Wireless keyboards with built-in pointing devices are usually pretty ugly, and Sandberg's new HTPC-oriented keyboard is no exception: sure, the dedicated Media Center Keys and 32-foot range are nice, but that two-tone color scheme is straight out of 1987. Plus, check the placement of the Media Center button -- yeah, that'll never get accidentally pressed. On the plus side, it's just £49 ($97), so you'll have plenty of scratch left over for fiber-optic lights and white shag rugs.

[Via Bios]

Okay, so there's clearly a tube that dispenses marshmallows to the ASUS marketing department whenever it comes up with another product to slap the Eee brand on, because this just getting silly. In addition to the countless Eee laptops, Eee Box desktop, Eee monitor, Eee televisions, and other Eee-branded crap, we're hearing the company is working on a line of accessories, including an external hard drive, optical drive, and WWAN card. None of this is official quite yet, but knowing ASUS, it'll be out in 30 different varieties by the end of the month.

Intel's got big plans for Moblin, that Linux-based "core stack" that's being optimized for all sort of mobile devices, from MIDs to carputers, and a big part of those plans is letting the community play a part in its development -- the company is just about to release the source for the first version of Moblin, with an alpha-level release of Moblin 2 to follow. Intel says its focus right now is decidedly on Atom, but that it's looking forward to seeing the community drive Moblin in other directions. There's no word on what Moblin 2 will offer, but it sounds like Intel is hoping that by getting Moblin out in the open, it'll become a de facto standard. Not a bad idea, but we'll see how it goes.

Read - Intel getting ready to release Moblin source
Read - Intel working on Moblin 2

We're almost totally over the whole netbook craze, but Toshiba's latest prototype shows there's still interesting things possible, even if it isn't a traditional laptop. The 5.6-inch touchscreen handheld runs Vista on Intel's Atom processor with a 64GB SSD and a GPS chip -- which like an awfully expensive setup, but Toshiba says they're aiming for netbook pricing. Of course, that means almost nothing, since netbooks are all over the map -- and that probably explains why Tosh says it's identified "six or seven" segments of the netbook / UMPC market, and that it might not compete directly with Eee-class machines. Sure -- but isn't an expensive handheld touchscreen netbook just a straight UMPC? Nice try, guys.

[Thanks, Pete]

The all-electric Lightning GT sports car might have just had its formal debut yesterday, but that doesn't mean prototypes haven't been tooling around for a while -- check out this video of the swoopy two-door doing the track thing in ultra-dramatic slow-mo. Of course, there's no sound, so there could totally be a nasty 5.0L Windsor V8 block under that hood, but we'll give 'em the benefit of the doubt for now. Video at the read link -- and be honest, is this thing enough to sway your feelings from the Tesla Roadster or the Fisker Karma?

[Via Autoblog Green]

Just weeks after "reinventing" Voodoo with the Envy 133 laptop and Omen gaming desktop, it looks like HP's had enough -- it's decided to straight-up merge the specialty PC shop with its core consumer business, and sell its products alongside the Compaq Presario and HP Pavilion lines. Yeah, that'll make Voodoo seem totally hardcore. For it's part, HP says it's always been planning on this kind of merger, and that the move will make Voodoo product easier to buy worldwide and faster to get with no change in service for existing customers, but it's also oddly ambiguous on whether the Voodoo name will live on -- saying only that it's "likely," but that a decision hasn't been reached. All this means that it's even weirder that HP has both the Voodoo and Blackbird gaming lines, of course -- any bets on which one gets axed first?

Read - PC World article
Read - HP CTO Raul Sood's blog entry on the merger

We've already seen the iPhone 3G got unlocked to function on any carrier (and you can already buy unlocked versions in several countries), but we haven't seen a locked handset get unlocked via software only, and the folks at gsmphone-unlocking have the first video we've seen of Steve's newest baby doing the SIM swap dance without any adapters. Yep, there it is, going from Rogers to Fido. Sadly, the video is more of a shameless ploy for publicity than actually useful information, and until we're told otherwise, we're just going to assume that they've just gotten hold of an early copy of the Dev Team's unlocking tool -- which should be free to the public sometime soon. So, you know: video after the break, but feel free to ignore the obnoxious phone numbers and URLs.

We've seen quite a few induction-based "wireless power" systems make the scene, and while the idea is interesting both in theory and prototype, actually getting it to market has proven to be quite difficult, with some casualties along the way. That's why we're a little wary of new claims by Israel's Powermat, Ltd. that it's ready to go with tech that'll turn "any surface" into a power source. Well, that, and the PR image they sent us has the iPod charging screen Photoshopped onto every device pictured, including a first-gen RAZR and an N95. Oh, and they claim that embedding PowerMat in sheetrock eliminates the need for outlets entirely, but we're not at all sure how that's supposed to work -- do you have to hold your devices against the wall all night? Add to that the interesting claims that Powermat's tech delivers energy in "real time," and that it "completely eliminates the potential for electrical fires," and we're in full put-up-or-shut-up mode over here. Think you can top the wireless hamburger, Powermat?

Sure, it was already possible (if complicated) to jailbreak a first-gen iPhone running the 2.0 software under Windows, but this is the one-click tool all you crazy cats with those extra G's need if you don't have a Mac -- too bad no one's come up with a better name than "pwn" yet. Please, people. Let's do better.

PS.- As usual, you run the risk of totally destroying your phone mucking around with this stuff, so don't say we didn't warn you.

Update: winpwn.com is down already, mirrors in the comments!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

We basically knew the FCC was going to approve the XM / Sirius merger after the DoJ approved it earlier this year, and it looks like the communications agency is just about ready to sign off -- the Wall Street Journal is reporting that a majority of FCC commissioners are close to approving the deal. Word is that XM and Sirius will have to fork over an additional $20M to make it happen and agree to several enforcement terms, but it's all up in the air until this goes official. Let's hope that's soon -- after a historically long delay, it looks like there's finally some light at the end of the tunnel.

[Warning: Read link requires subscription]

We're usually pretty jaded when people tell us that we "won't believe" what we're seeing in a video sent to tips -- right, right, a cellphone demon, nice one -- but it sure seems like the Golden Shellback waterproof coating is the real deal. Developed at the Northeast Maritime Institute and hopefully headed to production sometime soon, the process involves applying the coating to your precious toys inside a vacuum, after which they're basically impervious to all liquids -- in one test, a coated device spent over 450 hours powered on and functional underwater. There are some downsides: you can't remove the coating, so any repairs will involve "abrasive methods," which sounds like quite a commitment. That said, we'll take a little abrasion in our lives if it means we never have to worry about spilling on our keyboards ever again. Video after the break.

[Via gCaptain]

Interesting that this didn't get announced at E3, but Games for Windows Live is now free for all. Yep, totally free, cross-platform multiplayer with the 360 included -- which obviously raises the question of whether Live will ever be free on Xbox. We think that's a pretty safe no -- unlike Games For Windows, Xbox Live actually makes money, which is pretty hard to turn down, and without a ton of competitive pressure from, say, Playstation Home, it's hard to see why Microsoft would turn that funtime cash fountain off. Still, there's always hoping, right?

ASUS must think that best way to make the Eee PC stand out in the overflowing netbook market is to crank out minor, uninteresting variants of the same models, because otherwise we're at a total loss to explain today's appearance of the Eee PC 1000HD. Yeah, that's the 1000HD, not the 1000H, which we've already seen. Ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is that it's basically the same machine as the Pentium M-based Eee 904, only with the 1000's 10-inch screen. Right. So now not only are there an endless variety of Eee models, the model numbers themselves don't indicate anything logical: the Eee 901 is faster than the 904, which uses the basic case of the 1000 but shares a processor with the 900 and 1000HD -- but not the 1000 or 1000H, which are Atom-based like the 901. Hmm, Easy to learn, Easy to work, Easy to play -- not easy to buy might be your big problem here, ASUS.

[Via Mobile Stylus]

Fujitsu-Siemens's Amilo 3000 laptops have always been decidedly stylish in their two-tone duds, and now the company's polishing them up a bit with new Centrino 2-based guts. First out the gate is the 15.4-inch Amilo Pi 3540, which features the new platform and NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS graphics driving a display Fujitsu-Siemens claims is dramatically better than the industry standard. There's also a spill-proof keyboard, silent mode, and a 15-in-1 card reader. Europe only at the moment, should be out in August starting at £699 ($1,392).

Sure, we've been excited about Intel's Atom CPU being used in netbook-class devices, but UK ISP Bytemark apparently thinks the power-sipping chip has the horsepower to handle low-end server duties as well. For £45 ($89) a month, you can colo a 1.6GHz Atom box running Linux with 2GB of RAM and a pair of 100GB SATA drives -- not a terrible deal, and probably a damn sight more reliable than a pile of duct tape or a dead frog. Still, we're not exactly sure we'd want to run our business on the rough equivalent of an Eee 901, you know?