aliens

If eBay's 50 percent growth this last fiscal quarter is any indication, online auctions are still a favorite way to shuffle goods and pocket extra change. Power sellers--those eBay auctioneers who sell and gross high volumes--have gained the edge by applying their business savvy and possibly using one of the many auction software options from CNET Download.com. One popular program is AlienFiles, a listings creator and editor that supports multimedia files and helps manage your sale items.

There's plenty here for power buyers, too. Check out eBay Auction Sniper and AutoSearch, for instance, which automatically bids on … Read more

Admit it--you know you loved the conspiracy-theory kitsch of Men In Black. (Can you believe it's been 10 years since that movie came out?) And you know you love this Abduction Lamp, too. Designed by Lasse Klein and licensed under the Creative Commons standard, this is probably one of the most clever light fixtures we've ever written up on Crave; and for the record, we see a lot of them.

Here's how it works. There's a light bulb inside the supremely awesome metal UFO on top, which illuminates the windows and the mysterious aliens inside. Because … Read more

Call us killjoys, but we think it's never a good sign when a product description includes a boldfaced FBI warning immediately preceding an age recommendation of "4 and up." ("This device must not be used to make threatening phone calls!")

That's what the product literature says about this "Alien Voice Changer" from Atamaii Anime Toys. The gadget is so named because it makes you sound like extraterrestrial beings, according to Red Ferret--specifically, three aliens from Cartoon Networks' Ben 10: Greymatter, Heatblast and Fourarms. (What, no Stinkfly?)

The changer also comes with stickers … Read more

For awhile we thought the majority of Webcams on the market were being designed by aliens. That was the only explanation we had for the inordinate number of models we've seen that have menacing or downright scary looks. (Except the ones that look like blenders, of course.)

The "Bubble Head" concept could change all that, as their friendly one-eyed faces show, if some manufacturer would just show a little guts and make them on a mass retail scale. The cams are made of polyurethane to survive falls from wherever they're perched, including the ladder that comes … Read more

Japan's SolidAlliance is a company often known for its USB storage devices of dubious value. So it's of little surprise that it was the manufacturer behind something called the "Yu-tan Radar Strap"--which, according to CNET Asia, is being marketed as a "UFO detector and alien sniffer." If the radar senses the presence of a UFO, it will beep loudly and its red LED will begin to spin; if it detects an alien, it will blink and beep at full volume. You should memorize this so you can respond appropriately when the time comes.… Read more

This designer LED lamp isn't quite egg-shaped enough to qualify for the evil ovum empire, but it's close enough. Just look at this thing--it's like a spherical spaceship opening up to reveal its alien passengers or a battery of death rays (most likely both).

The "Barry" fixture from Sweden's Flux has a mirrored upper interior that reflects about 70 white LEDs from the bottom half, according to OhGizmo. But the real offense here isn't alien domination of Earth; it's the price--$1,100.

If that's not enough to start a War of the Worlds, … Read more

If H.G. Wells had envisioned a set of speakers that could take over the planet, they would have looked like these.

This Martian-impersonating pair hails from Western Ireland, created by former BMW designer Aonghus O'hEocha. Hammacher Schlemmer says the hand-crafted 200-watt isobaric speakers "provide the clearest three-dimensional soundstage performance available." They'd better, when you see the price: $9,000.

Then again, as eyeball-shaped alien speakers go, that's a lot cheaper than Cabesse's $150,000 "La Sphere." Talk about the end of the world.

This is it--the call to arms. For some time now we've been warning of impending doom brought by the evil egg empire, and the final hour is upon us. And the source of their unholy power is now clear: outer space.

They are descending first in Japan, as we found out from our brethren in CNET Asia, through egg-shaped planetariums distributed by Segatoys. The "Homestar Pure" (even the name smacks of alien brainwashing) can project an estimated 10,000 stars onto any ceiling at the mass-market price of $83. It's only a matter of time before … Read more

Last night, a mixed bag of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, publicists, and geeks flocked to a lecture hall at Manhattan's Cooper Union for the 2006 year-end edition of the NY Tech Meetup, hosted by Meetup founder Scott Heiferman himself. Okay, it wasn't really a mixed bag, as I was one of about a dozen females in the room. (CNET TV's Chris Parker taught me that the proper term for such a situation is "brodeo.")

Usually the NY Tech meetup consists of six five-minute presentations by local entrepreneurs. But last night's event had a special appearance … Read more