mania

NASA to put Buzz Lightyear on International Space Station

Talk about cross-promotion.

One of the closest things to Disney World's Orlando, Fla., home, is NASA's Kennedy Space Center. This is relevant because on Friday, it was announced that among the objects expected to be blasted into the sky with the planned Saturday launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery is a figurine of Toy Story space ranger Buzz Lightyear.

Disney World, of course, is where the new Toy Story Mania ride has just opened.

The idea behind putting Buzz Lightyear aboard the Space Shuttle has to do with the "Toys in Space" initiative NASA and Disney … Read more

Fender 'Amp Wallet' falls flat

With guitar mania still going full bore and showing no sign of abatement, it may be only a matter of time before this kind of fashion item comes into vogue.

This Fender "Stacked Amp Wallet" is a miniature replica of the soundstage equipment, right down to an "amp cord" that connects to a belt loop (or wherever), as Gearfuse observes. This might actually be something to consider if it had a built-in MP3 player, but unfortunately it's just a billfold with a little attitude.

Don't despair, however, because there are still plenty of other … Read more

Behold the majesty of HDMI 1.3 cable

Feast your eyes on this, gadget kooks: a pre-standard HDMI 1.3 cable. This baby can transfer up to 10 gigabits of data a second. Plus, if you have a digital TV and surround-sound speakers, it replaces about a whole mess o' cables.

HDMI, which came out of a company called Silicon Image, has been incorporated into a lot of devices, but the 1.3 version is greatly improved. It doubles the bandwidth, for one thing. By 2010, there will be a billion HDMI devices out there in the wild. You knew, of course, that 63 million HDMI devices have … Read more

PS3 crosses $10,000 barrier on eBay

Whatever you want to call them (opportunists, price gougers, geniuses), the slew of sellers auctioning those PS3 consoles they waited in line for could soon be laughing maniacally all the way to the bank.

We reported earlier that bids for Sony PS3s had reached $9,000 this morning. By Friday afternoon bidding on eBay had jumped over $10,000 for a new, unopened 60GB unit. (Thanks to Evan J. for the tip.)

One entrepreneurial young man, asking $16,000, pleads on his seller's page, "FREE OVERNIGHT!!!! Help fund my college education!" The accompanying grainy photo of him … Read more

Stop the madness!

If you thought the PS3 frenzy ended at midnight, you were terribly mistaken. It was just warming up.

After finding very few fans planning to keep their purchased PS3 for themselves at yesterday's launch, it was to be expected that more drama would ensue today. This morning the world awoke to next-gen consoles auctioning for obscenely high prices and very few places to buy or even place an order for one.

Costco's Web site was down this morning, though now shows just an empty crate and a "sold out" banner. CircuitCity.com reports it is "… Read more