Cisco is finally getting its Linksys and Scientific Atlanta armies in lockstep, and is devising a home-theater assault that could actually gain ground, according to BusinessWeek. At the vanguard is a mystery "souped-up" set-top box that combines DVR functionality and wireless networking for one-box, whole-house distributed video. The boxes would also likely include software from another acquisition, KiSS Technology, to retrieve media files from PCs and also the Internet. (Might even have a browser....a slight feeling of déjå vu is coming over me.)

Word is that there may be some editions distributed by cable companies, which makes sense. What's weirder is that Cisco may also sell one in stores under the Linksys brand. Would the Linksys boxes require Cable Cards? If so, wouldn't that put them at an unfair disadvantage (hobbled technology and presumably higher price) to their cable-co cousins?

One final question: Why should I believe in this initiative, when I myself have experienced not once but twice the way decent Scientific Atlanta technology gets adulterated by Big Cable? I like the sound of a Cisco Super-DVR, but when I close my eyes to think of it, all I can picture is the Cablevision Cripple-DVR sitting next to my TV. Good luck, Cisco—we'll be watching. – Wilson Rothman

Cisco Steps Up Consumer Push [BusinessWeek]

For those of you new to this application, it lets the Mac users out there get in on the music, photo and video streaming fun that Windows users have been experiencing on their Xbox 360's for a while now.

This latest update, v3.0, not only lets your Mac properly connect to a 360 that has the latest Spring Update installed, but also has added codec support for H.264 and Mpeg-4 video, even in HD. Too bad it can't decrypt iTunes DRM.

But it does make the idea of spending $300 for an AppleTV a little harder to swallow, especially if you already have a 360 and aren't that into iTunes video downloads – Ben Longo

Product Page [Connect 360]-Link Fixed

Now it's official, AMD has bumped its Athlon processors off the high horse and replaced them with Phenom X2 (dual core) and Phenom X4 (quad core) processors, and the company says these new chips will be part of its enthusiast platform it calls FASN8. The company's saying that when you lash these chips together with its DirectX 10 ATI Radion HD 2000 series graphics cards shipped today, you'll get, well, some serious graphics performance. We'll believe it when we see it, but the ability to have two of these quad-core processors on one motherboard will surely make for some serious eight-way action.

AMD added lots of bluster along with the announcement, too:

With this announcement, AMD also unleashes some world-class marketing guff, calling these Phenom X4 chips the first "true quad core" processors, accusing "other products" of "packaging two dual core chips to form their quad core processors." Accusations such as this volley directed at Intel signal a hot chip war on the way.

It's going to take a lot for AMD to catch up to Intel, though, but the enhanced performance per watt of these chips, along with their Dual Socket Direct Connect architecture, 128-bit FPUs and shared L3 cache might just put a bit of heat on Intel for a while. We can't wait to see the benchmarks on these chips, because until we see the performance numbers, this just sounds like a lot of mumbo-jumbo. – Charlie White

Press Release [AMD]

As expected, the ATI Radeon 2000 series have been launched, starting at less than $99 for the 2400 series, $99 to $199 for the 2600 series and $399 for the ATI Radeon 2900 XT. The new cards come with 65-nm GPU, 512-bit memory bus, second generation Unified Shader Architecture, new Unified Video Decoder for HD multimedia playback and obligatory DirectX 10 support.

Also as expected, none of the models come with the belly dancers that were at the AMD press event in Tunis. Too bad, because maybe that would have distracted us from the fact that the latest Radeon cards seem to get spanked by their NVIDIA counterparts, which apparently offer higher performance and lower consumption while compared to sample cards provided by ATI. In any case, you will find the belly dancer after the jump, along with complete official specs for the 2900 XT.

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Grilling season is upon us, and this propane gauge from Gaslow has arrived to make our lives easier. Sure, a lot of grills have a makeshift lever-like device that weighs the propane and gives you an approximate idea of how much juice you have left, but those are crap—they're not accurate, and will let you down every time.

Bolt this baby in between tank and hose, and it gives you an accurate reading. It's not brand new, but this is the time of year to get your grilling chops in shape, and its $24.95 price is a bargain for saving a barbecue. Its leak detector is a nice little bonus, too. – Charlie White

Product Page [Brookstone, via Coolest Gadgets]

If you're a motorcyclist who sometimes wears your underwear on your head, now you can wear a pair of jeans on top of that, and have your head protected from massive damage as well with these Nexx X60 Open Face motorcycle helmets.

This jeans-like style is just one of a dozen choices, bringing the serious Thermo Resin protection along with anti-sweat fabric inside. A mere $200 protects your noggin from knockin', and now you can put on a pair of jeans, a jean jacket and this helmet and have that denim look all over. Hey, it gives new meaning to the term "butthead." – Charlie White

Nexx X60 Open Face Motorcycle Helmets [Be Sportier]

There's something a bit fetishy about this Mr P tape dispenser, but I can't quite put my finger on why he looks so odd. Perhaps it's because, with the tape stretched between his mouth and his toes it looks like he's biting the sheet. Which must mean there's something unspeakable going on beneath the covers. And I don't want to find out exactly what that is. Or he's got an unfeasibly long tongue, in which case some of you office workers will be itching to get your hands on him. Mr P comes in black, white, blue and green and he will cost you $25.

Mr P tape dispenser at your dispense [Gizmodiva]

Do you ever worry that you have been overworking your cellphone? Yes, thought so. And since we're not allowed to send them away on holiday (just think of the chaos an unaccompanied cellphone would provoke on a plane, I'm seeing the movie posters already, dang) then perhaps the least we can do is buy them a bed that they can rest their weary antennae on.

This cellphone bed from Fred Flare is a snip at just $9.99. It comes with a pair of slippers that you can use as a screen cleaner, but the bad news is that it has sold out. Shame. I was going to buy one for every single one of my little gadgets—iPod, memory stick, electric toothbrush—and I was going to line them up and then, just like Snow White, I was going to give them all a good-night kiss before lights-out. And then the nice orderly with the rough bedside manner was going to give me my shots, loosen my straitjacket and lock me in for the night. – Ad Dugdale

Product Page [FredFlare via Crave]

Haier's sister phone to its Elegance (aka the Black Pearl) will be available from July. The Haier Sterling is another beautifully designed teeny-weeny phone (it measures 3.8 x 1.6 x 0.6 inches) and for $199 you get MP3 and MP4 players, full WAP and Web access, 1.3 megapixel camera, 1.8-inch color screen, micro SD card slot and Bluetooth. It's available from July 7—which, trivia fans might like to know, is Ringo Starr's birthday. And mine. – Ad Dugdale

Haier Sterling tiny mirrored phone coming [i4u.com]

This is Claytronics, a concept technology "formed by billions of microscopic robots, each with computational abilities and sensors that enable interaction." In theory, it will allow you to create 3D objects directly and manipulate them in real time. Like Silly Putty but smart, animated and without all the mess.

I truly hope that Claytronics becomes reality one day. Along with killer giant robots programmed to destroy every promotional video that looks like an infomercial from the '80s with bad actors, power-Muzak and forced clichéd taglines like "Claytronics, Make It Happen™." – Jesus Diaz

(Vide0) Synthetic Reality [TechEBlog]

When the $39.99 Zen Stone was first unearthed, there was some discussion as to whether it was larger or smaller than a $79 iPod shuffle. As you'll be able to see in the gallery after the jump, it's noticeably larger than the shuffle, and that's without the $9.99 add-on clip. However, you should also be able to tell that it's a non-issue. The Zen Stone rests tiny and almost weightless in the palm of my hand, and I'm far from NBA material. Until the flash memory and processor are in the earbuds and you wear the whole thing like some freaky necklace, the size/weight concern is pretty much moot.

Follow the jump for some hands-on reviewy nuggets and 12 red-hot pictures.

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It may not have the look of a Dyson about it, but Archie Cameron's vaccuum cleaner lays claim to the oldest working model in Britain today. The retired Scottish civil servant has had his Goblin Triumph electric cleaner since 1936, when his mother bought it from a traveling salesman in Glasgow.

Archie has had to replace the carrying strap after it broke (he replaced it with a suitcase strap) and the starter button has gone twice, but apart from that, the machine has given him no trouble. "The Goblin is a very simple design," said the 78-year-old, who only replaced his black-and-white telly with a color model two years ago. "It is a motor and a fan with a cardboard tube attached. There is little to go wrong with the cleaner, so there is very little reason why it should not go on working forever. It will probably outlive me." – Ad Dugdale

The 71-year-old vacuum cleaner that's still going strong [Daily Mail]

LG.Philips LCD keeps teasing the world with dream display products that will not reach the mass market until sometime in the next decade.

This is their all-new, world-first A4 electronic paper, a 4,096-color flexible 14.1-inch page made using "metal foil and plastic substrates rather than glass." They only use power when the image changes and since they are reflective like real paper, they can be seen perfectly from any angle. Even under direct sunlight.

For even better viewing, figure 1 here shows that you have to hold it up on high like a Holy Hand Grenade and wear stripped gloves. Something that might prove somehow unpractical while reading your electronic New York Times in the loo. – Jesus Diaz

LG.Philips LCD claims first flexible color A4-size e-paper [Digitimes]

These single ended hammock seats look pretty cool, but when you sit in it you can't actually relax like you do in a hammock. The seat material is too tight, so it doesn't envelop your body. Which leads to sitting their kind of worried about slipping off the side if you do let yourself totally chill out.

So the idea is good, but it just needs a relaxation upgrade to deliver on the promise. -Seamus Byrne

Product page [Zula]

Got a spare quarter mil for this one-of-a-kind Ambilight TV? 2,250 diamonds (weighing in at 225 carats) are on board this 42-inch screen, adding some sparkle to those moody LEDs around the border. Philips made this to mark the manufacture of their millionth Ambilight TV. Better than throwing a piss up, though dropping six figures on a party would have been some shindig.

Kudos to Philips for sending it down under at the start of its world tour. Oh yeah, it's been doing the rounds since CES. Whoops. At year's end it will be sold off for charity, so save your pennies until then and place a cheeky bid when it comes around. Mid six figures should do the trick!

And it is guarded 24-7, folks, so you can drop THAT idea right there.

Close up of the top diamond corner, and we'll hopefully have an update shortly that will add in a pic of former Miss Universe Australia Erin McNaught, so stay tuned. -Seamus Byrne

UPDATE: And BINGO was its name-o! The other shot of the Ambilight has been relegated to below the drop.

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Here's a very imperfect video of this concept design from Fisher & Paykel for a new automated pop-up gas cooktop. Touch the button to pop it up, and the button then becomes the control knob. It doesn't go flush with the cook surface, so it isn't super sexy, but it does have a key lock so you can stop pyro kids from getting their flame on.

No standard ring mounts are attached, but separate trivets do come for the big burner so you can easily sit your wok on the heat without a fuss. While not yet ready for launch, the final version will hit the market around Christmas and is expected to come in around the $2500 to $3000 range.

Photos of up and down states are below the fold, if the blurry video doesn't quite do it for you.

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We hear about lots of crazy toilets around here, but rarely do we get to see them in the flesh in Australia. But down at the HIA Home Show 2007 we found out the Royalet super seats is available to make your bum a more hygienic place!

The seat installs onto your standard toilet, and gives you all the functions your rectum has been weeping for needs (too early on a Monday for that imagery). Washing, heating, deodorising, massaging, drying... you even set the water and seat temp. Good times await.

As much as the local wholesaler offered to let us sell you these seats through our site (seriously, they really did), we'd rather put you in touch with real toilet aficionados. Go check out everything you need to know right here. Prices from $690 for the Excellence, to $1275 for the Elite Aromatic. Mmmm, so fragrant.

A close up of the control console and even a spot of video after the jump. -Seamus Byrne

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Oh, these NYU kids and their big ideas. (Disclosure: I was an NYU kid until Thursday.) Myra Einstein's project, Ambient TV, aims to bring Web 2.0 tech to TV and would make a great add-on to TiVo or the upcoming Xbox 360 IPTV setup. While some of the ideas aren't so new—swarm recommendations, so that Lost watchers would be directed to follow fellow viewers to Heroes, for instance—its friend setup in particular seems like a big draw and a natural fit for IPTV.

Basically, you can recommend a show to any (or all) of your friends on your list, and it'll simply pop up in their friends channel. It also works to some extent like a Flickr pool, so you check out what your friends have been watching.

The other Flickr/YouTube-like feature is the ability to tag shows, which is potentially extremely cool and incredibly useful, more so than automated recommendations. I just wonder how long it would take for every show to be tagged "09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63 56 88 c0." Video demo after the jump.

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Mother's Day is officially over, so it's safe to dive back into reading all your fave gadget tidbits. Here's a tasty selection:

James Webb Space Telescope: HUGE!
Peeping into backyards around the galaxy.

Solient solar concentrators focus sun's death rays.
For the power of good, not evil.

Plastic blood for actual humans?
For military use only: not as vampire junk food.

Want free drinks for watching ads?
Then you should move to Japan. But do it anyway!

Feel the noise: a woofer to rattle your pants.
Watch out for the brown note.

Lock your mailbox PIN style.
Keep prying eyes away from the mags wrapped in brown paper.

"Uh ohhh honey! He's gonna get you!"
"Oh, that stupid bottle opener again?"
"No! It's a shark. And it wants-"
"It wants you to drink less."

The Shark Bottle Opener is made from ABS plastic and is sure to offer endless hours of fun...for one of you at least. Use the built in magnet to stick it to the fridge—where it will look like it's hungry for your leftovers. $13.95 in green and orange, the only two colors that matter. – Mark Wilson

Product Page [via gizmoddude]

Tomorrow is the deadline for ISPs to have their networks wired up with G-Man-mandated surveillance equipment which will make it easier for the FBI to snoop, spy and wiretap the intertubes, per the FCC's expanded 2002 interpretation of the... Read More »

Sparkfun's LED Tetris is the first creative incarnation of the game that we've seen in a long time. It's completely hands-on, with each of the 240 spots on the grid acting as both a light and a button. If you want the piece to move, you click to the left or right of it on the grid. And somehow Tetris becomes even more intuitive.

Each button is backlit by 3 LEDs (RGB) for a near endless array of possible colors only limited by programming and the processing power of the 16 microcontrollers. Remember that ugly Windows version you used to play? We're ashamed, too.

Hit the jump for video of the product that Sparkfun now needs to actually put on the market.

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I like coffee. I like RSS. So naturally, I dig Benjamin Brown's News Brews project, which crawls through RSS feeds and takes "the relative frequency at which different coffee-growing regions are mentioned" to determine their respective bean proportion in the blend.

In English, that means if Ethiopia is mentioned 30 times, Kenya 20 and Colombia 50, your brew would be 30 percent Ethiopian, and so on. (You could, of course, fill the respective canisters with all the same bean to make a standard cup, but where's the fun in that?)

On top of flaunting the ever-popular steampunk look, it grinds the coffee fresh before it brews, so you don't need a separate grinder. The only downside is that it's drip—he told me he thought about French press, but the mechanics didn't work out. It still made a pretty damn good cup at the show, though. – Matt Buchanan

News Brews [Project Page]
NYU ITP 2007 [Gizmodo]

The I Got Clocked clocks may be too late for Mother's Day 2007, but there will be a Mother's Day 2008 (in about a year). Taking the novelty clock to the next level, IGC offers photo-customized clocks that use the subjects' arms as minute and hour...hands. Yes, your son, daughter, wife, mother or even pet could become your permanent time slave/companion for prices starting at $50.

Not only are their models guaranteed to run completely silently—they warranted for ten years. So long after your son hits puberty, daughter is knocked up, wife leaves you, mom becomes roommate again and pet develops rabies from daughter, you will have your precious clocks to remind you of all the good times. – Mark Wilson

Product Page [via coolest gadgets]

We were impressed by the radio controlled Steam Turbine Tank even before we learned that turbines were far more difficult to work with than steam piston engines. But knowing that the project was a real pain in the butt for the inventor only makes our 5-minute infatuation all the more sweet.

Powered by a Jensen miniature steam engine (you've seen them in before your yuppie catalogue of choice), the Steam Turbine Tank can run for 15 minutes at very low speeds but with surprisingly high levels of log-climbing torque. There's a video after the jump that will make your ears bleed because of this engine. But without at least partial deafness, you really aren't getting the full experience.

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Here's an entrant from the Modern Marvels Invent Now Challenge. He's a dentist with an Idea: a machine that cleans your teeth called the ClearSmile. It works by pumping cleansing solution around your teeth for those times when mouthwash just won't do. Even with as awkwardly as this gadget looks to operate, we have to respect that he's developing the (detergent?) tablets with an accredited university.

Notice his Freudian slip of "Scrubbing Bubbles"—so young, so much potential, so sued before never turning a profit. – Mark Wilson with video by Richard Blakeley

There's a highly dugg story floating around the Internet about a 1000GB, or 1TB, Hitachi Blu-ray burner that was just announced in Australia. While there is no reason to question the Smarthouse News article's validity, it was a little light on the clarity.

A 1000GB Blu-ray disc is a technical impossibility because the strict standards of format production will always limit the laser and 25GB/layer storage. A double-sided 8-layer could presumable get you somewhere around 400GB, but it's still short.

So what is this $2000 mystery 1TB Blu-ray burner? It's the new 1TB Hitachi hard drive with a burner attached—all in happy home theater form. That's our bet, at least. And this new announcement still could be pretty cool. – Mark Wilson

AU: Some folks really need to RTFA. As Mark points out, this is a story about an integrated 1TB DVR and Blu-ray player / burner. How on earth Diggers and the like started thinking this was some kind of freakshow Blu-ray update is beyond me. -SB

1000GB Blu-ray Burner Announced By Hitachi [via digg]

What if you could train crows to work for peanuts...literally? It's possible, according to one student at the ITP Spring Show.

I'd say more, but I don't claim to be a crow expert. (They aren't covered much on Discovery as of late but I'll be happy to expound upon sharks and/or army ants.) – Mark Wilson with video by Richard Blakeley

While gambling may be a sinful cause of families falling apart, coffee is a less frowned upon addiction. Enter the $298 Harvard Casino Coffee Table: the perfect balance between City of Sin sensibility and Middle America hypocrisy. While the conservative top layer is comprised of fine oak, the three secret layers below hold roulette, craps and blackjack. It's the perfect setup for when you're gambling with your police buddies and the real cops bust in.

But most of all, the Harvard Casino Coffee Table reminds us that smart design—not overhyped technology—drives innovation. – Mark Wilson

Product Page [via uberreview]