If you've preordered a JooJoo and wonder where it's been, Fusion Garage has just revealed that shipments will be delayed until March 25th.

Evidently, their previous announcement promising February shipments was a bit premature, though I'm not sure anyone is shocked by the delay, given the controversy of the whole situation.

Earlier this month, Fusion Garage's JooJoo Internet tablet went into full production with an anticipated on-time delivery to consumers at the end of February. Last week, the company became aware of a manufacturing issue involving JooJoo's industry-first 12.1 inch capacitive touch screen which Fusion Garage was quickly able to diagnose and rectify. The company now forecasts the JooJoo will be sent to consumers on March 25.

The manufacturing issue centers on fine tuning the touch sensitivity of the capacitive screen. Fusion Garage will be providing all pre-order customers with a free JooJoo accessory to compensate for the delay in the delivery of their JooJoo.

A $5000 camera is not within reach for most people. So this Nikon D3s review is a bit different—it's a peek at the near future of photography where shooting in any lighting condition is possible. It's really exciting.

ISO Is the New Megapixel: A Case Study

Nikon effectively declared the pixel war over with D3 two years ago: Its $5000 flagship shot a mere 12 megapixels—less than many point-and-shoots—and began the low-light arms race. The D3s again forsakes more megapixels for more light, sticking with 12 megapixels, and it's a tiny miracle of engineering.

The D3s isn't a thoughtless product rehash—as you might expect given that Nikon's simply tacked an 's' onto the end of the D3. Unlike the D300s, which didn't progress all that far in the two interceding years, the D3s is steady evolution at its best: It offers roughly double the low-light performance as the original D3.

What All This Low Light and ISO Business Means

A brief explanation of low-light digital photography and ISO is in order (click here for the long explanation). The focal point of engineering with the D3s, and other cameras of this caliber, has been boosting their ability to pick up more light (because a photo = light). That photo directly above with a 100 percent crop in the loupe? Taken at night at ISO 102,400.

The D3s uses a completely new sensor that refines elements of the original D3's sensor, like a new gapless microlens architecture that directs more available light onto the sensor's photodiodes. With film, ISO speed is a standard that indicates how sensitive the film is to light—higher speeds are more sensitive. With digital cameras, when you set the ISO speed, it's supposed to be equivalent to the film standard. In low-light conditions, you boost the ISO, so you don't need a long exposure time or wide open aperture. The problem with cranking up the ISO is that when you boost the camera's sensitivity to light (the signal) you're also boosting its sensitivity to noise—which can be sexy with film, but isn't really with digital photos. The D3s shoots up ISO 102,400, far beyond any film you could buy at Walgreen's. (Does Walgreen's still sell film?) At that level, you're talking night vision, practically, though the resulting noisy ass photo's nothing you'd want to print.

So, here's what the D3s offers, practically. In the most common DSLRs that people own, or with the latest crop of Micro Four Thirds cameras, the borderline for what we'd call good ISO performance is around ISO 800. In the original D3, it was ISO 3200, orders of magnitude better.

The D3s doubles the low-light performance of the D3: ISO 6400 photos look just about as clean ISO 3200 photos taken with the D3 (they look good), and ISO 3200 photos are whistle clean to all but the most trained eye, especially if they're down-res'd to web or print size. ISO 12,800 is the new ISO 6400—the outer limit of acceptably printable. In short, the D3s is the best low-light camera we've ever used, a leap beyond last-generation's low-light killers. You can basically shoot in any lighting condition. That's incredible.

It's Built for Photographers

The D3s is built for war zones, and being slung in the mud at 40mph. It weighs nearly 3 pounds, without a lens. Yet it's well-balanced and supremely comfortable to hold, with the best ergonomics in its class—Canon's 1D Mark IV feels surprisingly awkward by comparison—so we could shoot for hours on end in the closest thing to gadget blogging's war zones, CES and the iPad launch, and slug people who got in our way. (The dual CF card slots and ginormous battery help with shooting for hours. We didn't quite reach the 4,200 shots it's spec'd for, but we definitely shot a couple thousand photos per charge.)

It feels like what a pro camera should feel like, with almost all of the controls you need at your fingertips—the addition of a dedicated live view button versus the original D3 definitely helped there, though a more natural way to change the ISO setting while using the camera's vertical grip would be nice.

It is a photographer's camera, though, to be sure. Even as it shoots a crazyfast 9 frames per second at full-resolution RAW and its 51-point autofocus proved fast and accurate for us at trade shows, Nikon continues to lag behind Canon when it comes to video, with it feeling more tacked on than any of Canon's shooters—it's still 720p video using the bleh Motion JPEG codec—it's functionally better than the D300s, though, with improved autofocus in live view mode. That said, given that Nikon's announced its first 1080p-shooting camera, we're hopeful for the seemingly inevitable D700s on the video front, anyway.

Most of our testing took place at CES and the iPad event, which are marked by shitty and ever-changing light conditions, and we've never felt more comfortable shooting handheld without a flash or tripod. It's truly liberating. Light is your bitch—you can shoot wherever, whatever you want. (Especially with a fast lens, but even "slow" lenses suddenly feel eminently more usable.) While auto white balance was never quite perfect, the pop and saturation of the D3s's colors are just about unbeatable. It's the ultimate gadget-shooting-in-crappy-conditions camera. Here's some of posts we used the D3s to shoot:

• iPad Hands On
• iPad Liveblog
• Slayer Espresso
• E-Ink Is Dead, Pixel Qi Just Killed It
• Ballmer CES Keynote
• CES We're Here

(You can also check out our previous hands on with a pre-production unit for more samples. And for a more technical review, DPReview's got you covered.) A note: You'll notice I don't have a ton of sample photos, and that's because somehow hundreds of them completely poofed from my hard drive.

The D3s doesn't operate under any new philosophy, but it does remarkably take the game a step further, revealing with more clarity a world where camera performance doubles roughly every two years. Much like processors, where the tradeoff is more power or more efficiency, the choice is more megapixels or better performance. (But newspapers and monitors are only so big.)

We're running through Canon's answer to the D3s, the 1D Mark IV at this very moment, so we're intensely interested to see who's wearing what pants at the end of this. Either way, it shows that competition is a very good thing: Everybody wins.

The best low-light camera we've ever used
Fast and accurate 51-point AF to go with its 9FPS rapid fire
Solid ergonomics
Would prefer a more accessible ISO button
There's still a major disconnect with video, which lags behind Canon quality and otherwise
It's $5000, so this amazing low-light performance is out of reach for most people for a few more years (not really a knock against the camera, just a general frowny face)

[Nikon]

I never owned a Nintendo 64, and that was totally fine. See, I lived within biking distance of a Blockbuster.

Despite its gradual decline on account of downloadable demos and general console popularity (if you don't have one, one of your friends does), the in-store kiosk is still going strong—walk into any Best Buy or GameStop, and you can play a Wii, a PS3, and an Xbox, or even a PSP and a DS. And just like in the 80s and 90s, the kiosk's chances of the coveted trifecta of retail demo gaming (switched on, connected to working controllers, and playing a non-demo version of a game without time limits) hover at around 10%.

Anyway, Kombo's rounded up visual history of some of the most memorable console demo stations, and I defy any of you to make it through without suffering through at least two military grade Circuit City line-battle flashbacks. It's my turn, you turd. [Kombo]

Apparently when a Navy SEAL takes a minisubmarine to a combat zone, his ride is an open system, meaning they literally spend hours with their bodies exposed to the water. Sounds terrible! Fortunately, they just got an upgrade.

The Navy has been trying to get the SEALs into a new Swimmer Delivery Vehicle (SDV) for some time, but until now they've been stuck with the waterlogged Mark 8 SDVs that have been around since the 70s. Northrop Grumman had been working on an Advanced SEAL Delivery System (ASDS), but that $885 million project went down in a blaze of cost overruns and battery mishaps.

Enter the S301 SDV, a modified research submarine that can transport up to eight SEALs along with some limited gear. Even better, the development cost was a fraction of the ASDS. And, pending current trials in Hawaii, it actually works. [The Register via DVice]

The Canon T2i dSLR sounded extremely exciting, as it promised to bring 1080P video (with decent frame rates) to Canon's sub-$1000 dSLR line. Photographer Dan Chung was among the first to test it out, and the results look fantastic.

As it turns out this little camera is a really competent performer and the footage I've shot so far looks pretty much the same as my 7D to my eye...The footage you see here is shot at 1080p/25 frames a second and not graded with only minor adjustments of gamma, sharpening and a little smoothcam in Final Cut Pro...In terms of video image quality I think it is too early to make definitive judgments...[but] I think this camera is cheap enough that there is now little reason for pros who have not yet bought a HD-DSLR to not put their toes in the water and see if they like shooting video.

Note that Chung accentuated the frame rate by shooting almost exclusively with long dolly movements.

But if Chung's hands-on wasn't enough, here's another beautiful clip from another photographer named Drew Painter. [DSLR News Shooter via planet5D]

The latest iMac was released 16 weeks ago. Since then, it's been plagued with problems, most notably flickering and/or yellow screens. Today, the saga comes to an end because Apple has acknowledged the issues and offered their support.

At long last, Apple has released a statement to us, admitting the production issues with iMacs—which reader and forum anecdotes imply to be a bit less frequent than before but still very much present at some level—and labeling AppleCare as the proper channel for related complaints.

Apple's Official Statement

"We've addressed the issues that caused display flickering and yellow tint. Customers concerned that their iMac is affected should contact AppleCare."

These two short sentences might not look like much, but the statement is Apple's first open acknowledgment of the jaundiced screen issue, and it identifies the problem as one worthy of AppleCare solutions. (A previous statement made to Bloomberg generalized the problem to all LCDs.)

From the start of these iMac updates, I made a deal that "...if Apple can come forward and openly admit the mistake while providing an adequate solution to their customers, I'll laud them as an example as to how companies can take an unforeseen manufacturing issue and make things right."

Today, Apple met the terms of that deal, and so will we.

The Catch

Of course, just because Apple has "addressed" these iMac issues doesn't mean they have completely ferreted out the problems. (Their diction leaves some room for interpretation.). Since the production halt a few weeks back, Apple's forums seem a little quieter regarding yellow screens, and flickering had already been solved by a firmware update. Still, about 20 people have written us since the production restart—some of them now on their third+ iMac—encountering new iMacs with yellow displays (versus just a handful offering the all clear). That response is slightly more positive than it was in the past, when basically everyone who wrote me complained of flickering screens, yellow screens and a number of other maladies.

Unfortunately, we tried to reconnect with every person who'd written us after suffering through multiple returns, but very few responded either way. My guess is that some had their issues dealt with, while others just gave up on the iMac altogether. Sitting on a few grand for a few months isn't an easy thing to do for most people in this economy.

Yes, it's a downright shame that Apple hasn't been able to completely eliminate the yellow screen issue from the iMac line, whether their yield is 99.9% or somewhere far lower. At this point in time, I don't think that every iMac shipping is inflicted with a dealbreaker of a screen (which honestly seemed to be the case for a bit in late 2009/early 2010), but I don't think that nearly every iMac is shipping perfectly, either.

Yields have gotten better. How much better? I honestly don't know.
(This photo is a yellow-screened 27-inch iMac produced after the production restart—displayed file dates are from an older Time Machine restore.)

As consumers, should we really be content with Apple's response when evidence shows the problem isn't entirely fixed? That decision is yours. But I will say, even with constant pressure from a website such as Gizmodo (along with many other publications that, thankfully, jumped on the bandwagon), a fundamental principle holds true: The longer you tell a lie, even one of omission, the harder it is to tell the truth. For Apple to come clean after 16 weeks of shipping an "ultimate display" that isn't so ultimate should be something that the public can embrace, at least in part.

Because fanboyism and flame wars aside, if we leave no incentive for companies to be forthright regarding their mistakes, why the heck would they?

So Is It Finally Safe To Buy An iMac?

Yup, but with one huge caveat: You should run this test upon receipt. If any part of that screen doesn't match to your liking, you may very well still need to return your first iMac before getting a system that works as advertised.

Luckily, Apple has acknowledged the issue and thereby removed some of the risk from you, meaning, at the very least, customer service will take your problem seriously. And hopefully, the next time Apple or any other company ships a new product, they'll notify us of the problems instead of vice versa.

The Complete Faulty iMac Saga

The Faulty iMac Saga, Chapter 1: The Beginning

The Faulty iMac Saga: Chapter 2, Even Steve Jobs Can't Fix 'Em

The Faulty iMac Saga, Chapter 3: We Have Your Internal Memo, Apple

The Faulty iMac Saga, Chapter 4: Apple Buying Out Customers

The Faulty iMac Saga, Chapter 5: The Moment of Truth

A special thanks to Gizmodo Editorial Assistant Kyle VanHemert for all of his research work on this project, along with all the Giz readers who kept exchanging iMacs for us. If anyone out there is still having issues scoring a replacement for faulty iMac after contacting customer support, contact us at submissions@gizmodo.com and we'll forward you on to Apple PR, at their request.

Raidon Hybrid Disk puts together a Solid State Drive with a hard drive that backups data, just in case the former goes to hell in ball of fire and data loss mayhem. No price or capacities yet. [Raidon via MacWorld]

The Oscars are coming up in a couple of weeks. With the obvious exceptions of Avatar and District 9, there isn't a lot of sci-fi or gear in the nominees. We can fix that, right guys?

So take the less sci-fi nominees and inject in a nice dose of tech, will you? Send your best entries to me at contests@gizmodo.com with Oscar Movies in the subject line. Save your files as JPGs or GIFs under 800k in size, and use a FirstnameLastname.jpg naming convention using whatever name you want to be credited with. Send your work to me by next Tuesday morning, and I'll pick three top winners and show off the rest of the best in our Gallery of Champions. Get to it!

You want a serious home theater. One that will rattle the windows, and ensure movie night is always at your house. But you don't want to spend more than $600 on the thing that ties it together. Cuz you're smart.

You've got the big screen flat panel, you've thrown that cheap HTIB system in the garbage, and you've picked out an awesome speaker system. You just need one more component to tie it all together: a surround receiver with enough muscle for Aliens vs. Transformers, and enough ports to handle your Blu-ray player, Xbox and/or PS3, and all of the other black boxes in your living room.

Spending $500 to $600 will get you a receiver that will use a microphone to listen to itself, configuring and equalizing up to seven speakers and a subwoofer. It will switch between at least four HDMI sources and a lot more analog devices, and send everything off to the TV upconverted to HD resolution through a single HDMI cable. The feature sets of competing models are so similar that it can be tough to tell them apart, so I called in the four best in this price range—from Denon, Onkyo, Pioneer and Yamaha—to help you make your decision. As it turns out, the decision was easy.

A side note, before we continue: None of the tested receivers—and no receiver currently shipping—features the HDMI 1.4 required to pass 3D video signal to a 3D TV. If 3D is a must-have feature for you, you'll have to stay tuned, as all of the major electronics makers announce and eventually ship their 2010 models. But a new crop of models may actually mean better deals on the receivers reviewed here, and don't forget, even if you're a big enough spender to get a first-gen 3D TV, you can always route video directly from 3D Blu-ray player to 3D TV, using the receiver for audio alone.

I tested each model in my 7.1 channel theater—a $5300 Mirage OM Design system which has the resolving power to highlight minute differences in sound between amplifiers. This also gave me the chance to test each model's two-channel music and multi-channel film soundtrack performance against my reference Pioneer Elite 49TXi—Pioneer's $4500 flagship from 2005—a yardstick to hold up in order to see how far mid-priced receivers have come since then.

In addition to sonic prowess, I also judged each model in the areas of design and build quality, ease of use, and video conversion/scaling ability. Here are the full results of my tests:

The Onkyo, with superior sound quality and a multitude of HDMI inputs, put up a very tough fight against the Pioneer. But ultimately the Pioneer's class-leading user interface, superb auto calibration system and built-in USB and iPod/iPhone support gave it the win.

Pioneer VSX-1019AH-K: First Place

At first I wasn't sold. The Pioneer's music performance without EQ engaged was disappointingly dull and flat. Switching on EQ really kicked the amp into life, though, bringing detail and staging into proper focus. I found that the default curve was overemphasizing the upper midrange and treble, but fortunately the 9-band EQ is user configurable, and with a few adjustments I was able to dial in a nicely balanced sound that was fairly close to my reference, save for a persistent artificial coloration in the mids and highs. The Pioneer includes a technology called "Advanced Sound Retriever" which claims to restore compressed music files to near CD quality. (It may not surprise you that the others also feature similar abilities.) To test this, I loaded an iPod Touch with tracks encoded at moderate bitrates. ASR definitely did its job, as every track I tried sounded significantly more lifelike and enjoyable with ASR engaged. I connected the iPod to my more expensive reference system with a mini-jack cable and felt it still had the edge, but ASR made the difference between $4500 receiver and $500 receiver considerably smaller.

Movie audio performance with EQ was very good, with realistic portrayals of the cannons in Master and Commander and the drum sequence in House of Flying Daggers. Analog video scaling from my DVE test disc was decent, though the Pioneer struggled a bit in the jaggies test.

The VSX-1019AH-K is $100 less than the model that it replaced, and it appears that Pioneer was able to hit the $499 price point by chopping out 10 lbs. of power supply and much of the multi-channel analog connectivity. From bench tests that I've seen, being the shortest and lightest of the group has not affected the Pioneer's ability to compete in terms of horsepower. While it can no longer serve as a surround preamp—the Yamaha is the only one of this group that can—the Pioneer's user interface is simply in a different class than the competition at this level. Combine that with the forward thinking built-in USB and iPhone connectivity, and you've got a winner.

Onkyo TX-SR607: Second Place

The Onkyo loses in the looks department with its blocky styling and ancient pale green display, but give it some music to play and things turn around rather quickly. Without EQ engaged, the Onkyo produced the best, most transparent sound of the group, with realistic soundstaging and natural timbre that was surprisingly close to my reference. Switching on EQ mostly made everything sound artificially forward and aggressive, so I left it off for the majority of my music listening. Onkyo's "Music Optimizer" with the iPod just about equaled my reference, which shows just how effective this technology is.

The Onkyo also did very well with movie sound, though without EQ the bottom end was not quite as strong and impactful as the Pioneer in the cannon and drum sequences. Only five bands are available in the EQ, but this was enough to improve the bass response for action sequences without throwing off the rest of the range. I tested several movies in both the Onkyo-exclusive Dolby Pro-Logic IIz "height speakers" mode and with my speakers in their regular back surround configuration. (The Onkyo is not a 9.1 receiver, so your choice is either one or the other.) I preferred the standard configuration, as I mostly couldn't tell whether the height speakers were even on. A few weather effects perhaps sounded slightly more realistic, but I certainly wouldn't go to the trouble of permanently mounting and wiring extra speakers high on the front wall for a bit of rain or wind.

The Onkyo firmly embraces digital audio and video with a total of six HDMI inputs, and completely ignores multi-channel analog connectivity. Analog video scaling was by far the weakest of the group, with poor results in DVE's resolution, jaggies, and 2:3 pull-down tests. The front panel HDMI input is great, but the Onkyo really needs a USB port and a full GUI to put it over the top.

Denon AVR-1910: Third Place

The Denon's performance with music was solid, besting the Pioneer but not quite matching the Onkyo. Without EQ its sound was a bit leaner than the Onkyo's and slightly dry, with mids lacking a bit in body and warmth. As with the Onkyo, the default EQ curve just pumped everything up without any finesse. The Denon offers nine bands of EQ to play with, and by applying much more mild adjustments than the default curve, I was able to achieve a sound close to the Onkyo's un-EQed performance. As with the Pioneer and Onkyo, Denon's "Compressed Audio Restorer" significantly improved its performance with the iPod, though not enough to best the Onkyo or my reference.

Movie performance let the Denon down a bit. The cannons in Master and Commander had a distinct lack of impact compared with the Pioneer, even with EQ engaged, and the Flying Daggers drum sequence sounded a bit flat, particularly when I turned off the subwoofer and let the main channels run full range. Things picked up for the Denon with analog video scaling, where it aced all of my DVE tests.

The Denon was the most stylish of the group, but the plastic front panel and controls did not have the precision and quality feel of the others. The front panel display was also the smallest and hardest to read from across the room. The Denon's biggest problem though is that it just doesn't seem to have changed much compared to its predecessor, the AVR-1909. One more HDMI input and one less component video input seem to be the extent of the major changes. The user interface is functional, but still looks 15 years old. With the Pioneer now offering a full GUI at the $500 level, Denon needs to do the same.

Yamaha RX-V765: Fourth Place

Music from the Yamaha sounded much like Denon without EQ. It titled quite a bit towards the lean and dry side, with forward and slightly grainy highs that became tiring at higher volume levels. Two EQ curves are available, and the "natural" curve was able to tame some of the excessive brightness. I also tried adjusting the 7-band EQ, but I was never able to get the Yamaha to sound as good as the Onkyo or Denon.

Yamaha's "Compressed Music Enhancer" brought similar improvements from the iPod as the other receivers, but couldn't overcome the Yamaha's inherent weaknesses with music. It did perform one trick that the others can't: I was able to stream Last FM from my Nokia via the Bluetooth dock.

The Yamaha fared better with movies. It delivered a realistic amount of punch to the cannon and drum sequences, though I still preferred the Onkyo's more neutral tonal balance. Analog video scaling performance was average, with poor results in the jaggies and 2:3 pull-down tests.

The Yamaha shares nearly all of its chassis components with the $900 RX-V1065, and due to that its build quality is a considerable notch above the rest of the group. It looks and feels like a $900 receiver, which is why it's such a shame that the terrible UI completely lets it down. Setting up the Yamaha was aggravating; partly due to the un-assignable inputs, the badly designed remote and the cryptic way that Yamaha labels most functions, but mostly due to the UI. The four "Scene modes" are an attempt to replicate the Activities function of a Harmony remote, but they don't really work in practice. Unless all of your components are made by Yamaha and support the Scene control ability, pressing a Scene button can do little more than switch the receiver to an input and select a sound mode, which the others can do just as easily with their own source buttons. In the end you're going to end up using a universal remote anyway, making the Scene abilities completely unnecessary. The optional Bluetooth streaming support is great for many people who use their cellphone as an audio source, but the Yamaha is just too much of an incomplete product to recommend.

And Now For Something Completely Different…

The Onkyo produces surprisingly decent stereo sound for a mid-priced receiver, but what if stereo is all you are interested in? What if you don't need HDMI switching, or Dolby Pro-Logic IIz, or Audyssey equalization, or any of the other stuff crammed in to a modern receiver? Can you do better for $500? Indeed you can, with something called an integrated amplifier.

Integrated amplifiers are a stereo preamp and amplifier combined into one component, and they offer maximum sound quality for the dollar as they basically only have one function. The NAD C-326BEE and Cambridge Azur 550A integrated amps both cost around $500, and both will outperform any of these receivers in stereo. Since there's no need to worry about having the latest sound mode or HDMI version number, you can stretch your dollar even further by looking on the secondhand market. A range of $500 to $700 can buy a Musical Fidelity, Primare or Arcam on audio trading sites like Audiogon that will be able to challenge $2500 AV receivers in stereo mode. Add a second hand pair of bookshelf speakers from PSB or Monitor Audio—or maybe even a pair of Magnepan 1.6s if you're feeling adventurous—and you've got truly high-end sound for around $1500.

David Kay is a veteran home-theater enthusiast, tech writer and all-around audio fanatic. He is currently Senior Editor of the audio news and feature blog Audio Junkies, and is on a never-ending quest to build the ultimate sound system, wallet be damned.

Helicopters make a lot of noise because of a physical phenomenon called blade-vortex interaction. Eurocopter engineers have developed a new kind of rotor blade that attenuates this problem. It's called Blue Edge, and—as you can hear—it works beautifully:

The new blade shape is combined with another technology called Blue Pulse, which adds three flaps to the edge of the rotor blades. These flaps move up and down at 15 to 40 times per second, using piezoelectric motors that also help to reduce the blade-vortex interaction. [Autopia]

If you have a CLIQ, it's probably a good idea to hold off on any updates, as a multitude of issues have cropped up. And most importantly, a T-Mobile forum mod recommends you "not to Master Reset your phone if your OTA update did not download or if you are experiencing issues at this time." [T-Mobile forums via Android and Me via BGR]

A Pentucket Regional High School science class got an unpleasant surprise yesterday when one student's iPod exploded on her desk. But don't worry! Nobody was hurt, and there's a perfectly good explanation.

While Apple has gotten in trouble in the past for spontaneous iPod Touch combustion, Newburyport Daily News Online commenter "jos" offered some valuable insight into this particularly incident:

The iPod did not just explode. It was broken so a kid took the entire thing apart and was rubbing wires against the battery, which became very hot, then exploded. This is not a faulty product that caused a danger to people. This was bored kids, in a classroom with a substitute all week, who found a dangerous way to entertain themselves.

So let me get this straight: either your iPod's a deadly time bomb just waiting to go boom at a moment's notice, or kids do dumb things when they're bored?

I feel so much safer already. [Newburyport Daily News via Cult of Mac]

The XCM Cyberchrome case makes your PlayStation 3 look like the bumper of a '57 Chevy, which is neat. Although I've gotta wonder if it makes the PS3 any less of a dust magnet.

We've already seen XCM's chrome case for the Xbox 360, but it somehow looks a bit better suited for the PS3's lines. Not that I'd spend $70 to gussy up my PS3, but still, it's better than the 360's. [Total Console via Technabob]

The US Patent & Trademark Office just published Apple's latest trademark application for "Magic Trackpad"—and, looking at a bit of history, we think it could be one of two new products.

Possibility #1

Back in July 2009, Apple was granted a patent on their multi-touch Trackpad. However, many elements of the patent were left out, including advanced infrared imaging and optical emitters which could, in essence, make your Trackpad know when you were trying to type or trying to gesture (while opening the door for all sorts of other gesture tracking possibilities across much of your laptop's work surface).

So the Magic Trackpad could be the next Trackpad for MacBooks.

Possibility #2

But the other, more enticing rumor, was one sourced from John Gruber back in October—that Apple could be introducing a "Wildcard I'm-Not-Sure-I-Really-Believe-It-Myself Out-There Rumor...Some Sort of Mentioned-Nowhere-Else-But-in-This-Very-Headline Multi-Touch Trackpad Gadget for Desktop Macs."

Not so long ago, another Apple trademark was uncovered called the "Magic Slate"—many believe it to be the Gruber-described device. After HP and Dell both started coining the term "slate" around CES, I wonder if "slate" fell out of vogue, meaning the "Magic Slate" became the "Magic Trackpad."

Taking a look at the actual Trackpad trademark filing, we must admit, the longshot standalone desktop trackpad feels like a decent fit:

International Class 009: Computers; computer software; computer operating system software; computer utility software; computer hardware; computer peripherals; scanners; touchscreens; keyboards; computer mice; trackballs; trackpads; touchpads; light pens; joysticks; game controllers; graphics tablets; digitizers; cables and connectors; flash memory drives; USB drives; solid state storage devices; barcode readers.

One thing's for certain, if a device could actually cover every one of those categories in full, it most certainly would be something magical. [Patently Apple via Macrumors]

Would you like to see Hot Tub Time Machine for free, days before normal rubes can see it in theaters? If you're in NYC, you're in luck! We've got a fistful of tickets to a screening for our lovely readers.

The screening takes place next Tuesday the 2nd of March at 7:30pm. It's at the Times Square Regal E Walk at 247 W42nd St. We have 44 seats to give away, so we're offering 2 tickets each to the first 22 people who email contests@gizmodo.com with "I like free movies and I also like Gizmodo!" in the headline. Include your name in the body of the email. We will email you back if you get in fast enough. When you get to the theater, you'll be on the list with a +1 for a friend. Don't email us if there's a chance you can't make it. That would be a pretty dick move.

Cool? Cool. Get e-mailin'!

There are over 130,000 apps in the App Store. About 100,000 of those expect you to pay cash money for a download. Sometimes it's worth it! Often, it's not. Prof. Dealzmodo's here to help you tell the difference.

Oscar Wilde was right about cynics: they know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. On your next trip to the App Store, don't be cynical. Be smart—even if it means spending a little money.

The App Store Effect Is Real. Use It.

Last fall, John pondered the App Store Effect, which holds that Apple's model results in price deflation so severe that it's unsustainable... in the long term. In the short term, though, it's your ticket to apps that cost far less than their analog (or web-only) counterparts. And sometimes, they'll include even more functionality.

Examples? Certainly! Here's a range of apps, from professional to gaming to reference to navigation, that'll save you anywhere from a few bucks to a few thousand:

It's probably most helpful to think of these in terms of the broad categories where you're most likely to find a cheaper app alternative.

Hobbyist: If it's an activity that at least a few thousand people enjoy, there's likely an app catering to it. GuitarToolkit's a perfect—if extreme—example. For $10, you get a library of over 500,000 chords, a chromatic tuner, and a metronome. Purchasing all those items individually gets expensive and, more importantly, bulky. An app? A fifth (or less) of the cost, all stored in your phone. Frequent traveler? Download HearPlanet's collection of over 250,000 audio guides instead of shelling out around $8 for one at each location. If you have a common passion, someone's developing for it.

Professional: BarMax costs as much as an App Store product is allowed to, but the law exam prep app is still $2,000 less than an in-classroom service like BarBri. In fact, shortly after BarMax was released, BarBri retooled its pricing structure to be more competitive. It wasn't a coincidence. And other professionals—including pilots and nurses—have a bevy of targeted apps to choose from as well.

Cannibalistic: Companies are so eager to be represented in the App Store that they'll undercut themselves to be players there. An online subscription to Zagat.com costs $25 per year. The Zagat to Go app costs just $10, and includes location services and an offline mode that the Zagat website doesn't. You can play Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars for $30 on the PSP, but it's only $10 on your iPhone. And Major League Baseball's MLB.com at Bat app lets you stream games for $1 a pop, while MLB.TV charges $99 for a yearly subscription. Sure, if you watch a hundred or more baseball games a year on your iPod Touch's tiny screen you'll want to go with the latter, but the pay as you go option is ideal for the casual fan with a vested interest in his eyesight.

Remember: with so many developers targeting the App Store, it's more than likely that there really is an app for that. But wait... what if there are several apps for that? How do you choose the right one?

App Overlap

Because the App Store is such a big ecosystem, it's inevitable that there are redundant applications. Some categories see more overlap than others, but in general it's common to find multiple apps that do the same thing. So where does the cost difference come from?

Functionality: The most basic—and most obvious—reason for an app to be more expensive is that it can flat-out do more. A casual Twitter user might be happy using Echofon for free, but if you need support for multiple accounts and the cleanest UI around, you're going to be happy coughing up three bucks for Tweetie 2. Make sure to read up on the full feature set of what you're buying. If you're about to pay for something with more firepower than you need, there's likely a free (or cheaper) version that'll suit your purposes. The paid app will still be there if you decide you need more functionality down the road.

Ad Support: Often, and particularly with casual games, the only difference between the free and paid versions of an app is whether you'll be saddled with advertisements as you use it. It really depends on your threshold: is it worth three dollars to play Words With Friends unfettered, or are you willing to endure the between-turn sales pitches that accompany Words With Friends Free? Each app integrates ads differently, so it's worth trying out the free version first. Too many banners cluttering your screen? You're only a click away from an upgrade.

Ripoffs: It might be helpful to think of the App Store as a giant, unruly bazaar, with thousands of vendors peddling their wares. There's some oversight when things get out of hand, but even the $999 "I Am Rich" app was downloaded eight times before it got shut down. Like in any sales environment, it's important to remember that what something costs usually has very little to do with what it's worth. Don't just go by the star system; read through the reviews to make sure that the app lives up to the developer's description.

Easier Said Than Done?

There's no question that a little research should go into whatever app you buy—starting with our Essential iPhone Apps Directory. Beyond that, here are a few common App Store categories with stand-out expensive, cheap, and free apps, along with our recommendations of when it's worth it to pay up:

Cooking

Expensive: 20 Minute Meals - Jamie Oliver ($8)
Verdict: Don't Download

Cheaper: Martha's Everyday Food ($1)
Verdict: Don't Download

Free: Epicurious
Verdict: Download
Jamie Oliver and Martha Stewart are powerful brands, but that's pretty much all you're paying for. Epicurious has thousands of recipes—including from famous chefs featured in Gourmet and Bon Appetit—a shopping list feature, and will suggest meals based on the ingredients you have handy. It's really the only cooking app you'll ever need.

File Storage

Expensive: Air Sharing Pro ($10)
Verdict: Don't Download

Cheaper: Air Sharing ($3)
Verdict: Download

Free: Dropbox
Verdict: It Depends
While Air Sharing Pro includes printing and emailing, the regular version should get the job done for most people: you can transfer your files to your iPhone's flash memory via Wi-Fi for storage and transport. The trouble with the "free" option, Dropbox, is that it's not a standalone app. However, when you link it to your Dropbox account you can share and sync up to 2GB of files for free. It's good if you already have an account, but if you don't, you probably should skip it.

Messaging

Expensive: BeejiveIM ($10)
Verdict: Download

Cheaper: AIM ($3)
Verdict: Don't Download

Free: Meebo
Verdict: Download
It might sound crazy to pay ten dollars for a messaging app, and for a lot of people it would be. But if messaging is your primary mode of communication, BeejiveIM's multi-account management, intuitive interface, and seamless push implementation are well worth it. For more casual IMers, it's hard to beat Meebo's multiprotocol support and push notifications. They even log your conversations on their servers. Another solid free option is Fring, which includes Skype support. What you don't want is to pay $3 for a messaging app like AIM, which only supports services on the AIM network and Facebook and is missing some features—like blocking contacts—found on the desktop version.

Navigation

Expensive: Navigon MobileNavigator ($90)
Verdict: Don't Download

Cheaper: MotionX GPS Drive ($1)
Verdict: Download

Free: Waze
Verdict: Don't Download
Just to be clear: Navigon makes one of the best navigation apps out there. But MotionX GPS Drive is a very good navigation app at a tiny fraction of the cost. So before you spend $90 on a top-flight turn-by-turn system, spend a few weeks figuring out if MotionX is good enough for your purposes. Chances are it is. And if it's not? It was worth a dollar to find out. As for Waze, anyone who's ever dealt with a backseat driver should appreciate just how unreliable—and aggravating—crowdsourced navigation can be.

Personal Finance

Expensive: PocketMoney ($5)
Verdict: Don't Download

Cheaper: MoneyBook ($3)
Verdict: Don't Download

Free: Mint.com
Verdict: Download
The first rule of money management: don't pay for something you can get for free. Apps like PocketMoney and MoneyBook aren't bad at what they do, they're just look a bit hypocritical with Mint.com Personal Finance around. Mint automatically syncs to your online accounts to help you keep track your budget and investments. It's the best personal finance app out there, and not just because it's free.

RSS Reader

Expensive: NewsRack ($5)
Verdict: Download

Cheaper: Reeder ($3)
Verdict: Don't Download

Free: NetNewsWire
Verdict: Download
You can get by with a free RSS reader, and NetNewsWire's a great option that syncs with Google Reader. Like the majority of free options, though, it can be a bit sluggish and prone to crashing, especially if you're loaded up on feeds. Among the paid apps, NewsRack (formerly Newsstand) shines for its reliability and speed. In-between options like Reeder? Well, if the developer's best troubleshooting suggestion is to limit the number of items you have to sync, you're not getting what you paid for.

Twitter

Expensive: Twitterrific ($5)
Verdict: Don't Download

Cheaper: Tweetie 2 ($3)
Verdict: Download

Free: Echofon
Verdict: Download
Tweetie 2 is our favorite Twitter app : it's fast, intuitive, and loaded with features. I can understand if you'd rather not pay to use Twitter on your phone, and Echofon's a more than capable free alternative. But only a twit would pay $5 for Twitterrific when the class of the field is just $3.

The Value and the Cost

Remember that the App Effect is working for you, at least for now, and that we're in an age of unprecedented deals on app content and services. Try not even looking at the price at first. Start with the feature set, see what's comparable. If it's free? Great! But even if it's $10 or $20, it still might be a steal.

We've gotten to a point where it feels almost perverse to pay for an app. But think of it in a larger context: you're buying software. On your desktop, that used to—and often still does—command exorbitant sums. Even on mobile platforms, Windows Mobile and Blackberry apps used to cost 10 or 20 times the average App Store paid download. Comparatively, App store downloads are peanuts.

And remember, too, that by paying for apps that are actually worth the money, you end up supporting the developers that are delivering innovative content and services. That means a better app experience down the road for all of us. Even the cynics.

Opera 10.5 for Mac's out. It's different from most browsers—the way it searches text in every tab from the address bar, for instance—but it's ridiculously fast and worth a spin. Besides, can you have too many browsers?? [Opera]

I like my Swiss knife, but I like the Guppie better. Any multi-tool that makes me look like a Real Man, ready to go back to the Jurassic and kill a dinosaur, is a winner.

Made by Columbia River Knife & Tools, the Guppie includes an adjustable wrench, screw driver with multiple magnetic heads, menacing knife, LED flashlight, and a beer bottle opener—it can open other bottles and jars, but I am a Real Man. According to designers Launce Barber and Tom Stokes, the design is made so everything is ready to use in the shorter time possible, right out of the pocket.

For absolute Real Man effect, hang it from your belt using the built-in carabiner, and allow your butt crack to show a bit over your pants.[ReadWriteWeb]

Super-spec'd premium phones like the Droid and Nexus One are only part of Google's long term plan for Android. What we have here is a glimpse of Android's other future: Free. Android handsets are the new flip-phones! Sort of!

Today's Motorola Devour launch at Best Buy Mobile brought some extra goodies, including an awkwardly priced Droid, which seems to render its new stablemate kind of unbuyable, and this little surprise: A Droid Eris, which is Verizon's version of the Sprint Hero, priced for free on contract. Not a single dollar! (Except for the 60 of them you'll have to pay out for two years, but who's counting that money, right? Right.)

Point is, budget Android phones are a verifiable thing right now, and even if they're sometimes loaded with out of date version of Google's OS or terrible custom interfaces, they are categorically better than virtually any feature phone. And as data plans become more ubiquitous and (dear god please) cheaper, always-connected, internet savvy smartphones will graduate from the massive trend to the status quo.* And Android, without any licensing fees for carriers or handset manufacturers, will play a huge part in this.

*Welcome, everyone, to the least glamorous kind of futurism!

Ahead of a March 2 event and TiVo HDs suddenly going extinct, two listings for a TiVo Premiere HD and Premiere XL HD have popped up in Best Buy's system.

The Premiere XL is THX certified and records up to 150 hours of HD content. It's $500. The regular Premiere records a third as much, 45 hours of HD content, and it's $300. They're expected to land at Best Buy on March 27. Of course, prices and dates and recording capacities we expect we'll be by far the least interesting aspect of these things. We hope. [Engadget]