory business, what with add-ons available for the Playstation 2, Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS, the PSP was starting to feel left out. That said, Sony’s entry into the fray seems a little anemic at first glance.

I guess good things come in threes from Microsoft. First, the Zune was revealed to be just $229.99, then the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive announced for under $200, and now they’re offering to repair any Xbox 360 manufactured prior to 1/1/2006 for free by extending the warranty on those machines by an additional year (over and above the orirginal 90 days.)

From the “glimmer of hope” file, photos have surfaced on the web today from what appears to be the Sony Playstation 3’s assembly line: Check out the massive box. And I thought my Xbox 360 box was big!