Just about a month after launching TV shows in high def on iTunes with NBC leading the charge, iTunes now offers shows in HD from every major network: ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC. So pretty much every major primetime show that matters is now in HD on iTunes, which is great if you don't wanna settle for Hulu.

AU: Note that in Australia, we still don't have HD TV shows, and probably won't until our broadband situation improves...

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Impress got the new Sony PSP 3000 and decided to disassemble it to see if it was really running thanks to little people from China inside--turning little lightbulbs on an off very quickly--or maybe it was actually a living mammal--like Lego minifigs and gummy bears--full of real brains, cartilaginous tissue, and blood vessels. Unfortunately, their extensive gallery shows it's full of the usual circuits, but has a lot of little re-designed details.

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Mobile reception sucks an elephant dong at John McCain's Arizona ranch. Or it did, until Cindy McCain "embarked on an expensive public process" for Verizon Wireless to build a permanent cell tower at their ranch, reports the Washington Post. That got scrapped, but Verizon did see fit to "navigate a lengthy county regulatory process that hit a snag on environmental concerns" in order to get the McCains setup with at least a portable tower, absolutely free of charge, after a Secret Service request. AT&T caught word of this, and brought in one of their own towers, also free. Wouldn't ya know, there's a laundry list of ethical concerns? Update: Verizon has responded to the Post's story, their statement below.

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Just after the dust finished settling on Apple's controversial admission that the iPhone has a remotely activated kill switch for applications, Google has plainly stated in their Android Market terms of service that they've got one too. Like Apple's solution, Google's remote kill switch is ostensibly intended to protect users in cases of malicious apps or privacy violations, but will undoubtedly draw fire from users who want — and in the case of Android were pretty much promised — ultimate control over what applications they keep on their phones.

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HP does pretty well for itself nowadays, consistently leading the market in notebook sales. According to the Wall Street Journal, though, they want to diversify. A lot. In a scattershot semi-announcement, the company said it is working in three new directions. Long-rumoured touchscreen notebooks, likely to feature HP's second-gen TouchSmart interface, are due before the holidays. In addition, HP is planning to build it's own 10-inch netbook this year, joining the ranks of just about every other company that has made a computer, ever. Buried at the bottom of the article, though, is a potential bombshell: a new touchscreen phone.

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Prospects were starting to look pretty grim for the venerable Hubble telescope. Following a communications breakdown, the Hubble team postponed their scheduled repair mission from October 14th until this coming February, at the earliest. Until then, the Hubble's usable data transmission abilities would depend on one thing: the successfully booting of a 486 backup system, last powered on before the Hubble Launch over 18 years ago. Well, the Hubble team has just reported that the dusty old computer seems like it's working just fine.

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Apparently emboldened by a minor, years-old success against Apple's lawyers in Taiwan, iPod knockoff manufacturer Luxpro has decided to sue Apple, claiming that the company has monopolised the MP3 player market with a variety of unfair "schemes." Some of their arguments are somewhat compelling, namely when they bring up Apple's attempt to countersue Creative after their initial interface infringement suit, a move which notably backfired.

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Jonathan Gardner of Cnet Asia had an interesting take on Asus' over-stretching of the Eee brand, blaming it on the company's inability to change their local, "Confucian" corporate culture. Gardner, a columnist who apparently knows people, declared that "Asus will not be the next Samsung," mainly because they're following the path of a "typical" Taiwan business story. So, by interesting, I mean arguably incorrect and also kind of racist.

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Did the announcement that T-Mobile sold 1.5 million G1 pre-orders sound a little too fantastic to be true? Information Week thought so and talked to the guy behind the astronomical number--a mathematician at The Motley Fool. Turns out that some iffy multiplication may have been involved and the number of pre-orders sold is probably closer to 200,000 to 300,000. Big, but not crazy big.

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Looks like China won't be the only place with a Great Firewall in place--The Australian government is introducing its own censorship regime that will determine what is or isn't illegal for you to view on the web. The move is said to help stop teenagers from accessing online pornography, but even if you opt-out of the pr0n filter, you'll get put on a different blacklist for "illegal" content.

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But, after playing with it for about an hour in a variety of conditions, we're sorry to say that compared to the PSP-2000 we've been using for a few months now, the difference isn't even worth mentioning. On the brightest settings for both units, we couldn't tell the difference. The PSP-3000 had slightly richer colours, but still reflected sunlight beyond the point of watchability.

We'll be playing with it a bit more over the next week, but if the only reason you're considering an upgrade is the supposedly massively-improved screen, you're going to be disappointed.

For those high-end home theatre nuts out there (you know who you are) who were lusting after Yamaha's 11.2 channel RX-Z11 audio receiver but lacked the funding to add it to your movie den, Yammy has an early Christmas present for you.

Their new RX-Z7 draws inspiration from the flagship Z11, from its design to its feature set. There are five Version 1.3 HDMI inputs and dual HDMI outputs (for those of you with both a TV and a projector), and it will decode all those fancy new lossless audio codecs as well.

Previous Yamaha receiver users will be enamoured by the new GUI menu for customising settings on your screen, while the ethernet port means that you can now control your receiver over your home network on PDA devices or your iPhone.

There are countless, audio enhancement settings and multi-room settings, which you will probably never explore unless you're one of those people we were talking about before. It's also a green little receiver (or as green as receivers can be), consuming just 0.1 watts of energy when in standby.

It'll hit shelves in November for an RRP of $3,999, which includes Yamaha's YDS-11 iPod dock.

[YamahaMusic]

Wow. I can't believe you can still buy standalone scanners. It's not a product category I'd expect would be growing too quickly, considering the proliferation of multi-function devices these days. I guess it's probably just for those high-end users who need quality results, really.

So, if you're one of those people, Epson's latest scanner, the V300, sounds like a pretty good deal. It uses LEDs to scan, which not only has environmental benefits (like no mercury, less heat, less energy consumption), but means there's no time stuffing around waiting for the lamp to heat up.

The V300 scans up to 4800dpi (insanely detailed) with 48-bit colour depth, and will scan an image in as little as 16 seconds. It'll scan 35mm film as well, six frames at a time (or four 35mm mounted slides) too, which is quicker than scanning print after print after print.

RRP is $249, if you're interested, and it works with both Windows and Macs. It's available... Now!

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There is a lot riding on the shoulders of T-Mobile's G1 Android phone. In some ways, it carries the collective hopes of Linux, open source and Google fans everywhere. It's open, collaborative and community-based, in other words, everything the iPhone and Windows Mobile aren't. As so many onlookers crowd around this newborn phone, there's no way it can hold up all of their expectations—and it doesn't.

After spending a week using the G1, I can say it's a good start, and a clear indication of good Android developments to come. But the phone itself has some serious problems with accessibility and usability, issues that no number of third-party apps are going to be able to solve. Here's what I loved and hated about the T-Mobile G1.

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During the last debate, we caught CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin watching a live feed of playoff baseball while on the air on his laptop. Tonight's debate? Facebook. Either he's messing with us (are you messing with us, Toobs?), or he's really good at multitasking and really bad at being discrete. Either way, that's some fine reporting. Also: I just added him as friend on Facebook. Approve my friend request, Toobs! [David Cho]

A 12-inch version of the Inspiron Mini, which sounds a lot like the still-not-available mystery product we saw at Tesco last month, has popped up on Dell's website, which could mean a very soon release date. The user manuals, troubleshooting documents and tech guides for the Inspiron Mini 12 were hidden in the company's product support pages.

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SouthWing and AT&T have paired up to offer a Bluetooth headset specifically catering to news junkies and evasive people. If your SouthWing SH241 earpiece is connected to an AT&T phone, it'll pipe the latest finance, weather, sports and other info straight into your head. Sure, an FM radio feature would probably do the same thing--but does FM radio also come with an "Instant Alibi" feature that lets you call yourself, so that when your blind date starts weeping softly about his second failed marriage, you can invent an emergency situation to get yourself the hell out of there? Yeah, didn't think so. It's available for $US40 from any AT&T store. [Into Mobile]

ifixit, the same guys who brought us the beautiful disassembly of the 3G iPhone, have gutted the MacBook and MacBook Pro (Pro pictured here). But beyond the pretty photos, they've discovered some interesting things about the new laptops.

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Just a quick reminder - time is running out for you to enter our Lego Batman PSP pack competition. All you have to do is write the chorus to a song including the words "Lego", "Batman" and "Giz", then stick it in the comments of the original competition post.

So far, we've got a guy who wrote an entire song and stuck it on YouTube, and another attempt that rewrote Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby. Can you do better? Give it a go here.

[Lego Batman PSP comp on Giz]

Rejoice, culinary neophytes everywhere! George Foreman, that lovable former boxer turned kitchen gadget man has put out a deep fat fryer. You heard me right--look forward to the smell of burning oil and deep fried everything coming soon from your nearest dormitory. Foreman's Lean Mean Fryer uses a "Smart Spin" technology after your food's been fried to allegedly whirl out 55% of the fat absorbed during frying using centrifugal force. I'm not sure how scientific that fat-busting claim is or how safe I feel having boiling oil spinning around in my kitchen, but if you're a fan of fried foods, this cooking godsend is now available in North America for $US150.

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Those crazy kids and their lust for colour. Back in my day, laptops were black. Or silver. Or white. Or something relatively neutral, so as not to upset the boss's delicate nature. You got your Individuality across by sticking a Dilbert comic on your screen as your wallpaper.

But the kids today - these Gen-Y'ers... All they care about is looking good. And standing out from the crowd. And pink, or some other crazy colour...

Oh, and another thing - pink isn't just for girls now. Young, sane, heterosexual males are actually using pink. When will the madness end?

Certainly not with the L-series from Fujitsu, that's for sure. They're embracing the madness, releasing affordable laptops in a range of colours like pink and purple. Sure, they stick black in there for us old-school consumers, but it's the four other colours that get most of the attention: White and Pink Gold, Turqoise Blue, Pink and Purple.

Intel Core2Duo processors, built-in webcam and microphone, fingerprint scanner, 14.1inch LCD screen, HDMI output... it's a feature set that looks as good as it sounds. Just so long as you don't get a pink one.

[Lifebook]

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As though the flood of WTF-type phone concepts weren't enough, KDDI revealed a proof of concept for a wireless, colour, e-paper display they have in the works. The idea is that a mobile phone would be used to broadcast a signal to the display via infrared. The 13.1-inch display can display up to 4,096 colours and refresh the onscreen image in 12 seconds. KDDI says the display is intended for the finance and insurance industries, where the need to view A4-sized documents are apparently key. [Tech-On]

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Let the bitching about the Mini DisplayPort output on the new MacBooks begin (or just get louder): Not only does the official Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adaptor that'll let you hook them up to a giant monitor cost $US100, the Apple Store says it's not shipping for at least four weeks. Meaning if you were planning on jacking a new MacBook or MBP into your 30-inch monitor using Dual-Link DVI, you're screwed for now (and then poor later). Yay for basically proprietary ports. [Apple Store via 9to5 Mac]

Sadly, this amazing Wall-e sculpture is a limited edition of one, and it's already spoken for--by Wall-e's own Gepetto, Pixar creative chief John Lasseter, no less. It was created especially for him by English sculptors and CNC/rapid-prototyping masters Morpheus, which probably explains the hyper-detailed interlocking pieces and general laser-like precision, which is even more apparent in this close-up shot.

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Sometimes it's hard to remember that inkjet printers are good for anything other than ripping you off, but news today from HP's own intellectual property czar may change that: the technology that regulates the precise mixture of pigments down to the last picoliter will soon make home kidney dialysis machines more accurate by regulating mixtures of dialysis fluid with similar accuracy.

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The Gadget: Pantech's Matrix dual sliding phone was just announced today on the AT&T network. Unlike last year's WInMo-running Pantech Duo, the Matrix opts for a more straightforward dumbphone interface while adding 3G HSDPA, GPS and a slick looking design into the mix.

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