Mother’s Day is coming up quickly, and although it’s only a few days away, we know that some of you are still pulling out your hair as you try to figure out what to get mom. We’re here to help, so with that goal in mind Wayne and I culled through past reviews and posts to see which gifts might make mom smile. We’re going to assume that you won’t have a problem if our suggestions tend to have a decidedly gadgety lean…

Under $50

LapWorks Laptop Desk Futura: For mom’s who like to take a walk on the wild side, the Largely Leopard version will appeal; other colors and patterns are available to suit more conservative mothers’ tastes.

Painted Futuras retail for $49.95 and are available directly from LapWorks.
What I Like: Fun patterns that make a functional product really stand out; can be used as a laptop stand or a lap desk; folds flat so it can be carried in a laptop bag
What Needs Improvement: Nothing

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Video game maker Destineer announced today that they would be releasing the game title, Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine for the Nintendo Wii and DS. The scoop so far is that Iron Chef America host, Mark Dacascos will appear in the game. Now, given the unique input hardware of the Nintendo Wii and DS, there should be some interesting and fun elements to the game play. Expected release is summer of 2008.

Check out the announcement trailer:

Once again, we invite you to eavesdrop on our email conversations…

Wayne: R.I.P. … the Internet slays another print publication…

Mitchell: I was a subscriber to PC World for about 5 years, and then I realised that I was paying for a magazine with content that I had read weeks earlier on the internet.

It really is inevitable I suppose, tech magazines just can’t stay ahead of the game with online news sites getting information out hours after release. They have to wait a whole month…

Clinton: This is the same problem that many tech magazines face. Granted, most have a much smaller circulation than PC World, but the net result is the same: very few subscribers but a massive uptick in online “subscribers”. Amongst us Gear Diary types, I’d be shocked if many of these magazines were still printing this time next year.

Mitchell: Yeah I have the same thought each time I receive various magazines I have subscribed to, they just feel out of date. They have to know the end is coming as well.

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Think you’ve got lots of hard drive space in your notebook computer with a 250 GB hard drive? Well, think again. 500 GB notebook hard drives are coming. Thats right, all the top players in the notebook hard drive industry have recently released 500 GB hard drives for installation in notebook computers; Samsung, Fujitsu, and Hitachi will be shipping the high capacity hard drives in Serial ATA configurations.

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The new Knight Rider is set to launch in 6 days on NBC, and all is not going well for the NBC production from my perspective. First there was the ruckus by the Knight Rider fan boys over NBC choosing to go with a Mustang. And now Will Arnet has backed out of the role of KITT. Will Arnet does the voice-over for GM car commercials, and was contractually restricted from voicing for the opposition. At two weeks to air of the movie, NBC hired Val Kilmer to provide the voice of KITT. Yes, that’s right. The Top Gun Iceman is now the voice of the new KITT! I am unsure if Kilmer will be able to provide the right voice for KITT.

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Somehow word of the ASUS Eee PC flew under my radar. I had no clue as to its existence until the first week of November (two weeks after the US launch) when a colleague at work informed me of this low cost ultra compact portable computer. After hearing the brief details and that the computer would come pre-installed with Linux, my reaction was WOW! That sounds way cool! I quickly searched for it on the internet when I got back to my office. After seeing the info on the ASUS and the EeeUser web sites, I just had to have one of these computers.

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At the same time that Gear Diary was approached to review the Johnny Lightning Battle Wheels, we were also invited to review the V_Bot. What is the V_Bot? Well, here is a clipping from the email describing it:

“V_Bot, the new high-tech hero, transforms from a sleek street vehicle into a giant robot loaded with action moves. This revolutionary RC toy captures kids’ imaginations with a giant robot that they can control, transform and drive. V_Bot even has a plug-in for an MP3 player.”

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The call of duty beckons yet again, to review another RC aircraft. But, this time it is not another helicopter, it is an airplane. Specifically, it is the Silverlit Palm-Z Mini RC Indoor Airplane, available from Hobbytron.com. To date I have test flown the Hornet 3 Mini RC Helicopter and the RC AH-64 Apache RTF 4 CH Electric Helicopter, both also available from HobbyTron.com. With my RC helicopter flying experience would I be able to take on flying an airplane? We’ll see.

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When NBC released the trailer for their new comedy TV show Chuck, I did not know if I should be offended, accept the show for what it is, or just ignore it. Why did I feel that way? Well, it is very clear that the show is poking fun at geeks/nerds, something that could offend me, because I am a geek.

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