Resembling a VCR turned on its side, the Jacob Jensen one-slot toaster features LED-backlit buttons that will bring a blue home theatre glow to your counter top while serving as a countdown timer during toasting. Plus you get 9 toasting settings, user memory functions and “automatic bread centration,” a prospect so well-phrased that we had to plagiarise it from the Appliancist.

Priced just under $US100, I don’t know art, but I know a toaster that looks like a VCR when I see one (which, by no surprise, is my very definition of art). [EZStyle via Appliancist]

Most, if not all, of the same features found in Toast 9 are still available in Toast 10. This includes burning of CD/DVD Video, Data and Audio discs, as well as Blu-ray data burning. Toast 10 also offers disc-based computer backups, streaming audio recording, Tivo2Go transfers and video compression—not only for disc burning, but also for transfer to portable devices. This time around, however, Roxio upped the ante with their software by not only working with your computer and the media on it, but also a handful of consumer gadgets.

Most notable are the new video streaming and transfer capabilites for iPhone and Tivo that Toast 10 will offer. Though Toast 9 offered video streaming to your iPhone, it could only be done over Wi-Fi. This feature now works over 3G mobile internet, streaming movies from your home computer to your iPhone. The new Tivo Desktop feature in Toast 10 is like Tivo2Go in reverse. You pull whatever video files you have on your computer (and want to watch on your TV), and use Toast 10 to encode and send them to your Tivo for viewing. Various open source versions of this feature have been out for awhile, but they tend to be buggy.

There’s also a new flash video ripper, which can automatically rip any video you watch on sites like YouTube and Daily Motion, and then encode and transfer them to a variety of phones and PMPs, such as Blackberries, Palms, and yes, iPods/iPhones. In addition, Toast 10 has one-click backup of video from your AVCHD camcorder to DVD or Blu-ray, which can later be imported to video editing apps such as iMovie. Other features include folder syncing between computers, conversion of audiobooks from CD to MP3, and compiling clips from DVD movies.

Roxio will also offer Toast 10 TitaniumPro, which burns full HD video to Blu-ray or DVD discs that are suitable for playback in Blu-ray players. The pro version also comes with a suite of full version audio and video editing apps.

Toast 10 Titanium and Toast 10 Titanium Pro will be available this month for $US100 and $US150, respectively. [Roxio]

Using the power generated by a high-pressure CO2 gas system and mechanical ram, Yauner managed to get his toast to pop up about seven feet into the air–which was enough to set the record. However, that figure was restricted by the height of his ceiling, so he will try and re-set the record tomorrow with an attempt conducted outdoors (although I doubt that it will reach heights like those portrayed in the image above). Why build a toaster that pops that high, you ask? According to Yauner, “Everyone loves it when a toaster has a good pop to it, so I thought this was the logical next step, to create a new space in the market.” Indeed, you haven’t had a good piece of toast until it has picked up a bit of grime from the floor and the ceiling. [Freddie Yauner via Core77)

That’s not to say it’s common, perhaps because however cool or useful it is, it’s decidedly more dangerous than other two standard toaster types. It would beat hell out of the Black & Decker my wife and I got for a wedding gift, but then so would a lighter held perpendicular to a piece of bread at 6 inches. There is a crumb tray that you can slide out, but that still doesn’t prevent jackasses from trying to fry a burger on its grill—surely that’s one of the many reasons this format is not favoured. That and the fact that the heat dissipation must be crazy, and right up in your face. Still, somehow, I want one.

You know we’ve written about toasters, toasters and more toasters, but tell me, have you ever heard of a flat toaster? [Fagor via Appliancist PLUS Toaster Pics; Web Marketings; Nomura; Zannell]

The control for the toaster is located on the shoulder of the device, utilising a swanky touch sensitive panel to start and stop toasting action, which adds a chic minimalist touch to the design. So, what’s the downside? It does one slice at a time, and it may not be ideal for every situation. Itchy. [Toast One via Oh Gizmo]