If you're bored over the weekend, you could while the hours away playing video games. Or you could build yourself a badass Arduino quadrocopter. You know, either way. [Quaduino via Make]

New gadgets are the stars of CES, but there was a ton of gear behind the scenes that was instrumental to our coverage of the event. Here's what kept us alive in Vegas.

Let's get this out of the way: MacBooks. We all use them. Except for Rosa.* It hasn't always been this way—a few of us are recent converts—but the fact of the matter is that Windows Vista couldn't handle the multitask demands of the field—running 3G while switching from Photoshop to a video editor to 15 different open tabs in Firefox, dealing with God knows what Web 2.0-related antics all the while. Maybe Windows 7 can be a great field-reporting platform, but at this point, it's all Mac.

We carried a healthy mix of Canon and Nikon (though admittedly on the high end, Nikon reigned) including the Canon 7D, Canon T1i, Nikon D3S, and a Nikon D700.

We used some great lenses too, from BorrowLenses.com, including one of our two Nikon 24-70mm f2.8, a Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 vrii, a Canon 35mm f1.8. The wide aperture lenses helped us shoot in low-light situations, and the zoom was great for picking up far-off demos, like Ballmer's unveiling of the HP slate. The video we shot with these DSLRs surprised us with its uniformly high quality, and we needed a tripod, the Manfrotto 785 Modo Maxi proved to be a videographer's dream.

When DSLRs weren't around, we toted two Canon PowerShot S90s and one PowerShot G11, all of which packed some serious punch for point and shoots.

You'd think that internet connectivity would be a given at a convention with over 100,000 gadget-lovers, but bandwidth was anything but guaranteed at this year's CES. To connect, we used a variety of 3G cards from Sprint, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, the last two of which were the most dependable of the bunch.

We also dipped our toes into the pleasant pool of 4G, first with the Clear Spot hotspot and then, briefly, with the Overdrive hotspot, both of which let several of us connect to WiMax at once. The connection cut out here and there, but when it did work, we were able to tether five machines all running at nearly 4 Mbps, with (mostly) no trouble. Clear's USB WiMax modem doesn't have drivers for Mac yet, so all of us except for the lone PC user were left to access the hotspots wirelessly.

For the most part, the Gizmodo team wielded iPhones, though AT&T's coverage was often frustrating and we had to switch to EDGE to receive calls with any reliability. This made the two newly-minted Nexus Ones and the pair of Droids in the mix all the more covetable. One of those Droids tethered like a champion all week long.

We operate under the notion that every person on the team should be able to publish a story at any time, and because of this, we just can't be waiting for the press room's connections, or someone else's camera, or a public computer to free up. All of this gear enabled us to capture the best moments of CES and to report them on a moment's notice. We don't know what we'd do without it.

Special thanks to BorrowLenses.com and also Canon and Nikon, for providing us with our camera gear; thanks to Clear for the WiMax Clear Spot, and also Sprint, T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon for the 3G connections.

*while writing this, Rosa e-mailed everyone to ask what applications she should download. On her new MacBook Pro.

I don't want to say that ILM and Weta did a bad job on Avatar's visual effects, but an Atari 2600 edition of Avatar would still get most of the point across. [Penney Design via GameSetWatch via Kotaku]

The MiniGuru keyboard has three layers of functions designed to keep your fingers on the home row. Theoretically, that means you could type more efficiently. It would also mean a major overhaul to your typing technique.

Special modifier keys can be held down with a free thumb, allowing the user to cycle through layers of programmable key functionality. For example: hold down the modifier and J, K, L and ; can become arrow keys. There is also a mouse pointer in the center of the board if you choose to take this whole home key thing to the limit.

Again, the options for the keyboard are highly customizable, with changes saving to the firmware—but it's going to take a lot of convincing when this thing comes out at the end of the year. I'm set in my typing ways dammit. Don't try and change me. [Guru Board via ZDNet]

For me it was the Radio Shack TRS-80. (My family had every model up to the 4P.) Trying to load tapes to watch a little ASCII man dance in a proto-Dance Dance Revolution? Music, games, synthesis, tinkering—I was hooked.

5 inches by 3.7 inches—that's the diminutive footprint of the fully loaded conga-BM57 Core i7 motherboard.

Despite its small stature, the conga-BM57 features an impressive spec list, including a 2.66 GHz Core i7, 8GB of RAM, integrated intel graphics, 5 PCI Express lanes, 8 USB 2.0 ports, 3 SATA, 1 EIDE and Gigabit Ethernet—plus support for dual displays over VGA, LVDS, HDMI, DisplayPort or SDVO.

The price and release date are still unknown, but at this size, it would make one heck of a HTPC that could double for some gaming. [SlashGear]

I...I just don't know what to make of this Nunk on Droise performance art by Stéphane Perrin.

Simply put, the performance consists in dynamically generating noise music from the alcohol drunk by the performer during the performance. During the performance, the performer drinks alcohol and several breathalyzers are used to generate sounds and interacts with the visual. In addition, the abuse of alcohol inevitably leads to uncontrollable results and the body of the performer becomes itself a musical instrument.

Several alcohol sensors output each a voltage that depends on the alcohol content in the breath of the performer. These voltages are measured by an Arduino board and sent to a program written under OpenFrameworks that processes them and sends them through OSC (Open Sound Control) to a Pure Data patch. The patch dynamically generates sounds from the received data. In addition, the use of a microphone allows the sound emitted by one of the (un)desirable effects of the consumption of various alcohols in a very short time, namely vomiting, to be processed too by the Pure Data patch.

Yes...simple. All I know is that I want some sort of warning system where my toilet calls me up and magically plays the menacing Jaws theme when my stomach is on the verge of retaliating against my alcohol consumption. [Nunk on Droise via Make]

My love for Blu-ray players grows whenever companies add another feature that has nothing to do with Blu-ray. Now any worthwhile player is a home-entertainment hub, replacing cable box and Apple TV alike. How soon till they handle everything?

We looked at the four newly announced flagship players from the four biggest Blu-ray companies, LG, Panasonic, Samsung and Sony. Any self-respecting Blu-ray player today has Pandora and Picasa, and of course Netflix subscription streaming video. They also have some form of pay-per-view movie download service, from Vudu, Amazon or Roxio's CinemaNow and Blockbuster apps.

This year, though, the companies turned up the juice. LG added a built-in hard drive; Sony surprisingly built a remote-control iPhone app. And now all top Blu-ray players will go 3D. Integrated Wi-Fi was a stand-out feature last year; this year it's par.

These won't be out till the summer, and there's no pricing announced yet, but already we're excited. See, putting everything but the the kitchen sink into a firmware upgradeable $200-to-$300 box is way smarter than jamming it all inside a $1500 TV, where picture quality should be the chief concern.

What Do Blu-ray Players Still Need? Video File Support

If you want to know who will soon be putting HD media players out of business, look no further than these connected Blu-ray players. Samsung and LG won't let smaller companies steal their spot on the TV stand; my guess is that they will have amazing file compatibility at launch or slightly after. I mean, LG put in a hard drive, for God's sake. If that isn't for dumping crazy video files, I don't know what is.

The hard drive sounds nice, but it's not even necessary. With Wi-Fi connectivity and DLNA compatibility, these players should technically be able to play all your home videos, wherever they are. But they absolutely need 1080p DivX, H.264 and AVC (TS) compatibility—and the ability to read DVD disc images—in order to be considered viable HD video players.

I don't list reported file compatibilities here because I have learned that spec sheets can easily lie when it comes to supported video, especially when the combination of codec, wrapper, resolution and file size all affect readability. Until the players are shipping, their true file support is a mystery. Still, I have hope for these.

The $100 Roku is already on the ropes thanks to current Blu-ray players, since they give you what Roku does plus disc playback. The $120 Roku HD-XR hasn't yet taken advantage of its USB jack, and the company didn't announce anything at CES. If they wait too long before providing wide HD video file compatibility, that product, too, will be hurting.

If the makers of Blu-ray players get with the program, and address the need for true universal home-video playback, they will easily shove aside Asus O!Play and everything else too.

OK, not everything else. Game consoles, already bestsellers, have been actively converting non-gamers by adding streaming video services, and developing natural interfaces like the Wii's popular motion controls and the more ambitious forthcoming Xbox 360 Natal project.

Hopefully this will be the year they see the light on video support, too. The PS3 could have been the ultimate set-top box, but Sony's inability to see the commercial value of openness killed the PS3's non-gamer appeal. The Xbox is a lot closer to the ideal, but it doesn't yet support all files, and betting on HD DVD—and then not jumping to Blu despite Ballmer's frequent (and justifiable) promises—means no HD disc support, also a mistake.

Look, some of these Blu-ray players won't go all the way with file support, either. Speaking of Sony, can you imagine the king of patent royalties and DRM embrace file formats it doesn't get cash payoffs from, or could possibly be used in the service of piracy? Still, at least one great Blu-ray player will rise here. Am I dreaming? A year ago I would have thought so, but from what we all now regularly get from our cheap HD media players, my dreams are likely to come true—and soon, too.

Pundits, humanitarian organizations, and even the Haitian government haven't fully assessed the devastation on the earthquake-shattered half-island. Seen through machine eyes, yesterday is a blip; through human eyes, it defies description.

If you'd like to donate to an organization that can help, here are some places to start:

• MSF/Doctors Without Borders
• The American Red Cross International Response Fund, or text "HAITI" to 90999, which donates $10 to the same—Thanks, Complexified!

Additionally, online tech store SmallDog is matching any MSF/DWB donations up to $200. [The Big Picture]

When Allegra Fullerton got married last November, her niece was the flower girl. Like most her niece was a bit awkward going down the aisle, but Allegra's sister stood in the wings and encouraged her on. What a sweet robot.

Allegra's sister Laurel is "into robots", we're told, and decided to built the flower-blowing bot for her sister's wedding to Andy Fischer. From the pictures it looks like the bot was a hit.

The Flower Girl even took a turn on the dancefloor.

I spoke to Allegra just moments ago. She explained why she had a robot in her wedding:

I have always, always loved robots and have a collection of books, toys, and now an actual robot! How can you compete with a robot crusing down the aisle spitting out flowers on the ground? I wanted my wedding to have a playful feel and pay tribute to my upbringing (Dad and sister are both engineers) and really give a San Francisco feel to the event.

My sister built the robot and has been building robots since she was in high school. The ah ha moment for having a robot flower girl was one sunny afternoon at brunch with my fiance. I had a vision, thankfully he shared it and after a chat with my sister (who was a Mechanical Engineer Grad Student at Stanford at the time) she said she would make it happen and we went from there.

Update! Engineering Sister Laurel writes in with details of the build:

WeddingBot (or so I call it) was built for my sister, Allegra, since she didn't know any young children to act as flower child or ring bearer. I had recently finished building a water-squirting remote-controlled duck boat for a class (details at: http://www.stanford.edu/~laurelf/duck/ ) so she asked me to make her a remote-control robot that would spew flowers.

WeddingBot was mostly designed and built during my internship at Pocobor ( http://www.pocobor.com/ ) a small mechatronics consulting company in San Francisco. When I wasn't working on projects for them they were happy to let me to use their software and tools to design the circuit boards and program the bot.

The chassis of WeddingBot was pretty simple, two boxes from Daiso, some wooden columns, and a motor kit with wheels. A large computer fan with plastic ducting was used to blow flowers out of the top. The bot was powered by RC car batteries (purchased at a hobby shop) and had a circuit board I designed for translating wireless commands from the controller (sent via an xBee Pro) into motor/fan responses.

The controller was based on an old Microsoft Sidewinder joystick I've had since middle school. I took it apart and connected the button and stick position outputs to another circuit board to translate the joystick inputs into wireless commands the robot could understand.

Both the joystick and robot circuit boards had microcontrollers that I programmed in C.

Driving WeddingBot was pretty straightforward. The amount the stick was tilted forward or back determined the overall speed and the left/right position determined how much it would veer left or right at that speed. Holding the trigger button would turn on the fan so that flowers would launch out. The back button would switch left/right turn commands to make driving the robot towards you more intuitive (since your left and the robot's left are opposite in that situation). I added an extra red button that could be used to re-center the joystick if the default position somehow became skewed.