I still think it’s a slick piece of hardware, but the original MobiBLU Cube and the Cube2 never really became the iPod Shuffle killer that many people predicted. Even though it trumped the Shuffle by including a display at nearly the same price. However, it’s not like the MobiBLU Cube and Cube2 were dismal failures, and the fact that the Cube3 is just around the corner means that the company is still behind the product.

The Cube3 supports MP3, WMA and WMA(DRM) files and is ‘PlaysForSure’ certified making it compatible with many non-iTunes online music stores. The full color OLED display can be used for squinting at digital images and videos, but is probably better suited for navigating through playlists. It will only be available in a 2GB model, but you can supplement your music with FM radio since it even includes a built-in FM tuner and recorder. You can also expect to get about 10 hours of playtime with its rechargeable lithium polymer battery.

Come May 1st you’ll be able to pick one up for $99.

If you want to reduce how much energy you use, but find you’re just too lazy to flip the switch on a power strip, the Isolé IDP-3050 will take care of that for you. The strip features 8 outlets, but 6 of them are actually controlled by a personal sensor. The sensor uses passive infrared technology to detect if someone’s around, and if no one’s found, it cuts power to those 6 outlets. It seems ideal for someone working at a PC, except that you’ll want to make sure you plug your workstation into one of the 2 non-controlled outlets. Unless you like the idea of it suddenly losing power whenever you get up to use the washroom.

The Isolé IDP-3050 has a user-adjustable time delay of 30 seconds to 30 minutes and is able to detect occupancy in an area up to 300 square feet. The power strip also features surge and noise suppression with a resettable circuit breaker, and it will not operate unless it’s plugged into a grounded, three prong outlet.

Without a big fat defense contract from the government, how is the average consumer supposed to go about creating their own wise-cracking, sequel-spawning, remake-coming robot sidekick? Since Heathkit never sold a complete Johnny 5 kit, you’ll have to slowly piece together your own. And you can start with this robotic arm available from RED5 for about $60.

While it comes partly disassembled (oh no!) you can put it together without having to do any soldering or wiring. It’s powered by 5 electric motors that allow it to lift a whopping 100g and the arm features a 120 degree wrist pivot, a 300 degree elbow motion and a 180 degree base motion. And if I remember correctly, if you want it to develop some level of sentient intelligence, you’ll need to use it outside during a storm and hope for the best. Just be aware that a lightning strike doesn’t always guarantee it will develop a soul. It sure hasn’t worked for me.

If the rampant out- and cross-sourcing between LCD and plasma TV makers didn’t tell you that it’s a nasty and brutish time in the TV biz, this should: Philips is officially pulling out of the US market, and is licensing its brand name for TVs over to Funai—best known for supplying Wal-Mart’s Black Friday TVs and DVD players.

Funai will be making, distributing and marketing TVs under the Philips and Magnavox brands in the US for the next five years, starting Sept. 1. They’ll also get full access to Philips’ R&D, including its Eco TV, but it’s anyone’s guess as to how much of its CES lineup will materialize now.. Here’s the full press release:

April 8, 2008

PHILIPS TAKES DECISIVE STEPS TO IMPROVE PROFITABILITY OF ITS TELEVISION BUSINESS

• Philips will enter into a brand license agreement to transfer its North American consumer TV activities to Funai
• Philips will continue to take steps to improve profitability of its TV operations by further optimizing its supply base
• Charges of up to EUR 125 million will be taken during 2008 in connection with the above

Amsterdam, The Netherlands - Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE:PHG, AEX:PHI) and Funai Electric Co Ltd (TSE/OSE: 6839) of Japan today announced their intention to enter into a brand licensing agreement under which Funai will assume responsibility for the sourcing, distribution, marketing and sales of all Philips’ consumer television activities in the United States and Canada. The five-year minimum agreement takes effect September 1, 2008 and stipulates Philips will receive royalty payments in exchange for Funai’s right to exclusively use the Philips and Magnavox brand names for its consumer television offerings in North America during this period. This agreement secures continued presence of Philips and Magnavox branded TV’s in North America in a model that safeguards Philips profitability in this highly competitive market.

Philips today also announced that it will continue to take steps to improve the financial performance of its television operations by further optimizing its existing global supply base and focusing its TV business on its strongest markets, especially in Europe and in key emerging countries. To cover for the costs associated with these additional steps, and the costs associated with the transfer of the company’s North American TV activities to Funai, Philips will take total charges of up to EUR 125 million during 2008.

“The agreement with Funai and the other measures to improve profitability we are planning, follow our commitment that we would take decisive steps in addressing the unacceptable profitability levels in our TV business in 2008,” Philips President and Chief Executive Officer Gerard Kleisterlee said. “We have an 18 year working relationship with Funai and are confident it is an excellent partner to implement this new model for Philips’ television business in North America. This agreement will ensure a presence for Philips television in North America and uninterrupted access to innovative products for consumers.”

Other Philips consumer business categories in North America are not affected by this agreement and will continue to be manufactured, marketed and sold by Philips. Philips’ television position in the rest of the world is also unaffected by this partnership with Funai.

Funai will have access to Philips’ world-class Research and Design experts to ensure Philips televisions deliver continuous innovation to consumers in both technology and form. These include the recently launched Design Collection and energy-efficient range of televisions dubbed the ‘Eco TV’. Funai will be licensed on condition of compliance with Philips requirements on brand use, product quality, product design and provision of consumer care. Philips television sales in North America amounted to EUR 1 billion in 2007. Completion of this intended agreement is subject to any mandatory governmental regulatory approvals.

According to Tetsuro Funai, President and CEO of Funai Electric Co., Ltd, “Philips and Funai have a long history together, and we are proud to be the trusted partner charged with managing this important and high profile product category for Philips. As a premium brand, Philips will add lustre to our existing portfolio and consumers can continue to count on the Philips quality, design and innovation to which they have become accustomed. We look forward to working together to ensure a seamless transition of the business.”

According to NetBlender, iPhone and iPod touch users will be able to control their Blu-ray players using an application called BD Touch. The application will use the network capabilities of Blu-ray hardware and Apple’s handheld devices to transfer data, allowing you to do many different things beyond controlling movie playback.

According to NetBlender:

• The iPhone application will be able to interact directly with movies, showing extra information in the iPhone.
• It will also be able to keep a database of your movie collection.
• BD Touch will also be able to get digital copies of the movies inside the Blu-ray disc, presumably already encoded for iPod touch and iPhone playback.

The only problem we see with BD Touch is the quote they gave to MacWorld UK:

The sophisticated user interface of the iPhone enables greater user interaction as well as the power to leverage the iPhone’s existing network. Search, e-commerce and advertising possibilities related to movie content abound when one imagines real-time communication between the iPhone and the content currently being displayed on a Blu-ray player.

ossibility of buying/snatching a song while I’m listening to it in the movie soundtrack? Great. Advertising popping on my iPhone while I watch a movie? I was going to say “no thanks,” but I just stopped at the “why?”

We will see how it exactly works when it gets announced this Thursday.

Fitting a 1TB into a box measuring 5.31 x 3.22 x 1.57 inches isn’t all that easy (most NAS boxes we’ve seen would crush a squirrel easily) but Buffalo seems to have not only accomplished this but shoved in a whole bunch of other features as well. The Mini’s got a Gigabit Ethernet port, support for RAID 0 and 1, Active Directory Support, UPS support (to shut down in case of power failure), and best of all, runs an on-board TwonkyVision DLNA server.

PlayStation 3 owners who want to shove a bunch of DivX/XviD movies onto a server to stream to their consoles for HD movie action will be thrilled. Less thrilling is the price: $699 in May. Those features aren’t cheap, nor are the smaller laptop drives they use to power it. Then again, for about $699 you could also get a Windows Home Server, which is quite full-featured but isn’t nearly as compact. On the third hand, we’re not sure why you would need a NAS to be all that compact unless you were living in a tiny apartment or wanted to sneak it through customs. [Buffalo]

When we bring up Blu-ray Profile 2.0 with BD-Live, you guys are divided. Some of you say “Who gives a damn?” while others say “PS3 FTW!” But a small minority say that the PS3 doesn’t meet your other hardware requirements. Well now it might not matter: by the end of this month, when CyberLink’s latest PowerDVD Ultra update arrives, you can assemble your own PC-based Blu-ray 2.0 player with whatever video and audio hardware you like.

According to a press release sent out today, PowerDVD Ultra is already certified for BD-Video Profile 1.1, BD+, AVCHD and BD-RE 3.0. Adding BD-Live means making it fully 2.0 compatible. “Next-generation” disc features (Picture-in-Picture, networking, interactive BD-J, bookmarks, and advanced disc navigation) are covered. And there’s support for Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, and DTS-HD technologies. In addition, the software has “optimized performance” for graphics cards featuring NVIDIA PureVideo, ATI Avivo and Intel Clear Video technology.

Blu-ray 2.0 discs are coming soon from Sony Pictures, starting with such toe-in-the-water projects as Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and the slightly more respectable The 6th Day, both which include, according to Sony, “exclusive downloadable content that goes beyond what is available on the actual Blu-ray discs.” Yup, sounds like a download.

The newest PowerDVD is a free upgrade for people currently using CyberLink PowerDVD Ultra, and $100 for anyone just jumping in. Of course, if you don’t want the hassle of building your own BD playback system, the PS3 is still a very attractive option. [CyberLink]

When a team of Cornell students put Ranger to work tottering around the running track it just kept on walking, eventually achieving 45 laps before its batteries died and the poor thing toppled backwards. This 5.6-mile hike smashed the previous 20-lap record. The kneeless Ranger is designed to investigate aspects of locomotion so that robot walking can be improved, and hopefully prosthetics for humans too.

It’s designed to use gravity to assist its strides, tipping its feet to spring off the ground much like our legs do, and the team estimates it’s about as efficient at walking as we are. Honda’s Asimo, for example, uses something like ten times as much energy, or so estimates the team. Sadly this new record is unofficial, as “there’s a lot of rigmarole” in getting Guinness in, apparently. Shame! All that striding for no official record. [Physorg]

You know what’s great? Synergy. We’ve had an OS crush on Android ever since it was first rumored, and of course the Nokia N810 has been warming our hearts for a good while now with its mysteriously useful QWERTY-tablet powers. Put the two of them together and we’re practically beside ourselves with joy. If you’re feeling gutsy you can try it for yourself with the handy tips over at eLinux.org, but we’re content to watch this magic from the sidelines for the time being.