A day before we expected, Sony's 24.6-megapixel full frame DSLR, the a900, just quietly got official. Shockingly, while it doesn't touch the US$2000 mark, it slides in at just US$3000. Billed as rocking the world's highest resolution 35mm CMOS sensor, it's the first full-framer to use in-body image stabilisation (Sony's SOP). Unfortunately, as DP Review's sample gallery makes clear, all those pixels make for a touch of noise, especially compared to Nikon's D700.

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If this press event invite is any indication, that's the way things are looking. The date is set for October 2, and it all goes down at the Bookmark Lounge of the Library Hotel here in New York. Hmm, there couldn't be any book connotation to all of that, could there? On this day of press events, it seems like Sony's jumping into the fray as well to update their year-old Reader hardware before Xmas. We'll keep you posted. [Sony Reader]

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AppleInsider claims to have two independent sources confirming identical information about upcoming Apple iPod refreshes. The biggest overhaul appears to be on the iPod nano, which would explain all of the rumours we've seen on the device. It will come in nine colours and be the first non-touch iPod to support a motion/orientation sensor.

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We know the LHC won't end the world, but in an amusing note before its big switch-on tomorrow Stephen Hawking (he of the physics brain the size of a planet) has admitted he's got a US$100 bet that the machine won't succeed in one of its big goals: finding the very mysterious Higgs boson.

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We have received these two images of the iPod nano showing a new interface. They look like Apple's own product illustrations and the iPod itself looks like the unconfirmed leaked picture, but of course we don't know if they are real or not. They are so polished and we like them so much that we hope they are real, but for now, they are just a couple of images out of nowhere. Check the playback screen after the jump and tell us what you think.

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We've already seen phones like the HTC Touch Diamond and Touch Pro, but according to some legit-looking internal documentation, the HTC Opal is the official sequel to the original HTC Touch. Word has it that the Opal will ship with the 3D TouchFLO interface we've seen in the latest HTC products (which makes sense), but unfortunately, the spec sheet dated from July shows that the Opal still lacks 3G and features the same 200MHz processor as its predecessor.

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Hoo-kai. We are almost there. The usual suspects are voicing their last minute, most obvious predictions for what is looking like the most boring event in Apple's history ever. At least, since Gil Amelio decided to give an exclusive interview to The Minnesota Carpets Quarterly Journal on the new flooring at One Infinite Loop. New colours, roomier iPod nano this, updated iPod touch that, flashy iTunes visualiser that other thing... Hereto we present you with the things that we think are going to happen today for sure, straight from our Rumour-a-thing machine. Pick yours and vote in our Special Giz Event "Let's Poll!" Poll:

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It took 10 months since we showed you the N95 R/C car hack, but now someone's done the inevitable thing and made an iPhone version. The DIY hack is pretty inventive: the iPhone's Wi-Fi link is used to send data to a PC, where some software sends serial data to an Arduino board which then adjusts the original R/C box for the toy car. Convoluted, but neat: the tilt-to-turn feature being priceless. There're some pretty good guidelines at the project page if you're in the mood for some DIY gadget fun, and I'd just like to point out that the iPhone has 3D accelerometers, which might be fun for aircraft... [Project via Hacknmod]

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Sony's just come up with the official word on its new G705 slider handset, and it's not a bad looking gizmo at all. There's a 2.4 inch TFT with auto-rotation, A-GPS, DLNA, quad-band GSM and AGPS, Bluetooth 2.0, FM radio, 3.2-megapixel camera with flash and a Java-based OS. The phone's also got a full HTML browser, Exchange ActiveSync for email, a Google shortcut key for Google Maps and suchlike, and YouTube viewing and direct upload. Tri-band HSDPA gives it "turbo 3G speeds," according to Sony Ericsson's global product marketing manager, which is a little misleading to say the least, but there is an interesting G705u version which is SE's first UMA-enabled phone... though it's a UK-only edition. The US version is expected early 2009, pricing info still to be decided. [Softpedia]

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Cycling and listening to an iPod can be pretty dangerous as the music masks the road sounds, and fiddling with the controls can have you veering all over place: iBikeConsole is designed to help with some of that. It's a handlebar iPod nano mount that houses your PMP in a shock and rain-proof case, and comes with remote controls you mount near to the grip locations so you don't have to move your hands far. Neat... and it even functions as a bike computer, tracking your ride time, speed and distance and so on. Available now for US$76. [Product page via UberGizmo]

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Mixing suction-cups with the chance of a high-speed death: sounds like fun, and exactly what designer Robert Nightingale has come up with in his "Hitch" concept. It's a smidge like the free-ride skateboard Kouriers in Snow Crash and a smidge like bad building-climbing gear from B-movies. The idea of Hitch is simply to sucker onto a vehicle that's about to move off, using the belt and hand suction cups, thereby gaining yourself a free journey. But Robert also suggests aircraft hangers as a good hitchhiking location, which I'm pretty certain is a one-way ticket to a Darwin Award. [Yanko Design]

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Here is what the clunky Amazon Kindle should have been since the beginning: a simple, ultra-sleek full-page 8.5-inch by 11-inch electronic book and newspaper reader with a flexible plastic touchscreen, Wi-Fi connectivity, and the ability to read regular Office documents without conversion of any kind. As we said yesterday, Plastic Logic showed it at the Demo Fall 08 conference in San Diego. Seeing it up close and on its side makes me want to have one. Badly.

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We brought you a three new Vaios last week, but Sony Japan seems to be in the mood to tweak much of the rest of its Vaio line of laptops and desktops. There are new machines in the A-series, C-series, L-series and R-series. The RT50 is aimed at professional users, labelled "photo edition," with an anti-glare screen and a screen shield. CS60B is a 14.1-inch laptop in numerous colours and 802.11n Wi-Fi, and the LJ53B is one of Sony's stylish desktop all-in-one media-players. But the AW70 and AW50 are the most interesting: monster, 18.4-inch powerful laptops with Blu-ray burners and HDMI-out, designed as desktop replacements.

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LG's VX9600 has finally gotten the go-ahead from the FCC and may appear on Verizon shelves everywhere soon. Though information is scarce, the phone will have Bluetooth, an MP3 player, a 2 megapixel camera and a 3-inch 480x240 pixel TFT touchscreen. Verizon is allegedly planning to market it as a lower-end, and thus cheaper, version of its iPhone contender, the Dare. Neither company has officially announced the phone yet so no word on pricing or availability. [Phone Arena]

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I have an allergy to all gimmicky USB things, but these USB Halloween Pumpkin LED lights are actually cubicle-worthy, especially seeing how they all look with the lights off. Unfortunately, the US$13 8-pumpkin lights package has some problems.

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Following on the heels of its main rival Nokia, Sony Ericsson's allegedly also planning an unlimited music downloading service for its Walkman-branded mobile phones. According to the Financial Times, Sony Ericsson is in discussions with all major labels about a rival tunes subscription service.

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News junkies rejoice! Google has begun scanning microfilm from various newspapers' historic archives to make them searchable online, further pushing libraries towards obsolescence (just kidding, I think). The searches can be had first through Google News, and will eventually be available on every papers' own web site. Much like its book project, Google will shoulder the cost of digitising archives, though it'll avoid the embarrassing legal snafu's of yesteryear by actually asking permission to scan this time around. [NYTimes]

In an attempt to one-up Verizon's FiOS, AT&T has finally rolled out a new software update for its U-verse service that'll let subscribers watch recorded shows on up to eight different TV sets. FiOS only offers multiroom DVR for seven different televisions currently. The feature is already available in San Francisco an nearby subscriber cities, but ought to be rolled out to the rest of the Bay Area this week. While I'm sure this is a welcome change for anyone who's been using U-Verse, I doubt being able to DVR on one extra set will help AT&T gain the ground it so desperately craves. [Wall Street Journal]

Here's a challenge to hackers everywhere if I've ever heard one--a company named Verayo claims to have created an RFID chip that's completely unclonable thanks to a type of electronic DNA technology called Physical Unclonable Functions (PUF). Unlike basic passive RFID chips, where data can be easily copied from one chip to another, Verayo's PUF-fy RFID chips use a series of challenge-and-response pairs to make counterfeiting nigh impossible (or so they say.)

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The official Zune 3.0 details we saw earlier today are now visible in video form, showing off purchasing from FM, Wi-Fi music store and channels, which recommends music to you based on what you already listen to. Three more clips where this one came from. [MSN Video]

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Sick and tired of never getting even close to the 10 to 12 hours of battery life advertised by PC companies on your laptop? Sony hears you, and is taking pains to improve at least one thing about their power packs. No, not the overheating factor, though they say they've got that somewhat under control now, honest! The company recently told PC Authority that they would be switching to a more realistic measurement for advertising their notebook battery figures. Yay?

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In case Asus' US$100 price drop in July just wasn't enough to make up your mind on whether to spring for a new Eee PC 1000H, the mini-marvel's gotten even cheaper now. Amazon is selling an 80GB, XP-equipped 1000H for just US$450. Mwave also has several in stock for either US$450 (while supplies last) or, if you're willing to go for an open box product, an almost criminal US$359. [Amazon and mwave via Liliputing]

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Who in the hell do Google think they are? The goddamn Dharma Initiative? Slashdot readers dug up this 2007 patent for a server farm system, which uses wave power buoys to run a bunch of machines on the boat they're attached to. Though somewhat similar to one of the stations on LOST, this patent's purpose is much less alluring, even if it has a cooling system that uses sea water. I mean, hosting a bunch of binary data crunchers isn't nearly as cool as a station used for discharging electromagnetic buildup, or time travel or a zoo. But hey, you gotta start somewhere, right? [SlashDot via Technovelgy via The Earth Times via EcoGeek]

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Sony have sent out media invitations to an upcoming showcase of their new products called UCHI. While our non-Japanese speaking readers may think that sounds like a rare form of noodle found in dodgy chinese restaurants, our Japanese-speaking readers will (correctly) know that uchi is the Japanese word for "home" or "inside".

Sony promises that UCHI will be a "visionary display of tech-fused design combined with spectacular architecture", which sounds like it could be a pretty unique way of checking out their latest range of upcoming products.

The event's going to be hosted by Sony Australia MD Carl Rose and begins on September 23.

For those of you who remember last year's Experience More event, you'll know that Sony generally put on a good spread of gadgets this time of the year, so we'll be expecting some great things.

But even more importantly, stay tuned for your chance to win exclusive tickets to experience UCHI for yourself, with the chance to party with some of Sony BMG's hottest new artists.

Though it's no huge shock to find out what's behind Esquire's recent E-Ink cover, it's always fun to look at the postmortem pics. Phil over at MAKE took the magazine cover apart, and in addition to the E-Ink display, found lithium cells, printed circuit boards, and flash-programmable microcontrollers, which could be partially hacked or reprogrammed.

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Sony Launches 'Designed for Walkman' Branding, World Wonders Why
If only we could have a truly revolutionary Walkman to go with this, I'd be happy.

Electronic Newspapers Get Closer: Plastic Logic E-Newspaper To Be Unveiled
My question - will this be the end or the saviour of newspapers?

PlayStation Home Impressions (Verdict: Needs Content)
Well, no surprises there. The real potential for Home is in its potential for gaming meetups.

Next Version of Windows Home Server May Include 'Time Machine' Type of UI
Another case of "Anything Apple can do, Microsoft can do better as well?

Intel 80GB Solid-State Drives Get Official (and High) Price Tag, Are Blazing Fast
Yay! More Flash memory!

We took a trip down to Uniqlo to see how the American invasion of their Wakamaru shopping robot was faring. Not so well. Bewildered by the bustling crowd scurrying around against booming techno mu