Sure, it's important to know Candidate A's position on the environment or how Candidate B plans to handle our international affairs, but when it comes to the issue of character, we'll suggest that there is no single attribute more telling than a presidential hopeful's electronic devices of choice. For instance, an Xbox-lover might engage the country even more deeply in the gears of war, while a Roomba owner would likely work to ensure the cleanliness of our national roads and parks. So what, then, does the AP's poll of the 2008 presidential candidates' favorite gadgets say about this current crop of potential world leaders? Unfortunately, that they're a pretty boring bunch: six of the nine respondents could only manage to come up with run-of-mill iPods and BlackBerries (and couldn't anyone at least give us some model names to work with -- we can't live without knowing if Hillary prefers the 3G nano to the 2G). Only Republicans Giuliani, Huckabee, and McCain strayed from the pack here, although America's Mayor seems a little behind the times with his "CD player," and Senator McCain certainly won't be getting much work done with one hand on his cherished TV remote. Anyway, all of this has got us wondering: what do you think that some of today's popular gadgets might indicate about their owner's character?

[Thanks, Mike T.]

Despite denials, Sony has made official the new $499 price point for the PlayStation 3 that we've started to see appear in retailers across the US. The 60GB model's new price point will indeed be $499, with a new 80GB model going on sale for $599 in the US and Canada in August. As a small bonus, the 80GB version will include a "free" copy of MotorStorm. So there ya' have it kids: in one quick swoop, Sony has made the PS3's price a whole lot more competitive.

Update: Looks like the cat's out of the bag. Here's the release.

We're all quite familiar with the Air Force's so-called 'pain gun' by now -- the millimeter wave weapon that gives targets an unbearable, full-body burning sensation and that may or may not have been recommended for testing on Americans by branch secretary Wynn -- but can you ever really 'know' a crowd control device without seeing it in action? Thankfully the military doesn't think so, which is why the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program held what must have been a fun-filled media day this past January, highlighted by the screams and flight response of AP reporter and curiously-willing guinea pig Elliot Minor. In the video after the break, you'll see Minor react to a brief encounter with the pain gun, and although he doesn't cry and wet himself like some might expect our colleagues in the MSM to do, he does admit that the weapon is "quite effective." Apparently there are some more vids of the Air Force's new toy bringing the pain on the linked site, but the military must be spending a lot more money on hurting people than web hosting, because the first clip hadn't even loaded by the time we finished this post.

[Via Danger Room]

With all this 802.11n hubbub going on, it's refreshing to see a trio of new 802.11b/g wireless access points that have set out to make the WiFi goodness we're used to even better. Planex Communication's GW-AP54SP-P (pictured after the jump) is a two-port WAP that supports automatic power-on functionality when detecting wireless activity, bridge / repeater capability, WPA2 support, and of course, up to 54Mbps transfer speeds. Meanwhile, Asus' latest power duo -- the WL-320gE and WL-320gP -- reportedly provide "up to 850 meters" of open space coverage thanks to their 5dBi high-gain antennas; they also sport SNMP to allow system administrators to manage multiple APs from remote locations, and somehow managed to pass the FCC's oh-so-restrictive transmission guidelines as well. The WL-320gP goes one step further by incorporating power over ethernet (compliant with 802.3af) to "eliminate the hassle of locating a power source." While pricing and release date information wasn't readily available, it's probably safe to assume these WAPs won't demand the same premium as those 802.11n-compatible alternatives -- and at least this trio operates on a standardized protocol, eh?

Read - Planex Communication's GW-AP54SP-P
Read - Asus' WL-320gE / WL-320gP

We had assumed that with all the robots being developed for deployment to Mars, the human astronauts would mostly be lounging around inside the comfort of their robot-built habitats and ordering drinks from their robot bartenders, but yesterday's unveiling of a prototype spacesuit for navigating the Martian terrain proves that manned missions might not be as cushy as we anticipated. The 50-pound suit (which they somehow got The Office's Steve Carell to model) was designed by students from five North Dakota colleges in a collaborative project funded by a $100,000 NASA grant, and includes at least three innovative technologies for which patents have been filed. Among the slew of sensors and communications gear designed for the harsh, low-gravity environment are oxygen and carbon dioxide detectors, GPS system, full suite of health monitors, shoulder mounted CCD cam, Bluetooth server to coordinate all the data, and a high-power transmitter for beaming info back to the mothership -- though curiously, there's no mention of an onboard weapons system that would be crucial for encounters with the occasional hostile Martian. Also, as the AP helpfully notes, even with all the research and design that went into this project, the forty-odd students seemed to neglect a key feature of any good full-body suit, which is an "escape hatch" for when the astronauts need to "jettison their waste."

[Via futurismic and abc]