When Should You Buy Your Next Gadget? 
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Spotify Finally Makes Its Australian Debut 
Top 10 Pervasive Tech Myths That Are Only Wasting Your Time Swarovski whores with $66,000 to spare might be interested in this Maneki Neko doll from Hello Kitty. It parked its cat butt at a Tokyo department store recently in order to show off around 800 one-off Kitty products.
Gene Munster, the analyst who estimated Apple sold 500K iPhones on launch (vs the real 270K), says now that “PC analysts are a bunch of rookies when it comes to phones.” But if you “talk” to a mobile phone analyst, his 45 bajillion iPhones prediction is still good. Next on Giz Analyst Watch: Nostradamus. [TopTechNews]
galleryPost('MotoHoliday2007', 12, 'Moto Holiday 2007'); Take a peek at my meticulously annotated slideshow of Motorola’s holiday event tonight in NYC—you might even learn a thing or two.
Sharing a 3G connection via a wireless router is nothing new, but in the past it has required a bland, sterile box built to look like a WiFi access point. That certainly isn’t the case with Top Global’s Phoebus, which draws its engineering innovation from the greatest engineers of all, the ancient pharaohs. Though you won’t find many precious goodies buried in this little Luxor, you will find an 802.11b/g router that will share your standard 3G card (EV-DO, EDGE, etc.) with your neighbors. If internet access is scarce and your crew needs to hit MySpace in a hurry, drop your pyramid on the table and have at it. $289 is a small price to pay for something inspired by real slave labor construction. [3G Phoebus Wireless Router via Technabob]
Today I played around with a few phones using AT&T’s new Video Share service, which requires UMTS HSDPA, so it’s not live everywhere. New York just got it this week, LA should have it by September. If you don’t know what it is, it’s a way for one person to show the other person streaming video during a call. Although one-way video streaming seems less logical than two-way, I can tell you that it’s fun, and it seems like it would be surprisingly useful. The lag wasn’t terrible, and you can carry on the conversation in speakerphone or on Bluetooth earpiece so that you can watch the action. But you have to have the right phone. (iPhone need not apply.)
The i335 is a thin candybar with a rubber keypad that feels like leather and a funky corrugated plastic back. It’s been rumored here and there, and should not be confused with an older Moto with the same name. Regardless, Motorola and its partner in iDEN crime Sprint (as in Nextel) have yet to say anything more than that it’ll be out for holidays and it will be “affordable.” Yeah, it’s missing a camera, a big LCD and any kind of bandwidth. But it’s better looking than the other Nextel phones, and its price, still unannounced, is supposedly rock bottom. galleryPost('Motoi335', 4, 'Moto i335');
I turn around at the Motorola show and there’s Gallagher (first name unknown). Apparently he reviews gadgets these days. I ask him what size of mallet it would take to smash a Moto phone, and he says the phones look pretty sturdy. This might have been code for “Everyone asks me smashing questions all the time and I’ve run out of good replies.” He was nice enough, but I kinda backed away at that point. Later, I check out the pic I took of him, and realize it was a freakish mirror image of the sexy Moto lady from the RAZR2 launch. Did he plan that? Is Gallagher secretly awesome?
These desktop speakers from Sony are an interesting approach to computer audio. Fashioned quite accurately after stick figure drawings, the tiny 1W twins have a couple of st-mini connections onboard for desktop and laptop use. They may boast excellent sound reproduction, but Sony is a little too proud of their speakers-on-a-stick, asking for $49.99 at SonyStyle. For that price you can almost buy ten Logitech desktop speakers with twice the wattage. Obviously wattage ratings aren’t the only factor to consider when buying speakers, but when you charge five times more than the competition it’s worth considering. If you’re really dying to have a pair, they can be found elsewhere for a less appalling $19.95. [Sony Stick Figure Speakers via Geek Sugar]
TiVo wants your business so badly they will refuse to cancel your account even if you’re moving…to the moon! [Consumerist]
