Paper Jamz Maker Sued by Gibson

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Gibson Guitars last week hit Paper Jamz manufacturer WowWee with a lawsuit. According to the suit, the company copied Gibson guitar designs in the creation of its Paper Jamz guitar line.

Gibson cites a quote from the WowWee site in the suit,

The designs of each Paper Jamz guitar are similar to a classic that is highly sought after. For example, the Rock Style 6 guitar in Series 1 of Paper Jamz is made to resemble a Gibson SG while the Rock Style 1 is made to look like the famous Gibson Les Paul. You can choose from your favorite styles of guitar, with the styles ranging from the classic Fender Stratocaster the “Gibson Flying V” design.

The suit claims that the sale of such a product create confusion amongst consumers, given the fact that Gibson has licensed its designs for the Rock Band game line, which targets a similar demographic.

The guitar market also named a number of high profile retailers in the suit, including Amazon, K-Mart, and Target.

Snow White Apple Laptop Decal: Cheap Holiday Gift for a Geek

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Are you the kind of person who always has their face glued to their laptop? Were you too busy reading up on the latest rumors of iPad 2 or Digg’s inevitable decline that you didn’t even realize what time of year it is? Well, snap out of it, geek face! It’s Christmastime! And you better start showing some season’s spirits!

Or else!

Luckily, the fine people at ImageLab3 are here to help you celebrate the holidays (within the parameters of ironic geek chic) with their Snow White Christmas Apple decal for your laptop.

This December, proclaim a tech-infused Noel to the world with the iconic visage of beloved little person wrangler, Snow White as she prepares to chomp down on the iconic Apple trademark while wearing a colorful Santa cap.

A-friggin-dorable!

Afraid to mark your laptop with too much holiday joy? No worries, the decal (15″ MacBook: $14.99; 11″ MacBook Air: $9.99 — plus $2.00 shipping) can be removed easily once the 26th comes around.

Christmas Snow White is the latest seasonal installment of ImageLab’s line of Snow White Apple Decals (available for a variety of Apple products and models) including: regular, geek, emo, and sexy.  

Cyber Monday: Toys “R” Us Deals

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Toys “R” Us understands the true spirit of the holiday (naturally, I’m speaking specifically about Cyber Monday–we can talk more about Christmas and Chanukah, et al. at a later date, if you’d like). The toy store is offering up all manner of deals on all manner of products.

Among the discounts are a few blanket deals–things like $10 off of all Kinect for Xbox 360 titles and 60 percent off of Zhu Zhu Pets. We’ve got a small sampling of some of the site’s best deals, after the jump.

Toys “R” Us Black Friday Deals

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Black Friday is well under way, and while the morning rush is over, the lines will no doubt last well into the night. You can either brave the traffic and risk a potential trampling, or you can do your shopping online and consider it something of an early Cyber Monday gift to yourself.

If you’ve got a young one on your shopping list, be sure to check out some of Toys “R” Us’s best tech deals for this Black Friday.

THQ Unveils the uDraw GameTablet for the Wii

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If you thought that someone had already created just about every type of controller for the Nintendo Wii possible, think again: the new THQ uDraw GameTablet turns your Wii controller into a tablet with an attached digital pen that you can use to draw on screen, create your own art, control characters, or game with friends using any of the three games that currently support the device. 
The uDraw GameTablet ships with uDraw Studio, which is essentially a drawing app that gets you used to the controller’s features and lets you create your own drawings and paintings. The GameTablet also supports a THQ title called Dood’s Big Adventure, which lets you paint and customize your character and enemies, and control his motion by drawing on the tablet. The game also supports Pictionary, a party game that in this case plays out on your television screen instead of on pen and paper. 
The uDraw GameTablet will need a few more innovative titles to make it a must-have Wii accessory, but it’s definitely a fun little gadget that might make it in the holiday gift pile for kids or families looking for something to breathe a little life into their Wii. It’s available now for $69.99 retail price.

Steve Jobs Gets His Own Action Figure

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Aliens? Robots? Monsters? Mutants? Kids these days are bored with all of them. This extra savvy generation needs a new kind of hero–one that can only come in the form of a super-powered tech exec. Someone like Steve Jobs. Now kids of all ages can have their very own Apple tech executive to take home.

Jobs, naturally, is decked out in his trademark costume–black turtleneck, blue jeans, New Balance 991 sneakers, and a pair of spectacles, which are removable, for the full reverse Clark Kent effect. Jobs is also sporting an iPhone in left-handed kung-fu grip.

The CEO’s sneakers are cemented to an Apple logo stand, so sadly he won’t be able to race against your Flash figure. He does, however, have a little speech bubble card, which lets you write out your favorite Jobsism.

Steve will run you $79.90–so he’s a bit pricey, so far as action figures and stocking stuffers go. Lousy Apple tax.

For those into the more cuddly side of the Silicon Valley, there’s always last year’s Steve Jobs plush doll.

ThinkGeek Unveils the TannenBomb, Just in Time for the Holidays

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The holidays just wouldn’t be complete without family and friends, and what family gathering would be complete without a little practical joking to keep the atmosphere light? 
The fine folks at ThinkGeek have you covered with The TannenBomb, a Christmas Tree Ornament that shines in the light, features red robots and silver zombies, and when hung from a tree periodically emits random loud noises to keep everyone within earshot wondering “what’s making that noise?”
The TannenBomb is essentially one of ThinkGeek’s Annoy-a-Trons stuffed into an ornament that’s activated when it’s hung from a tree. Just hang it somewhere in the back of the tree where no one will see it, and everyone in your house will spend hours looking for the source of the noises that the TannenBomb will make at odd intervals. It’s available now for $11.99 list price. 
ThinkGeek also announced another item that will likely end up in someone’s stocking this year: Canned Unicorn Meat. Originally an April Fool’s prank, one that got under the skin of a somewhat humorless National Pork Board, the 14-ounce cans of dismembered stuffed unicorn (easily removable for display) will set you back $11.99 each, and make for perfect office decorations or fun additions to the family pantry.
 

Stinky the Garbage Truck: Is This 2010’s Hottest Toy?

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The hottest toy this holiday season? It may well be gruff -talking garbage truck. This Matchbox-designed animatronic disposal device
talks, tells jokes, and dances. He’ll also eat the rest of your Matchbox car
collection. Toys “R” Us puts it the most succinctly, “Stinky is the name,
gobbling garbage is his game.”

Thanks to a particularly enticing television commercial, old
Stinky here has rocketed to the top of a lot of kids’ wish lists this holiday
season. He’s part of the Big Ridge Buddies line of Matchbox toys. He’ll take
four “C” batteries to get up and running.

Stinky runs retails fro $59.97, but will probably run you
closer to $50 ($49.99 at Toys “R” Us, $47.99 at Amazon, and $44.97 at
Wal-Mart).

Take your Favorite Meat Anywhere with My First Bacon

If you thought bacon was over, think again. Now you can take delicious bacon with you wherever you go or just cuddle him at night with ThinkGeek’s My First Bacon. The cuddly plush bacon toy started as an April Fool’s joke, but like many products that ThinkGeek announces as April Fool’s jokes, got such a rise out of the geek community that they just had to make him real.

My First Bacon will set you back $19.99, and can be only be ordered from ThinkGeek directly. When you squeeze him, he says “I’m bacon!” He’s a huggable 19-inches tall by 7-inches wide, and recommended for children (and adults) ages 3 and up.

Fable is a Tablet for Tots

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You know how your kids always want to play Angry Birds on your iPad, but you’re not thrilled with them treating it like a toy? Well now they can have their own tablet. Fable is a fully-interactive, portable table for the young, and it’s designed to encourage them to read, draw, play, and share. It includes a 7-inch touch-screen LCD and communicates wirelessly (we’re guessing via Wi-Fi, but the company hasn’t said yet). An onboard camera will let owners snap pictures, then save them in their own gallery.

When Fable is released in mid-2011, it will come pre-loaded with famous children’s books from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It will also feature a simple carousel navigation interface. If all goes well, it will satisfy your little one’s desire for gadgets while teaching them something while they play. But will it have Angry Birds? Time will tell.