To get around IP lawsuits, Canon plans on developing their own SED technology that works better than the type they’re being sued over. [Bloomberg]

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“A federal judge in California ruled on Monday that wireless chip maker Qualcomm can keep selling chips whose designs infringe patents held by rival Broadcom Corp through January 2009. [Reuters]

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If you grew up on a diet of quarters in a dingy old arcade, then the Pac-Man Joystick is the perfect remedy to relive those good old days. All you need to do is plug in the joystick into your TV and you’re good to go. There are four games to choose from – Super Pac-Man, Pac-Man Plus, Pac & Pal and the classic original Pac-Man. The Pac-Man Joystick is powered by a quartet of AA batteries, and there is no need to purchase additional carts or consoles to get started. Amazon is currently carrying the Super Pac-Man TV Game for $19.99.

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Filed under: Announcements

It’s (still) New Year’s Eve out here in the States, meaning in a few more hours you’ll not only see what it’s like to live in the future (i.e. 2008), but you’ll also lose your last chance to enter to win two round trip tickets on JetBlue (and some noise canceling headphones, to boot). Check out the rules, and to the young’ns out there, remember: if someone tells you that you’re going to a “key party” tonight, we recommend you politely bow out.

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FM transmitters for iPods and iPhones are dime a dozen these days, and you have the lacklustre iPhone FM Transmitter joining a long line of them now. This device comes with an LCD display, two buttons for channel adjustment and compatibility with just about all iPod models as well as the iPhone. If you plan to listen to your iPod or music library on your iPhone while hitting the road over your car’s radio system, the iPhone FM Transmitter can be picked up for $24.

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First our little dinosaur friend Pleo had to endure a brutal beatdown at the hands of his cruel masters, and now he is forced to undergo a grueling (and shockingly graphic) 23 minute dissection. Poor Pleo —just remember that this abuse hurts us more than it does you. [PleoDreams]

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Filed under: Gaming

It looks like that Mega Drive Portable we caught sight of a couple of months back is no longer exclusive to retro-happy gamers in Brazil, as a suspiciously similar-looking device has recently turned up for order at Play-Asia.com. As with the TecToy version, this one from AtGames is apparently officially licensed by Sega, and includes the very same line-up of twenty Genesis titles, including Golden Axe and Altered Beast, among other games with decidedly less hacking and slashing. Best of all, this incarnation the handheld is also a good deal cheaper than the TecToy, with it setting you back just $40. According to some early buyers, however, it seems that the emulation isn’t entirely faithful to the originals, but at that price it’s hard to complain too much.

[Via technabob]

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This 20.75″ speaker will definitely bring back fond memories of those who spent their childhood trying to solve the Rubik’s Cube without the help of solutions from the Internet. It definitely lends an air of geekdom to your room, although you will need some help (human or otherwise) to lug this into your living room as it tips the scales at 144 lbs.! Features include a 15″ aluminum cone drive boxed into special MDF “tiles” that were specially designed to resemble the classic puzzle cube. Takes 164 steps to figure this one out, so check out the project page if you have the time, talent and interest to do so.

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"http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2007/12/timeball-timeline2.jpg">Most of us know the Times Square Ball as the
symbol of the new year, fresh starts and the last moment of
celebration before you puke up cheap champagne. But it’s also an
interesting gadget, so to speak, "http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/notag/shiny-leds-ring-in-the-new-times-square-new-years-ball-307608.php">
changing with the times alongside consumer trends. So for its
100th birthday, we’ve made a mega timeline (click for mega pic) to
show the ball through its various tech fashions. And it’s pretty
neat. Yes, we just said neat.

The idea of a timeball was actually born in 1832 when Robert Wauchope, a Royal Navy Officer, devised a way for those at sea to sync their marine chronometers (watches) with the shore. A giant ball would drop at a pre-arranged time that could be seen for miles around. Sailors, of course, probably didn’t throw confetti or kiss another in glee (though they were quite possibly drunk). Here’s the rest of our timeball timline in written form.

1904 – Times Square coined.

1907 – The First Ball drops. It’s made of iron, wood, 100 25-watt bulbs…and it’s 700lbs.

1917 – First billboard with moving lights goes up (in Times Square).

1920 – Ball goes 100% iron, nearly 50% lighter at 400lbs.

1927 – Oleg Vladimirovich Losev discovers LED to little fanfare.

1939 – WWII begins.

1942 – Losev dies of hunger.

1942-43 – Ball out for WWII “dimout,” people partied but offered a moment of silence at new year

1951 – Xenon lamps first went on sale in Germany.

1955 – Ball drops to 150lbs. Suck it, Oprah.

1962 – American scientists discover LED.

1976 – Times Square is declared most dangerous area of New York City.

1979 – Disco dies.

1981-88 – Ball becomes an apple for “I Love New York” campaign. Red lights, green stem…subsequent puke color not specified.

1989 – New Yorkers realize apple ball is stupid, go back to normal design with white lights.

1993 – BMW is the first to use Xenon lights in cars.

2002 – Gizmodo is born.

1993-2003 – Times Square violent crime drops 85%.

1995 – Ball is computerized, aluminumized, covered in rhinestones, and strobe lights.

2000-07 – Ball is made of Waterford crystal, now weighing 1070lbs (which is the heaviest to date, nearly 10 times its weight in the ’50s). Lighting includes one 10,000W Xenon lamp and 432 multi-colored (5 colors) bulbs. Plus, it features 144 strobe lights and 92 rotating pyramid mirrors—disco anyone?

2008 – Today we have the same base crystal ball, but it’s been fitted with 9,576 Luxeon LEDs from Philips with 16.7 million programmable colors. Needless to say, that’s a lot more visual variety than the 5 available colors of just a few years back.

Happy New Year everyone!

For more information, check out New York’s own guide and timeline on Times Square and this helpful wiki. And a special thanks to our own resident Jesus Diaz, who stayed in for part of his New Year’s celebrations to make us this badass graphic.

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Sony does not want to be left behind the Penryn bandwagon and has announced that they are preparing to launch Penryn-based notebooks sometime down the road. These new VAIOs are known by their AR7, FZ4, and SZ7 model numbers, boasting Intel’s new Core 2 Duo mobile processor (45nm). Coupled with the Santa Rosa platform, you might get a (theoretically) slightly longer battery life. No word on pricing and availability of these new notebooks.

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