Sony have a pretty awesome Father's Day promotion happening for the next week or so where you can pick up a PSP (The Slim and Lite version, not the new 3000 model) for just $35 when you buy selected Sony products from one of their 10 Sony Centre stores around Australia.

What's more, the money all goes to the Sony Foundation, helping developmentally delayed children.

Of course, you'll need to spend some dollars on Sony gear to be eligible - it's valid with selected Home Theatre or Receiver products as well as the TG1 Handycam. But it's still well-worth considering heading into a Sony Centre store if you're in the market for some home theatre kit from Sony, not just to get a cheap PSP, but to help some kids while you're doing it.

[Sony]

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Forget about big screen TVs and surround sound speakers - the real heart of any home theatre setup is the universal remote. If you've never experienced the joy of pressing one button to turn on all the necessary components and select the appropriate inputs, ShoppingSquare has some great deals on Logitech universal remotes.

The Harmony 785, which RRPs for $400, is yours for under $150, while the Harmony One can be yours for $270. Rounding out the offers, you can pick up the Harmony 1000i for $280, down from $700.

To top it all off, they're offering shipping for just $1. If you ever want to own a home theatre setup, this is probably as good a deal as you're ever going to get on a decent universal remote. Sure, they won't do the whole home automation thing, but for this price, could you really expect it?

[ShoppingSquare - Thanks Joel!]

My personal experiences with Telco's customer service departments (or any company's customer service departments, for that matter) aren't generally positive. I've found that I invariably spend at least half an hour waiting on hold (to "music" that narrowly beats the sound of a strangled cat for entertainment value) to talk to someone about a simple problem, and when somebody finally answers the phone, they're not actually in Australia at all, or have a strong grasp of the English language.

And somehow I don't think that Telstra's move to launch a customer service centre in Second Life is going to help the situation. While offering online customer support is admirable, I have to ask the question: Does anybody actually use Second Life anymore?

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We knew it was coming, but we just received official word that Pleo has launched in Australia.

The robotic dinosaur will set you back $449 from Harvey Norman or Domayne, or you can pick one up online from Nexttech. You can also pick up an additional battery pack for $49 if you want longer periods of playtime with your prehistoric pet.

Now, how long until we start being flooded with YouTube videos of wanton Pleo destruction by Australians? Not long enough...

Back in 2006, Oscar Diös heard there was a dead Boeing 747-200 built in 1976 on one of the runways at Arlanda Airport, the largest international airport in Sweden, north of Stockholm. It was once owned by a Swedish company called Transjet, who used it to fly muslim pilgrims to Mecca, as well as doing charter flights around the world until it was grounded for "organisational problems" in 2002. The noble Jumbo was in a bad state, but Oscar saw the possibilities right away. Probably after way too many glasses of akvavit that day, Diös thought he had the perfect idea: to buy the 747 and convert it into a low-cost hotel.

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One of things that always bugged me about the Xbox 360 was that after spending a heap of cash on the console, you'd still need to fork out another $170 just so you could get online wirelessly without running an Ethernet cable through the house. Fortunately, Microsoft have come to their sense and dropped the price of many of its peripherals - including the wireless network adapter. Now you can play 360 over your home wireless network for just... $150. That's right, it's a saving of $20!

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Believe it or not, this beautiful Gorenje fridge is an official Apple-licensed Made for iPod refrigerator. And believe it or not, it's not just a speaker and a dock glued to a glossy black fridge: You can actually control the fridge itself using your iPod touch or iPhone using an application called iGorenje. The coolness doesn't stop there, because iGorenje can control all kinds of Gorenje appliances--from the washing machine to the oven.

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It's a long weekend over in the US, and the team has given themselves a bit of a break from their usual weekend post-a-thon. I love it, because it means less work for me, but it also makes for a shorter wrap:
Samsung X360 Laptop is Skinny, Marches into MacBook Air, Lenovo X300 Territory
As Jesus says: No OS X for me means no sale.

Wireless Roaming Wi-Fi 802.11r Standard Beats 11n to Completion
802.11r? Well that was unexpected.

Religious Group Now Protesting Online Porn in the Sky While God Smiles Suspiciously
Religious fanatics - who needs them?

Samsung Ultrathin TV Looks Like Giant iPhone 3G
I definitely want one of these....

Once upon a time I wanted to be a fighter pilot, which is probably why I write so much about the biggest and baddest machines ever. My feeling then and now is that there's nothing that can match the thrill of flying one of the fastest, most expensive gadgets in the world almost at ground level through a desert canyon. Exactly like this french Mirage pilot does in this awesome video, which has Johnny Cash singing I've Been Everywhere as a extra.

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I groped and used the LG X110 netbook for some time here at IFA. As Mark pointed out, this is the first netbook where "net" actually means something else: direct 3G network access without additions.

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