Gadgets, Gizmos, and Games for Geeks

Today is a big day for Apple enthusiasts, with speculation at an all time high for new hardware from the darlings of Silicon Valley. Rumors have been flying around for some time ranging from the iPhone, to the iTV, to new touch screen iPods, to a truly portable Mac.

If you’re the outdoorsy type, you might want to check out Bushnell’s new waterproof portable GPS navigator. It’s the first device I’ve seen that seamlessly integrates GPS mapping capabilities with real time weather data and an XM satellite radio.

Not to be outdone by Apple’s iMac personal computers, HP has finally announced their much anticipated all-in one system, the HP TouchSmart. The first system in the series is the TouchSmart IQ770, featuring a fast, dual-core AMD Turion 64-X2 TL-52 CPU, 2GB of DDR RAM, a 320 GB hard drive and a SuperMulti DVD burner with LightScribe capability.

At this week’s CES show, Sony showed off an OLED TV with that claims to have an unbelievable 1,000,000 to 1 contrast ratio. From the looks of the photo below, (taken by the folks over at Engadget,) the contrast does look pretty darned impressive: The 27-inch prototype’s organic light emitting diode panel also features a wider than NTSC color gamut and full 1080p resolution.

Gasoline pump manufacturer, Dresser Wayne, is showing off a new pump that features wireless Internet connectivity, including the ability to purchase and download music tracks while you pump fuel into your gas guzzler. The Dresser Wayne Ovation

This is starting to sound like the early days of the war in Iraq… Apparently, while we were off living our lives, Blu-ray became the “overwhelming” victor in the high definition format wars. Here are some excerpts from today’s overly self-congratulatory press release from the Blu-ray Disc Association, titled Consumers Overwhelmingly Choose “Blu”: The Blu-ray Disc Association today declared its victory as the premiere high definition DVD format of choice… The success of Blu-ray Disc is unprecedented… consumers have voted with their wallets for the format that offers the widest array of hardware and content on the market.

If you travel a lot, you might want to check out the newly announced Franklin TGA-490 language translator that can actually speak in 12 different languages. The new portable translator not only translates over 450,000 words and 12,000 phrases, it contains recorded samples of speech to provide accurate pronunciation in all 12 languages.

In the market for a complete home theater setup without a lot of clutter? The iLive iHTD8817DT DVD Virtual Surround Sound Speaker Bar (now that’s a mouthful,) is a complete home theater in one piece of hardware.

Coming this April, JVC’s new Everio GZ-HD7 camcorder is the first consumer video camera to feature full 1920x1080i resolution hard disk recording. The camera records up to 5 hours of 1080i MPEG2 content on its internal 60GB hard drive.

I’ve been a big fan of Sony’s BRAVIA LCD flat panel sets for quite some time. Now, so long as your bank account can take it, you can have the cream of the crop with their new 70-inch Bravia television, the KDL-70XBR3.

The Sony VAIO TP1 reinvents the wheel (literally,) by placing the latest in media center PCs in a case that’s shaped like a wheel. The TP1 features all of the requisite media PC bells and whistles, such as an HDMI port, a DVD burner, memory card slots and built-in Wi-Fi.

A couple of days ago, we reported that LG was planning on releasing a disc player that can handle both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats. Details of the player were announced today, so here goes: The LG BH100 Super Multi Blue Player will handle both high definition disc formats, in full 1080p resolution, as well as offering DTS-HD audio support.

Wowwee, known best for their Robosapien and Roboraptor educational toy robots has revealed two new models they’ll be showing off at this week’s CES show. The two new models couldn’t be more different, with one being cute and cuddly, and the other ready to eat the cute and cuddly one.

Belkin has introduced a new gadget which should be a godsend for musicians on a budget. The Belkin TuneStudion is a four-channel mixing board which features a dock for 5G iPods. The system records directly from the mixing board into the iPod at CD-quality.

Tagz are programmable scrolling LED tags that hang from a pendant. You can program a message of your choice by pressing a couple of buttons on the back of the tag. I’m not sure if tagZ will be the next big trend with the kidZ, but they sure look cooler than the tacky glow stick necklaces that show up at the occasional rave.

With all of the cool control possibilities that the Nintendo Wii has opened us up to, it’s no wonder that someone has started to explore the possibilities with Nintendo’s other darling, the DS portable gaming system.