Have a Sony gadget lying around, like a broken, original PlayStation or a neglected DVD player? You might as well rip it apart for a chance to win a brand new PSP Go or a PS3 Slim.

Wired.com and hardware repair company iFixit are hosting a contest. All you have to do to participate is take apart any Sony product and snap photos of the teardown process. Post your photos using iFixit’s teardown gallery tool, along with your observations about the teardown process or the gadget’s insides, and you’re good to go.

Trust us, it’ll be a blast! We’re not asking you to pull a MacGyver and turn a ripped up CD player into a remote-controlled boomerang. (Although, that would be kind of cool.) Just impress us with some neat photos and clever analysis.

A panel of five Wired.com staff members will judge your submissions. You can win one of two prizes. The winner of “Most Creative Teardown” will get a PSP Go (along with a T-shirt). And the winner of “Best Overall Teardown” will receive a PS3 Slim (plus a T-shirt). We want you to be imaginative, so we’re not going to list any strict guidelines. Just have some fun and learn a little about hardware while you’re at it.

iFixit will be taking submissions for two weeks, meaning the deadline is Oct. 23, 11:59 p.m. Pacific. Here are the rules in summary:

1. Take apart a Sony product.
2. Post photos of the process, and your impressions of the device, using iFixit’s teardown editor.
3. The teardowns will be judged by the Wired.com staff.
4. Contest ends Oct. 23, 11:59 p.m. Pacific time.

We’ll post pictures from the winning teardowns, plus any notable honorable mentions, right here on Gadget Lab.

Need ideas for what makes a neat teardown? Here are some examples:

• Just last month, iFixit disassembled the new iPod Touch and found a hole that could have been used for a camera. Strange, because Steve Jobs said Apple intentionally left a camera out of the iPod Touch so the device could focus on gaming! Also, iFixit found an 802.11N chip — an even faster module than the Wi-Fi chip in the new iPhone 3GS. No clue why that’s in there yet, but that’s interesting.
• When iFixit ripped apart the iPod Touch in September 2008, the company discovered a hidden Bluetooth module. This was a pleasant surprise, as Bluetooth was not unlocked by Apple until the release of iPhone OS 3.0 just four months ago. This illustrates how teardowns can reveal technology’s fascinating secrets. Who knows what else is out there that we haven’t discovered yet?

Also, iFixit provides instructions for how to write a teardown, and plenty of examples of teardowns for your reference.

For more on the bizarre culture of gadget abuse, check out our previous feature piece “If You Love Your Gadgets, Tear Them Apart.”

What are you waiting for? Dig up your old Sony junk and start ripping!

Photo: iFixit

It’s the end of the week! It’s also Audio Draft Time, and this might raise a little bit of controversy. It’s Matt and Kim, an Indie pop band from Williamsburg, New York City. Nope this isn’t Justin’s pick; it’s Wilson’s. Strange, no?

(Credit:
Last.FM/CBS Interactive

We check out their tracks “Daylight” and “Yea Yeah.” We apologize beforehand for the overdriven audio. It may not be your cup of tea, but Wilson assures us they are great in concert and just lots of fun. On a further note, they will be touring with Weezer in the coming days.

On today’s show, we check out an outrageous iPhone app, where you actually have to lick the screen to play the game. The premise of the app is to lick off the food on your plate. Without getting too detailed, we come up with a couple of other apps that might take advantage of this lick-touch-screen idea. Just be sure to wrap up your iPhone before you partake.

We also check out a study that says HDTVs are mostly a placebo effect to most users. Now, we admit this study didn’t compare a SDTV next to a HDTV, but we know plenty of people who think that composite video looks just as good as 1080p. After that we get to plenty of voicemails, and yes, we have two–count ’em–two voicemails from women!

EPISODE 442

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Originally posted at The 404

(Credit:
Main picture by Photojojo with guest appearance by Microsoft's Clippy

Besides holding sheets together, the humble paper clip has plenty of other uses. Not only is its slim tip great for poking at small reset inserts on gadgets, we’re pretty sure MacGyver can jump-start a car …

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There’s yet another e-book reader in the market and this time it is likely to be from retail book giant Barnes & Noble. The company is expected to announce its own e-book reader in time for holiday season sales next month, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Barnes & Noble hasn’t yet commented about the device. But an announcement from the company would confirm months of speculation about it. Like most of its peers, the Barnes & Noble e-reader is expected to have a black-and-white 6-inch display from E-Ink. It will also reportedly have a touchscreen and run on AT&T’s wireless network.

Barnes & Noble’s e-reader will join a crowded market. Since Amazon’s launch of the Kindle in 2007, the e-reader market has exploded with new devices. In the past six months alone, companies such as Sony and iRex have announced newer models. E-book readers are expected to be a hot gadget this holiday season and electronics retailer Best Buy has said it will dedicate a section for these devices. A few weeks ago, Barnes & Noble said it will partner with iRex, a spin-off from Royal Phillips Electronics, to integrate the former’s e-book store into the latter’s e-readers.

So far, Barnes & Noble hasn’t disclosed pricing for its upcoming reader. Sony’s touchscreen reader is priced at $300.

Separately, a Barnes & Noble representative said in a video (above) that the company will  have a color touchscreen reader, developed jointly with Plastic Logic, available next spring.

See Also:

• Bookstores Aim at Amazon With E-Readers of Their Own
• Sony’s E-Book Reader Adds Touchscreen, Wireless Downloads
• Plastic Logic E-Reader is Slimmer than Kindle DX
• Sony to Introduce $200 E-reader
• New Barnes & Noble E-book Store to Power Plastic Logic Reader