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Put the funk back in your life

It's touted as a disco enhancement, but it looks a lot more like raver chic to us. Whatever it is, Hammacher Schlemmer's "Dancing Light MP3 Synchronizer" will funkify your party with 33 multicolored LEDs bouncing off a concave mirror to the beat of whatever tunes you choose. It can even be set to four programs, "Andante, Moderato, Allegro and Presto." But if we were going to take this route, we'd just as soon go for the full retro effect with a home laser show. And remember, don't bogart that Nano.

The world...of the Knight Rider

A replica of the KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand) car of Knight Rider television fame is available for bid on eBay.

This is not the original car that David Hasselhoff drove around in and William Daniels provided the voice for, but it is a 1984 Pontiac Trans Am.

In some ways, that's a good thing. The KITT replica on eBay has a CD/MP3/DVD player installed, where the original probably only had a tape deck, if that.

The starting bid for the car is $19,000. That's much cheaper than other famous vehicles like the original Ecto 1 from Ghostbusters, … Read more

Zeno zaps zits

Zen, Zune, Zeno. The last one may resemble an MP3 player but isn't one. It does, however, involve another "Z" word: zits. The "Zeno" supposedly zaps acne by stimulating "heat-shock proteins" that in turn cause pimples to self-destruct, according to a description on Coolest-Gadgets. We definitely would have given this a try in our teenage years but, at our advanced age, the idea of using a device designed to burn things off one's face doesn't seem quite worth it for some reason.

Ferrari's new Motorola phone

We get it. Luxury cars are branching out into more affordable gadgets with their brand names attached to them.

First there was the Ferrari laptop, then the Ferrari Etch-a-Sketch. Oops, I mean Ferrari navigation device. Then there was a Ferrari sound system for your car.

Hummer has a golf cart. Lamborghini has a laptop and Nokia phone. Not to be outdone, McLaren Mercedes has three phones.

Now add a Ferrari phone to that long list.

The Motorazr Maxx V6 Ferrari Challenge Mobile Phone is available at the Ferrari store online for $524. The multi-ban GSM phone with GPRS and EDGE … Read more

Who are Microsoft Vista's earliest adopters?

We'll confess: When we heard CompUSA was keeping its stores open until 2 a.m. for the Vista launch this morning, we scoffed. Sure, we reasoned, people will show up at the locations where they're giving away free gadgets and food, and a visit from a pro football player will certainly draw more than your typical techie crowd. But we were convinced that every other store would be filled with the sounds of crickets chirping, accompanied by bored employees drumming their fingers on idle cash registers.

But when we pulled up to the CompUSA in Culver City (Los … Read more

Click here to plan your social life

GetMobio is a mobile lifestyle application that's trying to put your social life at your fingertips, literally.

The downloadable app helps you find places to go, get reservations, buy tickets, browse movie reviews and get directions--and it can all be done in very few clicks and with minimum data entry, according to Mobio, the company that created it.

The product is launching this week at Demo 07 in Palm Desert, CA, but the executive team dropped by the CNET offices last week to do a quick demo.

GetMobio is organized as a series of "collections," which is … Read more

Blu:sens vs. Zune--no comparison?

It's taken awhile, but some of the more promising challenges to established media players appear to be coming from some unlikely sources. Last week, for example, we noted that a lot of gadget blogs and other industry watchers were impressed with the "Sansa Xpress" as a potential challenger to the iPod Shuffle. Now, many of those same people are taking similar note of the G14 from Spain's Blu:sens as succeeding where Microsoft's Zune has failed.

It has two things that stand out in particular: Wi-Fi and no DRM. OhGizmo explains the significance this way: &… Read more

Where geeks and jocks intersect

Who says geeks don't like football? This Superbowl Sunday you can do your part to shatter that age-old stereotype with these laptop and iPod skins from SkinIt. Even if you're not a Colts or Bears fan, you can show your team spirit with any of the other NFL teams, and Gearlog says the skins will be available for cell phones too. But if you're a 49er fan like us, you may want to keep these under a plain brown wrapper for another season or three.

USB key will make you look smarter

Now this is a USB drive that comes preloaded with something we might actually use, as opposed to others we've seen recently. Tech Digest says Disgo is offering a 2GB storage key that carries the "Concise Oxford English Dictionary" so you'll never have an excuse for any typos. This could be invaluable for those of us who have become dependent on Web dictionaries but occasionally find ourselves without a Wi-Fi connection. (We don't trust automated spell checkers either.) It even has games designed to improve spelling skills, but we wouldn't recommend this as a … Read more

'Ghostbusters' Ecto 1 up for auction

"Who ya gonna call?" Or maybe I should say, "They call me MISTER Tibbs!"

The Ecto 1, the 1959 Cadillac that Venkman, Spengler, Stantz and Zeddmore used to catch ghosts in the film Ghostbusters, is up for sale by the Volo Auto Museum, which has offered the vehicle through the Hemmings collector-car marketplace.

For a mere $149,998, a little piece of your '80s childhood could be sitting in your garage. But that's not all you'd get.

A little known fact about this car, according to Hemmings, is that it is the same 1959 … Read more