Just when we thought pricing on GPS systems was going down, out comes Audiovox with their new Jensen NVXM1000 navigator. The XM-ready unit comes in at a whopping $800 and features an 8GB drive, a 4-inch screen, and an external SD slot. Unfortunately, there's no Bluetooth, which at $800 is a slight miss. The navigator is expected out soon, though personally my budget screams more for something like this. – Louis Ramirez

XM Capable Jensen GPS [Navigadget]

Anyone who is off to somewhere very hot this summer—it could be the Burning Man Festival or a tour of duty in Iraq—might find Romteck's heat stress monitor useful. The gadget, which is a miniature weather station, can predict whether your body is in danger of collapsing due to excess heat and humidity. It also works on buildings to measure airflow in partitioned offices and for health inspectors to assess food outlets for food regulations, and you can even use it as a stand-alone weather station.

The only question Gizmodo readers are really interested in, though, is, Jason, will you be pantsing this one? – Ad Dugdale

Handheld Gadget Predicts Heat Stroke [The Raw Feed]

The U.S. Army is about to roll out these six-wheeled vehicles that may be the granddaddies of all of our robot overlords of the future. All the army's bots up until now have been larger-scale versions of radio-controlled model cars, but the army's injecting these bots' souls with autonomy, giving them GPS points and then setting them free to move between them, and even teaching them to eventually lay waste to all in their path.

The Multifunction Utility Logistics and Equipment (MULE) vehicle pictured at left will be packing iron, too, loaded with two 7.62mm machine guns and a couple of serious anti-tank missiles. Not content with that, the army has put together an even bigger bot (pictured at right), a six-ton version that can open up an even huger can of whoop ass. Hey, soldier boy geeks: just make sure you teach these hefty hunks of steaming junk the three laws of robotics. – Charlie White

Army Tests Fighting 'Bot [Danger Room]

Former PlayStation Big Kahuna Ken Kutaragi has finally left the company. However, instead of going home to fish, play Wii or pinch bonsais, he plans to keep contact with Sony, helping them to cut costs on the PS3 after making it so expensive himself. He says he also will advise them on the next versions, while at the same time working "with a much wider world."

"As a matter of course, I have the vision of PlayStation 4, 5 and 6, which will merge into the network."

I also have a vision about Kutaragi-san. It involves rubber chickens, a bathtub full of tar, five bags of marshmallows and a Blu-ray laser on overdrive. Must be the same LSD on my cornflakes. – Jesus Diaz

Kutaragi hints PlayStation 4 plans [CVG]

Sony is going for a pretty significant update of its laptops this summer. Pictured above is the 15.4-inch Vaio FZ19, which will use Intel's Santa Rosa chipset and integrated X3100 graphics card. There's also the TZ, a retread of the current TX series, which will be an ultra-portable number with 11.1-inch screen, and a refresh of the SZ4 called the SZ5.

July will see a couple more models - the CZ series, which boast a 13.3-iunch screen, and the CR, a 14-inch widescreen notebook. Both of these have unknown specs, but I guess we will know more soon. There's no picture of the TZ, which sounds like the most interesting of the lot, but its specs are after the jump.

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The make-your-device-a-Wiimote craze continues. Now is British Telecom researchers at Ipswich who, putting on their Mario hats and completely ignoring the fact that this technology already exist in some laptops, have developed a Tablet PC with motion detectors to make easier for people with disabilities to use the computer.

They say they want to use their combination of hardware and software to make easier to control de computer and allow people to turn pages just by moving it. In other words, the same things you can do with a MacBook today, but with an add-on thingy. Well chaps, call us back when you can do a light saber with that. – Jesus Diaz

Motion-sensitive laptop developed [BBC News]

Ouch. LG's new LCD TVs have been named the Quidam after that bendy, fiery, circus troupe, the Cirque du Soleil. There are six models to choose from, all with a rather spanky circular base design and sensors which automatically adjusts the brightness depending on how much surrounding light there is. 32 inches will set you back $1,614 and 42 inches $3,336. – Ad Dugdale

LG introduces XCanvas Quidam TV [Digital Chosunilbo]

Me and the BloggerZone are friends again now. :-)

Everything got silky smooth in the afternoon, as you can see from the flurry of entries I got in over the past couple of hours. Hopefully we get more of the same tomorrow. We'll be back then to show off anything else of interest at the show.

If all goes to plan we'll have more up tomorrow than we've managed today. Yip Yip! -Seamus Byrne

No press release yet, but wordfrom Fabian Rodriguez (a member of Ubuntu's support staff) is that Dell's going to offically support Ubuntu installations on their machines. And by support, we're assuming they mean install and ship machines with Ubuntu as the main OS. Ubuntu, if you're not familiar, is a very friendly and very easy to use—relative to other installs, that is—flavor of Linux.

More as we get the release, but this is pretty big news for fans. – Jason Chen

Utunbu [via Fabian Rodriguez via Boing Boing]

The ATEN guys are a KVM crew at heart, but these days that kind of expertise makes for a lucrative new market for switching sources in the living room. Here they have a simple little HDMI switcher, the VS481. 3 in at the back, 1 in at the front, and 1 out. You can hit the buttons or use the remote to do your switching, and you get some nice little lights so you know what's what.

More info and a price after the jump... and the price is pretty sweet.

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Small is all well and good, but sometimes tiny flash drives are a nuisance. Where do you keep them handy? Wallet Flash is showing off their custom made credit card sized flash drives. Get them branded however you like, then keep them in a card spot in your wallet.

2GB was the biggest I saw there on the stand, which as far as general business needs go is probably ample space. Apparently the USB plug is double sided too, so the fact the card is pretty wide should never be an issue as you can flip it to get the best fit.

They've even got some options with MP3 player built-in, so you can rock out with your phones plugged into your wallet, a kind of pointer for potential thieves. They'll probably be disappointed to find its a wallet, and not your iPod. -Seamus Byrne

Official site [Wallet Flash]

Internode's booth is pretty boring — c'mon, it's a network booth after all! But they did have this very cool poster showing the details of their Australian network, all its nodes, peers and exchange points, as well as how fat the major pipes are between cities. It's utterly geeky, but yeah, I'd probably be happy looking at something like this on my wall.

I kid! I've already got one of those maps of the Internet. That's much cooler.

Fess up! Any Internode lovers out there keen to get one of these posters?

Check out the full chart right here. -Seamus Byrne

No, this will NEVER fit in your living room. And yes, I'm talking to you, Gates. But it's alright, you can always build on extension.

103 inches of plasma goodness. At this size, 1080p is not so much a must, as a bit on the thin side. It looks spectacular. Crispy, clean, no muddy areas. But with screen real estate the size of my living room floor space, I wonder when they'll be delivering this in 4K — then Red One owners will have something to show their home movies on!

I'll have more of a look at the Panasonic booth tomorrow. -Seamus Byrne

Jabra has some sexy headsets on show here, crafted by designer Jacob Jensen.

They are special editions of the JX10 model Bluetooth headset, deubbed the JX10 Cara. One in brushed steel finish, which looks the goods. But the other... oh, just your everyday 24-ct gold plate. As tacky as these things can look sometimes, this actually looks very, very good.

Definitely the headset I'd be wearing if I was taking calls while waling the red carpet.

More images after the jump.

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We're struggling here with the terrible up-down up-down Wi-Fi connection. Specifically set up to let bloggers blog from the event, it has so far been completely useless, particularly in letting us upload images.

If you have a BloggerZone in a tech show, and you can't blog, is it really here? Hmmm... CeBIT and their zen question for the day.

Tomorrow we will be back here again, and we'll be bringing our own wireless connectivity. We're chalking this up to experience—never rely on others to give you the connectivity you need.

Sorry, folks. Will keep trying to get some posts up before the day is out. -Seamus Byrne

If you're at all interested in the PlayStation Eye, the EyeToy for the PS3 generation, take a gander at this interview with its father, Richard Marks. Along with releasing four—yes, four—albums since 2000, Richard's added many new features to PlayStation's camera.

Among the issues seen as most important were light sensitivity, achieved by using a sensor with more area per pixel, instead of more megapixel count. The 60 fps minimum requirement, for better tracking resolution, and the four-array microphone. Definitely a cool read if you're planning on using the Eye to record your own Singstar videos and show them off online. – Jason Chen

Geek Out: The Playstation Eye is Nearly Upon Us. Dr. Richard Marks Takes Us Behind the Scenes of its Birth. [Newsweek]

Yes, I still play with action figures. I spent a bit of time today playing with the Optimus Prime toy that I got today to give you this video review of how easy it is to unfurl into robot-ness, and who would win in a fight: New Optimus Prime vs. Old Optimus Prime vs. R2D2 vs. iPod vs. Moto Q. The results may scare you.

Well, maybe not scare you, but you'll have a new found respect for Autobots and the ease of Ikea DIY. – Brian Lam

Hands-on With the New Optimus Prime Transformer [Gizmodo]

If you just can't seem to get enough Lego, now you can pack your lunch in one, available in your choice of pink, brown or blue. Unfortunately, that Lego cheeseburger isn't included in the box, and there's no word whether the lunchboxes interlock with each other.

Get yourself some Lego furniture to go along with this lunch carrier, and then all you need to do is build a Lego house and drive a Lego car, and the entire Lego illusion will be complete. – Charlie White

Product Page [Lego Store]

After a lap of Darling Harbour looking for alt parking because the convention centre was full, and some general network shenanigans, we're here and online.

This CeBIT is really huge -- the biggest I've seen here in Sydney. And better laid out than ever before. Kudos, CeBITters! Now whether there is much of genuine interest on the floor is another story...

We seem to be having some image upload troubles, which is a real shitter. Will start talking about stuff we see and then fill in some pics later... when we get back to Giz HQ in need be. -Seamus Byrne

We've heard a lot of complaining about the paucity of editing tools for the nascent AVCHD video format, and now Ulead VideoStudio 11 Plus comes along with that capability and a lot more. With AVCHD originator Panasonic's latest solid-state camcorders using the format, and Sony rocking more cameras using it just the other day, the ability to edit that footage is long overdue.

Hey, that format's fo' reals, and is here to stay, right? Yep. Well, what else can Ulead VideoStudio 11 do?

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Remote controlled things that fly around your office are all the rage these days, what with the WowWee Dragonfly and Micro Mosquito burning up the sales charts. This hot Caul Helibot is supposedly even better, since, you know, it's a little man on a jetpack. How else can you explain how a room full of grown men are video taping and taking pictures of this thing like it was a Jessica Alba cooter-slip? – Jason Chen

Product Page [via Random Good Stuff]

Evangelion fans rejoice, you now have the perfect complement to the NERV iPod, the NERV mouse and (uh, I guess) the Eva bike: the official Evangelion Headset, built by the Japanese company Chara-Ani in a partnership with Audio-Technica.

Absolutely no specs or price, other than that it comes in a tricked-out box. Granted, it's not like any of those things matter to Eva fans, since they're going to buy it anyway. – Matt Buchanan

Evangelion (anime) official headset [Akihabara News]

I feel a little bit guilty. The guys at Camcorderinfo.com, namely David Kender and John Neely, went to extreme measures to benchmark the four HD camcorders fighting for dominance in the very new consumer HD market. They wrote, like, over 10,000 words, and spent hours or possibly even days recording footage of the dude shown at right. And here I come along and blurt out the results in the freaking headline. The Canon HV20 ($1,000 to $1,100) beat out the Sony HDR-HC7 ($1,060 to $1,170), the Panasonic HDC-SD1 ($1,070 to $1,160), and the newcomer, JVC's Everio GZ-HD7 ($1,520 to $1,700). It didn't win hands-down, exactly, but in most cases it handily nudged out the competition.

Do you want to know how?

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Even if you're not a fan of Skype, you're free to make all the calls you want to any number in the world (save for premium and satellite phones) on Mother's day.

If you're in the US or Canada, Skype's giving you unlimited calling from 5am EST on May 13 to 4:49am EST on May 14 to ring up your mom, your sister, or just random numbers in India. You can use this chance to explain why you forgot to buy her a present again. Sorry mum! – Jason Chen

(* Initial checks with local Skype reps indicated we won't be seeing this deal here in Australia, but they're checking now to confirm that this is the case. Damn, huh... -SB *)

Skype page [Skype via Crunchgear]

I'll be on the floor at CeBIT in about an hour. It's our first on location effort, so bear with us... who knows what gremlins we'll encounter. Fingers crossed they've all been fed before midnight.

- Seamus Byrne

It's one thing to be rescued by a robot like this, but it's a completely different ballgame to see one of these creepy bots crawling your way when you're in need of help. Designed by Marcos Nolan, the Elios is a spider-like robot with 10 arms (carried in its belly) designed to lift people from harm's way and into safety. Optical and biometric sensors ensure Elios keeps on target whereas its rugged shell keeps it from being damaged. I admit, it looks cool as hell, but I'd probably faint if I saw one of these crawling my way. – Louis Ramirez

A Giant Insect Robot Could Save Your Life [Electro Plankton via Gearfuse]

This "pop art" toaster (so clever, these marketers) comes with six preset designs, and none of them feature any religious iconography that'll net you 10 grand on eBay. Which begs the question: Why would you want to burn lame, cutesy designs like flowers into your toast? They just make your toast taste burnt. If I wanted burnt toast and cheese, I'd make a grilled cheese, not drop $35 on this toaster. – Matt Buchanan

Product Page [Target via Slashgear]

Ben Arent, a creative young designer, has proposed the EnergyTree. Basically it's an actual tree that is connected to a processor that monitors your in-home environmental habits. And depending on your energy/recycling routines you will either feed your baby tree water & nutrients or poison. That's right, if you are bad to the planet you will see the effects in your very own home, as your tree begins to die.

Currently the EnergyTree is only a concept, but it's entered in Microsoft's StartSomething PC design competition. So hopefully we will see it make its way into production, because we currently have no idea if keeping our office at a crisp 65 degrees is outweighing our gadget power consumption.– Ben Longo

The Energy Tree [Treehugger]
Product Page [EnergyTree]

Back in March, we introduced you to these ruggedized babies, but didn't have any specs or pricing, let alone a picture of one stuck in the mud. Now we're good to go. There's piping hot info and another, more explanatory pic, after the jump.

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What? You didn't stay up all night? Okay, here's the best of what you missed.

Hands on with the new Optimus Prime action figure.
'Nuff said.

Rumoured MacBook Mini rumoured to be delayed until 2008?
A rumour within a rumour... like Shakespeare, only even more annoying.

Massive wind turbine powers 4,000 homes.
Attach some chairs and you've got an awesome ferris wheel too.

Peter Gabriel launching free, ad-supported music download service.
He could be your steam train, if you'd just lay down your tracks...

How about making your martinis in a special yo-yo?
James Bond would change his tune if he saw this in action.

OLPC specs unveiled.
Still thinking this could be a great extra machine around the house?

Aussie Big Brother Nerd uses leet skillz to solve house secret.
Because every problem has a tech shortcut FTW.

Okay, I fell for it. The press release says "Controversial Smartphone Spy Software Introduced," and I bit.

It's exactly what you'd imagine: an invisible piece of software, running on Windows Mobile smartphones, picks up the call log and all incoming and outgoing text messages, which it then uploads to an account you can check online. It does it in "total stealth mode," so that the user of the phone can't see it, even if he or she knew where to look.

Suggested uses and more shady details after the jump.

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Talking with your girlfriend on the phone for hours on end is such a chore, but it can be less of one with this cubic pillow. Each of the six sides has a hole in the middle, so you can easily stick a phone receiver in there but still have the pleasure of lying down on a pillow.

You can also use this for watching TV, as one of your ears won't be muffled by the pillow—something that's been a huge problem for the majority of the population, we're sure. Preorder now for just $17.

– Jason Chen

Product Page [Strapya via Tokyo Mango]

Have sensitive skin? Then hook up one of these UV bead cellphone charms to your phone and always be aware of how much UV light you're getting. The beads start out white, but change as they suck in the radiation.

You can buy different amounts of beads depending on your needs—but get enough and you can have a Japanese Mardis Gras anywhere. Politely asking women to take off their tops is how they do it. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Rakuten via Gearfuse via Techie Diva]

Since we favorably reviewed the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 1080 projector that's now shipping for a mere $3000, we felt compelled to also review the Panasonic PT-AE1000U, especially since Panny reduced its price to exactly the same $3000 level as soon as the Epson model was released.

We had a chance to put both of the projectors on our test bench, studying their output with the same content and test patterns running through each unit's three LCDs. It was a fair matchup, with the two similarly equipped projectors playing back the same program material. In this battle royale, which projector emerges victorious?

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Remember the Creative X-Fi Z600 dock? It was a damn shiny dock from Creative that used the X-Fi sound processor and supported the line of Creative's Zen players. The are re-releasing it as the X-Fi i600 for the iPod. The system has 35-watt speakers and a 130-watt subwoofer along with an IR remote and piano black finish. This player carries a $600 price tag, and for that much this thing better play a lot more than just from my iPod. It should be able to compose a piece of music for that much. It sure does look pur-ty though. –Travis Hudson

Product Page [Via Technabob]

Unboxing a new cellphone is nice, but it rarely matches the excitement we had as a kid unboxing a brand new Transformers toy. So imagine how giddy we got when we got the new Optimus Prime Transformers toy today!

As you can see from the pictures, it's big, it's red, and it's pretty freakin' hard to transform. We don't recall our old toys taking 14ish steps to go from robot to car, but that could be because our hands were that much smaller back then. Oh, and this doesn't make the pee-paa-pee-pew-pew-chunk sound the actual Transformers make. (Link to the sound). But it does make truck noises and shoots a missile. We don't recall any missile shooting in the original either.

We'll have video of the actual transformation process later today.

The Gallery [Gizmodo]

– Jason Chen

Hopefully I wasn't the only one who spent the better part of the weekend watching hockey (by the way, that Rangers goal was legit, it wasn't a kick). This is the Nike Life Extreme Sports concept gear that features a hockey-stick broom and a vacuum sucking goal. Avoid taking this broom out to the actual ice, or prepare for obscene name-calling. The only other time I had more fun sweeping was when I stuck tape to my cat's paws (just kidding, PETA). –Travis Hudson

First I will clean. Only then will I serve my penalty minutes [Gearfuse]

Still unable to find a partner to fill in that corset you own for some odd reason? Do what all of the cool kids are doing and turn it into a lamp. Why? Who knows, but it definitely looks awesome and will make you the coolest (and creepiest) kid on the block. $43. –Travis Hudson

Product Page [Via Nerd approved]

American Inventor Spot has too much of two things—time on their hands and vaginas on their mind. How else can you explain this "experimental" tampon personal security taser.

It's pink, fluffy, wired, and can shock you with 50,000 volts. Oh, and it's shaped like a tampon. Fantastic, eh?

Just be careful not to mix this up with a real tampon, ladies. This is not a proper way to deal with unwanted pregnancies. – Jason Chen

A Security System More Lethal Than PMS: The Tampon Taser Gun [American Inventor Spot]

The rumors of Microsoft's Xbox 360 CPU going to a 65nm manufacturing process have been bouncing around for months, but we haven't heard much about the GPU yet. However, Digitimes (who also said the 65nm CPUs were delayed until mid '07) reports that Chinese-language paper Commercial Times claims the upgraded GPUs are coming in the fall and will be manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.

So for you guys who made a little wish to your fairy godmother that the Xbox 360 Elite was going to have cooler parts, you may want to wait until fall. And for those of you who already purchased an Elite? We're sorry. – Jason Chen

Xbox 360 GPU to go to 65nm in fall, TSMC to see side benefits, says paper [Digitimes]

The fetish-driven industrial nut inside of us all squirms with joy at this steampunk mouse designed by Jake of Jake of All Trades. He even wrote up an old-timey narrative about this mouse. Role-playing and steampunk? It's like an explosion in my pants! It is actually smaller than it looks—reminds me of the size of one of those laptop mice (and probably uses parts from those mice, also). Nice work, Jake. –Travis Hudson

The Bug: Steampunk Computer Mouse [Via