Do audio bit rates matter? With iTunes enhanced-bitrate music coming in a month, we were hoping for a vast improvement. But can anyone tell the difference between a music track encoded at 320kbit/sec, 160kbit/sec and oh, lord, that holy grail of audiophile nirvana, the uncompressed wav? Our friends at Maximum PC decided to put audio compression to the test, enlisting four people to listen music first in uncompressed form, and then encoded with a variable bit rate at 320kbit/sec and the lowly 160kbit/sec. It was easy for everyone to tell the difference, right? Right?

It's downright humiliating, in fact, that in many cases, we were unable to tell the difference between an uncompressed track and one encoded at 160Kb/s, the bit rate most of us considered the absolute minimum acceptable for even portable players.

Do Higher MP3 Bit Rates Pay Off? [Maximum PC]

Okay Brando, you got to be kidding this time, right? There's no evidence that PC peripheral/junk purveyor Brando got permission from Disney to build these $26 USB Mickey Mouse speakers, but the mouse-eared squawk boxes just might get a chuckle out of those who laugh easily.

Hey, wait a minute. It says right here on the Brando site that these speakers have "excellent audio quality." Well, I stand corrected. Come to think of it, these might be perfect for those poor souls slaving away in Mickey Mouse organizations, standing in homage to their patron saint of mediocrity. – Charlie White

Product Page [Brando]

Fujitsu has teamed up with TomTom for its first joint foray into the US Sat-Nav market. The AVN2210p is a car audio unit complete with detachable PND that includes GPS antenna, rechargable battery and speaker, so that you can use it separately from the base unit. Maps of the US and Canada are on a separate SD memory card and It also benefits from TomTom Plus.

The audio unit has a satellite broadcasting digital radio with optional tuner, plays MP3 and WMA files on its CD and CD-R/RW player, supports iPods and other DAPs. There's 5V of preamp outputs and a 50W x 4-channel power amp with three-band equalizer and a low-pass filter, and will support your cellphone via Bluetooth. Cost is around $900 and it will be available next month. – Ad Dugdale

Press Release [Fujitsu Ten via PC Watch]

Details of Minox's DC-1022, the successor to its rather fabulous 8122, have been released. The compact 10-megapixel camera lets you choose aperture and shutter speed for yourself, and there are a range of different modes, from sports and animal photography through fireworks and nighttime. There's also a failsafe automatic mode. Image stabilization is software-based so you should have less blurred photos, even when using zoom.

The DC-1022 will set you back $469 on Amazon.com and it ships starting June 1. There's a full list of specs after the jump.

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There's been a lot of UMPC talk and action in the latter part of this week. And it's not stopping today. Size queens among you will be interested to see a spiffy 2008 Menlow-based UMPC parked up close and personal on the left of the oh-already-so-tired-O-seven McCaslin.

There are a couple more pics of 45 nanometer loveliness after the jump—including one of a Menlow board Silverthorne processor compared to a playing card.

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Instead of manually checking the water with your hands to make sure it's not too warm or cold, just plop on this digital bath spout cover and be done with it. The easy-to-read display shows both the temperature in number form and in color form. Once you get your water just right, dump your child inside and get back to blog surfing.

Even though we have no kids of our own, we still really want one of these. We swear we've burned our peepees for the last time, Trebek. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Kidsafeinc via Crave via Gearlog]

Most of us with Windows Mobile smartphones made by HTC are still waiting for the official WM6 upgrade ROMs before upgrading. After all, walking up to the store with a bricked phone made by some ROM we found on the Net isn't our idea of a good time. Good news, as HTC's just released their upgrade path.

If you're using the HTC TyTN, the 620, the P4350, P330 or the Advantage, upgrades will be rolled out on their site starting June. But if you're in the US, you may have to wait longer, as HTC has to hand off the upgrades to the provider for them to brand and certify first before propagating them to you. – Jason Chen

Ufficiale: HTC rilascia gratis WM 6, ma non per tutti i PDA [Solopalmari - Thanks Mike!]

Desktop trebuchet a little dull? Try this desktop pitching machine on for size. It includes 12 soft miniature balls and a collapsible bat. And I thought I was risking my job tweaking my baseball fantasy league at the office; how about an actual game of baseball? Show me one office where a person could get away with this and I will be quitting Gizmodo in a heartbeat. $25. –Travis Hudson

Product Page [Via Nerd Approved]

Project Page [Isopoddesign - Thanks Aaron!]

There's a project in the works to build the world's longest tunnel, a whopping 64 miles long, between Russia and Alaska. Not for the claustrophobic, the tunnel will take from 10-15 years to build at a cost of $10-12 billion. It's a Russian plan, and they'll be presenting their project to the U.S. next week for approval. The tunnel will be huge, containing a highway, railroad, and pipeline for transporting oil. To drive through the 64-mile-long tunnel you'll need to present officials at the entrance with a permit confirming the fact that you have huge balls.

Hopefully this Russian tunnel will be safer than some of their other tunnels. –Adam Frucci

Bloomberg [via Slashdot]

Starting in July, Air France customers flying on the Airbus A318 will be able to send text messages and emails from their cellphones. Fantastic. Not so fantastic: Three months later, they'll be able to make voice calls (shudder).

During the trial run, each customer will be asked to fill out a questionnaire about the service at the end of the flight—hopefully most people will be smart enough to write that the service drove them to contemplate gruesome suicide, otherwise Air France will be deploying the tech, which uses a "leaky cable" for signal conversion, on all of its flights.

We can only hope that if worse comes to worst, the probable $2.50-a-call fee will cause fliers with "leaky" mouths to do their best to keep them plugged. – Matt Buchanan

Air France to trial in-flight mobile use from July [Silicon via Crave]

This seems like a relationship pleaser to me. My girlfriend loves baths more than anything, but I like racing: cars, go karts, Hell even on foot. And we're always looking for something new to do together.

Two words: Bathtub Racer. We're talking fully motorized bathtub fun (No, not that kind of bathtub fun). For $17,000, you can get yourself 2 racers and an 65'x29' inflatable track. And we're not talking about a stupid little circuit track, this thing is a full on windy course.

Wait, did I just say $17,000? For a motorized Bathtubs and a track? Maybe I'll just wait for one to show up on Craigslist. – Ben Longo

All those Palm buyout rumors may have come to an end, but new rumblings on the Web predict that Palm is about to shock the world with a UMPC of their own. The wireless handheld will follow in the footsteps of the OQOs, Sonys, and Flipstarts of the world. A UMPC-like device from Palm doesn't sound too far-fetched, but considering how little UMPCs have impressed us, that's not the kind of product debut we would have liked.

The Odds? 1 in 10. Which is just about the same as 0 in 10. But it would explain what they've been doing with their time over at Palm, considering the blank stares and empty booths over at both 3GSM and CTIA phone conferences this year.– Louis Ramirez

Palm May Introduce Ultramobile PC [via Gadget Lab]

A group of British scientists are teaming up to create the first ever Star Trek-style force field. The shield would be used to protect astronauts from cancer-causing radiation coming from the sun in the form of solar wind. Astronauts will be able to turn the shield on or off, and they'll even be able to use it on themselves when venturing outside their spaceship. All they need now is to get this guy to design their ship. – Louis Ramirez

Space Shield to Block Radiation [BBC]

This simple yet useful alarm clock from Japan can grab up to five songs from any Japanese cellphone wirelessly via IR. It doesn't have a monster hard drive or a bevy of different card slots or a USB port, but just one simple feature that works as advertised. It's pretty cool, if you ask me, and I'd love to see such simple, basic gadgets appear to compete with the overly complicated and expensive stuff that's already out there. –Adam Frucci

Product Page [via Tokyo Mango]

It may look like a piece of jewelry your grandmother would wear, but this high-tech locket is anything but outdated. Designed by Lindsey Picket, the 1881 features a built-in camera lens that sits on the exterior of the locket. Open the locket up and the twin LCDs will display your favorite snapshots (that are stored on the locket's built-in memory). It's a nice way of giving an old-fashioned gadget a digital twist. – Louis Ramirez

Kodak 1881, PocketSized Digital Camera [Yanko Design via Gearfuse]

Remember the deal you made with the smart kid in school where he would let you cheat off his test and you would promise not to steal his lunch money? Samsung and Microsoft's just gone and done the same thing, except in their case they both fight for the nerd spot and the bully position goes empty. The two companies agreed to a deal that lets each other have access to patents for "computers, televisions, digital video recorders and digital media players."

With Microsoft venturing into Zune and Zunephone territory, it's interesting to see what this deal will do to help speed up development of the two products this year. Since Zune 1.0 was basically cribbed off Toshiba, and since Microsoft really wants to step things up with the 2nd generation, having Samsung's experience in the phone and digital music player market will really help out their chances. – Jason Chen

Samsung, Microsoft strike patent deal [Yahoo]

Admit it, that whole cupping your hand over your mouth trick works about as well as an ice cream parlor in the middle of hell. The Breath Alert is here to help. This gadget is actually pretty scientific. It will detect the levels of volatile sulfide compounds and hydrocarbon gas that cause stank breath and will rate your breath on four levels. –Travis Hudson

Is your breath kicking? [Coolest-Gadgets]

Different from the Solid Alliance USB food platter are these miniature morsels that also serve as data storage. Everything from cheeseburgers to pizza are available and they come in capacities ranging from 256MB to 2GB. These gems are the work of a company named Vavolo. –Travis Hudson

Food Shaped Flash DRives that Don't Make Me Ill [EverythingUSB]

Microsoft's just thrown down a brand new Xbox 360 backward compatibility update that adds or updates about 40 titles (give or take) to the list of Xbox games it can play. If you remember back to GDC, you'll know that Microsft's planning on ramping down the BC efforts after '07. So unless they pull out a gigantic update near the end of this year, you're probably going to have to keep that original Xbox around if you've got some titles you're still keen on playing.

That said, it's nice that they finally got some of the old Call of Duty games up in there. You can never get enough Nazi killing. – Jason Chen

April '07 Back Compat Update [Major Nelson]

Not content in just blaming video games and video game creators, Jack Thompson's now blaming Bill Gates for what happened at Virginia Tech. An excerpt:

As you know, I similalry [sic] went on NBC's Today Show with the DC Beltway Sniper still unidentified and at-large a few years ago and told Matt Lauer and the nation that the triggerman would most likely be a teen video gamer trained on a sniper video game. The tarot card was a clue, but there were other clues. I was right, as Malvo trained on your Microsoft game, Halo. NBC reported that three months later, and it was part of the criminal trial of Malvo.

Mr. Gates, your company is potentially legally liable the harm done at Virginia Tech. Your game, a killing simulator, according to the news that used to be in the Post, trained him to enjoy killing and how to kill. You knew five years ago that your on-line game, Counterstrike, so clearly figured in the massacre by a student in Erfurt that the event and the game impacted the race for Chancellor in Germany at the time!

More after the jump.

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Sony's just dumped version 3.40 of the PSP firmware to coincide with the new features that last night's PS3 update brought to us. Namely, you can now used save game data from your PS3. Probably also increased compatibility for downloaded PS1 titles as well. Yipee! – Jason Chen

Sony PSP Firmware 3.40 Released [i4u]

Really savor the feeling of using sinks in public bathrooms? Now you can get halfway there with this infrared soap dispenser. All you need to do is add 4 AA batteries, pour in some liquid soap, spray some pee around and below the rim of the toilet, smear poop in the wall next to where you wrote your phone number in Sharpie, and voila, you're good to go.

How'd that one about George Michael's latest release go again? – Jason Chen

Product Page [Grandinroad via Red Ferret]

Following Meizu and Deeda's lead, Hua Long's introducing a phone that bears quite a bit of resemblance to Apple's iPhone. However, other than looks, there's not much else that resembles the iPhone.

The innards house a dual-band GSM phone with a 3.5-inch non-touch screen, 2-megapixel camera, MP3/3GP/MP4 playback and just a VGA resolution. Excuse us if we're not impressed by this one. – Jason Chen

M8cool [via Slashphone via My iPhone]

Microsoft's Asia-Pacific chief, Chris Sorenson, threw some poo at the almighty iPhone today, saying business users are better off buying a Windows Mobile 6 smartphone over Apple's forthcoming prodigy.

"You cannot install applications...and there's no support for Office documents. Even using it as a heavy messaging device will be a challenge."

Obvious bias aside, he might be right, if you're talking about the requirements of office drones that do work on their phones. And despite what Chen says, Windows Mobile sucks, even if it can do those two things. So where were we?

Microsoft Slams iPhone as "irrelevant" [ZDNet via Electronista]

This USB chess board combines the best mediocre of the digital world with the real world, letting you move real pieces when you play against a computer program. The bundled software surely isn't as good as Chessmaster or any of the established chess programs, but does let you take screenshots of your current game (it detects where the pieces are on the real board) and send it to a friend. No more of that cryptic N1 to B3 crap.

We're not finding an online store that sells this, but it seems like Argos in the UK is committed to selling it. – Jason Chen

Product Site [DreamCheeky via Tech Digest via Oh Gizmo]

Whispers on the street have it that Apple has run into some issues with the iPhone's OS, preventing a solid supply of the much-ballyhooed phone to hit stores in time for the launch. A source from the manufacturer has this to say on the situation: "It does not look feasible that Apple will be able to ship units out in May to make the shipping date in the US (June), so expect units to trickle by end of June or early July."

Apparently, Apple has sent 50 engineers to Taipei to work around the clock to get the bugs worked out so the iPhone can ship on time. That's a lot of engineers. The source claims that such a shift in manpower is part of the reason Leopard was delayed. We're not sure how likely it is that Apple would send that many people halfway around the world, but anything is possible. Take it with a grain of salt.

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Hitachi carries the flag for plasma, adding an 85-incher (that may look somewhat like the one above) to its line and predicting the plasma display TV market is going to double by March 2011. But then Hitachi's not dissing LCDs, either, saying the LCD TV market will grow even larger, from 28.5 million units shipped per year now to 110 million units during that same time period.

Hitachi released precious little information about this new plasma behemoth, though, but we're assuming it's going to be a 1080p model like other plasma displays in this category. Perhaps Fujitsu Hitachi Plasma Display Ltd., opening up a new plasma plant last December to bring its total capacity to 2 million screens per year, will be able to bring the prices of these gigantic displays out of the stratosphere and down to earth. – Charlie White

Hitachi bets on 85-inch PDP TV [EE Times]

Check out this Seiko Spectrum bracelet watch, which uses flexible E-Ink display technology that wraps all the way around its circumference. It displays a time in two modes, and pictured above is its "mystery mode," making you guess WTF time it is, but looking pretty nonetheless. The other mode on this high-contrast display is presumably more straightforward. The watch is just 6.9mm thick, and it weighs just shy of 3 ounces. Not exactly light, but what do you expect when there's a solid sapphire crystal going all the way around to protect its gorgeous innards?

Seiko has been dabbling in the E-Ink watch concept for a while now, showing us a prototype called Spectrum in late 2005. But now this one's for real, shipping later this year for $2000.

Isn't this E-Ink tech cool? Now they just need to make a less frilly-looking watch for us guys. See the gallery below for real-world shots of the Spectrum. – Charlie White

Seiko Electronic Ink Watch at BaselWorld 2007 [Wrist Dreams , via Sci Fi Tech and I4U News ]

By Brendan I. Koerner

Totally against my will, the missus dragged me along to Bed Bath & Beyond a couple of weekends ago. (Insert whip-cracking sound effects, wise guys.) It was every bit as horrific as I'd feared—I must lack whatever gene enables some folks to swoon over Casabella all-purpose gloves. Oh, and I had to miss the Mavs-Suns game in the name of stocking up on overpriced cleaning supplies. Brutal, just brutal.

The day's one saving grace came as we trudged toward the checkout line. To the right of the cash registers was a rack of low-end gadgets, of the sort you'd ordinarily find at an exceptionally raggedy Radio Shack. There was a USB minifan for five bucks (brand name: "Cool Breeze"), a host of Bandai-style LCD games, and quite possibly the flimsiest iPod speakers known to man. The cake-taker, however, was the Zadro iSing Shower Radio (pictured at right), which hits all the low-end high points. Shameless attempt to leech off the iPod's celebrity? Check. Using the "wow" factor of water resistance to mask otherwise craptacular craftsmanship? Check. Under a Hamilton? Yep—a lovely $9.99.

Now, absolutely no one goes to Bed Bath & Beyond looking for electro-dreck. These products were rather impulse buys, to be tossed in a shopper's cart just before she pays for a bevy of pillows and spatulas. In other words, here was strong evidence that gadgets are quickly morphing into the new ChapStick.

And that strikes me as sort of a big deal.

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It's a big day for us Ubuntu fanboys, because today's the day the final version of Ubuntu 7.04, lovingly known as Feisty Fawn, goes live and is available for download. This version of the dope-easy Linux operating system's biggest innovation is its Windows desktop migration tool, where the smart Feisty Fawn knows if you're going to be doing a dual boot and imports bookmarks and wallpapers from Windows.

Another big problem of Ubuntu's is nearly solved with the addition of multimedia codecs, making it easier to use in the home theater. There's also enhanced support for wireless networking. Heck, this solves two of the main problems we've had with Ubuntu in one swoop. But what can you do with this compact, yet highly developed OS?

Try it, you might like it. There are so many applications available for Linux right now, there's hardly anything it can't do. Well, except for speech recognition.

We have a feeling that someday everyone will be using Ubuntu. It's getting more foolproof with every release, and hey, it's free for the takin'. Maybe that's why 33% of the users here at the Midwest Test Facility are using it. – Charlie White

Download it Here [Canonical, via Wired] (Thanks, Mike!)

Now the shuffle can get in on all the dock fun, with this Dock Adapter for iPod shuffle that lets you plug the little player into all those fancy-schmancy docks that will only work with an Apple dock connector.

Now this doesn't mean you'll be able to control the transport functions as you can with dock-connected iPods and their associated speakers and so forth, but at least you'll be able to plug in that little shuffle sucker and charge it up.

Griffin's not saying when this will be released or at what price yet, but really, how much could a little piece of plastic like this cost? $10? Let's guess: It'll be $19.99. – Charlie White

Product Page [Griffin, via Oh Gizmo]

If you love your Samsung YP-K3 audio player but wish it a) had an external speaker, b) had longer battery life, and c) could be a little more protected from scratches and bumps, you may want to track down a YA-DS200.

We're not sure when it will be coming to the US, but if and when it does, it will probably cost around $70 or $80. We found it listed on a German-language site as "Mobiler Lautsprecher" for 69 euros. Oh, so it's laut and mobiler! Check out the pics below:

– Wilson Rothman

Samsung's Mobile Speaker, the YA-DS200 [Akihabaranews.com]

Do we ever likes us some clocks around here, and this is the mother of all of 'em: the Antelope Audio Isochrome M10, an actual atomic clock that has that cancer-causing radiation shit right there on board. Don't let that worry you, though, its rubidium atomic technology is all shielded so it won't hurt you, and hey, it's 100,000 times more stable than that quartz watch you may be wearing right now.

But will it tell you what time it is? Ahh, it's capable of much, much more.

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The Tag Heuer Monaco V4 is the ultimate time machine. And I don't mean that in a "it would let you open portals in the time-space continuum to discover a new dimension with an army of buxom ultra-vixens that will obey all your commands and conquer the galaxy for you" way (my idea of the ultimate time machine, anyway), but as in "it's one of the most amazing wonders of mechanical engineering in the world today".

The Monaco V4 changes completely the rules of watchmaking by, surprisingly, getting its inspiration from car engines. Like mechanical watches, engines use the same concepts: transmission, friction, torque and power. The Tag Heuer First applies them in a different way so first, instead of a rotating oscillating weight for automatic winding, it uses a 4.25-gram platinum ingot which acts as a sort of cylinder, in a linear movement. Then it changes the transmission of power from the traditional wheels to a drive-belt transmission: 13 belts with a gauge measure of 0.5 x 0.45mm, which is quite crazy and has never been done before. More amazing details and a pic of the front of the watch right after the jump.

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Japanese people are getting so accustomed to having their butts sprayed clean that they're going to need to carry the paraphernalia to do so wherever they go. That's where Japanese toilet butt-spray champ Toto steps in with its Travel Washlet, a porto-ass sprayer that cleans you right up without the need for wiping. This handheld unit differs a bit from the home version, though, where it does the spraying but lacks that heated blow-drying capability of its potty-bound brandmate. So there still will be some dry-up wiping necessary, we assume.

Although these washlet devices might seem bizarre to Americans, if you think about it, the concept actually makes a lot of sense. As one of our erudite commenters so aptly put it, cleaning yourself up after a poop with dry toilet paper is like spreading peanut butter around on a shag carpet. Sorry. Hope you already had breakfast. More details than you ever want to know, all yours in the gallery below. – Charlie White

A Water Gun For Your Butt [Tokyomango] (Thanks, Lisa!)