The next time you're out walking on a dark and rainy night, whip out this Twilight Umbrella and brighten the night with fiber optic lights. You can choose the black umbrella with dozens of little blue fiber optic points of light, or another model that cycles between a variety of colors, instantly attracting the attention of muggers and ne'er-do-wells.

On the other hand, making yourself more visible at night in the rain might just keep some errant driver from running you over. Your personal safety and flamboyant nature can be celebrated with just three AAA batteries and around $40. – Charlie White

Product Page [ I Want One of Those, via ubergizmo]

Jet Airways has decided to turn its flights from London to Delhi into an airborne Orient Express, giving well-heeled travelers their own private luxury stateroom for the nine hour flight. The best news is, it's $2393 cheaper than a first-class ticket on British Airways.

Still, it'll cost you $4510 for the privilege of hanging out in this 26-square-foot bedroom with sliding doors, but then you get to stretch out on a 7-foot bed, the longest commercial airline bed in the world.

What else do you get?

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Brionvega has been making TVs for over 60 years now and some of its retro models are still available, albeit on the expensive side. The Italian company has just come out with the Alpha TV - which is still at the concept phase, so no prices, sorry - with a smidgen of retro styling (most of which is in the shiny remote control that is chunkier than Burt Reynold's moustache was - mmmmmm, dreamy) but which, on the whole, is very forward-looking.

The Brionvega was designed by V12 design, is available in orange, black and silver, has a built-in DVD player and comes in orange, black and silver. Although they say it's still just a concept (maaaaaaan), there are hopes that the thing will go on sale around September time. There's a couple more pics after the jump.

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Nerd housemate, Jamie, in the latest edition of Big Brother put his leet nerd skillz to work, uncovering the hidden house couple by spotting what only a geek could.

When he entered the house as a self-professed 'nerd', he was showing all the usual negative traits—overweight, socially awkward... so it was a positive leap when he used some geek-powered investigation skills to uncover the hidden pair.

How did he do it?

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A US company has come up with a headset that reads your brainwaves - and they plan on marketing it to gamers. NeuroSky's prototype measures a person's baseline brain-wave activity, including signals that relate to concentration, relaxation and anxiety. So, if you're playing Tiger Woods PGA Tour and you lose concentration, you could find your shot buried in the rough if you fail to keep your Zen-like concentration.

The company has already developed a version based on Star Wars. Don the Darth Vader helmet, which contains a sensor that reads the brain's signals and, if you concentrate, your light saber remains illuminated. Start thinking about your girlfriend dressed as Princess Leia, with Danish Pastries over her - oops - and you lose the force, Luke. The headset is expected to go into production later this year and could cost as little as $20. – Ad Dugdale

[Yahoo via The Raw Feed]

The giganormous industrial machine and secret inter-dimensional empire, also known as Samsung, has started mass producing 16Gb chips. These are the biggest flash NAND memories ever, just in time to feed that Godzilla monster that lives in Cupertino.

According to Samsung, the 51-nanometer wonder supports 30MB/s transfer rates and 4-bit error-correcting code. They will offer software to support its new 4KB page structure and they believe that "demand for 16Gb NAND flash memory is expected to grow rapidly, pushing this new chip into the mainstream market beginning late this year". After consulting my Kabbalah for Dummies book and my Frosties' Secret Code Wheel, I believe the secret message there is that we will see a solid-state iPhone-like iPod at MacWorld San Francisco 2008. However, read the complete press release after the jump for your own head-hurts-post-party-weekend-aw-shaddap interpretation.

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This offering from KJ Global makes last year's slim mouse from Samsung look somewhat elephantine (although I'll admit that the Samsung one is cuter). The G4 model from KJ Global is just 5mm thick and, when folded, measures 94 by 53 mm.

When unfolded, it looks a bit weird, rather like something you've just made from origami during a slow work day, but it gives you two buttons and a touch wheel in 10 seconds flat. You can wind the cable inside for storage and it comes in blue, ivory, pink and silver. As for cost, I haven't got a clue. – Ad Dugdale

Product Page [KJGlobal via PC Launches]

I think this one is aimed at only the most hardcore geeks around. In a beautiful shade that can only be described as Pepto Bismol Puke, the Hello Kitty keyboard will bring hours of happiness to your working day. It's got quick-start buttons for email, Internet and multi-media access, a sleep and wake-up button and color-coded keys to help you learn to type. All this, plus a wrist rest, will set you back $35. Oh, and you can roll it up - after you've taken a hammer to it, that is. – Ad Dugdale

Product Page [eBay via Shiny Shiny]

At the Sun Microsystems IT Journalism Awards, held Friday night, and up against a field of stellar Australian tech journalists, our illustrious Gizmodo Australia Editor, Seamus Byrne, took out the award for Best Consumer Technology Journalist of 2006.

Stealing the words of the great Ash, Seamus says:

I don't like to toot my own horn, but... "Toot! Toot!"

Toot Toot indeed!

Got a great tip-off from Netcomm on their update to the orgasmic NB9W ADSL2/2+ router. It's won badges from PC Authority, CNET, APC, PC User, NetGuide, and PC Powerplay. Man, maybe we need to come up with a badge to splash around the place.

The NB12WD adds support for DECT handsets to the already long list of supported features—WLAN, VoIP w/ QoS support, 4-port Ethernet, etc. So you'll be able to run all your home phones through this without plugging in lots of phone hubs and things. It does all the hard work so you just need the cordless handsets.

I use one of the NB9W units myself, and it is great. Adding DECT handsets into the mix sounds like a very nice feature update to me. They haven't mentioned if they've added Gigabit Ethernet support, but you'd think they'd say if they were.

More cool stuff on their list of new kit, including standa-alone Skype / DECT phones, and the 200Mbps update to their powerline networking Homeplug. We'll check it all out when we hit their stand. -Seamus Byrne

We'll be hitting our stride this week in local coverage, starting with on-location blogging from two major events taking place in Sydney and Melbourne. We'll be on the floor at CeBIT Sydney tomorrow and Wednesday, then down to Melbourne on Friday and Saturday for PMA Photo Imaging World.

Check out the info at the sites. Any special requests for coverage, shoot us a message and we'll try and hit the booths you want to hear about.

Remember the most ridiculous Windows video ever? This doesn't compare to that, but it does have Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry shilling for Microsoft's "new" Windows 95 OS. There's gotta be more hilarity found in watching two people who have no idea how to use computers struggle with screensavers and the upgrade process, but we don't have 40 minutes to go through all four videos. But you might.

This isn't a "before they were famous" video, this is a "we really need some more cash for our gigantic mansion" video. The best part was that back then nerds were still nerds, and even the narrator calls them "propellerheads". Nice.

Three more after the jump.

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Sony really knows how to party. It wasn't enough to have topless ladies at the God of War II European unveiling, they had to go and decapitate a goat and put it on display. Not only that, they invited visitors to stick their hands down the neck, grab out some intestines (not the goat's own, they were procured elsewhere and shoved inside), and eat them. Fantastic.

Best yet, the entire thing was documented in their official PlayStation magazine, whose 80,000 print run has been recalled thanks to the stunt. Nice work Sony. Next time, just call it a day after you get the nude ladies. – Jason Chen

Slaughter: Horror at Sony's depraved promotion stunt with decapitated goat [DailyMail]

Recently I got all excited about a pretty cool-looking networked 3.1 home theater system from JVC. Since it seems most of the innovative networked products are coming from brands that aren't as easy to find at Best Buy, and since JVC said it supported a wide range of file formats including DivX, I called it in to take a closer look.

Although setup was easy, and its picture and sound were about what you'd expect from a $1,000 home-theater-in-a-box, the networking and file management aspects of the machine (i.e., the hard part) was just not finished. Seriously, it needs more time in the QA oven before it will be anything like good eatin'. As JVC is learning, it's not enough to just meet the bare minimum of HDMI and DivX support.

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Not one of the biggest news weekends, but here are a few highlights to brighten your Monday morning:

Plasma shields are on the way.
And we're not talking about protecting your flat screen from a Wii-mote.

iPhone photos may have ended up on Flickr - gone now.
Yes, you can edit EXIF data, but there was more to the leak than just that...

Internet radio stations told they must pay royalty fees, no matter what music they play.
Yet more evidence the US copyright system is completely out of touch with reality. And ours has to be in line with theirs, thanks to 'free trade'!

New York Times outs a Google Phone?
Throw away comments in big newspapers can get people into trouble.

The NYTimes has a boilerplate article about Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google going after the cellphone. This line is interesting, though:

Google has gone so far as to build a prototype phone with its own software inside, according to one person who has seen it.

Question: How do you think the fact checkers worked through that one? – Brian Lam

Big Money in Little Screens [NY Times, thanks Mac P.]

Yes, the joy of weekend shift. That's 3 times in 6 weeks, you know. Anyhow, I've got a wedding to dash off to in a bit (not mine) but I've been using some cool stuff on my phone that you should try. Especially if you're at a wedding and are going to be fiddling with a gadget while everyone is doing the electric slide. Hypothetically.

Jott: Setup a free account, dial a number, leave yourself a voice message, and you get a transcribed note in your inbox for later reference. Easiest way to leave notes if you have an aversion to pencil and paper like I do.

ShoZu:Shozu plugs into media sites like Flickr and Youtube, so you can upload your stuff with a click or two. Works on plenty of phones, and plenty of media sites. I'd like more blogware interfaces, to be honest, but you can't complain about free ware.

and...

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Panasonic's new 1080p set is the best plasma ever.

That's what Gizmodo friend Gary Merson of HD Guru says. The colors were the most accurate, the 1080p signals were processed at full bandwidth with no loss of data, the black levels so deep as to be untestable, and the contrast ratio amazing.

In conclusion, the Panasonic TH-50PZ750 is simply the best high definition display I have ever reviewed.

Doesn't hurt that the Panny's SD card slot can play back H.264 at high def. For Gary, this is the set to beat, and I'm not one to argue with a guy who's been testing TVs longer than I've been out of junior high school.

The price? A MSRP of $3999, which is maybe why the just trounced Pioneer PRO-FHD1's MSRP was dropped from $8000 to $5000 (without speakers BTW.) (Pioneer's new sets, based on all new tech will debut this Summer, so look for a good fight then.) – Brian Lam

Exclusive- First Review of the Amazing Panasonic TH-50PZ750U Plasma [HD Guru, thanks Gary]
[Photo is of the 700 series Panasonic, but they should look similar.]

If you still can't bring yourself to buy an Xbox 360 Elite—even though its HDMI gives you the best output—take a look at Colorware. Yes, the same people who are coloring up Sidekick 3s, MacBooks, and MacBook Pros are helping you enhance your Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3s.

Prices start at just $99 for a complete one color job, but start to get higher as you start to make garish neon green accents and a safety orange face. They'll even throw in a free controller coloring, but each subsequent one costs you $25. Or, if you don't actually have a console yet, you can buy one outright from these guys already colored.

Despite not really being into the coloring scene, we're actually warming up to the idea of having our consoles modded for just about a hundred bucks. – Jason Chen

Product Page [ColorwarePC]

Amidst the uproar over the egregious royalty rate hike for Internet radio stations, engineered by RIAA-spinoff SoundExchange and handed down by the Copyright Royalty Board, we missed a detail we should have noticed. Some commenters suggested simply listening to music under non-restrictive licenses. But apparently that won't work.

"The recent U.S. Copyright Office ruling regarding webcasting designated SoundExchange to collect and distribute to all nonmembers as well as its members. The Librarian of Congress issued his decision with rates and terms to govern the compulsory license for webcasters (Internet-only radio) and simulcastors (retransmissions)."

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Why is that dude is smiling? Is it because he's eating yummy toast? Is it because his hair is as silken as a Arabian stallion's mane? Maybe. But its also possible he's getting his mugshot taken by a shiny Apple iPhone -- now uploaded to Flickr and found by Internet stalker Mobile Guerilla after a month of searching. Is it real? I can hardly resist speculating.

The supporting facts are that the photo's res is correct for a 2MP cam at 1600 x 1200, and that various comments across the internet point to the Flickr user as an Apple-ite. The EXIF data metadata makes for a fine hint to the photo's source. It is, however, not proof. EXIF data is easily edited by programs like Reveal, so plenty of people can do things like take the first shot of a kitty not taken with an Apple iPhone:

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The next time you see "bull fight in progress", "bomb alert", "air crash", or "terrorist incident" on your traffic-update enabled GPS navigation, don't be too quick to assume that's what actually happened. Some "hackers" have discovered a way to inject RDS messages (which use the FM frequency to send traffic and weather information) into your GPS, triggering off a different alert message depending on the message.

However, since most GPS devices don't yet have traffic integration (the one that came with our car doesn't), this won't be a huge deal yet. But when these prankers find out how to inject messages that tell you there's a gigantic traffic jam on one freeway in order to move everyone to another—and thus clearing up traffic on the first—people will start to worry. – Jason Chen

Satellite navigation users at risk for false messages [ComputerWorld]

It was so abnormally hot yesterday that we could walk around solely in our underwear without feeling the least bit drafty, which really made us wish we had the Home Swimmer to use in our apartment's pool. If you've got a tiny pool of your own, the Home Swimmer allows you to tie yourself to a leash in order to "swim in place", essentially expanding your pool's length to infinity.

You can't really install these things in public pools, however, since it requires you digging holes and mounting a pole into the dirt. But for $70, your own home can become a much better place to train for the triathlon. For the biathlon you're going to have to build yourself a mountain and a shooting range. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Promolife via Coolest Gadgets]

The first commercially available Windows Mobile 6 Professional phone has just launched on Germany's O2 (we're not counting the WM6 upgrades you can download online and upgrade your old phones to), which means WM6 fever is just about upon us. The phone itself, the XDA Terra, is based on the HTC Herald, which is also coming to T-Mobile US complete with the new OS.

If you're looking for specs on it, here's a good place to start. And if you're really in a hurry to grab one, you can get someone from Deutschland to order you one without contract for 519 Euros. – Jason Chen

KUDOS: O2 Germany starts Selling and Shipping the first WM 6 Professional smartphone [The Unwired]

Personally, I think the Illupillow looks mildly uncomfortable, but this depends on how squishy it is—if it's overly firm I could envision some back pain after reading on this thing for a couple of hours if I'm sprawled all over it. Google Translate (tenuously) confirms that the light is both adjustable and battery powered. Since it's only a concept model by Oliver Schick at Design Week in Milan for the time being, there's no price tag yet, but I have the feeling it won't be cheap. – Matt Buchanan

Illupillow by Oliver Schick [Elmanco via Crave]

With 12 chrome balls and sockets for 12 light bulbs, this sputnik table lamp is perfect for lighting up your desk or a small city. Unfortunately, the bulbs are not included in the €325 (roughly $440 US by Nerd Approved's calculations) price tag, so sending messages to outer space in Morse code by flicking the light on and off is going to cost you. But if you're already dropping $440 on a lamp, what's another $40 to $50 for a dozen light bulbs? – Matt Buchanan

Product Page [Decenniadesign via Nerd Approved]