Among the many comments trailing our essay on the coming N-format war, some said that a non-DRM approach was best, but that the only type currently available was the piratical kind, a la BitTorrent. Well, it seems there's a downside. Today a Hong Kong man became the first person to be jailed for BitTorrent- related video piracy. (Note: He is not the actual pirate shown in our illustration.)

Yep, Chan Nai-ming got three months in jail, a month each for Daredevil, Miss Congeniality and Red Planet. I mean, Miss Congeniality I understand, but Red Planet???? The Court of Appeal were swayed in the end not so much by the man's behavior but by his online handle, "Big Crook." Excuse me while I change my screenname to "InnocentGuy2077". – Wilson Rothman

Hong Kong online movie pirate loses appeal [Reuters]

You'd think an invention like Velcro couldn't be redesigned, but don't tell that to Leonard Duffy. The 66-year-old architect has created a new Velcro he dubs "slidingly engaging fasteners." The fasteners don't make that tearing noise when you unfasten them, they don't wear down, and they can support 8x more weight than today's Velcro.

They can be used on anything from sneakers to ski gloves to a waterproof cast (shown above) that Duffy calls the Unitary Wrap. I don't think I've used anything with Velcro since I was a kid, but the thought of a removable, waterproof cast sounds pretty cool. – Louis Ramirez

The New Velcro [Pop Sci]

The TViX HD M-4000SA is a case for 3.5" SATA hard drives that can output 1080i video through component and DVI outputs. It's going to be available in Korea from May 30 but, like all DViCO stuff, it won't be late before is available elsewhere for around $230.

What I like best about the TViX HD M-4000SA is its DVD Jukebox ability: It allows you to store ISO and IFO format DVD images, which you can browse and playback, keeping access to the DVD menus. Being the movie junkie that I am (with more than a thousand original DVDs here), that means all my Russ Meyer Kubrick, Wilder and Coppola can be easily available from one place, with no painful ripping necessary. And even when that can make you run out of space quickly, you can always expand the space using either bigger drives or external USB 2.0 units. Full specs and a picture of the back with the optional terrestrial TV receiver after the jump.

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Feast your eyes on Dell's sexy new LCD. It measures about half an inch thick and packs a resolution that's 4x sharper than the current HDTV resolutions. It's part of Dell's new Display Port technology.

The new interconnect will let you daisychain multiple monitors and connect other peripherals via one bi-directional cable. As you can see from the pic, it'll also allow for embedded peripherals around the display (this one has speakers built-in on the side). The tech can also be used with notebook displays. It's expected to come out later this year and if this is a sign of what's to come, we can't wait. – Louis Ramirez

Dell Shows Off Super-Slim Display Port LCD Monitor [Gearlog]

It's getting to be hammock season, and we want to assist you in your lazy, hazy and crazy activities for the summer, so what better idea than to show you this Discovery Deluxe Portable Hammock? Well, "luggable" might be a more accurate word, because the thing weighs 22 pounds.

If you can deal with that, it's well over 8 feet long so it's probably sizable enough to accommodate even the tallest Gizmodian siesta seeker, as long as you don't weigh more than an eighth of a ton. Take the jump for one more pic of this slacker's device in (in)action.

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Behold the Archport Classic. *Cough*. Stylish, isn't it? I see it as the kind of shoe that Max from Hart To Hart would be wearing if he was still alive and they had commissioned Hart To Hart: The Geritol Years and he was schlepping around an old people's home waiting for Jon and Jen ("She's gawjus") to bring him soft fruits and news of Freeway.

The Archport Classic is not just any old shoe, however. As well as being excellent for "working out at the gym or just hanging out" it's got a secret hidden compartment, the Archportâ„¢ cartridge, for you to stash a door key and three credit cards (or similar-sized items, should you be uncreditworthy) or cash. Available in white or Widow Black (Omigod, call Jen and Jon, they murdered someone at the old folks' home!) it'll cost you $79.99 and get you all the envious looks your cataracts can handle at Sunset View. – Ad Dugdale

Product Page [Amazon via Red Ferret]

What this? Another Sony Ericsson cellphone on the way? Here's a group of pics that popped up in Eastern Europe today, depicting a sleek slider that looks a bit like the S500 the company announced 10 days ago. The price on this baby is said to be in the range of $550.

It appears to be a bit wider in stature than the S500, and its speculative spec list tells us it's thinner than the 14mm S500, listing its thickness at 12.5mm, but like the S500, it has a 2-megapixel camera. That's a 2.4-inch 320x240 screen you see there, and it's also packing UMTS/HSDPA connectivity. Expect to hear more about this phone in the days to come. – Charlie White

New Sony Ericsson Walkman Phone (Shinobu?) Slider Coming Soon [Unwired View]

Korean company Dahan has come up with a monster ten-foot touchscreen with an amazing 10 millisecond response time. The T-View runs in Windows 2000 or XP, uses Rear projection and a surface mirror system, and corresponds to multi-finger touch - rather how I imagine Hugh Hefner does.

As for price and availability, who knows, but a straw poll at Gizmodo suggested you'd need around a kazillion dollars. There are a couple more pics after the jump.

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There was precious little information accompanying this video that landed in our tip box this morning, but as you can plainly see, it's a light table-like device that immediately scans whenever you set upon it, and it lets you resize, move and animate objects together using gestures.

It looks like there's a camera above that can immediately take a picture of whatever you set on the table. It's somehow able to cut out the image as it's being scanned. Now if they could just tweak that display to be a bit less washed out, they might be onto something here. Excuse us while we have a brainstorm trying to figure out how this thing works. – Charlie White

Interactive Brainstorm Table [Fresh Creation]

If you're the kind of person who always sees the negative side of everything then the Pessimist's mug could be worth investing in. Never again will you have to complain about your cups overflowing with joy/liquid/breasts again, as your attitude is writ large for everyone to see as you sip your morning coffee. Designed by the "perpetually miserable," the Pessimist's cup is not suitable for drinking either milk or White Russians. It costs $9.95 and if you buy it you can moan that you never got your money's worth. – Ad Dugdale

Product Page [Despair via Dizzy Thinks]

AMD is charging against Intel's current Santa Rosa dominance and future Montevina platforms with their Puma chipset. They said it has been designed for mobile computing from the ground up. I say it was about bloody time already.

At the core of Puma there is their new Griffin 65nm mobile processor, with cores in separate power planes (so they can be managed separately and save energy), a new DRAM pre-fetcher (to increase efficiency on memory operations) and HyperTransport 3.0 (so you can travel through interdimensional portals and do the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs).

On paper the Griffin is not that different from the Intel Core 2 Duos. However, the big news are in the chipset itself, which has features that are not present in Santa Rosa and even Montevina. You can read about them after the jump.

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Looking to use a plug that "could potentially expose the user to live internal circuitry"? Then hold onto your:

The company behind these plug components, which have been found prone to breakage, is Shun Shing Standard Corporation Ltd. So they're organising the recall.

All details on the specific products are at this website — plugs from mid 2006 are of greatest concern, but all AC adaptors from these brands are being exchanged as a precaution. In the meantime, they "advise that they do not reconnect the AC power adaptor". In other words, HOLY SHIT DUDE YOU COULD GO ALL SHOCKER ON YOUR HANDS IF YOU TOUCH THAT BASTARD AGAIN!!!

Technically, I'm obligated to give these guys noogies whenever I can. But I think Ryan's response to "Applegate" is fair. So here's my support of a fellow gadget journalist, feud be damned. (Yes, I said Journalist.)

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Build an extra bedroom into an apartment with architect Dan Hisel's Z-Box. The Z, which stands for ZZZs, is a 12 foot squared, 10 foot tall box has a translucent polycarbonate shell, lined with douglas fir wood. Inside, there's room for a bed, nighttables, lamps, and shelves backlit with windows, while the outside has a bookshelf, and even a little dog bed. The idea is to set up the box inside of a large room, with the added benefit of splitting the area in two.

$18K? Does it make more sense to put one of these in a loft or to spring for a 2 bedroom?

– Brian Lam

Dan Hisel [via Apartment Therapy and Archictecture.mnp]

LG's touchscreen video player does look cool (and a bit like the co-branded VW one we saw last month), but who's going to know how to pronounce MFFM? People will think you're talking with your mouth full when you're trying to tell them about the 320x240 2.4-inch LCD, the 4GB memory, MP3/WMA/OGG/MPEG4/WMV9 playback, and the 90mm x 51.5mm x 9.9 mm dimensions. Good thing you called it the "Touch Me", which is marginally better than MFFM. Unless MFFM stands for the type of party that Fleshbot's familiar with, in which case we change our minds completely.

We're not sure how well this compares to say, the imaginary touchscreen iPod or even the iPhone, but it looks more in line with the Prada than anything else. Maybe if they combined the Prada and this into one package they'd be competitive after all. – Jason Chen

LG's MFFM37 "Touch Me" touch screen video MP3 player announced [Tech Digest]

We were a bit puzzled when this wonder dog beat a man at Wii Tennis, but after watching him beat another guy at Wii Boxing, we're completely confounded. Is it really a dog playing Wii? The Wiimotes are strapped to his arms and he's moving them in time, and the arms seem to be attached to his body, but there's no way he can actually be playing boxing. We need to lie down. – Jason Chen Thanks DJ!

While you could always show off how hot and heavy your pocket is with a money clip force-fed with Franklins, why not go one step further and make your money-carrying apparatus out of Franklins? The guy in the vid uses dollar bills, but if you're ballin', you don't have time for singles. Or I guess to make a wallet out of hundred dollar bills. But you should. I have it on good authority that Bill Gizates rolls with a Wilson wallet. – Matt Buchanan

[via Geekologie]

Alan, over at HackedGadgets, put together this nifty little mod that is a great addition to any retro gamer's home entertainment center. Unfortunately, this mod uses one of those all-in-one controller game console things rather than an original Atari controller, but I'm not too picky. Hit the link to see how Alan did it, step-by-step. Remember the Atari paddles? I think I would rather put a TV remote in one of those. –Travis Hudson

Atari 2600 Joystick TV Remote Control [Hacked Gadgets]

We first saw these HP TVs back at CES, but they didn't really stand out in our minds. After seeing these reasonable low prices, however, we may have to give them another look. The newer sets support 1080p (while a couple others only go up to 720p), and have three HDMI ports and "PC inputs and RS232C with WSD bridging capabilities for custom integrators."

Check the jump for complete list and pricing.

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Ed Baig and Jeff Graham, the reviewin' duo over at USA Today, were among the first to press with a review of DirecTV's new mobile receiver, the Sat-Go. As you Giz readers probably already know, the kit by Humax... Read More »

Remember those sexy golden headsets we saw back at CeBIT? We've found the local pricing and it isn't nearly as hideous as you would first think. Not that it is cheap, but we are talking 24-carat gold and Blue Steel— a wait, that's stainless steel. But still, both look gooood. Maybe even gooooood.

The gold option comes in at $429; the steel at $299. Considering the standard JX10 comes in at around $169? Yeah, okay. A sight more. But if you like the bling, now you know the price. Save a few gold coins until next month and you can pick one up. -Seamus Byrne

It's kind of a pain to back up the numbers in your phone even for people who know how, so imagine how your mother feels. Now you can skip the google search to see if your phone's compatible with... Read More »

I remember when XtremeMac was a mediocre brand of Apple and iPod accessories. What you see now is unrecognisable compared to the old days. Things look sleek and sexy over there now, and we got our hands on the XtremeMac Luna ($299), their newest iPod alarm clock docking station. After a week of it sitting upside the bed, did it pass muster? Short answer: hell yes! Long answer: read on.

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Lomo is known for unique cameras, like the fisheye camera and now this eight lens camera. We have seen a four-lens camera in the past that did a little pop art effect, but the Oktomat from LOMO is the real deal. This $40 camera has eight lenses that take eight photos over 2.5 seconds. It's hell of a lot better than buying a $1,000 DSLR and giant memory card for burst photo taking. –Travis Hudson

LOMO Oktomat 8 Lens Camera [Uber-review]

Although the concept of putting a watch on a keychain is a good one—one less thing to carry around—the fact that it's a keychain makes it less than convenient. Why? Imagine having to fish out the lump of metal with all 10 of your keys to see what time it is, while at the same time trying to keep your wallet inside your pocket with the other hand, clumsily.

Then there's the noise issue, which means the jingling of your keys will alert everyone that you're checking the time for the fourth time in ten minutes, which we're sure the judge won't appreciate.

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ScotteVest, the company know for their very gadget-friendly clothing, is having one hell of a sale. Enter the coupon code THANKS at checkout to receive 50-percent off your order. The SeV clothing includes pockets for gadgets and gear of... Read More »

Huh? Wha? There was stuff going on while I was asleep? Yes, friends, and here's some of the more interesting events you missed.

Samsung kicks microSD up to 8GB
Take tubes and tubes of content wherever you go!

Robots get their fight club
Not the weak sauce Battlebots or Robotwars. This is two-footed robot fighting.

LG.Philips shows off their flexible OLED.
Then puts it away again, refuses to share with the public.

Sony VAIO TZ looking at 8 hours battery life.
Adds SSD drive to get you through 9 to 5.

The shift project from Microsoft research has a goal that may not seem lofty at first, but could possibly help shape cellphone touchscreen technology in a big way. Traditionally, with Windows Mobile phones and other touchscreen phones, you have to use a stylus because your finger is too fat and unwieldy. Even Apple's iPhone, with its crazy gropeability, doesn't solve the problem of your finger being in the way of what you're trying to click.

Microsoft's Shift, on the other hand, re-creates whatever's underneath your poker so you can actually see what you're clicking on. Plus, there's added visual feedback so you can narrow down your inputs as well. Check out the video on their site for a closer look. – Jason Chen

Project Site [Microsoft Research via jkontherun]

If you thought the only thing going for the Meizu MiniOne was the fact that it looks like an iPhone, well, you'd be wrong. The recently released specs show that it's actually got a lot of stuff going for it besides its software design.

The MiniOne will have a 533Mhz Samsung processor, 128MB of DDR SDRAM, TFT touchscreen, 720x480 resolution, 3-megapixel back camera, 0.3-megapixel front camera, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, DMB TV Tuner, GPS, video output, AVI/MPEG4/WMV support, and a 4GB to 16GB size.

The best part? It's only going to be about $260 for the 4GB version and $450 for the 16GB version. Are you excited yet? We are. – Jason Chen

MiniOne, the telephone by Meizu [Akihabara News via Uber Phones]

To some, cable management is an issue more troublesome than the current state of our nation. People are freaks when it comes to cables and these Cat Cable Clips could be the perfect gift for that neat freak cat lady who everyone knows. The cats are suction clips that can stick to a variety of objects, organizing and filtering the cables. Seriously, these things are pretty damn cute, but even the fattest cat couldn't tackle my mess of wires around my workstation. They are $3.99 for a pack of three.

Like seeing neat and unique workspaces? Check out Lifehacker's Coolest Workspace Contest. –Travis Hudson

Product Page [Via Red Ferret]

This is a pretty average flash drive that comes in a not-so-average package. This toe of this athletic shoe pops off to reveal the USB connector capable of storing up to 1GB of your favorite sports (or anything else) related goods. No, your eyes aren't deceiving you. That appears to be the oh-so-familiar Nike swoosh plastered on the side of this non-Nike peripheral. I can imagine the lawyers' ears perking up as I type this. –Travis Hudson

Shoe Flash Drive Rips of Nike Design [EverythingUSB]

I encountered this Star Wars reject at the RoboBusiness 2007 conference in Boston this week. Not only can this crane-happy robot diffuse bombs, hold a fire hose, and give injections, it will also drag your ass six ways from Sunday across the craggy desert—usually to safety, though in my case it was at high velocity towards a pretty sturdy wall. The war bot ranges in price from $80,000 to $300,000. The MSRP of a new set of cheeks is currently unknown. – Jack Ventura

Don't forget to check out our RoboBusiness 2007 clips of the Bionic Baby Seal and the Hello Kitty Angel of Death 'bot.

Event Site [RoboBusiness 2007]

Blu-Ray will dominate the industry in three years. Or maybe it will be HD DVD. The general consensus is that whoever wins doesn't really get a lasting victory, since they're both in the last physical video format ever. That sentiment has largely been the consensus of the press and leaders in the tech industry.

The end of physical formats for movie and TV shows could be called digital convergence, a happy, wonderfully singular, unified digital world. Content moves seamlessly from your multifunction portable device to your TV, between your computers, and to every monitor and audio system and random networked appliance in between. To have that happen in a stream of bits floating effortlessly on radio waves, without physical discs or specially designated boxes, would be truly wonderful.

But an end to physical video formats doesn't mean an end to format wars. In fact, once film and television content are no longer bound by physical media, we're in for the mother of all format wars.

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If your plants always look like they came out of the jungle where Predator and Governor Schwarzenegger did battle, invest in Doctor Frog. He's an accredited Ph.D. in plantology, and uses what's left of the lower half of his body—he was in a horrific golf cart accident—to detect the conductivity of your soil.

Once he decides that your plants need water, he'll give out intermittent croaks, which make you go "what the hell was that," before you realize it's the goddamn frog again and throw some H2O onto your ferns.

Also, Dr. Frog is for indoor use only. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Lazyboneuk via Uber Gizmo]

I stumbled across this ad for Sony Ericsson Japan's handsets for their FOMA SO7033i phone. That might mean very little for you, like it does for me. But I did like the ad's mosaics of hundreds of handsets flipping from one side to the other, behind a few faces that were not too hard on the eyes. There is a bit of Japanese at the end, which Ashcraft from Kotaku translates as "Cellphones found the gentle beauty." The tagline: Beauty Renaissance. – Brian Lam

Sony Ericsson FOMA SO703i [Youtube]

If you were thinking of buying a PSP at its new low price of $169, you may want to wait a little. At Sony's San Diego gamer's day, the company let fly some announcements about the handheld that says they're going to do a "hardware refresh" later this year.

Whether it's just a bigger hard drive, brighter screen, or something else entirely is still unknown. But if you're not in a huge hurry to go PSP, you might as well wait. Solid Snake has the patience of a fox. Or a snake. Or a foxy snake. – Jason Chen

Sony Reveals PS3 Slate, PSN Stats, PSP Refresh [Gamasutra]

Can you sense it? Yes, that is the smell of the freshly clipped grass and the sound of the birds chirping. Oh, and there is Tiger Woods approaching on a par 5. He may not need this Golf Swing Analyzing Watch, but you sure do. This watch uses a series of complex algorithms that will analyze and display the temp, rhythm, backswing length and club head speed, which are four stats crucial to creating the perfect swing. It also has score keeping and handicap modes along with a stopwatch calendar and alarm clock. Oh, and because it is a watch, it includes a time mode. Becoming a pro golfer comes with a price, $400 in this case. –Travis Hudson

Product Page [Via OhGizmo!]

The folks at Apple wanna redesign the ultraportable as we know it. Well, its insides at least. They wanna give it an enclosure that'll keep them from flexing, but not add any weight. You see, the enclosures inside most notebooks have mechanical assemblies with parts that are screwed or fastened on. This makes for sturdy notebooks, but also heavier, bulkier systems. Rather than use screws, Apple wants to bond enclosures electrically or with glue/paste. This will make them sturdier than today's ultraportables, but also lighter than your typical notebook. No word on when we'll see such an animal (or if such an enclosure would work), but as an ultraportable fan, I hope this makes them a little tougher than what's out now. – Louis Ramirez

Patent [via Electronista]

JVC announced Clear Motion Drive II (CMD II), second-gen 120Hz technology that blasts creamy-smooth frames out of LCD displays at a blistering pace, double that of garden-variety 60Hz LCD screens.

The company says the motion interpolation in CMD II is five times better than its 720p predecessor. The new technique was designed specifically for 1080p displays. JVC plans to use CMD II in its High Speed 2 series, with the first three LCD displays to be rolled out this fall, including a 37-inch, a 42-inch, and a 47-inch LCD, all with three HDMI 1.3 inputs.

How does this CMD II stuff work, anyway, and will it actually do any good?

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If you're one of the few who wanted an Xbox 360 Elite more for the color than for the HDMI or the 120GB hard drive, then you're in luck. For around $99, you can get your own black (or blue or green or red or orange or whatever color you want) Xbox 360 that, in our opinion, looks even better than Microsoft's matte paint job.

As you can see from the gallery, not only can you have Colorware color your console, but they'll even paint the controllers as well. You have to ship them your console for the process—unless of course you buy an entirely new one—but it's sure to come back looking better than ever. Then, if you really want a 120GB hard drive, you can go ahead and install your own hard drive and save $100. As for HDMI, there's supposedly a faux HDMI cable due out for non-Elite Xbox 360s soon. No 1080p, but you do get to use HDMI.

Check out the gallery to see all the gorgeous details. – Jason Chen

Gallery [Gizmodo]
Product Page [Colorware]

We already liked this Sony VAIO R Master PC's form factor before the company announced its latest iteration, letting you order an NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS graphics card that not only speeds up that 1080p Blu-ray playback, but lets you feed a couple of gigantic dual-link displays at the same time.

Plus, it's packing an even faster range of choices in Core 2 processors. It tops out with the formidable Core 2 Extreme QX6700 processor at the high end, giving you plenty of quickness for video editing, or perfectly powerful home theater capabilities with its 3TB of storage. What do we like about its form factor?

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