Am I the only person who believes that beds are for sleeping in? (Please disregard the fact that I am writing this from my boudoir, but I have a hangover.) Hollandia, a company that specialises in top-end schlaffen-sites, has come up with the multi-media bed to end all beds. As well as a Sony Bravia home entertainment system, there's room for your iPod and a massage system. Let's take a closer look.

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Now you can help the planet too reducing your carbon footprint by getting a new computer rather than stopping the private jet escapades to Bermudas. The Aleutia E1 is a full-fledge Linux-based mini-computer which runs on just 18 watts using a built-in solar panel. And for some reason, reminds me of a grill and makes me hungry. [Dvice]

Designed by a bloke called Delroy Dennisur, the Power Conscience is a cute little gizmo that you plug in to keep an eye on how much electricity you are getting through. It's a slim white box decorated with LEDs in a floral design that light up depending on your consumption. More flowers means more power used. See a pic of the Power Conscience in full bloom after the jump.

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This Troika Retro FM/AM Radio proves once again that it only takes brushed aluminium and a design apparently created to play ABBA songs in 70s Sweden to make us drool with desire, no matter if it doesn't contain a single trace of digital gadgetry inside—just pure analogue noise, oversized knobs and a seemingly gratuitous choke with no obvious application. Unless the thing actually runs on gas, in which case its category could go from "Cool Stuff" to "Must Have NOW." [Gadget Lab]

Next year's Lexus LX 570 has got some pretty spiffy tech attached to it — including a visual system that allows you to clock what's going on around, beside and below you while you park or un-park. Its "front-wide view and side monitoring system" consists of little spy cameras, one on the radiator grille, plus a couple situated on the underside of the side mirrors, all of which gives you access to 180º vision via a screen inside the car. AutoSpies made a vid of the system, and you can see it below.

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Yahee, purveyors of gadgets that look remarkably like already-established ones (if you don't believe me, check their fat Nano, for starters) has come up with a solar-powered media player whose charging panels are on the inside. OLPC green in color, the PMP plays tunes, videos, and lets you view photos and play games on it. There's other stuff too:

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Remember the Sonic Impact T-Amp? It was that tiny $US30 amplifier that, according to audiophiles, beat the crap out of $US300 gear. Now the second generation is finally here at more than double the previous price. Fortunately, according to the "experts", it also packs double the oomph and now it's comparable to $US800 gear:

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Talking about the 3G iPhone at a meeting in California, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson declared: "You'll have it next year." He didn't add any specifics but we hope this is not just some general statement (3G being the obvious next step in the iPhone) and that they are already well into the development phase, perhaps taking advantage of the latest low-consumption 3G chipsets to solve Steve Jobs concerns about a 3G iPhone's battery life. The comment is in line with previous comments from Telefonica insiders, who pointed out to Gizmodo that the spanish company would have delayed the introduction of the iPhone to next year thinking that a non-3G version wouldn't work in the Spanish market. [Bloomberg]

You might have heard of MiShare, a $US100 Linux box that lets you clamp in two iPods, butt to butt, to send songs, photos, videos and—truthfully—any other kind of file you want to send from one to the other. In the video, you will see how straightforward it is to swap a couple of songs; for the more detailed ins and outs, read on.

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If math wasn't already annoying enough, this unique piano shaped calculator plays a tune with each key pressed. In the right hands, crunching numbers could become a tiny concerto. But in your hands, it will undoubtedly result in a swift and brutal retaliation by your fellow co-workers. Let's just hope Phillip Glass doesn't get wind of this. Available for 1000 Yen or around $10. [Product Page via TFTS]

Forget Folding@home and its feel-good applications. There are cooler things to be done, like cryptography cracking. Taking advantage of the Cell's vector architecture, a security consultant with Security-assessment.com has cooked up a way to to bust passwords open like bad Easter eggs really, really fast. His Crackstation shoves past "the current upper limit of 10-15 million cycles per second—in Intel-based architecture—up to 1.4 billion cycles per second." To put that in non-geek, "Intel processors are designed to do all kinds of complex calculations, whereas the PS3 is good at doing simple things very quickly." The work apparently stands to change the whole cryptography industry.

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Using Star Wars films as one of the inspirations for his designs, a masters student at the University of Texas named Jason Mellard developed an aquatic research and housing facility to be located 50-100 miles offshore. Scientists studying marine and bird life would stay on the platform with their families in 6-13 month shifts and work in spheres consisting of laboratories, classrooms, computer labs, viewing platforms, holding tanks, offices and storage.

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As a response to many companies and end users installing hard drives into cars for portable entertainment systems, Toshiba's introducing the MK8050 hard drive that has increased shock tolerance and vibration dampening. The disk has a cushion of air around the head to prevent scratching, which causes data loss, swearing and begging. Expect to see it in GPS units and do-it-yourselfer kits next March. [Toshiba Storage via Electronista]

I kinda thought (hoped) earnings report season was over. But it's not! Today we're looking at TiVo's net loss of $US8.2 million on total revenues of $US75.5 million, which was "considerably ahead of guidance" and up (down?) from an $US11.1... Read More »

Combining the concepts of LEGO with the concepts of Rube Goldberg, the Q-BA-MAZE gives you a set of 20 to 50 pieces that you put together to make a descending maze for marbles. It sounds boring from our description, so if you watch the video you'll notice that it's...only slightly less boring. This may be cool to use to teach your kids about gravity, mazes, and the fact that you shouldn't put marbles up your nose, but we'd be much more impressed if there were more pieces that did different things. [Q-BA-MAZE]

While checking out the details on the new Sidewinder mouse, we spotted Microsoft throwing a general party around their hardware line up. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of their hardware business, Microsoft is doing 25% cashback deals when you send off for redemption. So that SideWinder might be retailing for $129.95, but after redemption it will be yours for $94.95. Full details, and a list of the specific values they're giving you back (some come in at better than 25%), at the Microsoft hardware site. [Microsoft Hardware]

After getting reamed by Q3 losses and basically conceding the online rental space to Netflix, Blockbuster looked to be refocusing on its B&M stores, ironically signified by its installation of in-store digital rental kiosks. So naturally its next move is... Read More »

Microsoft killed off the SideWinder brand due to lack of sales back in 2003, but it was a brand with a lot of love in its history (I was a fan of the joysticks) so they've brought it back from the dead with a new gaming mouse. No extra names involved, this is simply called the Microsoft SideWinder Mouse. It's all about the gaming, and it's a pretty solid piece of work.

It's got buttons ahoy, with two under the thumb plus another a little further around the corner for your thumb to reach (I doubt I'll ever use that one, though). Left-right buttons, obviously, plus a scroll-wheel button. The scroll has really nicely defined position clicks to suit efficient weapon switching.

The laser dpi switching is right down the middle of the mouse, offering 400, 800, or 2000 dpi accuracy - switch sensitivity to move between fast movement and more accurate aiming. However this position is not at all useful for on-the-fly switching in the heat of action (Logitech's G9 is better placed on the left). Microsoft has pointed to the 'first ever' LCD display on a mouse, but you won't be getting ammo or hit point read outs - this shows current dpi or macro record settings.

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Here's a quick recap of this week's videos from our personal encounter with Honda ASIMO:

ASIMO makes his grand Robot Rock entrance at Sydney show.
My first encounter.
The new best buddies hitting the dance floor.
Getting up close and personal.

Slogging through tens of seconds of load times when Office 2004 fires up is nobody's idea of fun, but speedy Intel compatibility isn't the only thing that Office 2008 will bring next year. The new version will have a feature to export PowerPoint presentations to your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPod video/classic by way of iPhoto, so you can run through your previous quarter's sales reports in the comfort of a tiny, tiny screen. Or you can get an Apple TV-Out cable and project it onto a TV, which would be the smart thing to do. Office '08 should be available in January at MacWorld. [PCWorld]

Precocious Kids Mess With Tracks of an Incoming Train
An oldie but a goodie lol to brighten up your workday.

The Case for Two TVs in One Living Room
Considerations for your couch potato-dom setup.

Optimus Keyboard Configurations, Pricing Info Released
Most. Expensive. Keyboard. Ever?

New York Judge Who Jailed Everyone in Court for a Ringing Phone Is Removed From the Bench
Aimed too high. Should have just jailed the idiot who didn't switch his phone off.

Man Killed by Mobile Phone Explosion
LG. Life's not so good.

The Post-It note is one of those seemingly simple ideas that end up taking off and making a fortune. While there are plenty of higher tech alternatives out there looking to capitalise on Post-it success, there is still something about the classic that keeps people coming back. This Pock-it concept doesn't look to completely re-invent the Post-it note —it just gives it a basic upgrade with the addition of a convenient little pocket. The folks at 3M should be all over this and get it on the market if you ask me. [Yanko Design]

I hit Circuit City with my mum on Black Friday to pick up the greatest and cheapest router ever, the Linksys WRH54G, costing a slim Andrew Jackson after the mail-in rebate. As far as I could tell, there was only a single flaw with the thing: the toll-free technical support number in the manual wasn't that at all, but a promotional line for a "stimulating conversation" service. Hear it for yourself in the call video above, and check out the manual after the jump.

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In case you haven't heard, some poor bastard on the Rock Band community forum has been served with a pre-eviction eviction notice for rocking out way, way too hard with Rock Band. Actually, I'm surprised this sort of thing hasn't happened more often given how rowdy Rock Band and Guitar Hero sessions can get. At any rate, if you live in an apartment it might be a good idea to keep the volume in check. The only question is, will our fearless leader be next? [Rock Band Forums]

Zatz, ever watchful TiVo fan, noticed the Third Quarter earnings for TiVo make reference to a new box that can do video on demand. It's a thin thread, but we'll take it as the first piece of soil which we... Read More »

CNET's hired an intern to type up power consumption stats for loads of their recently reviewed TVs into a large table, which conveniently enough is now sortable. If you're in the market for a new HDTV, head over to their big arse chart to see who the winner is in overall annual cost (Envision), cost per square inch (Samsung) and cheapest over 60 inches (Sony). Even if you're not going to buy a TV now, you can still take away the fact that running an HDTV will cost you—on average—somewhere between $56-ish to $169-ish. [CNET]

Memory maker Rambus has unveiled its Terabyte Bandwidth Initiative with the goal to develop a new memory architecture capable of achieving 1TB/sec bandwidth. The plan is to push the data rate to a whopping 32X —which can provide a 16Gbps signaling rate with a 500MHz clock. Compare that with to the 2bits /1Gbps provided by conventional DDR at the same rate. Add differential signaling an both the data and command/address channels and you have yourself one blazingly fast system.

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In news that surprises no one, Motorola's dropped to third place in global mobile phone sales behind Samsung and Nokia, thanks to inventory issues and "an unremarkable product lineup". That's code for too many RAZRs and RIZRs, in case your decoder ring's in the shop. In comparison, Moto's down from 21% to 13% of the market in just one year, compared to Samsung's 15% and Nokia's 38%. Beyond that, there's Sony Ericsson, LG, and everyone else. Unless Motorola comes out with a phone that's a big a hit as the original RAZR was, we don't see any kind of upturn in the next year either. [PC World]

Randy Nunez's Xbox 360 is being beaten to death by Halo 3, so that it "routinely, consistently, and systematically 'froze,' 'crashed,' or 'locked up.'" Naturally, this "disrupted game play." For his pain and suffering of having to reset his console to resume getting teabagged, he wants $US5 million and class action status, 'cause "many consumers" are having these issues. Sorry. My bad. I take full responsibility for shooting people in the face that hard. I thought I was just knocking them off the internet, but apparently it's crashing their 360s too. I apologise. But seriously.

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Say hello to Simroid, a new robot from Japan designed to help train dentists. Forgive me for being a little off-colour here, but this thing looks like it's better suited to give BJs, but it's looking a little too downsy to sell well in any of Japan's numerous sex shops. In any case, it's loaded up with sensitive teeth so it can say "that hurts" if it gets stabbed in the gums or something. It also has a gag reflex so it can react if an "instrument" is stuck down its throat. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to step away from the keyboard before I write jokes about this thing that'll get me fired. Must… practice… restraint… [IT Media via Pink Tentacle]

In addition to Micron's traditional solid state drives announced today, they also showed off a concept for a SSD module that resembles RAM and would fit into a similar port. The design uses a SATA interface and is only 4 mm thick. Micron claims the advantages of such a design are the small size and the ability to line up multiple drives next to each other. In addition, this design requires no wires or mounting to the motherboard, reducing the risk of the SSD becoming disconnnected or loose inside a computer. While this product is nowhere near ready for market, Micron says they would need to work with an OEM or someone who can offer a compatible computer solution. [Micron]

Google Gadgets, the widget-like plug-ins for your Google start page, is getting a huge port onto the Apple Dashboard platform starting tomorrow. G-Gadgets are nice, and actually have been port-able onto the Dashboard using another widget for a while now, but official support is always welcome. Google slobberers will definitely be happy, but Apple slobberers will probably just throw up a collective "meh." [MacWorld]

Come along with us to a sideshow, starring the Torpedo Entertainment Projector by Senario, a $US169 LCD unit made in China. We'll show you just how plum-awful a projector can be. We picked one up at a local Target store, put it on our test bench, and were shown a thing or two about projectors, video, plastic, and the difference between a toy and a real product. (And yes, it was in the toy department at Target.)

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What Missing Sync did for $US39, SyncMate does for free—syncing your contacts, calendars, notes and favourites from your Windows Mobile phone onto your Mac with little to no hassle. Unfortunately for WM users, the default iSync software doesn't support either WM5 or WM6 as well as it should. We haven't tried SyncMate yet ourselves, but if it works nearly as well as Missing Sync—which we have tried—then it'll be worth every penny. [Eltima via Thinkabdul]

This water carrier for outdoorsy types includes a pressurizing hand pump that works to improve the design of ye old camelback-canteen in several ways: First, you won't have to suck on the straw to get hydrated, an inflated reservoir doubles as a pillow, and mounted high, works as a pinch shower. Joel notes that the hand pump could be easily lost, to which I agree. [Polarpak via Boingboing]