Problem: you want to watch a movie or play a game in glorious surround sound. But someone in your house is sleeping, studying or just annoyed that you are playing BioShock for the third time to get all the achievements. The solution: wireless surround-sound headphones. We tested the three of the most popular models to ensure that you won't buy the wrong one, become sad then throw your life away with booze and drugs.

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The What: DXG has always gone for the low cost bragging rights and they've reached the height of their budget crusade with this $US150 HD camera that records to 1280 x 720 at its highest res. We've seen tapeless camcorders do this before, but that price is pretty insane. It records in H.264 quicktime files, and the camera takes 5mp native stills.
The Oh No You Didn't: I would expect that this captures the grainiest, most lifeless, tepid high def you've ever seen.

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If we had to add anything to Nokia's already feature rich N-series phones (the N95, for example) it would be a keyboard (or a touchscreen, but let's say keyboard here). Boy Genius has a spy shot of an upcoming N-series (not E-series) phone that has this full-sized QWERTY keyboard that's set for a 2nd half 2008 release.

Here's what they know in terms of specs: S60 3rd Edition FP2 OS, 5 or 6-megapixel camera, 30FPS VGA (640x480) video recording and a candybar form factor. To us, the keyboard's the big difference between a phone being a phone with data capabilities and a data phone. [Boy Genius]

The Basics: OLED Picture frames! The 2.8-inch screen has a wrist strap, and works as an alarm clock and calendar. The 1.5-inch version has a keychain. They hold 3000 and 120 photos, and have 10000:1 and 1000:1 contrast ratios, respectively. Rechargeable.
The Catch: The $50 1.5-inch screen form factor is the one I want, but that version is only has a passive matrix screen and a mere 1000:1 contrast ratio (vs 10000:1 of the bigger $US99 version). The quality of the OLEDs in these frames is unknown.

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Spykee, the built-it-yourself Skype robot, just got three different models that you can build him into—one of which is a her. We've got the first images of the Spykee Cell, Spykee Vox and Spykee Miss, all of which have a video camera, MP3 player, VoIP phone, microphone, louspeaker, motors, and the ability to shove an iPod into its crotch. The best thing about this guy is that you can control him from anywhere in the internet. Well, maybe that'd be the second best thing—the first best is still the fact that he has an iPod where his junk should be. Get yours from Erector. [Erector]

Warner announced earlier today it was 100 per cent Blu-ray. We just talked a bit with Warner about some of the whys behind the decision. In a sentence: Because the format war is killing regular DVD sales on top of hurting sales of both HD formats.

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Tipped to this during the call with Warner, Toshiba—one of HD DVD's daddies—has released their statement on Warner's Blu-ray defection. It reads like a letter from a jilted lover: "We have long maintained a close partnership with Warner Bros" and "Toshiba is quite surprised by Warner Bros.' decision to abandon HD DVD in favour of Blu-ray." The full screed of woe:

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I've always thought that watching movies on a tiny portable device is a crummy experience in pretty much every way possible. Crazy-ass director David Lynch (of Mulholland Dr., Lost Highway and Twin Peaks fame) thinks so too. Vehemently. And even if he is a little nuts, his faux iPhone ad both educates and entertains. [via Cult of Mac]

Darth Vader stuff never, ever bores me. I love it all, no matter how stupid or pointless it is. I'm not the only one apparently, since he's inspired a boatload of people to pour a ton of creativity into whipping up these awesome custom masks, turning his iconic form into a blank slate for art. These are just a few of my favorites from looks to be a con, there is a ton more over at Funnbee.

We have all doodled an idea or a bit of important information on a napkin at one point or another, but designer Avery Holleman takes it a step further with the Napkin PC. The device is intended to help creative groups collaborate on designs more effectively. Here's how it works: data is sent to the multi-touch e-paper "napkin" interface via the pen using short range radio frequency (RF). The pen and the napkin also communicate with the base station PC via long-rage RF. More after the break.<

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CHICKASHA, Oklahoma (Agencies). Chickasha-resident James McFarlan, a 45-year-old computer analyst and part-time fabric designer, drove this morning into Annie Svenson's home roof after what he referred to as an incident with his car GPS. "I told him [Sheriff Furillo] that my GPS made me do it. I was just driving when the nice sexy voice inside the box told me to turn left while I was driving through the bridge on Frisco and 62nd," said McFarlan after being released by the police. "She was like, come on, do it. Do it! Dooooo iiiit!!!" The next thing McFarlan recalls is 78-year-old retiree Mrs. Svenson in her nightgown, knocking on his windshield.

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The Bottom line: Remember that urban tale of the drug running lambo doing 200mph runs using merely nightvision? FLIR, used to making commercial nightvision systems for law enforcement, marine, and airborne vehicle has trickled the tech into civilian hands. The PathfindIR is their first infrared nightvision adaptable for any car, although they'll be demo'ing at CES in a BMW. The camera (below) gets mounted in a grill, and the AV output hooks into any LCD and even some dashboard nav systems. The video looks to be a relatively low res 320 x 240, with a wide 36º H x 27º V field of view. The best news: the IR system lets cars see 5x further than high beams.
The catch: Staring at a LCD on your dash sound dangerous. Demo video after the jump.

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CES is upon us and we've got a load of events this weekend (not to mention news dropping) showing off all the new gadgets of 2008. On Saturday, there's the CES Unveiled event at 4PM PST (7PM EST) which we'll be reporting live at. Then, on Sunday, there's loads, loads and loads of press conferences. LG, Toshiba, Sharp, Philips, Samsung and Sony (not to mention others) will be dumping news on you starting from 8AM PST (11AM EST), followed by further events Sunday night at 7PM PST (10PM EST) where many other companies will be showing off their wares. We'll be reporting live and liveblogging all this stuff, so don't miss it.

3M has thrown its hat (albeit a little late) into the mobile projector ring with the likes of Texas Instruments and Microvision with a new ultra-compact, LED-illuminated projection engine that can project a 40-inch or larger image at VGA resolution. The device is intended to be integrated into a wide array mobile technologies —and cellphones are undoubtedly at the top of that list. Fortunately, we won't have to wait to long for the technology to arrive. The device is already available and 3M is planning on partnering with various electronics manufacturers to release products in early 2008. [Press Release]

The Skinny: Polk Audio SurroundBar 360 DVD Theater rocks the 5.1-channel sound with one slim bar-shaped bank of speakers. Pop a DVD into the separate console and you've got an instant home theatre that can toss sounds every which way. The Catch: We're wondering how gutsy that "PowerPort" bass is going to sound, but fear that our socks will remain completely on throughout. Jump for another pic and the press release.

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The Skinny: Another Bluetooth-enabled dock from iLuv, this one boosts the wireless range to 300 feet w/ BluePin II. Sound is supposedly better than previous models courtesy of iAura, plus it has speaker phone capabilities. The Drag: Their past model X99 model only had 6 watts per speaker, which is not a lot of output juice—this one might be similarly impotent.

The Skinny: The i720 is a line-in iPod/iPhone and hands-free Bluetooth remote, with FM transmission and a caller ID display, plus call reject, transfer and other basic phone commands. It's small, black and fairly attractive and seems pretty useful for ardent multi-taskers. The Catch: It's something else taking up valuable pocket space.

The Skinny: Another FM transmitter/hands-free Bluetooth mutant, this kit is for your car, and plugs directly into the iPod's dock port to charge it as well. Call reject, transfer and the usual hands-free Bluetooth commands. It's definitely more useful than standard iPod car kits. The Catch: Kind of ugly. And I'm tired of lower case i's.

The Skinny: The iLuv i1255 is a basically a DVD player with an iPod dock slapped on top. It plays DVDs, VCDs, and CDs plus puts media from the iPod on your TV, a common trick nowadays. Basically if you're in the market for both a bare-bones DVD player and iPod dock and wanna save shelf space. The Catch iLuv's i1155 is much sleeker, portable and works all the same angles.

What could be more secure (not to mention masculine) than a rainbow coloured fan that clips onto the side of a Laptop? Besides looking awesome, these screens can be customised with a company logo making them powerful promotional tools. Plus, Lapstix are versatile—you could use them to shade your laptop display from the sun, or possibly as an actual fan that can bring relief from scorching temperatures. Prices range from $US2—$3 per unit when purchased in bulk, and they are available in a variety of less ridiculous colors—fortunately. [Lapstix via Coolest Gadgets]

This Takata airbag design is… interesting. Essentially, if you get in a car accident your face will be thrust quickly between two giant, inflatable ass cheeks. Or are they giant breasts? Depending on what you're in to, you could see it either way. In any case, I can certainly see how it would be more comfortable to mash your face into than a normal airbag, but is it worth the embarrassment when the paramedics arrive? Also, how do they compare to the feeling of having your face smashed into a real butt at high speeds? Commenters, I assume a few of you know, so fill us in. And hit the jump for the full ad.

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• A Purdue professor is paying students $US30 to sniff animal poop and using the research to improve estimations of odor emissions on farms. It's days like this that I am happy I went to Indiana University. [11alive]
• Alan Ralsky, a notorious spammer from West Bloomfield, MI (sort of my home town!) was indicted yesterday on 41 charges of swindling millions of dollars by using penny stock scam emails. Good riddance. [Detroit Free Press]
• Did we mention we're going to Vegas? The weather doesn't look great, but just about anything beats another day in frigid New York City. [Weather Underground]

It's been speculated upon and speculated upon, but today it happened: Warner Bros. declared undying allegiance to one format alone: Blu-ray. "The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger," said Warner chairman Barry Meyer, suggesting that this move will end the format war.

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I've always been kind of jealous at the array of attractive birth control cases exes have had to tote around their anti-baby pills. Condoms typically come in boxes and wrappers that are clumsy and ugly. The XYXX condom case wants to change all that with a package you actually want to keep in your pockets. Yeah it's pretty phallic looking, but we're talking about cockwrappers here.

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As excited as we were when Hitachi showed off its 1.5" full-production LCDs in October, we were even more excited to know that they've pulled off a plasma of the same thick—rather, thinness. They may not be the 9mm plasma that Pioneer is apparently boasting, but plasma has been traditionally thicker and heavier than LCD, so all of this is wonderful news at a time when plasma is getting some serious kudos. Hitachi also promises to show off its super thin concept LED-backlit 3/4-inch LCDs at the show too, so we'll keep an eye out. Jump for press release.

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DisplayMate is the standard of the video testing game, and now it just got a whole lot easier to use with DisplayMate USB Edition. To run any monitor through DisplayMate's sophisticated suite of visual tasks, all you need to do is plug this USB drive into the monitor's PC, an LED lights up on its tip, and a dialogue box pops up on screen, offering to run it right from there with no installation necessary.

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Kleer wireless technology has shown promise in terms of both energy efficiency and sound quality when compared to Bluetooth, which is why some may find these new MX W1 earphones from Sennheiser appealing. The device allows users to enjoy clear wireless audio from any Kleer-based portable player —there is even a feature that allows multiple MX W1 users to share a single stream. There are no details on pricing yet, but they are expected to arrive in May 2008. [Crunchgear and PC Mag]

Last night, Intel pulled out of OLPC, citing founder Nicholas Negroponte's serious jealousy issues with other low-cost computers stealing XO's thunder in more ways than one. Today, OLPC slaps back, claws out: "We're totally better off without you since it was all for show and you never really loved us (or the kids) in the first place!"

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Nintendo's just dropped the hammer on the NYT story saying the Nintendo DS will get full versions of downloadable games. Turns out that it's not true, and they were just thinking of the old DS getting demos via the Wii. The Ninty says these demos will be playable just like a normal game (but won't have all the content, of course) after you download it, but will be erased once the DS is turned off! [NYT]

As if we needed another display standard, along comes DisplayPort, approved last year and just about to sally forth on graphics cards and monitors everywhere. WTF do we need another standard for, anyway? Bandwidth, that's why. DisplayPort (plug pictured above at left, next to a Dual-link DVI cable) can handle a maximum 10.8Gb per second, carries 8 channels of digital audio as well as all that video, and has a bidirectional auxiliary channel that can also handle 1Mb per second. That's a lot of data. It could turn out to be a reliable, fast and easy-to-use bridge between computers and home theatre displays. But DisplayPort is not all sweetness and light.

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Fujifilm has slimmed down its FinePix camera even more—now it's just 19.8 mm thick—but the redesigned FinePix Z100fd still manages to cram 8 megapixels of imaging goodness into its slim form factor. It's available in four colour combinations, and even has a few smart features such as face detection technology that can identify 10 faces in the frame, sensibly focusing so all might be as sharp as possible. Looks like a lot of camera for $US249.95, available this month. [FujiFilm Press Release]