The inevitable has happened. Our friend, the loved and loving Mars Phoenix lander has gone quietly into that long, good night once and for all. Even though we joyfully joined the lander on its adventures as it Tweeted from beyond the stratosphere, and thrilled at its explorations, pitfalls, and pratfalls, try not to feel the familiar sting of humanity at the thought of our little robotic buddy facing that call to interminable sleep we all must answer one day. Let's rest easy knowing that the NASA-spawned craft served dutifully and fearlessly right up to the end, when it was overpowered by a horde of space zombies and turned into an undead killing machine. We'll miss you, pal.

If there was ever a device that probably didn't need a sequel, it'd be the silent mouse, but leave it to Thanko to invent a "new and improved" rendition that somehow proves even quieter and more versatile than the original. Of course, there are certainly other ways to nix the clicks in your computing routines, and this here gizmo won't really do you any good unless your PC sounds more like a gentle breeze and less like an impending tornado. Still, the Silent Mouse 2 touts five total buttons, a scroll wheel, an unfortunate tail, and walls of soundproofing material lining the innards. According to some fairly unscientific testing, this unit pounds out just 36.5 decibels compared to the "industry average" of 58 decibels, so if you just can't stand to hear yourself click on any longer, Thanko's latest can be your cure for ¥2,980 ($25).

[Via AkihabaraNews]

Samsung is offering-up a heap of marketing spin along side their new 3.5-inch SpinPoint S166 series of hard disk drives. This time however, there's real truth to their ballyhoo. The new series of SATA 3.0Gbps drives feature a 7,200rpm spin, 8MB buffer, and manage to damp the noise level down to a mere 24/27.5 decibels at idle/seek. That's damn quiet for traditional desktop storage spinning at that speed. Watch for the drives to ship worldwide in 80GB and 160GB capacities sometime this month.

We've seen a ton of media PCs as of late, and they all come in different shapes, sizes, colors, and prices. The latest VidaBox model, dubbed the ZERO, is the most recent model to also takes noise output into account as well (yes, we've eyed many more previously) -- the company even goes so far as to promise that the ZERO will be "100 percent" silent. VidaBox's $4,400 machine is packed with an AMD X2 dual-core CPU, up to 1.5TB of storage, dual standard def tuners, optional dual HDTV tuners, an HDCP-compliant NVIDIA Geforce 7950GX2 graphics card, and most enticingly, optional Blu-ray or HD DVD drives. In addition, all ZERO systems -- along with future VidaBox high-def CableCARD systems -- will be upgradeable to CableCARD compatibility in 2007, which is when Vista is supposed to be released (cross your fingers). Although the model pictured above comes in black, VidaBox says that other color options, including silver and "combination" are also available -- perfect for the few but proud Oakland Raiders fans out there.

Anyone who's had the good fortune of seeing a Pearl in the flesh knows that it's one extraordinarily good looking phone, particularly by BlackBerry standards. Unfortunately, where we come from, phones that don't ring are called "paperweights" -- which is exactly what the Pearl becomes when the trackball gets nudged. You know, like if it's in your pocket, or your purse, or pretty much anywhere besides a stationary counter top. As it turns out, when the phone rings, the handset immediately silences the ringer with even the slightest movement of the trackball, regardless of whether keylock is enabled. While we do appreciate the Pearl taking the initiative for us and ignoring phone calls so we don't have to, there is an occasional situation where we like to make the decision ourselves, and until RIM issues a fix users simply don't have that option. Strangely, two Engadget editors patiently attempted to explain the issue to a RIM representative this week at CTIA for several minutes without success; we think the first step to RIM issuing a fix would be for the company to understand the problem, so we could be in for a bit of a wait. Maybe the words we were using were too big?

From the folks who brought us the silent mouse and PC in a vat of vegetable oil (oh wait, that wasn't them) comes the Silent Keyboard. Thanko's latest contribution to the inane claims to squash that tap-tap-tap to a squishy silicon whisper -- cutting the typical 61dB blast from a standard keyboard in half. Yours for the low, low price of ¥5,800 or about $51 cash money.

[Via Impress]