As mentioned in the liveblog, Philips has stumped up a new home theatre system that's as small, and almost as round as, a soccer ball—for those of us bored of boring, standard rectangular entertainment gadgets. Though it's tiny, it fits in an iPod dock, a five-channel amp, six speakers and a subwoofer built into the base. It must be pretty cramped inside, since it's just 27cm across, and only 17cm high. The DVD player can cope with DivX, MPEG-4 and WMV, and upscales to 1080p over HDMI and the CD player can read MP3 discs, and it's got USB-in. If that's whetted your appetite, you'll have to wait as there's no info yet on timing or price. But the press release is below.

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It's a rule as old as time: tell a bunch of geeks they can't do something, and they will find a way. Any way. Thus the Flash-based Phweet trick to get around Aircell and American Airlines' ban on VoIP using their Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi service. Now, Aircell has responded with a light wrist-slapping statement.

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While Wi-Fi is nice, what mini-notebooks need to reach their potential (and be more functional than the average smartphone) is 3G data. The LG X110 appears to be a pretty standard 8.9" mini-note, but it's packing HSDPA so you can browse [fill in crude meme of choice] almost anywhere. In addition to the wireless data, it's got the 1.6GHz Atom, 1GB of RAM and integrated webcam that we know so well, along with a 160GB hard drive. The LG X110 arrives in Europe this October for a pretty reasonable €399/US$589. [Register Hardware]

We are at the Philips press conference and it has started with... a Senseo coffee machine that can make latte macchiatos? Apparently, the new home appliances part of IFA is big. But there's more, here comes their first TV, called Essence.

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Sharp showed off an impressively anorexic concept display at IFA last year, and this year they've turned it into production reality. In 52- and 65-inch sizes, the Sharp XS1 LCD TV is a hair less than an inch thick (23mm 0r .9 inches) and displays 1080p, 100Hz (this is Europe) and a contrast ratio of 10,000:1. Slated for release in the UK this October, we still don't know the price and/or whether or not chubby Americans will be allowed to be seen in the same room with such a svelte TV.

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So after much to-ing and fro-ing, it looks like BlackBerry Storms are BlackBerry Thunders ("...and violets are blue, I'm schizophrenic, and so am I" as a schoolyard song used to go.) The same device will bear two names: Storm for Verizon, Thunder for others like Rogers and Vodafone. It seems like there'll be an 8GB microSD card along with the phone, which has a 3.5mm headset jack, and pre-installed SIM card, though the box suggests there's no Wi-Fi. [Engadgetmobile via BoyGeniusReport]

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Another First today has been the Sony Z4500 with 200Hz Motionflow technology, which uses a special processor to interpolate frames from the original source, delivering 200 frames per second for ultra-smooth, I-wanna-rub-my-butt-against-a-giant-english-pudding smooth video action. I saw the demo, right next to a normal 100Hz TV and the difference was extreme, even for a half-blind bat like me.

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We just saw the DMP-BD50 a few months back, but now at IFA Panasonic has made official two new BD-Live 2.0-compatible players, the BD35 and BD55. The only discernible difference between the two, at the moment, is the BD55 supports analogue 7.1 channel audio output. On top of that, they both share a slimmed-down chassis (just 4.9 cm high for the BD35, 5.5 cm for the 55), Uniphier image processor just like in the BD50, SD-slots, all the audio formats you would expect, and of course Blu-ray profile 2.0. No pricing or availability for the US yet. Check out a full spec chart comparison after the jump.

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I just had a hands-on and ears-on and pants-in with the Sony KDL-40ZX1, which I declare as the first official superdupercool product to come out at IFA 2008. The 9.9mm screen picture quality is really amazing, crisp, and ultra-light. The design, while it's not OLED thin, is the best I've seen on any TV so far, sleek, simple, and absolutely lickable. The best thing, however, is that this is not a prototype but a real product. The lighting technology is smart and surprisingly effective. Updated with expected price.

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Toshiba's new Regza ZF HDTVs don't upscale your DVDs to HD resolution with any old chipset or engine: they do it with a Cell-processor based system. Bonkers! It's the first TV to upscale with a Cell, and according to its European executive vice president, Toshiba's future "does not involve Blu-ray disc" but will use this sort of tech to deliver high-res imagery. The upscaling system uses the Cell for some advanced image-processing techniques, creating interpolated pixels to give the final image "near-HD" quality. The sets will also have Active Vision M100 100Hz HD picture processing, 178-degree viewing angle, 30,000:1 contrast ratio and 10-bit processing. The ZF TVs will be in 40- and 46-inch sizes, the 40-inch out now with pricing of around US$2,390, the 46-pricing and availability is not announced yet. [Toshiba.co.uk and Toshiba.de-via Google translate.]

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Sony's S-series Walkman is their new high-end digital audio player that is not only their slimmest player to date, but has active noise cancellation and the SensMe music suggestion engine. Sony bundled 3.5mm EX headphones with the S-series players, as well as a pass through cable that connects to an in-flight entertainment system and uses the noise cancelling capability of the Walkman. In addition Sony released their midrange E-series and entry-level B-series Walkman players.

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As we saw in the Sony IFA 2008 Liveblog, these new Sony Cybershot digital 10.1 megapixel cameras also shoot HD video (720p, though that's not mentioned in the press release.) The T500 has a Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens with 5x optical zoom, 3.5-inch touchscreen, eight-person face tracking, and something called "Double Anti-blur" technology which combines high sensitivity (for fast shutter times) with optical image-shake reduction. It can also connect directly to your HDTV and do slideshows, music and video shows without needing a PC. It's due October, price info still to be announced. Press release below.

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Hookai. I'm lining up to get into Sony's press conference. They have some things under wraps, including a mega-TV with super-smooth video action and what could be some Walkmen. Hmmm, I love the smell of new plastic in the morning. More info and photos following up shortly. Keep watching this space.

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Testing your blood glucose levels if you're a diabetes sufferer may not mean hauling around large-ish devices now that the True2Go from Home Diagnostics has won FDA approval. It's the world's smallest, "about the size of a quarter"... it's just about the same size as an iPod shuffle. It's small enough to twist "on to a vial of test strips so diabetics can better manage their diabetes with the convenience of on-the-go testing," which is darn convenient, and it uses 0.5 microliters of blood and has a test memory display. No word on pricing or release timings yet. [Medgadget]

It's been a long while since we mentioned Philips range of Pronto home-control remote systems, but Philips hasn't forgotten them: it's been making the mega-remotes even more mega with the upcoming TSU9800. With a bigger touchscreen (6.4-inches, folks), and an dock that also does ambient lighting, it can also be mounted on the wall of your swanky Wi-Fi-enabled remote-controlled house to let you switch on "audio/video servers" for which it gives "feedback information such as album/DVD art and song information." Philips has also updated the software used to program the remote through a PC, and now ProntoEdit Professional 2.0 lets you drag and drop design your configurations and user interfaces for the 9800. Swish indeed: which is why it's due to cost US$2,400 when it's out in September. Press release below.

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As well as crazy thinness, Sony's other upcoming TV releases include crazy contrast: one million to one. The XR1 series of Bravia's will be 1920 x 1080 pixel full-HD models, featuring tri-colour RGB LED backlighting for an improved colour gamut, and dynamic switching backlighting tech to generate that enormous contrast ratio (it's about 3,000:1 in static mode.) There's a 10-bit Bravia 2 Engine processing the images inside, with separate algorithms for SD and HD picture sources, 120Hz Motionflow tech to improve smoothness, the usual range of connectors plus an extra USB port for connecting digital cameras. The XR1 will be in 46- and 55-inch sizes, for around US$5,500 and US$6,800, due October 10 in Japan at first. [AVWatch]

Like a regular Squeezebox, the Squeezebox Boom streams music from a PC or internet radio station over 802.11g. Unlike the classic, it has a pair of 3/4-inch soft dome tweeters and 30inch woofers biamped with 30 watts of juice.

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Sony Japan's ZX1 series 40-inch display is only 9.9mm thick at its narrowest, and 11.8kg. The display itself has only 1 HDMI port, while a wireless box can send the 120Hz, 1080p display up to 1080i images over a 5GHz channel many suspect is WHDM. That external port box will have 3 HDMI, 2 component, s-video, VGA, and even USB, mouse, and LAN port. All menus will be driven through an XMB Playstation-style crossmedia interface. Check out our hands-on of the skinny TV at IFA here. [Sony JP via Sony Insider]

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The Gadget: JBL's On Stage IIIP, which plays nicely with your iPhone

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Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Three's latest mobile content offering isn't that they're taking episodes of TV shows and shortening them for mobile phone viewing, but the TV shows that they've selected to offer.

I mean, there are lots of great 1/2 hour TV shows out there that would benefit from being made into Minisodes. Who's the Boss, The Young and the Restless and The Partridge Family aren't exactly what springs to mind, although I do have a soft spot for Married With Children.

The minisodes are cut back to between four and six minutes long, which make them perfect for watching on the go. So long as you're prepared to sacrifice a little plot, character development and entertainment, that is.

The good news is that the minisodes are free for 3 customers, so they probably are a good way of killing time while you wait for the train or bus. It's only available in their 3G network areas though, which is a good thing considering their 2G roaming costs.

[Three]

Everyone's excited about Nikon's new D90 DSLR. Well, everybody except Canon fanboys, that is. And it makes sense - it's the first DSLR that lets you record video, after all. If you're hanging out for some Australian info, the price of the body-only kit will be $1,549, with lens kits likely to cost a few hundred dollars more when they launch mid to late September.

But the other piece of exciting news is that in addition to launching the D90 (and a new 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED VR lens for $479), Nikon are also dropping the price off a heap of their current lenses, which could be particularly useful for some creative videos.

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From what the guys in the US were saying, the Palm Treo Pro is a handy little phone. Sure, it runs Windows Mobile, but that's not all bad, right? Right?

Anyway, in case you were wondering what kind of Palm Treo Pro love you could expect in Australia (and I know that's exactly what you were thinking), know that the new smartphone is available exclusively through Telstra, complete with customised BigPond icons and everything.

It will hit shelves late September (which means you'll probably forget all about it by the time it's released) for an RRP of $929. "Whoa!" I hear you exclaim. "That's a bit pricey!". Well, it will also be available on a range of plans, including $0 up front on an $80 monthly contract for 2 years. As you'd expect, Telstra's data charges will still apply.

[Palm]

A particularly optimistic design firm in Dubai called Timelinks has proposed designs for the Ziggurat, a complete city to be layered inside of a massive pyramid that could serve as home for a million people at a time. Timelinks is currently seeking patents for a variety of technologies that would make such a building possible, including a three axis public transportation system that would run residents up, through and across the pyramid. They've also claimed that with a hybrid wind, solar and steam power the Ziggurat would be able to meet its own power needs, and that there would be enough room to allow for some minor agriculture in designated "green spaces."

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Touchkit, a open source (software and hardware) multitouch kit designed by NOR_/D, has been announced at a US$1580 price point, or roughly 1/8th the cost of Microsoft's Surface table. That's not to say that the TouchKit is equivalent or even necessarily a competitor to Microsoft's offering, but it is theoretically capable of many of the same flashy tricks. The system must be hooked up to a separate computer, and also requires an external projector. As you can see in the video, there's not exactly a whole lot it can do out of the box, but the open source platform can be tweaked by anyone with a little knowledge of C++. Check out the gallery of the hardware and potential installations are their site. [Gizmag]

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The difference between what I would like to look at and what I would like to use makes for a a gap wider than the Grand Canyon, in this case. One button, no tactile feedback and no screen make this VOIP phone prototype little more than an electronic lollipop. But my desire to lick one increases with every glance. [e-Nova via Yanko and BBG]

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In what is apparently an advertisement for a Russian mobile internet provider, a creative young HSDPA fan experiments with his modem in ways some might frown upon. The ad doesn't follow the viral convention of surprising viewers with an unlikely result following from normal circumstances, because the setup - a violent turtle rape - is weirder than the outcome. The ad raises some serious questions: was this guy just dealing with a captured Georgian spy turtle in accordance with the Russian Uniform Code of Military Justice? Does the Geneva Convention cover terrapins? Did he get any reception? Is the turtle USB 2.0 compatible, or just 1.1? Most importantly, having finally broached the taboo subject of turtle penetration, whither viral advertising? [English Russia]

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Pioneer's Kuro plasma range has long been deemed the pinnacle of picture quality, but while every other TV manufacturer is pumping out the flat panels with new releases every few months, Pioneer has been disconcertingly quiet. Until now.

They've just announced the release of their first 9th Gen Kuro in Australia. 1080p resolution, blacker blacks than you've ever dreamed of, and because it's 9th Gen, all the panels are still made by Pioneer. The company will happily tell you it's the best display they've ever made, as they hand you the price tag of $10,999. And let's hope that you realise before you hand over your cash that this isn't actually a TV - there's no tuner inside. Instead it's a monitor, with plenty of connections for external TV boxes to feed HD signals to the panel via HDMI.

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Although Wilson tested the Kindle in bed, on the toilet, I had the chance to use it on vacation and found myself reading a great deal more than I usually do. Unlike regular books, which cause me to fall asleep pretty readily after less than 50 pages, I'd finish about 300 pages in a stretch, with no eyestrain in dark rooms or in the sun. I suppose it felt a lot more like reading on a computer or handheld. Bezos set out to build something better to read than a book, and by vacationing standards, I think he's easily met that goal on his first try. That's my quirky experience, at least, being the type of person who hates stockpiling physical media of any sort. Of course, I found lots of other things I liked and disliked about specific to using a Kindle on vacation.

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