Hasta La Gadget!

Gingerbread Star Wars battleships, AT-AT and TIE Advanced fighters? Computer motherboards? Nintendo SNES? Gingerbread man with built-in LEDs? Holidays don’t get any more geeky than this and a sci-fi Xmas tree.

You can check the rest of the gingerbread houses collection at You Bent My Wookie, and gain two pounds just by looking at their huge gallery. [You Bent My Wookie via Geekologie]

We tried to warn you, but you just didn’t want to hear it. “How bad could it be?” you muttered to yourself, as you handed over a summer’s worth of lawn mowing money for a shiny new BlackBerry Storm. Pretty bad, as it turns out. Based on a pile of anecdotal evidence and hearsay, numbers as high as a 50% return rate have been bandied about. The software update certainly helped the situation, but there are still a lot of disappointed thumbs out there. So, how’d it go down on your end?

Update: So Verizon has hit up Boy Genius Report to clarify (well, maybe clarify) the situation: “The Storm has the lowest return rate of any of our PDAs and at this point in its life cycle, it has the lowest return rate of any PDA we currently sell.” That kinda sounds like doublespeak to us — if the Storm was really so thoroughly un-returned, couldn’t they have said it in simpler terms? — but that’s about all we’ve got to go on at the moment.

View Poll

Filed under: Cellphones

BlackBerry Storm buyer’s remorse? You’re not alone! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Fans of streaming media round the home might want to take a look at the HDX 1000 NMT player, which aside from the standard fare seems to add a few innovative new features to the mix.

Basics first – it’s an SATA hard drive enclosure available in black or silver that’ll allow you to play back files stored locally on the drive or via connected USB storage, and includes network support to stream directly from a computer.

Usually, the tech magazines from 50+ years ago got things wrong, predicting crazy, impractical devices to make home care easier (for women). Well in 1959, RCA and Mechanix Illustrated got it right.

Behold, the “Mechanical Maid.” It “cleans the floors at the push of a button, returns to niche, readies itself for next job.” And while its shape is a boxier than a Roomba, they got the height part right. It’s not jut vacuum cleaner with a Lost in Space Robot head/gumball machine stuck on top. [Modern Mechanix Thanks Charles!]

OK, you fool! Have you showered today? Neither have I. So take a bubble bath instead. With me, Mr. T! Or if you don’t like me, you can try Jesus (the rubber ducky).

Choose whatever puny rubber ducky you want. You can fill your family bath, because they you can buy them for $6 each. But you aint gettin’ in no tub without me, fool! [Celebriducks]