And just think -- last year you were singing Dino Dai Zovi's praises for taking control of a MacBook Pro in nine whole hours. This year, the PWN 2 OWN hacking competition at CanSecWest was over nearly as quickly as the second day started, as famed iPhone hacker Charlie Miller showed the MacBook Air on display who its father really was. Apparently Mr. Miller visited a website which contained his exploit code (presumably via a crossover cable connected to a nearby MacBook), which then "allowed him to seize control of the computer, as about 20 onlookers [read: unashamed nerds] cheered him on." Of note, contestants could only use software that came pre-loaded on the OS, so obviously it was Safari that fell victim here. Nevertheless, he was forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement that'll keep him quiet until "TippingPoint can notify the vendor," but at least he'll have $10,000 and a new laptop to cuddle with during his silent spell.

An eager tipster sent in a pic and some info on what appears to be some sort of PS3 clone called "Winner" – think Vii meets PS3. While the Vii concentrated on mimicking (horribly, but still) the Wii's feature set, the Winner is all about mimicking the PS3's myriad media functionalities. That means a photo player, karaoke functions, SDHC for media storage. But it's all about the (really crappy) games, right? Winner is going to be packing 2D and 3D graphics with online and motion sensing features (note the totally not-a-Wiimote controller). How much would you expect to pay for the privilege? Did you say $600? No! Did you say $400? No! How does $120-150 sound? At that bargain basement price, these things are really going to go fast; good thing they're promising 3 million consoles for the Japanese and North American markets.

Tossing up autonomous robots into the galaxy to perform a variety of prototypical tests is intriguing to say the least, but a trio of high-school teams were able to bring robotic competition a bit closer to home as they took home the gold in the highly-anticipated FIRST Robotics corrivalry. Cooked up by Dean Kamen (you know, the Segway inventor) in 1989, the challenge garnered entrants from a whopping 23 countries this year, and teammates from Bobcat Robotics from South Windsor, Connecticut, Highrollers from Las Vegas, Nevada, and Gompei and the HERD from Worcester, Massachusetts were able to craft the most dexterous and successful machine. Their creation reportedly excelled at "completing simple -- albeit goofy -- tasks such as shooting balls or stacking inner tubes," but we can already imagine the evil potential these innocent bots already posses. Apparently, "thousands of screaming high-school participants" were in attendance to witness the unveiling of a new champion, and if the popularity of this contest is any indication, we could be seeing these uber-intelligent, entirely autonomous robot armies being constructed an awful lot sooner than previously expected hoped.

Okay, so we're not waxing rhapsodic about a conspiracy theory just yet, but seriously, why can't the general public get a few hard numbers regarding the HD DVD / Blu-ray format war? Since both formats hit the market, we've all been wondering who would be the leader in terms of disc sales once the holiday season was behind us, and although Nielsen VideoScan has finally loosed the deets, we're still (relatively) in the dark. We've wondered exactly what was taking so long for these data to surface, but instead of VideoScan perfecting their report, it has apparently delayed the information only to release several inconclusive "charts" and "ratios" that, quite frankly, aren't what we all want. For whatever it's (not) worth, it looks like Blu-ray titles outsold HD DVD titles by a 2:1 margin during the admittedly slow first two weeks of 2007, but overall, we're still stuck analyzing Amazon's sales figures while trying to piece together the truth. Still, if you're more interested in having the best of both worlds regardless of which is on top (or still around) in a couple years, you know where to go.

[Thanks, Jed]

It seems that automated floor-suckers are getting all the attention of late, as we've had users parading their Roombas around with all sorts of unorthodox methods, teaching them to bust a move, and now how to pose for the cameras. While already recognized in one Tokyo ceremony, the Fuji Heavy Industries and Sumitomo-created vacuum has officially taken the gold in the Robot of the Year competition hosted by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry. Due to its purported ability to replace "two live human beings" and clean out an area of "3,000 square meters in four hours on a single charge," the jumbo-sized Roomba wannabe can help those towering skyscrapers stay clean in a bustling world. Additionally, it can maneuver up and down floors, in and out of elevators, and around crowded workspaces with ease, but we're not exactly sure how many decibels of noise this thing cranks out while taking care of business. Nevertheless, the co-founders are selling the device for a whopping ¥20 million ($168, 011), but still claim that it will more than pay for itself after a decade or so -- you know, since it doesn't beg for health insurance or anything.

[Via Plastic Bamboo]