@mramsey Ha, I have read Slaughterhouse Five, I skimmed the article looking for a Vonnegut mention, didn't notice the company was from Dresden.

What's the Vonnegut reference here, am I missing something?

I bet Jordan Rudess from Dream Theater is the first guy in line to get one of these. He'll probably be rocking out with it on stage right after the big keytar solo.

It doesn't "control" an amp, it IS essentially an amp. It uses software to emulate the sounds of different amps and effects pedals. A lot of guitarists already use similar stuff on stage, they are usually built into the amp head or controlled by stomp boxes or pedals. This is great for people who say, want to jam without disturbing other people in the house, or want to practice on the road without bringing an amp, etc...

You'd be surprised, this thing: http://line6.com/pocketpod/ is really popular with guitarists, and the iPhone app + Dongle is basically the same thing but will likely have a much better interface for adjusting patches due to the nice touch screen.

Mophie! These things are awesome according to Andy Ihnatko, and who doesn't trust a dude in tactical internet pants with a giant pair of lamb chops?

"fixing" the economy? How about trickle down economics, the gov't can give me millions and I will buy stuff therefore stimulating the economy.

My proposal for fixing the worlds economy: Stop printing money that is just based on foreign debt. Stop spending money you don't have. If you make $50k a year, and you have 3 kids, you shouldn't own a boat, an RV, a big screen theater system, and a 4,000 sq foot house with 5 acres. Yes consumption is good to a point, but we went way beyond.

TZ7 looks pretty sweet, but I went to check it out at a store and it's in no way a pocket cam, it's just too darn big to actually be a "take everywhere" cam.

I just got an SD780 last week. Great camera if you are looking for something pocketable that you actually won't mind taking with you basically everywhere. The 720P video looks excellent in good light. The interface is great and easy to use. Pictures are generally good for sharing on the internet even if you just leave it on auto. Some cool face detection stuff. My complaint would be that they kicked the megapixels up too high, leading to more noise in low light shots (all P&S are pretty bad here, but past 8MP it starts to really go downhill). Also the jpeg compression and noise reduction the camera does are a bit aggressive and there is no way to change it.