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And around $100, it may be the most expensive too! But come on, it’s R2D2, man! The only thing that would make this cooler is if it doubled as a trash compactor with swiss army knife attachments.

From Urban Outfitters:

“Remember when Luke and Leia and the gang were stuck in that trash-compactor aboard the Death Star? And the walls were closing in and there was some kind of gross muck monster down there and everything? Well, remember how R2D2 hacked into the computer system and stopped the contractor from crushing everyone, saving the day like a little robot hero? Pretty awesome, right? But you know what the moral of that story was? R2D2 knows how to handle some trash!”

It’s the perfect addition to that Star Wars themed room you have. Especially if it’s a home theater. Made of durable vinyl construction, the R2 trash can is 24-inches high, and you open R2’s head by stepping on his center “foot.” A removable interior bucket makes taking out the trash easy – although, come on, why doesn’t the “well put together” astromech droid empty himself?
But it doesn’t really need to be just for trash. This R2 unit can also become the coolest drink cooler of all time. Just fill with Ice and the drink of your choice. And if you can attach R2 to iRobot’s Developers Kit Robot, you’ll have R2 serving bar like from Return of the Jedi!

Gotta have one of these.

Available also at ThinkGeek.

Hat tip: Like Cool

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates is a new fantasy RPG from Square Enix. It’s a prequel to Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles for the Nintendo GameCube, taking place a millennium prior to that game.

In most FF titles, I’d start talking about how great the story was or how immersing the game is, but in this one I was immediately sucked in by the graphics. It’s a DS title that looks as good as many PSP titles, and that should give you an idea of how nice everything looks. There’s dynamic lighting effects, and though the characters aren’t exactly life-like, they are beautiful in their own stylized sort of way. Magic particularly looks as good as on the typically better-looking handheld.

Most of the action happens on the top screen. The bottom screen is often just a means of getting to menus and skipping cut-scenes. You control the game by a combination of stylus and buttons. I have complained about this dynamic in other reviews, and it’s still the case in this one. I would not say the game controls poorly, just that your hands can quickly become cramped and uncomfortable.

Like most FF titles, the game does get somewhat text-heavy at times, but it is worth it if you care about the characters. And you should. The fraternal twin main characters are so well fleshed out that you can see the love they share, even in the text.

The score that accompanies this title is excellent. It’s another area in which the DS’s capabilities were likely stretched to the limit.

You’ll spend most of your quests beating the baddies up, then collecting the loot they drop, and doing it more. This works pretty well in most cases, where you’ll use the characters together to take out even some pretty tough bosses. And there’s a decent amount of gameplay there, considering it’s a handheld; it’s more than 10 hours long.

But it doesn’t always work. There are many times when it would be extremely nice to have friends who also owned this title. So, I’d say it might be a good time in multi-player, because you could actually make it through with a lot less hassle. In single player, though, it gets a little rough.

Additionally, though most people will find the characters cute and their dialog varied and interesting, the game’s tone is much more kid-friendly than I would have liked. There are some dark themes, but they are not as consuming as they might otherwise be. Still, it’s not quite a Final Fantasy Fables title, and even if it were, adults could still find some enjoyable gameplay there.

All told, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates is a beautifully rendered, family friendly title that lives up to its name. It’s not quite as epic as I would have liked, and sometimes combat can frustrating if you are going solo, but it’s still an above average game. I’d suggest setting aside a time to rent it with a couple friends so you can try out the multi-player, and only buy it straight up if you are a die-hard FF fan.

Who knew that Google had their hands in the solar panel industry. Fortunately, whatever they touch turns to gold, or in this case, electricity. Nanosolar has created a solar panel that can be “printed” onto a thin strip. It then can be cut to whatever size you need. Most importantly, the production costs less than building a new electric coal generator, which has been the goal of solar since the beginning.

Because of this amazing achievement, Popular Science has named Nanosolar as one of their Innovations of the Year:

• PopSci’s Best of What’s New 2007

Nanosolar isn’t vaporware. They shipped their first commercial panels back in December.

• Nanosolar Blog » Nanosolar Ships First Panels

You can see a CNN clip that briefly mentions Nanosolar here:

As promising as it sounds, I can’t wait for these solar panels to hit the mainstream so that it’s an easy and lightweight addition to your roof.

Via: Nanosolar by Sheri Bigelow of Design Simply

The Philips AJL308 Clock Radio & Digital Photo Frame wants to be adept in a many functions, being primarily an alarm clock that wakes you up gently using sounds of nature. In addition, it has pre-loaded relaxation music that eases you into dreamland, while a USB port and an SD memory card slot makes it a snap to take advantage of the digital photo frame capability. You can also tune in to a radio channel of your choice while those photos are being cycled through. At $129.99 a pop, every decent bedside table ought to have one of these if you’re still waking up to a traditional alarm clock, of course.

Posted Mar 14th 2008 12:41PM by Darren Murph
Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment
Every so often, a projector hits the market that’s just so delectable, it’s hard to stop fantasizing about what pieces of your kids’ rooms could be auctioned off in order to procure it. Enter the $14,995 Meridian MF10, which is most certainly one those units. Packin’ a totally familiar black chassis, three 0.7-inch 1080p D-ILA chips, a native 30,000:1 contrast ratio, 700 lumens, and a 2x zoom lens (2:35:1 Cinemascope is optional), this PJ exudes confidence. You’ll also find a pair of HDMI 1.3 ports along with component, S-Video and composite (saywha?), an RS-232 control terminal and the ability to play nice with the firm’s $3,995 DVP2351 digital video processor (shown after the jump). Yeah, they’re both available as we speak, but can your Centurion Card really handle it? [Warning: PDF read link]

LLC’s Vana VA6420-Si Advanced Extender device will soon boast Blu-ray movie playback capability, allowing the owner and family to enjoy movies in full 1080p resolution via DVI and HDMI interfaces. LLC used to offer both hd dvd and Blu-ray playback, but since the format war’s dust has settled, they are now more confident of pushing Blu-ray players forward to the consumers - the only stumbling block would still be the price as well as relative contentment among home movie buffs that current upscaled DVDs are able to do their job just fine.

A USB hub is a USB hub, right? Wrong! Evergreen has decided to take the humble USB hub another step further by including photo frame capability inside. So what you perceive to be a digital photo frame here is also a 4-port USB 2.0 hub in reality. Just make sure you do not have pictures of your secretary there instead when the wife barges through to the office.

Possibly the coolest web concept ever (present company excepted, of course) is Common Craft, a kindhearted company making free videos to explain all manner of tech-type stuff “in Plain English.”

When Geekbrief goddess Cali Lewis interviewed Lee LeFever, one of Common Craft’s founders, she said his Twitter in Plain English video had instantly converted two non-techie family members to social networking/micro-blogging site Twitter. (And this after months of nagging - Common Craft clearly has near-magical qualities).

By far the site’s most popular video - with over 336,000 views so far - is RSS in Plain English. Enjoy:

The macbook air has a new rival now from Frontier, known as the FRLN. While the FRLN won’t be as thin as the MacBook Air, it takes up less space with a 12″ LED-backlit screen, tipping the scales at 2.75 pounds. It also prides itself in being tough when the situation calls for it, capable of withstanding up to 265 pounds of pressure while surviving drops from up to 2.5 feet without any hiccup. Those suffering from butter fingers can also rejoice knowing the the keyboard itself is water-resistant, so don’t worry about leaving your drinks around while working. It is powered by Intel’s 800MHz A110 processor and comes with 1GB RAM, an 80GB hard drive and WiFi connectivity. The FRLN will be released in Japan later this month for $1,291. It won’t see an official release in the US, so that means you gotta import one if the desire for it is too great to combat.

Posted Mar 14th 2008 1:59AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: LaptopsCheck it high-enders. DigiTimes has been milking their Taiwanese motherboard sources for information about Intel’s laptop-class, Core 2 Extreme QX9300 processor. They’ve come away with a Q3 ship date and price of $1,038 when purchasing the quad-core proc in bulk. Digitimes’ own sources had originally pegged the QX9300 for a May release. But such is the life of the muckraker.