A recent unearthed Microsoft patent details a preference based music service, where suggested music is directly pushed to your Zune based on your currently playing tunes. The selection would be forwarded to the device over WiFi, finally putting the Zune's WiFi function to some good use. Whether this will be linked to a conventional music store is not clear, but the work seems to be related to earlier filed patents.

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Japanese Artist KAWS has teamed up with Tokyo toy store Original-Fake for a custom Darth Vader vinyl toy. Utilizing KAWS signature art styles, the toy kinda looks like result of Darth Vader molesting a sheep (actually a skull and crossbones)...except cooler looking and less creepy than it sounds. This limited edition toy (probably less than 500) drops September 29 in Tokyo and according to to Toys R Evil, this won't be an easy buy. To get one, you'll need to be over 15, have a valid ID and an admission ticket for the store. And even then, you're not guaranteed anything except crazed geek status. [Original-Fake via Hype Beast and Toys R Evil]

So, okay, we've gotten into the Halo fever a little bit too with our gallery of the Halo 3 Limited Edition Xbox. Well, here's a bit of Halo 3 tomfoolery for a late Friday afternoon. Apparently some guy dressed up in a Master Chief suit, went down to his local game store, and started humping PS3s and "stealing" copies of Halo 3. [Gamebrink]

Andrew Steckl, a photonics expert from the University of Cincinnatti, has discovered that salmon sperm makes for better LEDs. He came to this disgusting discovery from analyzing biological materials and coming to the conclusion that DNA serves as a better material for intensifying LED properties. The best part: the fishing industry just throws away this salmon sperm! It's perfectly good sperm! What a delicious waste! I mean![UC via Treehugger]

The New York subway system, that bastion of gentility and mutual respect, is about to get a mobile-service upgrade, allowing people to talk n' text in all 277 underground stations.... Read More »

This Limited Edition Xbox is basically your Premium Xbox with an HDMI port, but the attention to detail on the case is impressive. Text and graphics running over the side of the green, camo splattered Xbox, and an HDD and drive tray painted in the same reflective gold as the Master Chief's helmet make it seem as if it were a weapon pulled straight out of the game. The detailed shots of the logos, some of which are shared with the Halo 3 Zune, are in the gallery below. The problem is, WTF, why isn't there a 120GB HDD in here? Just because you're a Halo fanboy doesn't mean you should have to suffer the indignity of last year's HDD. I've swapped that one out of my Elite, and so I lose the gold trim of the Halo HDD in exchange for the 500% bump in storage. What a silly compromise.

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If we could ever summon up the strength to go exercise (which would then give us more strength), we'd want to do so on one of these Platinum Club Series Treadmills with a USB port for your iPod. Just hook up your iPod via the standard iPod cable, and you can scroll through playlists, watch videos, or just provide power for your player while you run. Not only that, there's a virtual trainer and USB compatibility so you can save your workout data onto a thumb drive to take home. If this weren't $7,999 we'd get one for ourselves. [LifeFitness via Everything USB via Slashgear]

If you thought Monster Cable was bad with its $80 HDMI cables, check out these Pear Anjou Speaker Cables, ringing up the cash register at an astonishing $7,250 for a couple of 12-footers. The most entertaining aspect of this sucker bait is the way the company got some gullable snob to gush about how he thinks he can actually hear a difference between these and the other presumably high-end wiring he's auditioned:

"... way better than anything I have heard...Simply put these are very danceable cables. Music playing through them results in the proverbial foot-tapping scene with the need or desire to get up and move. Great swing and pace--these cables smack that right on the nose big time."

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We reported on the BlackBerry Curve getting T-Mobile hotspot compatibility, but the 8320 has just become official, retailing now for $249 after $50 mail-in rebate with a two-year contract. It's available in titanium and gold, and you should be able... Read More »

Usually, I hate the unnecessary swag. But this Xbox 360, Halo 3 Edition bag, is pretty much the best set of press junk I have ever seen. The duffel bag is printed with Halo 3 logos, my gamer tag, and the slogan "finish the fight." There are two limited controllers with figurines, dog tags that say Spartan "Ordnance," UNSC, with my gamer tag. MREs (Meatloaf and manicotti), gold subscription cards, a Halo 3 wireless headset, and of course, the game itself and the Xbox 360 Halo Edition. Did I mention the game came in a pedestal covered by a Master Chief helmet? (No, it does not fit, unfortunately.) Here comes the unboxing... er unbagging.

We're unsure if this is a policy or a one-time incident, but Jason O'Grady from ZDNet is reporting that an Apple store refused to service a hacked and unlocked (for T-Mobile) iPhone, saying the warranty was voided and blacklisting "the phone against future service, or return."

Although Jason's colleague eventually got Apple to take the iPhone back for a return, they did charge him a 10% restocking fee even though the phone was under two weeks old. We'll try and find out whether this is a company-wide policy or just a store manager shooting off the cuff, but to play it safe, wipe out your iPhone and put the AT&T SIM back in when you take yours in for a service or a return. [ZDNET]

When the next phase of wide-area wireless networking rolls out, AT&T and Verizon Wireless will be using the same technology, the 100-megabit Long Term Evolution (LTE). Not surprisingly, it will be the same technology used by Verizon's GSM-flavored corporate parent,... Read More »

If you can sit through this Theramin-tinged cacophonous din, you might just start to appreciate this pile of junk and household detritus playing the erstwhile wonderful Gnarls Barkley song, "Crazy." Brooklyn's Ranjit Bhatnagar created this junkbot and Theramin combo, whose sound felt almost to us like some sort of hypnotic Indian chant. We're especially fond of the frog who's responsible for the rhythmic clunking noise, and we also dig those Stoned Wheat Thins crackers, which incidentally, don't get you stoned. But that sound. Does that make me crazy? Does that make me crazy? Possibly. [boingboing]

One of the ideas submitted to the Next Generation competition featured in Metropolis Magazine was this Kinetic Energy-harnessing battery charger by Yael Miller. The concept is to take something we're already doing—such as working out, flopping around in a baby rocker, vacuuming, or flushing the toilet—add the piezoelectric effect, and come out with batteries that are charged by "human power." Imagine all the television remotes we could power just from flushing our droppings. [Reuben Miller via Oh Gizmo via Boing Boing Gadgets]

Blogger (and early iPhone adopter) Jordan Golson just got this text message on his iPhone this morning:

AT&T FREE Msg: Good News, your messaging package now includes text, picture & instant messages all for the same price of $19.99 per month. No action required

We asked you yesterday whether you were happy or annoyed that rumble is back on the DualShock 3 for the PS3, but this new revelation may change your answer. GameDaily BIZ confirmed with SCEA that the rumble technology in the DualShock 3 is exactly the same as the on in the DualShock 2, and doesn't take advantage of "Immersion's new next-generation vibration technology."

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Behold the Climb@tron Robot, sucking up to a window and walking its way up and down as if it's defying gravity. It's looking a lot like that "Brainzord" window-climbing robot that we told you about earlier this month, made by the same company. But wait a second. There's some fast and footloose video editing going on here, where we don't get to see the robot take more than three steps at a time. Does it lose its suction? Does it suck? Somebody invest $9.50 and find out for us, then make a real video for proof. [Personalrobotics, via Coolest Gadgets]

Google is not leaving anything to chance, and according to an Australian newspaper is now planning to span the Pacific Ocean with its own undersea fiber optics cable to blast the world with its do-no-evil goodness. Owning a fat pipe like this will make Google the Big Dick of the high seas, making it cheaper for the company to move data and to dominate all those other weasels that are selling internet bandwidth.

Let's hope Google's alleged entry into this bandwidth biz will bring prices down, because with the way things stand now, even though there's a glut of dark fiber spanning the Pacific, the stubborn owners of all that potential bandwidth aren't budging on their too-high prices. Do it, Google, and get going on that wireless carrier threat you made, too! Teach the rest of the world your catchphrase: "Don't be evil." [New York Times]

iLounge got their hands on the soon-to-be-released iHome iHC5. This clock radio has decided to branch out from the iHome's comfortable iPod market, and instead is trying to attract media cellphones. While it does do some interesting things like stream music from your cellphone or PC using Bluetooth, it does have a couple of problems.

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Who says Hillary's a ballbuster? No, she's a nutcracker. Here's proof. Just in time for the Christmas season, shell out $29.99 and remove the shells from your walnuts with style. When she's done cracking nuts, Hillary stands up on her own, lording over you as she awaits her next opportunity to bust a few nuts. And if you don't like it, well, you can just sleep on the couch, buster. [Teptronics]

We've known Furutech to build some crazy home theatre accessories like the DeMag, so it doesn't surprise us that they also make the DFV-1, a vinyl LP flattener that relies on precision heating and cooling to get the job done. For $1,480, it might be overkill for repairing my now unplayable Christmas in the Stars Star Wars Christmas album. Maybe I should try the $12 internet home remedy first, or just buy a good one on eBay. [Furutech via Crave]

Here's a wild-ass looking portable DVD player (PDP) that reminds us a lot of that player we showed you last month that looks like a butterfly knife. This concept takes that design a few years into the future, looking like it's about the size and unpocketable shape of that crazy iPhone clone Intel was flaunting the other day. Like a transformer, it twists around and gives you a turntable on which to spin the DVD while you unravel its sexy flexible OLED screen to feast your eyes.

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