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Normally I stay away from gag sites like this, but Gizmoz is a guilty pleasure that caught my attention with its eccentric sense of humor. Gizmoz is a "Talking Heads" video creator that lets you make your own gag videos to send via e-mail or embed on your site.

There are a variety of characters to choose from, primarily celebrities and political figureheads, all with matching voice banks and caricature-like faces, many of which are slightly offensive. You also get the option to pick a slightly cheesy animated background. The real clincher for the service is the ability … Read more

Starting today, some users of Yahoo Mail will be able to chat without leaving their in-boxes. Gmail rolled out built-in chatting a year ago. As Yahoo Mail, the most popular free e-mail service, follows, it could secure the loyalty of many users. Once you're set up for instant messaging, a smiley face will light up next to Yahoo buddies who are online. You'll be able to instantly invite someone to a text chat without leaving the Mail window.

Yahoo plans to gradually unveil this feature, so some users will have to wait up to three months to use … Read more

>> Senator to propose surveillance of illegal images. John McCain wants to give surveillance duty to your Internet service provider and to Web sites to crack down on child pornography. All questionable images would be flagged and sent to the authorities with your IP address. (CNET News.com)

>> Flip launches. Conde Nast's answer to MySpace and other social networks. The service, aimed at teenage girls, lets you create a scrapbook of sorts in the form of a flip book. Your flip book can then be shared on other services. (Mashable)

>> Gmail leaves beta. Lately … Read more

CircleUp describes itself as a "social-communication service." It's an e-mail and instant-messaging tool that allows users to send a single e-mail to a community and receive one, aggregated response rather than a flurry of incomplete or even tangential responses.

The Newport Beach, CA company is debuting here at Demo 07. It works like this: click that CircleUp toolbar embedded in your Outlook, AOL Instant Messenger or Yahoo Messenger window. Type in a question, choose how you would like to receive your answer from your community (examples: Who's bringing what to the potluck? What time works best … Read more

Leaving all personal opinions about Jeb Bush's legacy aside, it's worth noting, from a technology perspective, that he chose to include his BlackBerry in the backdrop of his official gubernatorial portrait in an attempted nod to his role as the first "e-governor," according to press reports.

Last week, at the close of the Florida governor's two-term administration, he revealed the portrait, in which he's standing next to a bookshelf topped with a family photo and his beloved device. Bush reportedly received tens of thousands of e-mails sent to his very public address, Jeb@Jeb.… Read more

I guess this must be a pretty empowering concept to some people. Take those nasty spammers who fill your inbox with "Ch3ap V1c0d1n!!!!" and "FREE Credit Rating Analysis!" and tell them that if they want to make their way into your Gmail, they're going to have to pay the toll. Kind of like that troll-under-the-bridge fairy tale--or was that a Monty Python sketch?

I digress. There are a few companies out there that are trying to convince you that opting into spam is not only good, it can get you some pocket change (InboxDollars comes … Read more

I guess there are a lot of things you can do with a home planetarium projector, like the HomeStar Pro Planetarium that I read about on Uncrate. You can use it to create spectacular ceiling art for your next party (just make sure nobody spills anything on the $350 projector), or to woo that cute astronomy geek next door. Or, you could (gasp) actually learn about the night sky. It's got all kind of cool stories behind it, you know, like science-y stuff and mythology and whatnot. For real.

But, since it's Monday morning and I've already … Read more

Correction: My previous post about SimplyHeadlines stated that the product did not allow users to add their own RSS feeds. I was mistaken, as this TalkBack post explains. Sorry for the error.

I thought maybe this pitch had been stuck in my email since 1999 and just got jiggled loose: "Receive your personalized SimplyHeadlines customized newspaper via email."

SimplyHeadlines, launching today, lets you select from a variety of news sources, and it will deliver you a nice-looking "newspaper" in your email every day at the time of your choosing. Nice, I suppose, if you've never heard of personal start pages like My Yahoo, Google homepage, Microsoft Live, NetVibes, etc. And it's even better if you don't like real customization: While you can select from a … Read more