With the success of Transformers, Hollywood is now thumbing through other popular giant robot cartoons from the '80s with plans to make them into big ol' movies. Voltron has already been acquired and now Spider-Man himself, Tobey Maguire, has announced he's picked up the rights to anime classic Robotech.

A sprawling sci-fi epic, "Robotech" takes place at a time when Earth has developed giant robots from the technology on an alien spacecraft that crashed on a South Pacific isle. Mankind is forced to use the technology to fend off three successive waves of alien invasions. The first invasion concerns a battle with a race of giant warriors who seek to retrieve their flagship's energy source known as "protoculture," and the planet's survival ends up in the hands of two young pilots.

Maguire, WB attack the big screen with 'Robotech' [HollywoodReporter.com]

MacBidouille.com has a scan of a purported iPhone advertisement from T-Mobile in Germany, showing a 3G-capable iPhone with 16GB of storage. Anything is possible, of course, but how mad will people be if the Euro iPhone has 3G data connection and twice the storage? [MacBidouille] (Thanks, Matt!)

(I think as a matter of course I may just never post rumors at all, but I'm a bit torn. I don't want to get caught up in the rumor echo chamber, but I don't want to not pass on news people may enjoy. What's the right path here?)

• Apple Giveth – Apple locks TV out on new iPods. [iLounge]

• An Audiofile and His Money – Hand-assembled BCD-1 CD player weighs 18 pounds, costs $2,400. [Engadget]

• Are You Not Entertained? – A shot of the Optimus Maximus, the keyboard where every key is a tiny screen, with Photoshop icons. [Optimus Project]

• TiVoToTiVo – TiVoToGo and multi-room viewing are coming to Series 3 and TiVoHD units. This will probably tip me over the edge. Also coming: Watch your PC's videos from your TiVo. [TivoCommunity via Grizmrodro]

• Allow 6 - 8 Lifetimes for Delivery – 1,500 Fry's filled Fry's rebate forms found in the trash. [Consumerist]

Last night, over dinner at Musso & Frank Grill in Hollywood, this correspondent confirmed that without a doubt, the new Apple iPod Nano is neither a chocolate bar nor a pat of butter.

I received a review unit from Apple earlier in the day, and brought it along to test it out the best way I knew how: in the hands of friends.

Our waiter said he was astonished at how thin and lightweight it was (6.5 mm!), and he stared at an episode of Flight of the Conchords for so long that other tables began complaining. "The video quality is really amazing," he said, and I agree. The device is small, but that 204 pixel per inch display renders 320x240 res with about 65% more brightness than previous generation iPods.

One female friend at the table, who'd had a few too many of those Musso Martinis, offered to taste-test the hypothesis that the Nano is made of chocolate -- we grabbed the device back just in time.

It is in fact made of anodized aluminum and shiny polished steel, but the translucent color finish (in this case, red) does give it an appealing, candy-like feel.

The UI is a few steps more intuitive than the last nano generation, but I found myself (as did other friends at the table) thumbing at the screen, now acclamated to iPhones. It's not a touchscreen, and it's hard to kill that instinct now.

Coverflow is nice on this tiny device. One male pal at the table flipped through photos for a long time, and liked how bright and crisp they looked, even on the compact display.

I like that I can use my fancy schmanzty Bose headphones with this Nano, unlike the iPhone, which is designed to accept only Apple-issued headphones (or others designed for that non-standard jack depth, and the potential RF interference).

I spoke to an Apple rep yesterday about those pre-launch leaked images of the Nano popping up on various gadget blogs before Wednesday. Apple asked those sites to remove the images, in part because people "wouldn't see the context," as this spokesperson said -- I can see why. Those photos made the new Nano's butt look big. In the photos, the new Nano looks a lot bulkier and wider than earlier generation Nanos, but when you're holding the little bugger in your own hands it feels pleasingly petite.

4GB models are $149, 8GB are $199 (that's the edition where you can choose colors: red, silver, black, blue, green).

Of the three devices launched this week by Apple -- the "Touch," the new Nano, and the "Classic" -- if I were going to go buy one it'd probably be the Classic. 160 gazigamajigabytes! I'd use it on foreign trips to back up sound (if I'm doing field recordings and interviews for NPR), and photos or video. Holds about 200 hours of video, less if it's HD but still -- a bunch of space in what would amount to a very small portable hard drive.

Oh, bonus round: I also asked the Apple folks if they planned on releasing an SDK for iPhone any time soon, given that so many developers were working so feverishly on installable apps. No plans to do so at this time, quoth the spokesperson. They're encouraging people to develop and use Web 2.0 apps instead.

Photos: top, shot at Musso & Frank Grill on Hollywood Boulevard with an iPhone, below on my desk with the same.

Having a car lift in your home garage is a dream for many amateur mechanics, but the cost is painfully prohibitive. (Not only for the lift, but for all the additional concrete work that has to be done, not to mention proper, environmentally-sound drainage.)

The Eastwood Tilt-A-Car is a much cheaper option, although it sacrifices much of the convenience of a lift: you'd have to drain all the fluids before cocking a car up on its side. (If only you had a lift!)

Eastwood claims the Tilt-A-Car will tilt a car or truck up to 6,800 pounds all the way to 90 degrees.  Two rocker assemblies attach to the wheel lugs on one side of the vehicle while a threaded lift screw connects to the lugs of a wheel on the opposite side. A 3/8″ corded or cordless drill then lifts the car up by pulling the ends of the threaded rod inward. 

$1,400 plus freight shipping, plus $30 for a bottle of bourbon to steady your nerves. Do you feel lucky, punk?

Catalog Page [EastwoodCo.com via Toolmonger]

Should you feel guilt about smashing nature's tiny, soulless robots—some call them insects—this Japanese-made device uses pneumatics to suck them into a little plastic cage, allowing you to set them free outdoors, where they will wander back into your home.

If you happen to buy this, just do me one favor: leave the spiders. They're a good friend to any home.

Product Page (Japanese) [Netprice.co.jp via Plastic Bamboo via Core77]

The Inflight USB Power Unit pulls power out of your in-seat audio jack and bridges it to a USB connection, allowing you to charge any device that can be charged over USB. I have to admit, I'm a little surprised an audio jack on an airplane would have enough oomph to recharge even small gadgets, but I suppose as long as it's enough power to trip the internal "I'm getting juice" switch, good enough.

The basic model is $35, although they'll sell you ones with custom tips for $10 more. (Just bring your cable from home and get the basic USB model.)

Anyone have one of these who can testify to its effectiveness?

Product Page [InFlightPower.com via Lifehacker via Windows Fanatics]

While it's not actually being used in any military clothing yet, it's not difficult to see how the Blackhawk Integrated Tourniquet System (I.T.S.) could find its way into the pants of our fighting men and women. To staunch the flow of blood from a wound, a person would yank the integrated cords positioned over the arteries. There will also be shirts available when the I.T.S. line launches in '08.

Of course, extra weight is the enemy of the infantryman. I wonder if soldiers would feel the extra gear is worth it?

Integrated tourniquet clothing system aims to save lives on the battlefield [Gizmag]

Game and film composer Gary Kibler shares his experiences with the Yamaha Tenori-On, the $1,200 sound and light grid released in the UK this week.

Regardless, the real story here may not be about the TENORI-ON itself, but more about its artist/inventor Toshio Iwai (seen above). About how one's lifelong artistic vision can sometimes, in what would seem to be incredible odds in a corporate environment, manage to manifest itself and make it onto the world stage as an actual retail product, and not just another one-off museum installation. Can you imagine what it must have been like persuading a huge corporate behemoth like Yamaha into investing who-knows-how-many millions on the making of what's essentially a piece of "interactive music art?" I can't. I have a hard enough time just shilling my little jingles and tunes for loose change to anyone willing to listen.

Yes, I know about the Monome—in fact, I'd expect to hear more about that from CDM soon—but Kibler nails why the Tenori-On is so interesting: it isn't the sort of product you expect from a big company, more art than product.

Hands On Tenori-On: Close Encounters of the Interactive Music Kind [CreateDigitalMusic.com]

Previously:: Grid Sequencers Coming Soon: Tenori-On and Monome [BBG]
Video: Yamaha's Grid Sequencer "Tenori On" Launches in London [BBG]

A little personal troubleshooting is going on here at the apartment here today; I thought I might share it with you guys to try to figure out what's going on.

I bought two Dell 2001FP flat-panel monitors a couple of years ago. I recently moved one over to my girlfriend Susie's gaming rig and, as per usual when I try to do something nice, it immediately broke, making me look like a cheap heel. See that mild yellow bar on the right? It would do that from time to time on my PC. But now it's throwing that multi-colored bar in the middle, flip-flapping an inch-and-a-half bar of insanity every couple of seconds.

At first I thought it was the cable. It is not. Then I thought it might be her video card. It is not. It happens with both DVI and VGA connections. Now I'm looking at this as a learning experience, since fixing monitors is basically impossible without a tiny spaceship and an elemental shrink ray.

Here's my guess: The video processing hardware inside is dying, but in such a way that each "strip" is dying independantly. The yellow bar seems to be the same width as the inverted one, about 1.5 inches, and the monitor is about 16 inches wide, so that gives us a nice base 2 number of... 10.666. Okay, so much for that. Any ideas?

Equipped.org took a trip to the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market '07 and reported back with highlights from the world of camping and survival. (Including, as my friend Fibiger initially pointed out, the carbon fiber version of that upcoming Leatherman Skeletool.)

There's too many cool things to bother excerpting completely, but here's a short list: water purification systems, including a chemical-based one from PUR; LED flashlights; new water bottles; the SPOT satellite messenger system; various knives and survival systems.

They took an extra deep dive into the SPOT Satellite Messenger [pictured], a consumer-grade personal tracker that not only allows you to be located with fidelity up to 20 feet, but allows you to send basic messages about your condition. (Including "I'm okay.") Equipped.org has some reservations about the device on the whole, but it is cheap for this sort of thing at just $150 for the initial unit, plus $100-a-year for the service. Other Personal Locator Beacons have run in the middle hundreds, plus service. (Thanks, Harrkev, for the correction.)

Oh! And because I know how many of you like the Photon LED flashlights:

David tells us that these new Nichia LEDs will be exclusive to Photon initially. As with the last LED upgrade, this one is claimed to once again almost double the light output compared to the existing Photon lights!

Even better, the new ReX from Photon is rechargeable from larger, cheaper cells, so you don't have to keep buying overpriced watch batteries. A USB adapter is coming soon.

Man, there are so many cool things I'd like to keep talking about, like the MSR E-Wing one-person tarp shelter. Go read the write-up!

Outdoor Retailer Summer Market 2007 [Equipped.org]

This new "Mobility Weapon Mounted Installation Kit" (MWMIK) may look like some anachronistic sci-fi movie prop—you know, the kind where it's 1,000 years in the future, but everybody still drives Hummers?—but the four-ton 4x4 is an actual real-life vehicle, intended to be used by the British in Afghanistan. It's certainly got the ability to bring a lot of firepower to the table, including "a .50 calibre machine gun or an automatic grenade launcher and a general purpose machine gun," but if I recall correctly, the current trend in anti-guerilla warfare is to put more armor on your vehicles, not leave them open-topped like a dune buggy.

Apparently the old Land Rovers used by the British troops have been open topped before anyway, so it's not really worse, at least.

Army to use 'Mad Max' 4x4 to fight Taliban [Daily Mail via Gizmodo]

Much yapping was made of Apple's decision to lower the price of the iPhone two days ago, then offer a $100 credit to the earliest adopters. Some questioned whether the iPhone was selling well at all, while some early adopters complained they got burned by a price drop that happened only two months after launch.

I have no interest in doing a big think piece about what this or that means, mostly because it's all masturbatory speculation, but I will mention what I think is most interesting about these last few months watching Apple.

The iPhone signifies a new strategy for Apple. They released a glut of information about the device six months before launch, obviously a smart play that built a fever pitch, but diametrically opposed to the way Apple traditionally handles product launches. They priced the iPhone at $600 knowing full well that they would be launching the iPod Touch only a couple of months later. Then Jobs took a step back and offered the $100 credit, which may or may not have been calculated—we'll never know—but is as close to a mea culpa as we've ever seen.

These aren't the moves of the stoic hits factory we all have come to know and love (and loathe). This is a company that is straining at full tilt to capitalize on their unique place in the market, working every engineer they've got to maximum capacity, juking quickly when they once would have silently taken their lumps.

Whether previous sales were a factor in the iPhone price drop is hard to say. But this is the product line-up Apple has been putting together for the last several years, right in front of a Christmas they certainly hope will be their biggest sales quarter yet, with media giants like NBC starting to really get the taste of fear in their mouths. What we're seeing now is an Apple cashing out all their stored up success and making a big play. Apple is going all in.

I didn't realize that LEGO sculpture was a competitive sport, able to be won utterly and without challenge, but apparently I was wrong.

Professor Stephen Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics - Cambridge University. BEST WISHES ON YOUR TRIP TO THE STARS [Brickshelf]

• iRobot Rooma 530 for $212 plus shipping. One of the new Roombas, although you can usually find older models for $100ish. [Bargainst]

• Microsoft Zune 30GB Digital Media Player for $170. New models are on the horizon, so the old models are going. Zune is pretty good, really, if you don't imagine what it could have been if Microsoft had any balls. [Bargainist]

• Lego Death Star II for $253. (Normally $300.) The largest LEGO set ever. I want this so hard, but I am resisting. [Dealnews]

• 2 5-foot HDMI cables for $12, shipped. Never, ever, ever buy cables from a retail electronics store. [Dealnews]

• Westinghouse TX-42F430S 42-inch LCD 1080p TV for $1,080, shipped. (46 for $1,350.) Turn down the backlight for decent black levels; you'll sear your retinas otherwise. [Dealnews]

Marc Merlin has a very nice write-up of his experiences at this year's Burning Man along with a heap of pictures, but I would have been remiss in my nerdly duties if I didn't share this picture he took of a particular art car.

I don't know how you'd otomatopiate Jawas, but let me assure you I tried. Let me give you my best Threepio instead: Oh my!

Burning Man 2007: The Green Man [Marc.Merlins.org]

My friends at Popular Mechanics got a sneak peak at the upcoming Leatherman Skeletool, a delightfully monikered multi-tool that lives up to its name. Take a look: where all non-essential surfaces, Leatherman has carved out holes in the metal, leaving the Skeletool a light 5 ounces—feather-light enough for even Tim Burton to carry in a moldy silken jacket pocket.

You can even go lighter if you move from the $72 base model to the $96 Skeletool CX, which has carbon fiber handles. (Although I bet the all-metal version looks nicer; there are no carbon fiber pictures yet.)

But the best part fo the curved new Skeletool: The included bottle opener is always accessable, even when the Skeletool is closed.

Leatherman Skeletool: The Lightweight Multi-Tool You'll Actually Use [Popular Mechanics]

An Apple spokesperson has confirmed to Boing Boing Gadgets that the upcoming iPod Touch does not include Bluetooth, despite rumors to the contrary today. An image had made the rounds earlier today—the corner with the purported Bluetooth icon in the corner is reproduced here—but Apple has said it is not an official image.

While there wouldn't have been much use for monophonic Bluetooth headsets in the iPod Touch, the lack of Bluetooth precludes the possibility of wireless Bluetooth stereo headsets or microphones that could be used with a future third-party VoIP application.

Update: Some eagle-eyed readers have pointed out that there are Bluetooth icons on images on the Apple.com pages. (See this post's comments.) Since Apple roundly denies there is Bluetooth in the Touch, I think we can chalk it up to a Photoshop blunder. (Once they hit the street and someone tears it apart, we'll know for certain if there's Bluetooth hardware in there or not.)

• Apple Jacked – "Therefore, we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store."[Apple]

• Send Designers, Guns, and Money – India facing a shortage of designers. [LiveMint.com via Core77]

• Particle Man – The Times profiles Ikea Hacker and MAKE. [NYTimes.com via Core77]

• Nice Intro, Blakeley and/or Wilson – "Justify Your Platform, Gabe Newell" video challenge. [Kotaku]

• So? Well? – Vudu, another magic streaming content box, reviewed. [Crave.CNET.com]

• Shack Attack – Resident genius Brendan Koerner dismantles Radio Shack's latest commercial. [Gizmodo]

Toolmonger's got it right about this "Cabinet Jack":

It's refreshing to see a multi-tool that doesn't try to be all things to all people.  Instead, the Cabinet Jack focuses specifically on cabinet making needs, assisting in tasks like cleaning up hinge mortises and ease edges.

I have a hard time sanding wood, let alone working it, but I get a kick out of seeing these sort of specialized tools.

A Multi-Tool For Cabinet Makers [Toolmonger]

I am fully aware this is the sort of unit that looks best in a spartan room with glass walls set smack dab in the middle of the wind-blown Swedish tundra^*, but golly I think the new Sony HES-V1000 Home Entertainment Server looks neat.

The big black tower makes me regret that I've already used my once-a-day reference to the 2001 monolith, but somehow we'll muddle through. The HES-V1000 stores up to 200 discs deep inside, switching them into the built-in Blu-ray player (which supports DVD and CD, of course), or even letting you store video on its 500GB hard drive. (Where that hard drive content comes from I'm not sure; they surely aren't letting you rip DVDs.)

The HES-V1000 uses the "XrossMediaBar," as seen in the Playstation 3 or PSP, when you're controlling it on your TV. But if you'd like to control it by standing over it, perhaps sacrificing an infant or something—it is Sony, after all—then you can also use the backlit touch-sensitive buttons along the top.

It also talks to all the wacky media gadgets that Sony makes that nobody really ever buys, like LocationFree. You can put a HES-V1000 in your media temple for just $3,500 come October.

Update: Gizmodo's Brian Lam says: "I played with the Sony HES-v1000; Doesn't stream anything but audio." Considering I don't even own a Sony audio device, I'll survive. Brian also says it has motorized panels, like every good thing you don't need should.

Press Release [Sony.com]

^{* Alternately: A smeared rainbow of nighttime lights in any given Asian megalopolis.}

CEDIA, one of the major home theater expos, is currently underway, and while most of the stuff shown is your same ol' same ol', a few interesting bits are floating to the surface. This "Hanger18 HD Media Server" from Alienware, for instance: a four terabyte array of hot-swappable hard drives, HD recording up to 1080p, and an internal Blu-ray drive lets this thing do some serious entertainment bit spitting.

To me, though, the most appealing thing about the Hanger 18 is that it's in a rack-mountable case. I've long had a dream of moving all my computing and media devices into a single, throbbing entertainment monolith. Unfortunately, having had some minor experience building rack-mount systems in the past, I'm not quite prepared to put in the extra money, especially when I'd basically be stacking all my stuff on top of each other like it is already.

Prices for the Hanger 18 will probably range in the $2k to $4k range, depending on how you spec it out.

Press Release [Biz.Yahoo.com via Engadget]

This wallpaper by 5.5 Designers is covered in a grid of letters, designed to let you play the grade school favorite "Find the Word" game.

My great-grandfather used to keep a pencil or pen in the pocket of his overalls, leaning over from his chair to scratch notes in the margins of the patterned wallpaper in his home. Used to drive Great-Grandma Lemons crazy, but it was always fun to walk around the house and see what he'd scratched down.

Wallpaper Games by 5.5 Designers [Apartment Therapy]

Image: Andrew Huff

Brian Dettmer created this skull entirely out of melted '80s metal band cassettes. He later built an entire skeleton using the same technique.

There's a metaphor in here somewhere. Home taping is killing tapes?

Cassette Tape Skull (cc Andrew Huff) [Flickr.com]
"briandettmer" tag on Flickr [Flickr.com] (Thanks, DreepDrishcoes!)

It appears to be just a concept for the moment, but I adore this "LULL" lamp that opens and closes like a flower, softly dimming the light before fading out at night, then cracking open along with the dawn. Something about items in our home responding to the outside world really, really appeals to me; I want my home to breathe. (And yes, I know how to make the walls breathe, but that's not a good daily solution.)

Of course, not all children man be as happy as this one to wake to a yawning metal blossom beaming light right into their soul, but if you can't traumatize a child at least once a day, what's the point of having them?

LuLL the Flower Light [Freshome.com via Coolest-Gadgets.com]

The "WAVE Street Surfboard" is a frightening two-wheeled device intended to give you several vectors onto which you may through the air towards a wall. Like a skateboard, the WAVE is meant for use on land. Unlike a skateboard, it has only two wheels, the better to make deep slices into turns, more like a surf or snowboard. It also has a thoughtful wide rear and foredeck, the better to place my fat, whimpering ass on as I careen wildly down a hill. There's no way I would ever stand up on that thing.

The reviews on Sports Authority's site are generally positive, although most warn it has a steep (but short) learning curve and a tendency to chew through wheels fairly quickly. The WAVE is available for $100 (plus monthly health insurance payments).

Catalog Page [SportsAuthority.com via Uncrate]

HP has brought two new Windows Mobile 6 Professional IPAQs to the table in an attempt to crack back into the smartphone space. The QWERTY-equipped 910 has a square screen, while the 610 has a larger screen, but no keyboard.

Both are sort of sterile-looking devices, which may or may not appeal to you depending on how you feel about the glossy faux metal that covers most Windows Mobile devices these days. Hardware-wise, they're not without oomph—3G, Bluetooth 2, A-GPS, 3 megapixel cameras—but like all hardware with feature sets that are predicated largely by their OS, they're not doing a whole lot of stand-out stuff.

I'm a little surprised they're keeping the "iPAQ" brand. I never thought it screamed modernity.

HP Refreshes iPAQ Lineu [Phonescoop]

Bang & Olufsen may be one of the more interesting electronics companies out there. Not because I think they make great stuff—it's so ridiculously expensive that I never even consider buying it, something which I'm sure breaks their hearts—but because they exist in a rarified stratosphere somehow exempt from traditional good taste and design.

In the strange fairy land of high-end retail, products like the Beo 5 remote control are allowed to flourish, despite glaring deformities like an awkward screen perched on a spindly neck, like a lolling Hapsburg prince too rich to be quietly sequestered but too ugly to be seen.

I do like the round body, though. I bet it's got heft, like a baseball or a hunk of cheese. I bet you could bean a pauper real nice with that.

No price yet. If you have to ask...

Bang & Olufsen shows off Beo 5 remote control [EngadgetHD]

The Holland Electro Wave TV is exactly what is sounds like: a microwave with a television for a screen. It's just in prototype form now and hopefully it stays that way, at least until they can figure out how to make the contents of the microwave also visible on the screen.

Hey, what if they put in a window?

The Microwave television [Gizmag]

Despite the occasional banged drum from people who have watched Robocop too many times, autonomous robots will not be allowed to shoot humans with weapons any time soon. We can't even make convincing artificial intelligence in our video games yet. You expect us to be able to create a bot that can distinguish threat levels from humans with executive certainty? Not happening.

But that doesn't mean we aren't arming our robots. Unwired View uncovered this patent from Samsung for a sentry robot based on tried-and-true designs from near-future videogames everywhere: rotating turret with camera eyes and guns that retract behind armor. It certainly wins a prize for looking lethal.

These kind of sentry machines probably will be created at some point, but for foreseeable future they'll still be overseen by human operators that will be the one to actually pull the trigger. And I'm fine with that.

SAMSUNG ROBOT SENTRY CAN SHOOT YOU ON SIGHT [Unwired View via Crunchgear]

• "Land of the Giants" complete DVD set for $100. [Bargainist]

• 4GB iPhones are still in stock at Apple for the moment, available for $300, plus service contract. (Refurbs should be discounted now, too.) [Apple]

• $20 off $80 or more for Remington shavers, trimmers, croppers, and straighteners at Amazon. [Bargainist]

• Pantech C120 AT&T Prepaid World Phone for $10, shipped. Perfect solution for those who want a phone but no contract. Or international bank thieves planning a caper. [Dealnews]

• Gray Neopreme 15-inch Laptop sleeve for $7, shipped. May not be super-snazzy, but it's cheap! [Dealnews]

Good morning! Sorry for the late start today. I went out to dinner with a friend of mine last night and ended up leaving my camera in the restaurant, which I only discovered by the time I was nearly home, necessitating a return trip.

I've got a couple of updates about the site.

First, comments: At the moment, you have to make two different logins for Boing Boing and Gadgets, which is hurky, but there it is. However, we're expecting to have that cleaned up by the 20th or so. I wish we could do it sooner, but there it is. I appreciate everybody who is