Hasta La Gadget!

When a new product emerges, a slew of new accessories must emerge to support it: That’s the rule in the tech world. Value leader Kensington has announced five netbook accessories, which look like notebook accessories, but smaller.

• The Kensington Wired Mouse for Netbooks has two buttons and a scroll wheel, as well as a two-foot cable. It goes for $14.99.
• If you’d prefer wireless mousing, the Kensington Wireless Mouse for Netbooks also has two buttons and a scroll wheel. It runs on two AAA batteries and sells for $24.99.
• Keep your netbook safe with the Kensington Security Lock for Netbooks. It attaches to your netbook’s security slot and offers a four-wheel keyless combination lock, as well as a six-foot self-coiling cable. Available for $24.99.
• Compatible with Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, LG, Lenovo, MSI, and Samsung netbooks, the Kensington Power Adapter for Netbooks keeps your computer juiced up, as well as a phone or music player, thanks to the included USB port. Get it for $49.99.
• Finally, protect the look of your netbook with the Kensington Reversible Sleeve for Netbooks. Made of neoprene, it stretches to fit and includes a storage pocket. Grab it for $14.99.

All five are available for pre-order from Amazon and will ship by the end of the month.

Oh, Amazon, you don’t want this kind of publicity. Today in New York the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and its partners in the Reading Rights Coalition will protest outside the offices of the Authors Guild. Their goal is to reverse the Guild’s threat to disable text-to-speech from e-books for the Kindle 2.

It seems that when Amazon introduced the Kindle 2, it announced that it would be able to read e-books aloud, a boon for the vision-impaired. But the Authors Guild had a problem with that, and so Amazon announced that it would give authors or publishers the ability to disable text-to-speech.

When the NFB asked the Guild to reconsider, the Guild said that the vision-impaired could submit an application to a registration system or pay extra for text-to-speech versions.

The NFB isn’t cool with that, so its members are protesting today from noon until 2PM outside the Guild’s headquarters at 31 East 32nd St. If you support their cause, drop by and give them some encouragement. More details here and an online petition here.

[Update: The Author’s Guild has posted a response to the controversy here. While it gives lip-service to accessibility, it maintains that authors shouldn’t be forced to surrender their “economic rights.” Is this necessary? Is the Kindle 2’s text-to-speech so great that it’s going to cut into audio book sales?]

Toshiba announced this attractive, attractively slim DVD player at CES, and now it’s come to market. The SDP93S offers a pearlescent high-gloss finish, a 9-inch widescreen display (800 by 480 pixels) and dual headphone jacks, perfect for sharing. I also like that the screen swivels 180 degrees.

Besides movies, the SDP93S can play MP3s or display JPGs from discs or SD cards, and it’s DivX Home Theater certified. The included battery pack is good for 5 hours of playback time, which should be enough to get to Grandma’s house and back again. Pick one up for $229.99.

OK, we admit it: We were excited to get the Nintendo DSi in the office. And yeah, the company’s always-clever press packaging only intensified matters. Senior blogs editor Carol Mangis did the honors.

The DSi is out on April 5th for $169.99 (Carol mistakenly said $149 in the video; she’s sorry). And take a look at our hands-on preview of the DSi here.

This just in: If you’re planning to be in the Los Angeles area around midnight on April 4, head over to Nintendo’s launch party for the DSi! Details after the jump.

Sony unveiled an irresistible compact video camera today, the HDR-TG5V. It combines the small shape of Flip cameras that have changed the consumer video market with high-end features previously found only in larger cameras.

The HDR-TG5V shoots 1920-by-1080 high-def video and can snap 4-megapixel photos. You can save your work to the 16GB of internal flash memory (enough for 6 hours of high-def video). If that’s not enough room, you can add a Memory Stick PRO Duo to more recording time. Naturally, it offers a Carl Zeiss Vaio-Tessar lens with 10X optical zoom.

I love that the HDR-TG5V also offers GPS for geotagging your work. The camera’s 2.7-inch screen can display a map interface with pushpins showing every location that you’ve shot. Tap one of the pins to call up that video.

When you’re using it for still photos, built-in smile shutter technology takes a picture only when your subjects have a nice grin. You’ll also get face detection, to make sure your subjects are in focus.

This camera just rocketed to the top of my wish list, but it isn’t cheap. It will be released in May and will sell for $999.99. Sony will also offer a travel kit, including a battery, travel charger, and pouch, for $100.