Brilliant, just brilliant. As if Rock Band wasn't living room clutter enough, Activision is busting out a drumset for Guitar Hero IV, and now Konami is getting in on the "pretending to play music" meme with its very own Rock Revolution title. If the oversaturation of incompatible music peripherals wasn't enough to make you take pause, the janky-ass nature of Konami's kit certainly might. Granted, there are more things to hit on Konami's set, Rock Revolution allows you to improvise in between the proscribed hits, and doesn't require that pesky kick drum until midway through its five difficulty levels, but MTV Multiplayer's Patrick Klepek didn't have too easy of a time hitting on it, while his buddy did a lot of plastic smashing attempting to improvise -- not a promising start. Oh, what was that? We can play "Sk8er boi"? We take it all back, when can we buy?

[Via Joystiq]

While OLPC tries to wise up to the real demands of the market and build a cheap laptop that people actually want -- which means Windows XP for most -- Walter Bender, OLPC's former president of software and content for the project is taking his open source Linux-based Sugar OS and has started up a new non-profit to aid its development. Bender still has the vision of an open source learning OS, and plans to give Sugar full support for other low-cost platforms like the Eee PC. Ooh, burn.

While yesterday's minuscule shot of this Atom-based UMPC explained the form factor quite well, this here picture shows the unit in a much better light. Otherwise there's little new info on this U2010 from Fujitsu, but that $1,300 pricepoint isn't a great start. Was this whole "Atom is cheaper" thing just a cruel, cruel myth?

[Via Pocketables]

The folks at UMPCFever got in some quality time with the upcoming Aigo MID (an Asia-centric version of the Gigabyte M528), which hasn't really been seen much outside of tradeshows so far. Apparently MIDLinux 2.0, which the device ships with, is running really well these days, which is encouraging given how abysmal it was earlier this year, but that didn't stop UMPCFever from swapping the OS for some Windows XP. While the Intel Atom processor seems to be beefy enough to handle what was requested of it, Intel's promised energy savings were not evident in the device, with a runtime as low as two hours. We suppose the best news is that Aigo's selling this starting at around HK $6000, about $770 US, a major improvement over the M528, but it still seems to be a far cry from the sweet spot for this type of device. Hands-on videos are after the break.

[Via UMPCPortal]

RINGBO put a song in our hearts the other day, and now that we've pretended to sit in its little robotic seat, we can assure you that the experience is just as magical as the video makes it out to be. In case you're curious, the bumper-mounted IR sensors work great for stopping Junior from knocking over another vase, and the controls really couldn't be simpler. We heard a price somewhere in the ballpark of a few hundred dollars, but there's really no telling until it lands Stateside for reals. Check out our best approximation of the original music video after the break -- and be amazed.

We got to spend a little bit of time with Aliph's new Jawbone headset, and we'll confess we're a tad smitten. The headset is considerably smaller than its predecessor, and the improved earbud design gave us a comfortable fit right out of the box -- with other options waiting in the wings. That old overly-complicated ear hook is gone in favor of a simple, slightly flexible one, clad in leather with the intention of an eventual worn-in feel, but thanks to the new light design we're actually planning on going hook-less -- we haven't managed to shake it off yet, and have already probably caused considerable brain damage in the attempts. The interface is the same invisible one of its predecessor, but the first time you turn it on it's in pairing mode so we had no trouble there. We'd be hard pressed to notice a sound difference either way, but that was never the original's problem. The smaller design does mean a reduction in battery life, which could be a deal breaker for some, but if you're not going to be yapping away constantly the new Jawbone is a useful bit of "earwear," as Aliph would like to call it.

Don't call it Jawbone 2, Aliph's Jawbone sequel is the company's new flagship product, with the old Bluetooth headset being put out to pasture to make way for the new hotness. The new Jawbone is 50% smaller than the original, and includes "NoiseAssassin" technology, a followup on the noise canceling tech of the original. There's a faster processor on board to handle heavier signal processing duties for canceling out ambient noises better and faster, along with that Voice Activity Sensor which lets the Jawbone know when you're talking so the rest of the time can be noise free. A new fast charge battery can suck up 80% of its capacity in 30 minutes, but the overall battery life is lower than the original, with 4 hours of talk time and 8 days of standby. The whole unit weighs in at 10 grams, and is available now for $130 at AT&T retail stores and online at Jawbone's site. Initially it's being offered in black only, but silver and rose gold (pictured after the break) versions are coming soon.

A friendly tipster sent us over some shots of a demo unit of the Jawbone 2 -- which the FCC so kindly leaked for us last month -- that he says his store is getting in stock tomorrow. He also says the headset will sell for $129, that it "looks pretty sweet" and provided some shots that pit it quite favorably against the now clunky original. Enjoy!

Sure, there's something to be said for turning a workout into a game, and the Wii Fit has that in spades, but there's also perks to a system that tracks every aspect of your for-realsies workouts at all times. The THP² Personal Training System from Korea's Nury Tec combines a GPS pod, body fat scale and chest strap hear rate receiver to track your well being during and after a workout. All the gadgets transmit wirelessly to a watch controller, which in turn transmits to a PC receiver to download all your stats to an included program. It's like Nike+ on steroids (minus the steroids... don't do drugs kids!), and with a projected price of $180 when this hits the States this year, not a bad alternative on price either.

And so forth. If you're like many of us, you very well could be weighing your options as the 3G iPhone seems increasingly imminent. Some might have a wad of cash already laid aside, others might be thinking of jumping ship to one of the iPhone's numerous competitors, or just getting some more months of utility out of their current iPhone. And then there's the trouble of disposing of your existing iPhone when you do upgrade. Do you give it to a friend, mount it on the wall, or bury it in the backyard with the hope of growing it into a cute little iPhone tree? The options are endless. Let us know which way you're leaning.

Samsung rightly hasn't wasted much time in finding a successor for its suddenly-vacated CEO position. Yoon-Woo Lee as of today will be taking on the role of Vice Chairman and CEO of Samsung Electronics, swiping the spots from Jong-Yong Yun -- who will remain in an advisory role -- and the disgraced former CEO Lee Kun-hee, respectively. Yoon-Woo Lee is no young upstart, however. He joined Samsung SDI in 1968 and moved to Samsung Electronics in 1977. From 1996 to 2004 he was the President of Semiconductor Business and since then he's been working as Vice Chairman of Corporate CTO. Given Samsung's dominance in the Flash and DRAM memory markets, it's hard to call this a bad move, but Samsung also has appointed Hyung-Kyu Lim to work on new "growth engines" to help Samsung find new ways to make cash as its current strongholds meet stronger and stronger competition. Nice to have you back on your feet Sammy, now let's see some more of those world firsts you're so fond of.

It's all starting to come together. After getting a general ballpark courtesy of AT&T store employee vacations last week, and a hint of "next month" on Monday, O2's own CEO is promising a 3G iPhone announcement in "the coming weeks." Which, let's face it, doesn't really put us any closer to pinpointing the exact date, but does make us feel a bit better about the 1000 "iPhone 3G in June or life isn't worth living anymore" t-shirts we just bought on CafePress.

Despite the shortcomings, it's hard not to get excited about VIA's Pico-ITX offerings: who cares if the capabilities are limited, they're just so adorably small we want to pinch their cheeks. Now VIA is making things even more efficient with a 500MHz board that can be cooled solely with the heatsink -- no fan required. Naturally, that step down in processor speed from the PX10000 won't exactly be much help to the folks sticking Ubuntu on these things, but the PX5000EG should be a boon to the embedded market and reliability nuts. Video is after the break.

Not one to string us along endlessly, Philips has 'fessed up to its pair of touchscreen phones, the X800 and the Xenium X-Connect. The X800 does it low-end with a 2.9-inch 240 x 400 screen, 2G GSM for data (no EDGE or WiFi!), a 2 megapixel camera, microSD slot and Bluetooth. Interestingly, the phone offers a documents reader and handwriting recognition, but this hardly seems to be that next do-it-all handheld you've been dreaming of, though the battery life is laudable. The Xenium X-Connect steps things up considerably, however, with Windows Mobile 6, UMTS and HSDPA, and a 3-inch display -- which hopefully sports a few more pixels. Still no WiFi, though, and other details like launch price and date are still slim.

[Via Just AMP]

We've seen this attempted a few times before, but it's hard to imagine OCZ's entry into build-it-yourself laptops will be any more successful. The new OCZ DIY Gaming Notebook is a 7 pound 15.4-inch backbreaker, which comes standard with an NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT video card, Intel PM965 northbridge, SATA support for hard drives, 8x dual-layer DVD burner, four USB 2.0 ports, ExpressCard and a fingerprint leader. The problem is that the "optional components" are WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 and a TV tuner, with only the last of those being truly optional on a regular enthusiast laptop. It's nice of OCZ to provide documentation and a warranty for those who really want to get under the hood of a modern laptop, but we're guessing most gamers these days would give up a bit of a customization for a straight-up well priced performer. No word on price or availability.