You finally got some nice furniture in your place and all of a sudden you find yourself concerned about rings on your table, but getting your friends to take you seriously when you ask them to use a coaster might prove a little difficult.

Bringing out these Airplane Instrument Coasters may solve your problem by providing a conversation piece that’s practical, too. Heck, your friends might even use them. Or, they might write you off as gone over the edge with fancy furniture and geeky accessories. Either way you won’t have rings on your table.

The set of four coasters come is styles that mimic an altimeter, airspeed indicator, compass and attitude indicator with non-slide rubber backs and measure about 3.5″ across. You can get yourself into this set of flying-fan coasters for $14.95.

Coasters via NerdApproved

The iMirror iPod dock and remote control from Bexy gives you control over you iPod from up to 150 feet away. The wireless remote has an LCD built-in that automatically loads and displays the media content of your docked iPod and allows you to control the playback without having to get out of your seat.

The iMirror iPod dock has outputs of S-Video, RCA stereo audio/video, 3.5mm headphone jack, line audio mini-stereo connectivity and USB. It can be connected to a computer to handle syncing your iPod with iTunes and can output audio and video to your home stereo or TV. The dock also charges both the remote control and the iPod when docked.

Also noteworthy with the iMirror is it’s smooth look. Bexy did a good job making both the dock and the remote reflect the clean style of …

Earlier this week 9to5Mac posted some spy pics of what the new iPod Nano from Apple might look like and we, like many others, were not very impressed.

The new video Nano’s appeared to be a bit wider than previous models allowing for a small and wide video screen. The colors also appeared to be new. The spy photos are of the classic, rumor-enforcing poor quality but some colors could be recognized including light green, light blue and maybe a cranberry color along with 2 others that are said to be available when it’s released. The new Nano’s will come in 4GB and 8GB capacities and will have video capability.

Today Gizmodo published a mock-up rendering of its own of the new video iPod Nano showing the same fatter, …

This splash-proof speaker/case provides a dry sanctuary for your media player allowing you to listen to it in places that aren’t so dry such as at a pool, in the shower or in the rain. The sound is heard through a single speaker, and similar to the iPod shower dock we saw earlier this year, once your player is enclosed in the case there is unfortunately really no way to control its functionality without taking it out.

Inside the case there’s a standard headphone jack to connect the player to the external speaker and the cases speaker volume can then be adjusted from the outside. The case provides a padded interior and measures 6.25″H x 3.5″W x 2″D, retailing for $14.99.

AquaPod via 7Gadgets

This “Half a Portion” mirror design by Jette Scheib and Neels Kattentidt brings an interesting visual effect and likely conversation to any room it’s in.

It consists of only one half of a white porcelain dinner plate mounted on mirror. The plate can be used a small shelf and when viewed it gives appears as an entire plate floating in mid-air. The piece retails for a little under $200.

MoMA Store

Targus has been well known for making computer bags, backpacks and other small computer accessories such as mice and keyboards. Today the company announced the SoundUP, designed to work inline with your headphones to improve the sound quality of compressed audio media.

The SoundUP device itself measures about the same size if not bigger than many MP3 players with dimensions of 3″ x 1.5″ x 7/8″ and a weight of just under 2 ounces. Targus says it uses a High Definition Sound Enhancer to “separate and reprocess digital music files, providing a three dimensional sound envelope from your MP3 player”. The device promises to improve the overall sound of files that are compressed for size, bringing out instruments and music that normally would not be heard otherwise.

The device plugs into any standard 3.5mm headphone …

Today at the Leipzig Game Convention in Europe Sony announced that they will be launching PlayTV sometime in early 2008. PlayTV brings not one but two high definition (1080p) TV tuners to the Playstation 3 game console along with DVR capabilities allowing you to record one show and save another, both in high def.

This is pretty cool in itself (especially if you’re in Europe since this uses European Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial only), but there’s more. You can also transfer these videos from your PS3 and watch them on your PSP while on the go and even use the Remote Play feature on your PSP to watch what’s on your PS3 and to program in your recordings. Just how well and fast this will actually work remains to be seen but …

No longer do you have to squint your eyes up close to your video iPod to watch recorded shows. These iPod Video Goggles plug directly into your iPod to give you a much wider view of your saved videos without the need for a large screen. They require no additional batteries or cables and are powered by the iPod, giving as much as 4 hours of video from the 80GB iPod.

The video goggles utilize two 24-bit color SolidOptex LCD’s to provide 320 x 240 resolution at a 50–60 Hz frame rate to give a view that’s about equivalent to viewing a 24″ TV at around 6 feet away. This hands-free, personal iPod video watching experience doesn’t come real cheap however; the iPod goggles will run you a cool $200 each.

ThinkGeek

It’s probably tough for anyone to hang onto a two way radio when your out skiing in a lake or accidentally falling off a boat at sea, but it sure would be handy to have one sometimes. This life vest from Hammacher Schlemmer comes with two, 2-way radios; one of them integrated into the vest.

The radios span 14 channels and cover a distance of 1.8 miles to allow the wearer of the life vest to communicate with the person on the other end, (who is hopefully not also in the water) without the worry of dropping the radio. They’re water resistant up to 3 feet down and are powered by 3 AAA batteries.

The life vest itself is U.S. Coast Guard approved and is made from a 100% PVC interior covered by neoprene (the same stuff wetsuits are made of). The …

It seems like lately we’ve been seeing more and more gadgets being made out of wood; adding to the list is the Shadow external hard drive from Suissa Computers. The Shadow comes in a round wooden enclosure made from Maple in three different styles called the Silver, Natural and the Shadow Glass shown here.

Each enclosure contains a USB 2.0 connection to a 750GB hard drive housed inside. The box also has 4 USB ports and jacks for audio out and a microphone. The Suissa Shadow drives are designed to give you a functional external hard drive that breaks the mold of standard metal and plastic enclosures along with additional convenient ports that you can access within arms reach (since you will likely have this art-like piece sitting on your desk). The Shadow Glass pictured here has a glass-top finish and …

Microsoft has launched the Sidewinder mouse built specifically for high-performance PC gaming. The Microsoft Sidewinder is loaded with features to make it highly customizable and in turn very comfortable.

The mouse features three buttons that allow you to switch on the fly between 400, 800, and 2000 DPI or set a customized setting with the included software. It has an LCD display to show the current DPI or macro recording icons and a Vista gaming quick launch button along with 5 other buttons you can customize. It comes with an accessories box where you can load up and adjust the weight of the mouse to give better control for different uses, and the accessory box doubles as a “cable anchor” to keep slack in your mouse cable, giving it a wireless feel, according to Microsoft.

In total the mouse offers almost 5,000 …

iRobot has today released a new series of its Roomba vacuuming robots, marking the first new model upgrade in about 3 years. The model comes with a number of new and improved features in three different versions; the 530, 560 and 570.

According to iRobot, the new Roomba’s are completely redesigned giving 100% more effective vacuuming. The higher-end 560 and 570 feature a 2.4GHz RF integrated with something called Virtual Wall Lighthouse. The Lighthouse system lets you put a RF-based “virtual lighthouse” in each doorway of your home. The Roomba will know not to pass through the doorway until a room is completed, and it will know not to go back through that doorway until the next time it’s scheduled to run.

Speaking of scheduling, the new 500 series vacuums now have scheduling built directly into the device. They also feature IR sensors …

Wal-Mart is jumping on the DRM-free bandwagon by announcing today it is making available MP3s for purchase without license restrictions. These tracks should be available starting now.

The new DRM-free tracks and albums are available major record labels such as Universal and EMI Music. The tunes will be available at 94 cents per track and $9.22 per album. Wal-Mart will continue to offer its existing WMA-format music downloads as well.

Nokia is yet again going stylish on us with a freshly unveiled 3G flip mobile phone. The Nokia 6555 is looking hip and ready to let you make your first call.

Nokia says the 6555 is the first WCDMA phone with a “smooth-back fold design.” All we have to say is this phone is hot, especially with the analog timepiece on the front. The 6555 sports a generous, colorful 240×320 internal display screen. A built-in camera provides 6x digital zoom and offers a self-portrait mode with video sharing ability.

1TB of external hard drive space…mmmmm….tasty. You get the general idea of this newly remodeled data storage device from I/OMagic, the TeraBank 1000GB. This massive drive is priced at around $300.

What makes the TeraBank 1000GB remodeled, said I/OMagic, is a “more sturdy, sleek, black and silver enclosure.” While aesthetics are certainly nice what really matters to us is the ability to use this device to archive our gigs and gigs of music, video, digital photos, etc. The TeraBank 1000GB lets us do that through a USB 2.0 connection capable of a maximum transfer rate of up to 480MB per second.