Kingston Tax Software on Flash Drive

READ MORE: DataTraveler USB Flash Drive, H&R Block, Kingston, Portable Media, TOP, TaxCut Deluxe

If you’re ready to try your hand at doing your taxes yourself this year, Kingston Technology wants to make it all a little easier for you with a little agreement it made with H&R Block. Instead of buying a piece of software, you can now pick up a Kingston 256-MB DataTraveler USB flash drive that will be pre-loaded with the tax companys TaxCut Deluxe software, making getting screwed by the government even easier. The cost will be $40 after a $10 mail-in rebate.

Do-It-Yourself Taxcut Software Now Available On Custom USB Drive [Kingston]

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Wi-Fi Bunny 2.0: “You Are Blind and Your Dog Is Dead”

READ MORE: Ambient Awareness Device, Bunny, Gadgets, Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi Bunny technology is running rampant, reproducing itself at an alarming rate. First, it was the Wi-Fi Bunny known as Nabaztag, an ambient awareness device which notified you of incoming e-mail, heavy weather or any other variable you programmed into it by blinking its little pulsating multicolored lights, wiggling its ears and making generally bothersome noises. Now that this Internet-connected 9-inch-tall Wi-Fi bunny has learned how to talk and sing, and will certainly annoy you to no end, reminding you that your stocks are dropping, you’ve got mail, it’s raining outside, you’re blind and your dog is dead. Looking for some bunny-love via Wi-Fi? Shell out $114 for the privilege.

Nabaztag website [Via Shiny Shiny]

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Verizon Wireless Music Phone

READ MORE: CDM8945 Music Phone, Cellphones, UTStarcom Personal Communications, V CAST Music service, Verizon

Verizon Wireless has teamed up with UTStarcom Personal Communications to offer its own branded Music Phone. The CDM8945 will be able to take advantage of Verizon’s V Cast Music service and includes up to 256 MB of memory on a TransFlash card (not included with phone). Also expect streaming mobile video and 3D gaming from the phone, as well as a digital camera with flash. Cost is $129.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a two-year customer agreement.

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JVC’s MP3 Players-Too Cool for the USA

READ MORE: Be! HP-AL600 headphones, Gadgets, JVC, SP-A220 speakers, TOP, XA Series MP3 players

When we see something like these new JVC XA Series MP3 players, we pretty much know we won’t be getting them in the US anytime soon. Especially if they say Victor on them. But, because they are so colorful and happy-looking we’ll show them to you anyhow. The line comes in storage capacities of 512MB to 1GB and you can get with or without an FM tuner. Other JVC goodies on the Asian market include the SP-A220 speakers which weigh about 5 ounces and also look too cool for school. Lastly, we have the JVC Be! HP-AL600 headphones, which aren’t anything particularly special, but give nice quality sound in over the ear style.

JVC Be! headphones [Akihabaranews]

JVC SP-A220 speakers [Akihabaranews]

New JVC MP3 player [Akihabaranews]

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Laptop Confidential Contest

READ MORE: Announcements, Contests, Film noir, Gizmodo Video, Lenovo, TOP

Hot diggity damn! Another contest this week, it must feel like Christmas for you readers. Now we are giving away a Lenovo Thinkpad Z Series. It features a 1.73GHz Pentium M processor, XP Professional, 512MB of memory, 40GB hard drive, Wi-Fi, fingerprint reader, 14-inch screen and CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive. It is valued at $1,499.

This contest is going to take a little work. We want you to create a one minute long film titled Laptop Confidential. The film also needs to be inspirex by Film noir. Film noir is a type of cinematography that started in the early 1940s. It experimented with dark, moody lighting and typically was used in crime and drama films. Sin City could be viewed as a modern film noir flick.

Once you have completed the one-minute flick, upload it up over at YouTube and email gizmodobox@gmail.com with a link to your video and LAPTOP CONFIDENTIAL in the subject line. Any further questions can also be directed to that address. YouTube is the video watching service where you have commonly seen Mr. Sexy himself, John Biggs reviewing some fabulous products. We insist on using YouTube so we can easily integrate it into our blog for viewing and voting. Please do not reuse old content or movies—this is an original work of film noir, not a remixed 1-minute version of Fargo. Give us something good here, kids. If you can stick Gizmodo in there somewhere, that would be great as well. Amaze us. After seeing what you guys can do with hard drive noises and gingerbread houses, I know you won’t let me down.

The contest deadline is Monday, January 30 at midnight. All of the standard Gawker contest rules apply.

For One-Handed Lumberjack Wrestling?

READ MORE: Bookmark, Gadgets, Reading, TOP

All right, you one-handed typists: It’s time to start reading books. Yeah, you know, those rectangular things with pages in them? Now you can do some one-handed reading with this new $2.95 thingamajig that holds the book open for you and doubles as a bookmark. And as you can see, it’s pretty in pink to get you in the mood. Now beat it.

Thumbthing [Cool Hunting]

From ABC Stuff

Metrosexual Phone, For the Feminine Side in All of Us

READ MORE: Cellphones, LG, S5000

LG wants to make sure its got a phone for everyone. Including you guys who are comfortable with your aesthetics. So if style and appearance are that important to you, go ahead and ogle this LG S5000 glossy black cellphone, which has been launched in China as the perfect product for the “metrosexual male.” It’s a clamshell design with bluetooth, a 1.3 megapixel camera and dual displays. The keypad glows a nice blue color and it also includes an MP3 player, large phone book and larger buttons on the keypad. Oh, and to open it, you just push the buttons on the side of the phone. Nifty.

LG S5000 - The handset for the metrosexual male [Phoneyworld]

Hype Sheet

READ MORE: Boost Mobile, Cellphones, Columns, Hype Sheet

Terrell Owens for Boost Mobile

The Pitch Ad-libbing in an empty gym, eternally controversial Philadelphia Eagles wideout Terrell Owens waxes poetic on his dedication to the game of (American) football. “I’m running routes in my head right now, catching a pass right now,” he informs us, while stealthily flexing his impressive guns. Owens also refers to the fact it’s been “three long months” since he’s been on a field, without explaining that the absence is due to a suspension for being a me-first tool. Towards the end, as Owens encourages fans to “get your popcorn ready” for next season’s heroics, he briefly plays toss-and-catch with a Boost Mobile handset. The Berlin Cameron United-produced spot, which will doubtless be shown 3 million times during the Super Bowl, ends with the youth-oriented carrier’s tagline: “Where you at?”

Rip-Off Of A mish-mash of 1990s sneaker commercials and fawning ESPN SportsCenter profiles. I’m reminded, in particular, of the Nike ad featuring Lance Armstrong, which came out in response to allegations that the future Mr. Sheryl Crow was winning all those Tour de Frances with the aid of illegal fish tranquilizers or somesuch. Both spots have a certain damage-control flavor, though Armstrong’s connection to Nike is a lot more obvious than Owens’ tie-in with Boost Mobile. Given the fact that he probably can’t go out in public without inviting a mob of autograph seekers, something tells me that Owens isn’t really a push-to-talk kinda guy.

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Power User - The Best of Lifehacker

READ MORE: Antenna, DIY, Google, Power User, Spills, WiFi, Wireless, rechargeable

This week at Lifehacker: Build yourself a gadget recharging station. Hack together a pen-sized wireless antenna. Revive a a soaked piece of hardware killed by spillage. Finally, download essential free software that Google Pack whiffed on.

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No Xbox 360 for You

READ MORE: Home Entertainment, Microsoft, Shortage, TOP, xbox 360

What’s the point of bringing the Xbox 360 out early if nobody can get their hands on it? Not much if you ask me. And many gaming geeks may feel the same way once they realize that the 360 may not be available again until the spring. Things don’t look good for Big Bill on this front. The buzz was that Microsoft was to have shipped as much as 3 million boxes by the end of next month, but instead, we’ve been told that there were only 1 million shipped by the end of the year.

“We are making them as fast as we possibly can, and we do expect over the next three to four months that availability will get a lot better,” Microsoft chairman
Bill Gates said. “The challenge we had - and we’re not the first to have this - is the demand far exceeded supply.”

Xbox likely to stay scarce into spring [Yahoo}

Otoizm: Yo-Yo, Pet and Music Player in One

READ MORE: Gadgets, Konami, Kotobaizm, Otoizm, Otoizumu, TOP, Toy, japan, music

Want a new pet that listens to your favorite music and dances with you? Meet Otoizmu (or Otoizm) from Konami. You connect this 2.2-inch yo-yo-like device to your music player and a character inside will start growing according to the genre of music you listen to. Not only does it grow by listening to your music, but it memorizes phrases and composes tunes that you can listen to. Meet up with a friend who also owns an Otoizm and the two will have a dancing session. Or, you can record your friend’s voice and a new character—Kotobaizm—appears to play with you.

This is one of the popular products at Toy Forum 2006 in Tokyo. You’ll have to wait until June to get this pet in your hand. Price is about $29.

[Thanks Sven!]

Panasonic’s Sumo Class R4

READ MORE: CF-R4j, Laptops, Panasonic, japan

The race to create the lightest, fastest notebook is getting old. So Panasonic, and other Japanese laptop makers, are changing the stakes: now it’s all about durability. Hence Panasonic’s latest Let’s Note CF-R4j notebook, which claims to have a 218 lb. weight resistance (up from 110 lbs. in the previous version). The notebook is unchanged in just about every other way (including the ability to withstand a 12-inch drop). But the durability champ is still NEC, which has a notebook with 330 lbs. of weight resistance.

The new R4j will be available in Japan starting February 10.

Product Page

The First Time, Ever I Saw Your Face, I Hunted You Down and Slammed You Against A Cop Car

READ MORE: Digital Cameras, Face-Tracking, Security, Surveillance

DefenseTech is covering a pretty unique new system for hunting down folks on hours and hours of video tape or—more correctly—digital video. The system takes a few shots of any person and then combs any video feed for that person’s face, allowing hotels and other “high-security” areas to follow suspects throughout large buildings. Might be some “privacy issues” and some “possible abuse,” but the price of liberty is some underpaid guy eternally watching us as he dozes at the security desk reading People Magazine.

The camera network - using software from 3VR Security Inc., a San Francisco company that makes surveillance technology - already knew what the houseman looked like; facial recognition algorithms had built a profile of him over time. With a couple of mouse clicks, managers combed through hours of videotape taken that night by the hotel’s 16 cameras, and found every place he had been - including the back entrance he slipped out of, three hours into his shift. He became 1 of 10 employees dismissed from the hotel since 3VR’s surveillance package was installed last June.

These Cameras Don’t Forget a Face [DefenseTech]

X9 XN-F3 MP3 Player With Color Screen

READ MORE: MP3, MobiBlu, Portable Media, TOP, X9 XN-F3

One of the smallest DAPs ever—just 1.5 x 1.6 x .5 inches (half as thick as the MobiBLU)—and it has a 65K color OLED screen to boot. There are 256MB, 512MB and 1GB models, and it looks like it has every other feature that the MobiBLU DAH-1500 offers as well: USB 2.0, FM radio, seven equalizers. But the BLU has nothing on the X9’s 1.2-inch color screen. Unfortunately, it’s only available in Korea for now.

X9 XN-F3 [PMPInside (via sELECTROclash]

Pheretones Haterage Post

READ MORE: Announcements, Sponsors

Dear Readers,

We know you don’t like the Pheretones ads. They are silly, dubiously scientific AND they pay for my child’s booties, so please bear with us. However, you may comment on the ads under this post and, as a special treat, send us your comments and you just might get a comments invite. Put LOVIN’ or HATIN’ ME SOME PHERETONES in the subject line, please.

Blackberry 8700g Hits the European Coast

READ MORE: 8700g, BlackBerry, Portable Media, RIM, TOP

We’ve seen some sketches and heard some rumours about the Blackberry 8700g, but it looks like both Spain and Britain will be getting the gadget soon. T-Mobile UK will be carrying the 8700g and it should be available sometime early next month. What makes it drool-worthy is its updated design and an even bigger color screen. It also comes with an Intel processor, 64MB flash memory, 16MB SRAM and the promise of faster Web browsing, attachment viewing and application performance. Expect all the usual Blackberry goodies, like Bluetooth and full QWERTY keyboard. Retails for around $338. I guess we won’t be seeing much new stuff from RIM until they know if we’ll still be able to use the Blackberry service here in the US. Big bummer.

RIM BlackBerry 8700g [Bios magazine]

DIY Clock Kit

READ MORE: Clocks, DIY, Gadgets, TOP

KrazyDad builds an Ascent wooden gear clock and lives to tell about it. The Ascent is a complete clock kit made of laser cut plywood and dowels. The process, according to Mr. KrazyDad, was pretty intense and involved sanding, varnishing, and figuring out what an escapement was. However, the finish product looks pretty cool and it might make a nice project to complete in your dotage.

The Ascent - A Wooden Clock Kit [Krazydad via BoingBoing]

Handheld DDR Pads

READ MORE: DDR, Gadgets, Palmtop

These are handheld DDR pads designed use with the Playstation versions of the game DDR. Before you blow your lid yelling at the fat kids of today who won’t even play exercise inducing games, hear me out. I used to be one of those DDR playing kids back in the day and when I didn’t want to spend hours at the arcade and too much money to count, I enjoyed playing DDR with my fingers. Not only did playing DDR on my computer with the arrow keys improve my hand-eye coordination, it also helped me memorize the songs and beats so that I could further impress the ladies at the arcade. And at $23, these are a must have for any DDR aficionado like the former me (before I took up smoking and learned to love oven-pizza).

Palmtop Controllers for Dance Dance Revolution [OhGizmo!]