Girl Talk, the manic mashup artist who combines hundreds and hundreds of samples to create his frenetic, ADD music, just released his new album, Feed the Animals last week (as a pay-what-you-want download, incidentally). It includes a song with "New Soul" by Yael Naim sampled, the song from the Macbook Air ad. Of course, now that song has been mashed up with the original ad. It's pretty sweet. [Andrew Pile]

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New to the Wii homebrew scene, the "WiiBrator" app is "creating a buzz." The work of Team DWiildo, it's a way to convert the jack-of-all-trades Wiimote into a "relaxation" device. Here's the more detailed description, along with an important warning:

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Designer Yurii Smitana Perfilov clearly took a look at the chaotic button-fest that is the usual universal remote and thought "uuuugleee." So the first thing you notice about the sPult remote is its gorgeousness, like a retro-futuristic digital dagger. The second thing is the lack of buttons: that scroll wheel does volume or channels, selected at a push, and there's a favourites selector, mute and power function plus a simple display. I thought the back-lit Moto RAZR-like universal remote I just bought was attractive, but if sPult were more than a concept, I'd ditch that silver laser-keypad nastiness in a heartbeat. [Yanko design]

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According to Gartner there are now more than 1 billion computers in use on this little planet Earth. And not happy with that piece of trivia, they asked their Magic Eight Ball if the number was going to double in early 2014. The answer: "Probably." What I would like to know is: how many of that billion are Commodore 64s? Unfortunately, the rest of Gartner factoids didn't offer the answer, but they were almost as interesting.

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The motors inside LiveLuggage's ingenious power-assisted suitcase can turn a 30kg load into something one-tenth of the size. With an anti-gravity handle and force sensors in the wheels, LiveLuggage is hack- and thief-proof and, once charged, the battery will run for a couple of hours. Costing US$1,300, I'm tempted to try one of these just to see what the Homeland Security bods might do when faced with a plastic suitcase boasting built-in electronics. [LiveLuggage via Born Rich]

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Laser beams plus funky light patterns plus party: sounds like a winning combo. It certainly looks that way for this Brando gadget: the green laser light spewing from it can be tweaked into a number of impressive patterns (diffraction grating, anyone?) And though it doesn't look like it reacts to music, the shifting, changing light-show it makes can only be described as psychedelic, with a dab of Matrix. It's mains-powered, just 7.8 x 7.1 x 3 cms in size and comes with a stand that looks ripe to be modded into a motor-powered platform. Costs US$65. [Brando]

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Explorer robots, pilot robots, cleaning robots, broken robots. Robots robots robots. Robots everywhere. After drooling over this featurette on Pixar's Wall-e robot cast--with the creative team getting all Jon Iveish with us, explaining how their design follows function--we can only say two things: first, consider us officially excited. And two, we are happy George Lucas is not involved with this movie at all.

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Probably designed by Reed Richards as an alternative way to get into the Negative Zone, Cinimod Studio's Illuminating Table is designed to a) create a "virtually boundless sense of space" thanks to a three-dimensional matrix of globular lights and different glass layers; b) transport you to a new state of consciousness without the help of chemical substances like kerosene, jet engine cleaning fluid, and aspartame; c) hypnotise your date to make her/him think they want some business time; d) all of the above. The fully animated light matrix can interact with the environment or display a shifting pattern automatically.

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Whenever I see some high-end retailer flogging non-core business objects, I wrinkle up my nose in disgust. Chanel, of the non-Cylon No. 5, has been the most visible company to do this with its bikes, skis, and now fishing gear, and this is British gentleman's outfitters, Dunhill's, take on it. The AD88. Not only does it take my initials in vain, but it is almost US$4,000-worth of iPod dock, digital radio and CD/DVD player that, at almost US$4,000 (I guess you tip the doorman the remaining US$5 when you walk out of the shop with it) makes fools of us all.

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This strange product from Greenhouse is worth talking about, if only so I could share that headline with you. In case you're wondering, the pig is in soft silicon... to reproduce the texture of a real pig. After that news, you won't care these weird 'phones have a 20Hz to 20kHz frequency range, multi-sized silicon earbuds and 89cm cable with a gold-plated plug. The GC-ERC-PIG's are available soon in pink black or white for just US$11, but that's in Japan, pigheadphone fans. [AV Watch]

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We've been talking about this phone for a while, but today Motorola and Kodak officially spilled the beans. As we thought, the ZN5's a phone that's as much camera as phone, with a 5-megapixel Kodak unit on its back. This is quick-launched by sliding the lens cover, and has a Xenon flash, auto-focus and even auto-stitches panorama shots. The phone itself has CrystalTalk for high sound quality, Bluetooth, full browser and Wi-Fi (for photo transfers, and the web.) Due out in China in July at first, then globally through '08. Press release below.

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As a general rule, television ads suck. They're badly written, boring and distract you from what you want to be enjoying. That's why so many people now download TV shows from the internet.

But every so often, you get an ad that's actually entertaining. Like the BigPond broadband ad about the Great Wall of China. I actually laughed out loud when I first saw it (although subsequent viewings have taken the edge off it).

However, as good as this ad is, I can't say I'm convinced by the prospect of Telstra developing a sitcom around it, which is exactly what could be happening according to the Australian.

The idea for a sitcom has been pitched at Telstra, along with interactive games and other engaging experiences to try and promote their broadband offering. Both ideas would revolve around the father and son featured in the original ad.

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For those of us who love to give our dolls more realistic props to play with, toy maker IxTEE Productions is putting out a series of 1:6 scaled guns that do everything from lighting up to shooting darts to squirting water.

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Those of you need Firefox 3 on the go can now get a portable USB edition of the browser from PortableApps.com. The download lets you launch Firefox from your USB and lets you bring all your extensions and bookmarks with you while making sure that the computer you're using doesn't end up saving your info. The file is 8MB and free (though, as with all open source stuff, I'm sure the folks at PortableApps would love it if you threw them a few bucks). [Portable Apps]

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Pentagon gadget lab DARPA has just earmarked US$6.7 million to develop "brain-wave binoculars." Electrodes placed on the user's scalp records electrical brain activity in an attempt to use the cranium's unrivaled ability to spot patterns. With time, the binoculars can learn to identify objects that would normally pique the user's interest and direct them towards it. The binoculars are supposed to help soldiers out in the field by pointing out tanks or enemy combatants that they may have seen, but not noticed.

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If reports from the Financial Review are correct, we'll soon be able to play with our very own peanut controller when TiVo launches in Australia in mid-July.

Aside from the obvious dilemma of where to spend your money (there's some new phone launching on July 11, remember?), the mid-July timeframe does work with the previous announcements that Channel 7 made about it launching before the Olympics.

The box itself is likely to cost somewhere around the $700 mark, which isn't exactly cheap for a DVR. Seven are likely to promote the box's superior EPG functionality in order to justify that price, although we'll wait to see how it's implemented ourselves before we recommend on whether you should spend the money.

The other interesting point made in the Fin's article is that Harvey Norman are likely to have an exclusive distribution arrangement for 3 months, before it will be available in JB Hi-Fi and Dick Smith's shops.

I'm sure there are important factors influencing that decision, like scratching the backs of old mates and heavy advertisers, but I think Channel 7 may be overestimating TiVo's appeal in Australia. Personally - I'm very intrigued, but I would need to see some obvious advantages in TiVo's local implementation before I dropped 700 big ones. Especially now that Foxtel's iQ2 is on the market.

UPDATE: Pete Blasina over at GadgetGuy.com.au is reporting that the launch date is officially July 15. Considering his relationship with Channel 7, I reckon this is pretty much guaranteed.

[MIS Australia and GadgetGuy]

"It's even faster than the old iPhone G3."

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The Line is a funky furniture system that uses a single unbroken line of metal to create an entire home furniture set--including a lamp, a work table, a hanger, a bookshelf, a wine rack, a CD rack and a TV unit. Made by Aykut Erol, the system is supposed to "extend infinitely with a single line regenerating itself." I'm not sure how much I want my home to look like it was created out of a giant Etch-a-Sketch, but the resulting pieces are kind of cool to peruse. [Yanko Design]

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The newest Asus Eee PC—the 10.2" Eee 1000—was recently dissected by Tweaktown. There's not a ton of news to come out of the autopsy, but we got this pretty picture, and it was confirmed that the Eee 1000 uses stock components just begging to be replaced, like its 2.5" 40GB or 80GB 5400RPM hard drive. We might suggest the world's highest capacity laptop drive for the job, the 320GB Western Digital Scorpio Black? It'll only cost about half again what that Eee 1000 set you back. [Tweaktown via CrunchGear]

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Glastonbury Festival goers won't have to worry about not having enough juice in their mobile phones, thanks to U.K. mobile company Orange's green mobile phone charging stations. The freestanding tentpods draw their electricity from a wind generator and solar panels. With a peak power of 1Kw, the pod can charge up to 100 mobile phones per hour and stores unused energy in a battery bank. The tent also contains a fully functional weather station and a nifty panel that keeps track of power generated and consumed throughout the festival.

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The robot tinkerers over at Crabfu have made a remote-controlled tortoise that ambles around using 4 sub-micro servos controlled by a 4 channel radio system. Each leg is tied to an independent channel and axis, which means the robot moves through some serious thumb twiddling action. Besides proving that it could move forwards and backwards and all around, Crabfu also put the mechanical hero in a half shell through the rigid "Does it annoy the cat?" test. Unfortunately, it seems like this green machine has nothing on its real life counterpart:

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Fans of retro-styled poster art and Pixar films can now buy Eric Tan's 1950s throwback WALL-E prints. The WALL-E designs, which include pictures of Wall-E and Eve next to slogans such as "The Future is NOW!" were previously handed out as promotional postcards at the San Diego Comic Con 2007. These new poster-size versions measure 33 by 48 cms and cost US$165 unframed.

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RIM is upgrading its BlackBerry Internet Service in anticipation for the next-gen of BlackBerry devices, and chief amongst the host of upgrades is the inclusion of native HTML email support - something users have been asking for since the dawn of the crackberry age. Finally, I will be able to expect the same psuedo-inspirational, gif-laden emails my parents already forward to me from all of my BlackBerry addict friends. I'm psyched. Version 2.5 of the BIS will also include OTA upgrades, calender improvements and several other as yet unnamed features. [Boy Genius Report]

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I have no clue how I missed this great hack from earlier in the year, but AcidMods has released a tutorial on modding an Xbox 360 controller to do all sorts of neat, cheatie stuff--like adding rapid fire to pistols in Call of Duty--through programmable macros. But since I know that you have almost no interest in picking up that soldering gun, you can just watch this video to appreciate what hours of hard work can produce. [AcidMods via HackedGadgets]

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Up until a few years ago, any lengthy feature on Bill Gates usually elicited a fair amount of words on the Gates-Jobs rivalry. The two tech behemoths were always pitted head-to-head, with the writer pulling together some conclusion on how the soon-retiring Microsoftie was the better businessman, while iMan had a clearer vision of how technology could be both beautiful and functional. But of all the profiles I have read during my exhaustive research of this feature, not one of them mentioned what is without doubt the most important bit to me: sexiness. Before Gates leaves Microsoft full time in little more than a week, we should do one more comparo of the two and explore who is hotter-to-trot. Is it Ladies Love Cool Jobs for the cutie from Cupertino, or does the Redmond romeo just shade it?

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Mmmm. The self-promotional social lies of one couple manifested in cream and sugar. The hearted ethernet cord and Starbucks cups are particularly charming touches. But it would have been best if the groom had fessed up to his second family in Guam. [MAKE]