Hasta La Gadget!

If you’ve looked at the Apple Magic Mouse with wonder, wishing you could have a multi-touch capable mouse without having to give up a Windows PC in the process, now you can have the best of both worlds. The Speedlink Cue is a 2.4 GHz wireless model that looks a lot like the Magic Mouse and has a touch-sensitive top that responds to multi-touch gestures that you can configure in the mouse’s included software.

The underside of the Cue features a 1000dpi optical sensor, and the mouse is designed for use with the right or left hand. If glossy white isn’t your style, Speedlink is also making the mouse available in red, black, and silver when it’s released in November. All models will set you back 39.99 EUR list price (just under $56 USD.)

Puffy-cheeked jazz pioneer Dizzy Gillespie got the Google treatment today, in honor of what would have been his 93rd birthday. A mosaiced version of the bop innovator’s image graced the top of Google’s search page, with Gillespie, trumpet-in-hand stepping for the logo’s “G.”

Gillespie, who died in 1993, at age 75, learned to play the piano at age four. By twelve, he had taught himself to play the trombone at trumpet. Gillespie’s most lasting contributions to the form came in the 1940s, when, alongside artists like Charlie Parker (a frequent collaborator), he helped innovate bebop, a post-swing form of jazz that relied heavily upon improvisation.

Gillespie wrote a number of jazz standards, including “Salt Peanuts,” “Groovin’ High,” and “A Night in Tunisia.” He also made the following truly amazing appearance on The Muppet Show in 1980:

Australian designer James Lillis has become something of a minor celebrity after word got out that he designed two one-piece women’s bathing suits sure to turn the heads of Star Wars fans the world over. The two swimsuits, one with Darth Vader’s head and a rainbow passing through it and appropriately named “Darkside,” and the other all-white with blue patterns on the front and back made to look like R2-D2 and called “Artoo,” are $85 US and available now.

Lillis told ninemsn that he’s been backlogged with the thousands of orders placed in the past few hours, but orders are still open. No word yet on whether or not George Lucas is taking a cut of those sales, or how long they’ll be available to order, but if they vanish all of a sudden there are plenty of other geeky clothes in Lillis’ collection, including a swimsuit with a galaxy painted across the front and back and a variety of Star Wars themed t-shirts in his RedBubble Store.

Break out those calculators, friends–today is the first-ever World Statistics Day. Now, before you go writing this event off as just another Hallmark holiday designed to sell cards to statisticians, please note that the event has the blessing of the United Nations.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon kicked off the event stating, “on this first World Statistics Day I encourage the international community to work with the United Nations to enable all countries to meet their statistical needs.”

The day is a celebration of United Nations Statistical Commission, which, according to Moon, “has created international methodological standards and guidelines in virtually every area of statistics. It has played a key role in helping governments strengthen their statistical reporting, making data more available and comparable across countries and regions than ever before.”

Moon also took the occasion to point out the less statistically fortunate,

[A]s in so many other areas, developing countries often find themselves at
a disadvantage, lacking funds to pay salaries, train staff and collect data. On this first
World Statistics Day I encourage the international community to work with the United
Nations to enable all countries to meet their statistical needs. Let us all acknowledge the
crucial role of statistics in fulfilling our global mission of development and peace.

If you’re running a little low on space for all of your music, movies, and photos, or you’re planning on building a NAS to keep all of your files backed up, Western Digital’s new 3TB Caviar Green Hard Drive brings you storage space and energy efficiency all in the same package. The drive is a 5400RPM model, which doesn’t sound that special until you hear it also features four 750 GB platters and WD’s proprietary Advanced Format technology which lets them squeeze every possible GB out of those platters without losing too much to formatting data.

The new 3TB drive is a 3.5-inch model, perfect for desktop systems and external storage arrays. The new drive will set you back $239 list price, but if that’s a little out of your price range Western Digital also offers a 2.5TB version for $189 retail. Both versions are available now from select retailers. You can read more about the announcement at PCMag.com!