Piping hot from the LEGO newsletter comes the latest Star Wars model available now for pre-order: a minifig-scale AT-AT walker, complete with tiny Luke Skywalker and motorized walking action.

How is that I hate Star Wars but still swoon over LEGO Star Wars stuff? It's two-fisted and unfair.

It'll be shipping later this year for $130.

Catalog Page [Shop.LEGO.com]

I blew a few quarters on Arkanoid at Barcade last night, so perhaps I'm a wee bit saturated in nostalgia at the moment, but nonetheless: this paddle controller from Taito, which plugs into the bottom of the Nintendo DS for use in games like Arkanoid and Space Invaders Extreme, sounds great. Sure, you could fake it really well with the DS's touchscreen, but read out what Chris Kohler, who got a hands-on, had to say:

it's fantastic. It's not just a little plastic dial. It's sitting on ball bearings or something, and it's got momentum and a little bit of kickback to it. That means that it spins incredibly smoothly -- if you spin it and let go, it'll keep whizzing for a good five seconds or so. The response time is perfect.

Yet no plans for a North American release! Criminal. They'd sell dozens.

Hands-On: Why Taito's DS Paddle Controller Rocks So Hard [Game|Life]

Run Athletics (a shoe company) and Nintendo have teamed up to release this pair of sneakers emblazoned with the Mario Bros. "M" on the tongue and a Power Star motif on the side. I see no price. (Probably a couple hundred, but I'm just guessing.)

Nintendo is throwing a launch party for the shoes at New York's Nintendo World Store in Rockefeller Place. (Or "10 Rock," as absolutely no one in New York calls it.) Although I'm sure the September 25th party will fill up as soon as the Nintendorks catch wind, for now it looks like you can RSVP for the event with just an email.

Pity about their fuck-ugliness. Maybe white laces would help?

Run Athletics Legacy x Nintendo Launch Party [FreshnessMag.com]

Although not a gadget, per se, the new online community customer service platform "Satisfaction" could be a welcome balm to the travails of gadget ownership. In most ways, Satisfaction is just a web forum for customer questions and complaints—nothing too transformative there. And while Satisfaction employees have jumped into the fray to try to own discussions (in a positive way) and provide support, the real power of the service comes when official representatives from the companies log in, as well, their answers given a special mark of officiality, but are placed in-line with everyone else's.

Because Satisfaction is "neutral ground," the control of the customer service conversation swings back toward the users. Technologically, Satisfaction doesn't do anything your average forum or social network does, but with an intention towards luring in official responders from a variety of companies, it has a chance to be an important part of the customer service process. It's a chicken-and-egg thing, for sure, but they've got a few of the Web 2.0 companies like Twitter and Digg on board already, as well some that sell real world products.

I once had a similar idea for telephone customer support, creating a branded third-party group of highly trained agents who could be trusted to always get the job done no matter what product or service they supported, but the obvious training and setup costs never made sense. Satisfaction is a better idea, if it works: bring the official experts to the customers and record the conversation in public.

Product Page [GetSatisfaction.com]

Bonus Link: Crowdsourcing Customer Service [BusinessWeek]

Vinyl warps. Even if you treat your LPs with utmost care, it's common to find used albums too warped to get needle to groove. The Furutech DFV-1 LP Flattener works as a giant waffle iron for vinyl, delicately heating an LP just enough to get it flat without disturbing the audio grooves on the sides, then quickly cooling it to lock the new shape in place.

It's $1,500, but at this point there's really no price vinyl devotees aren't willing to pay to keep their precious albums in working order.

Product Page [Furutech.com via Crave.CNET.com]

Fuji Xerox is showing off this prototype photocopier that can translate text from scanned pages on the fly. The unit translates from one language to another while maintaining the original layout of the page, including paragraphs and illustrations.

Machine translation tends to be a mess in the best cases, so while it's a clever trick, it won't ever be more useful than equivalent software solutions.

Photocopier translates Japanese to English at touch of button [DigitalWorldTokyo.com via Uberreview]

Yael Miller's "Kineticel" concept proposes to put small piezoelectric chargers inside common household furniture and appliances, trading a little extra effort in your endeavor for freeish power. Kineticel chargers in a set of dumbbells could make electricity while you're working out, while a baby jumper could harness the power of your little man-grub's playtime jittering. (Finally, a way to extract energy out of babies besides eating them!)

It's all an on-paper concept right now, but I like that the idea is built around battery chargers instead of batteries. The trick would be to discover the materials and environmental cost of adding chargers to relatively simple items in the first place.

Kinetic Energy - Making Energy More Efficient [ReubenMiller.typepad.com via Oh Gizmo!]

Image: Mobileburn

Here's some fantastic news: The Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP) group has decided to standardize on micro-USB as the charging interface for mobile phones, putting an end to the needless waste created by needing separate chargers for each device. The OMTP includes Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, LG, and Nokia—that's a majority of the GSM phone market right there, which will hopefully force any stragglers to join up. (Although I don't think we'll be seeing Apple ditching their plug for the iPhone any time soon.)

Most interesting to me was how environmental legislation in the EU may have been a factor in making the choice:

However, [telecom analyst Dean Bubley] also suggested that having a standard connector might be in manufacturers' best interests due to environmental reasons. The EU's WEEE directive makes manufacturers responsible for some of the costs associated with recycling their equipment, and a broadly applied standard could remove the need for a new charger to be distributed with every phone or accessory.

"This is cheaper to the manufacturer, and also results in a smaller, less heavy box, which reduces on shipping costs, storage costs, warehouse costs and so on," Bubley said. "It has got to have beneficial effects for everyone."

Micro-USB connectors, like the one on the right, should be small enough to be cleanly integrated into most slim phone designs for the near future.

Pros seem to outdo cons in new phone charger standard [News.com]

This keychain-borne iPod Shuffle case, called "The Bevy" includes an integrated bottle open positioned just over the hole for the controls. You might thing it likely to scuff up your Shuffle just looking at it, but the Bevy doesn't actually work until you remove the iPod first. You can wind your headphones around the outside when they're not in use.

The only problem seems to be that it's not actually on sale yet.

Catalog Page [Firebox via Coolest-Gadgets]

Update: Reader "Anonymous" points out the Bevy is also available on Amazon. And he or she is correct! (It's $15.)

• Today's Woot!: A White Zune for $135, shipped.

• 6-Foot DVI-to-HDMI cable for $6.85, shipped. Good for TVs that have more DVI inputs than HDMI. [Dealnews]

• Huge Amazon Toys & Games Sale, up to 75% off many items. Perhaps a good time to stash away a robot dinosaur for Xmas gifts. [Dealnews]

• Free exhibit hall pass to Macworld SF 2008. [Dealnews]

My friends at Consumerist have uncovered the Verizon style/branding guidelines for the "Can You Hear Me Now? Good!" character and they're a trove of unintentional brainwashed humor:

Test man is:

25-35 years old
Entertaining
The embodiment of Verizon Wireless employees
Relentless in his mission
Friendly
Every day guy
A bit quirky
A little obsessive and compulsive
Likeable character
Appealing to all ethnicities

Test Man is not:

Annoying
Goofy
Easily distracted
Aloof
Stupid
Too "pretty"

Verizon's Style Book For Deploying "Can You Hear Me Now" Guy [Consumerist]

An iRobot Packbot EOD investigates a roadside IED in Iraq, only to catch a faceful of explode. Better bots than boys, for sure. [via Danger Room]

The "HomeHero" fire extinguisher forgoes the traditional red for a sleek white in an attempt, they attest, to encourage keeping it out on the counter, close at hand. I can't help but wonder if most people, conditioned to look for the red, might not see the HomeHero in a panic.

No price yet, but it appears to be part of a full line of home fire prevention products.

Product Page [HomeHero.net via Oh Gizmo via Crib Candy]

Although it's not yet ready for production, it's great to see that in-device projectors are still being put together in the labs. And even shown off from time to time, like this one that Engadget coaxed out of Texas Instruments last night. That its projected image looks sort of crummy isn't the big deal (and they say they have an LED-based model in the lab that is even brighter) but that the prototypes are easily the size of a normal phone.

Of course, battery life will be an issue, especially for a feature that has few critical applications, but won't it be neat to be able to watch movies from your phone on a decent sized screen or show off your photo galleries without getting in a huddle?

Hands-on with Texas Instruments' cellphone projector [Engadget]

Mac software developer Wil Shipley writes about recent mistakes Apple has made, screwing over customers for no other reason than to make money—and he's not talking about the iPhone price drop.

These are EXACTLY the compromises Sony has been making for years -- and because Sony's music and movie arms have been telling the Sony hardware arm to never do anything new or interesting without building in a ton of customer-unfriendly restrictions, Sony is now completely in the toilet. They have gone from an incredibly respected brand to a complete joke. Every time they introduce some new, crippled standard the industry kind of looks away in embarrassment, like Sony is the oafish guy at the party who is parked in front of the meatballs tray eating directly from the dish.

I don't know that I totally agree with his proposed solution of licensing Apple's Fairplay DRM to other music stores, but he's certainly right about some of the anti-customer choices Apple has been making lately, and it's good to hear someone who loves the company's products point out their mistakes. It's this kind of bullshit from Apple that turns fans into de facto apologists. Customers won't find that tenable for long.

iPhone & iPod: contain or disengage [WilShipley.com]

My grandfather, down in his garage workshop cranking out "Lemonade Loaders" to be sold via mail-order to TRS-80 owners with finicky tape drives, often wore a flip-up magnifying glass. So much so that it's one of the primary ways I remember him, with his silky threads of hair poking over the top. But where he didn't wear them was in public, because he wasn't an asshole, and Burning Man had not yet been invented.

Technically these are binoculars, not magnifying glasses, but Hammacher Schlemmer will sell you those, too, should you pony up the $120. I'm sure there is a specific scenario where these would be more useful than a pair of traditional binoculars—low-rent television sci-fi prop?—but they look like they'd make a person really pukey.

Catalog Page [Hammacher.com via Coolest-Gadgets]

Measuring just two-by-two-inches square and less than an inch thick, the SA.3Xm atomic clock from Symmetricom is said to be the world's smallest, five times smaller than other rubidium oscillators. It looks like a hunk of radioactive cheese.

Product Page [Symmetricom.com via Technabob]

How good this "Ultimate Display Speaker Shelf" sounds is anybody's guess, but it's only eighty bucks and looks better than every other iPod dock on the market. A winner!

Catalog Page [PBTeen.com via Geeksugar]

According to the engineering level, comment accounts on both Boing Boing and Boing Boing Gadgets should work in the unified manner which you may rightfully have expected in the first place: One account, one login, posting access on both sites.

Scott O. Moore, in a review of the DVD "Worldspirit" by Alex Grey, describes the basic mechanics behind video feedback installations, the results from one of which is featured on the disc and excerpted on video above:

I knew a crazy prankster years ago who had a video feedback rig set up in his living room. He had a projection screen, a projector in a mount, and a video camera rigged up underneath the projector, so that the image that the camera was delivering to the projector was the same image that the projector was projecting - that's the feedback loop. But this prankster had built a mechanized rig for the camera that allowed us to utilize a remote control to move the camera forward and backward on a track, tilt it up and down, and spin it clockwise and counterclockwise. A separate remote allowed us to manipulate the projector's color and tint settings. With these two remotes, you could essentially explore waves of video feedback for hours upon hours. And when people chose to stand in front of the screen and interact with it, their own images would cycle into the feedback and if the camera rotated properly, you could see mirror images of these dancers, or upside down dancers interacting with their right side up counterparts. It was magic.

Skip to the 3:15 mark should you be allergic to some serious hippy shit.

DVD review: 'Worldspirit' by Alex Grey [DoseNation.com]

Hussein Chalayan's latest collection of dresses incorporate servos and pulleys to transform the shape of the clothing in subtle, ethereal ways. There's no real practicality to these bits, just able showmanship and technical chops. There is nudity in the last few seconds of the clip, but as it is in the service of perhaps the best piece in the show, pop your head out of the cubicle and make sure you're clear. It's worth it. (But really, when isn't nudity worth it?)

[via Brandish]

Last evening was the "Holiday Spectacular," a press-only meet-and-greet event for consumer tech folks, primarily existing as a place to schmooze over free booze with your other journo friends, avoid the Creepy Bat-Santas among the rest*, and flirt with cute PR girls who are paid to laugh at your jokes. I hate these events in theory, but find myself irresistibly drawn to them, if only to bask in a momentary fantasy land where I can be cooler than almost everyone in the room by simply refusing to wear a string of plastic Mardi Gras beads.

Most of the products on display at these things aren't new; that's okay, since the majority of the press there are from mainstream, non-tech-oriented outlets. They rightly don't care if something's been on the shelves for a while. But for the cream scrapers, it's common to find absolutely zero new products worth talking about, leaving one free to chat to PR people and wheedle out rumors like, "there's a 75% chance an upcoming version of the Microsoft Zune will support wireless headphones." A wisp, I know, but you take what you can get.

My point, now that I've completely overcharged it, is that this "Disc Painter" printer from DYMO was actually pretty great, capable of printing near-professional-looking graphics on any given printable CD or DVD in just a couple of minutes using their "RadialPrint" spinning technology. It'll be out next month for $280 and will come with enough ink to print about a hundred discs. The ink replacement, in typical printer company fashion, will be available only from DYMO for $30 a pop, per color.

That means I won't be buying one of these until the cost of the printer is cheaper than the cost of a set of replacement ink. That day will come sooner than later, I suspect.

They really did print nice discs, though. As my videographer friend Richard remarked, a nicely-printed disc is about the only thing that was keeping his DVD submissions from looking completely professional, making the Disc Painter the "last piece" in his rig.

Teaser Page [Global.Dymo.com]

* And boy are there a bunch of creepy tech journos; we are a race whose inevitable end seems to be a deflated morlock posture weighed down by too-large pockets filled with gizmos, with wild ivory hair and skin to match.

Autopia has been given these concept photos of the production model of the "Imagine" from HumanCar, a sort of modern version of the old pump-action railroad cart* designed for use on roads, bolstered by some electric motors in case its riders didn't eat their breakfast. The Imagine uses the same basic chassis as the first "FM-4" model of the HumanCar, which is powered by the rowing of its four passengers and steered by leaning.

The whole system looks a little awkward to me, but there are some videos up on HumanCar's site that show them cooking down twisty mountain roads, so I guess it can't be as unwieldy as it might first appear.

And before you slag them for making something with no headlights, no enclosed cabin, etc., remember that these aren't designed to be a total car replacement, but a green option for people moving, short commutes, and the like.

HumanCar Imagine Comes Ever Closer to Reality [Autopia]

* There's a proper name for those railroad carts, isn't there?

Laughing at machine-translated Japanese is a guilty pleasure—I'm sure the original Japanese is perfectly well-written—assuaged only by my hope that somewhere in Japan is a person laughing at a picture of an American with a tattoo of the characters for "tuna hero."

Gizmodo Japan's description of a flying witch arcade game, complete with rideable broom:

In the witch the sky of the necessity the broom type controller which it flies.
The taiwan game manufacturer "MEGA NET&TECH" developed, it was arcade edition of "[parase] D [runpe]". Still, development midway, it is with sample only.
If the sponsor is attached, also the day when it is seen with the Gaea plug of neighborhood is close whether?!
As for play animated picture in tomorrow rise stripe shank.
　
(Normal mountain hardness)

[TGS2007] Broom type controller of magic (Machine Translated) [Gizmodo.jp]

There are times when I post a concept design to provoke yowls of indignation from some of you, if only so I might sidle in and put a cool hand to your brow. I remind you that strange designs are a good thing, the better to let imagination scamper across the infinite white lightbox of possibility. "It's strange, dear, but you'll someday understand," I coo. "Let them run free. They're in a better place."

Which is to say, were I to fully murder the metaphor, this "Free Ride" pen by Jean Pierre Lepine, available for actual retail purchase, is the dead puppy just buried under the shed, shambling wetly down the upstairs hall.

Catalog Page [JoonPens.com via Crave.CNET.com]

In a pleasing but entirely surprising turn, it appears loved British comic actor Stephen Fry is blogging—about smartphones. It's not like the only people who are allowed to wax rhapsodic about the Psion 3's ARM processor are tech writers, but it's just a bit shocking to realize someone in the real world is still a major nerd.

My obsession with SmartPhones began many, many years ago. Certainly well before such devices existed in the real world. From the first Sharp contact-and-calendar "electronic organisers" , through the early Psions, the sadly missed AgendA (see above: no QWERTY there, more a kind of weird courtroom stenographer's chord-based input pad: never have I been able to write faster than with that splendid object - I had another device using the same input system called, I think, Qinky, which connected to the Centronix port of a BBC Micro), to the opening salvo of Palm Pilots, Apple's Newton and the arrival of Handspring. If they existed I had to have them. Had to. Some could be used with a phone: they might generate dial-tones for example, or somehow, like the later Psions, come with the optional extra of an infrared modem that could shake hands with a Nokia mobile phone and put one on the path to something approaching what today we might call a SmartPhone experience. Those infrared modem scripts still lurk in the system preference and plugin files of even the most up-to-the-minute computer, like a Kodak Instamatic in the back of a drawer. Obsolete, but too charming to throw away. And you never know - one day you might just need them ...

After clearing his throat for a couple thousand entertaining words, Fry gets into reviewing his current stable, including the Nokia E61 and E61i, the Palm Foleo, and the Sony Ericsson M600i—all compared to his iPhone, which he loves.

Device and Desires [StephenFry.com via Gadget Lab]

Update: Okay, so I'm still sitting here reading this instead of working, but man, what a treat. This piece is like a mental massage for me. Check this out:

We spend our lives inside the virtual environment of digital platforms - why should a faceless, graceless, styleless nerd or a greedy hog of a corporate twat deny us simplicity, beauty, grace, fun, sexiness, delight, imagination and creative energy in our digital lives?

• Samsung 50" 720P DLP + Xbox 360 + Halo 3 + 1600 Xbox Points for $1085, plus shipping, at Best Buy. Do more research, but that seems like a lot of stuff for not so much money should you want to dive in with both feet in the Xbox experience. Also looks like they have Wii in stock. [Slickdeals]

• 4 CTA-brand rechargeable AA 2700MAH batteries with charger for $17, shipped. After yesterday's AAs from a lantern battery post I'm feeling a moral duty to promote some rechargeables. [TechBargains]

• Several name-brand Bluetooth headsets for around $20, shipped. [Dealnews]

• Logitech Premium USB Headset with Mic for $13, shipped, after $15 mail-in rebate. Nothing fancy; just a decent, cheap USB headset. [Dealnews]

Wired reviewed the new Canon Powershot G9, a 12.1-megapixel snapper that attempts—successfully, it seems—to bridge the space between point-and-shoots and SLRs, at least as far as manual controls go. I've already got a DSLR that I haul around a lot, but I can't help but be intrigued, if only because I could ruin the portability of the G9 by putting my giant Canon flash in the G9's hotshoe.

From the review:

But there's a price to be paid for more than a dozen buttons, dials, and toggles in addition to deep, complex menus. We spent an entire three-day weekend fiddling, tweaking and analyzing every aspect of the G9. It's worth it. Stills and video are razor sharp and color-rich. The fast focus picks up multiple faces easily while image stabilization eliminates all but the most violent jitters. The flash is surprisingly robust and also balances daylight very nicely.

Review: Canon Powershot G9 -- Small. Powerful. Perfect. [Gadget Lab] (Thanks, John S., for bringing the G9 to my attention!)

The Stanley multi-function pen has a black ballpoint, a 0.7 lead mechanical pencil, an orange highlighter, and a stylus for PDAs crammed inside its tape-measure-inspired body, for which you'll pay a punitive $60 should you need something to brag about to the other foremen.

Catalog Page [The disappointingly, misleadingly named BoysToMenGifts.com via Uncrate]

Previously: Fisher Contractor Tool Space Pen [BBG]

The "Roddler" from Kid Kustoms are custom-built strollers that can be fully optimized for brat hauling, with over-the-hub fenders and fancy paint jobs. You can even choose fancy materials for the inner lining, including alligator and stingray leather, the better to indoctrinate the child for a lifetime of dominating those more helpless than he.

Prices start at $2,500, but careen wildly upward. Food stamps not accepted.

Product Page [KidKustoms.com via Serious Wheels via Jalopnik]

From Wikipedia:

The Uncompahgre Ute Indians from Central Colorado are one of the first documented groups of people in the world known to utilize the effect of mechanoluminescence through the use of quartz crystals to generate light, likely hundreds of years before the modern world recognized the phenomenon. The Ute constructed special ceremonial rattles made from buffalo rawhide which they filled with clear quartz crystals collected from the mountains of Colorado and Utah. When the rattles were shaken at night during ceremonies, the friction and mechanical stress of the quartz crystals impacting together produced flashes of light which partly shone through the translucent buffalo hide. These rattles were believed to call spirits into Ute Ceremonies, and were considered extremely powerful religious objects.

If someone next says the Ute used indigenous herbs to create primitive vapor jelly that they put under their noses while dancing to precise thumping beats and chewing on rawhide pacifiers, I'm calling hoax.

Also:

Anthropologist Hermann Baumann documented male-to-female transsexual priestesses among the Ute, although two-spirit expression has been discouraged by Christian influence.

These guys could throw a party!

[Xeni] -- Spotted in a NYT piece today about the preservation of endangered languages: the same trusty digital recording device I use out in the field to record stuff for NPR, and for Boing Boing podcasts. Link to BB item.

The latest "take part one battery to yield many more smaller batteries" trick is up on Lifehacker, showing how to get 32 AA batteries from a single 6-volt lantern cell. What I'm wondering is how much charge is in each of those batteries compared to a brand name AA cell like Duracell. If anyone gives this a shot—be careful!—and wants to throw a voltmeter on some of the AAs, that would be swell. [Lifehacker]