It looks like the RCA dogs (and we don’t just mean the products) are set to find a new home today as it was announced Audiovox will acquire the rights to the RCA consumer electronics brand from Thomson. Total cost? $19.7 million plus some other fees – that’s a lot of dog bones.

The acquisition of the RCA brand by Audiovox extends to Thomson’s U.S., Canada, China and Hong Kong consumer electronics audio video business. Audiovox earlier this year had purchased Thomson America’s CE accessory business, granting it the rights to to the RCA brand for consumer electronics accessories.

Everybody needs a hug sometimes. Love makes the world go round after all. But in this high-tech digital age, we barely have time to eat, sleep and enjoy our favorite blogs. Needless to say, hugs have suffered. They don’t enjoy the same care free social prominence they once did. Somehow, hippies and teenage girls have gotten through these trying times of limited embrace. At last, they can rest easy.

Now you can buy yourself a hug shirt and reproduce hugs electronically via your cellphone. The designers at CuteCircuit actually held several hugging sessions in order to map out the most crucial hugging intensity points. As it turns out, those points include the upper arms, upper back, waistline, neck, shoulders, and hips. (NOT some of the areas that us guys like to think are included.)

Do you take way too many family pictures? Do you have photos in old shoe boxes and look at them far more then you should? Well, stop living in the past, flipping through that old bulky photo album. Now you have a big black box to imprison all of those cherished memories in, so they can survive for all eternity.

Officially making photo albums a thing of the past, and practically laughing at their out-datedness, Sony’s HDMS-S1D let’s you store and relive those memories. Thanks to Sony’s x-Pict Story HD(with face recognition), you can even add a soundtrack or have strange dream sequence fades between images. It will organize all of your images and let you share photos with slideshow and scrapbook-style displays.

The WildCharge wireless charging pad that we heard about back in June is finally available for purchase. The charge pad uses a custom induction strip attachment that hooks on to your phone (or potentially other devices) and lets you charge it wirelessly by simply setting the device on the WildCharge charge pad.

The idea is great and was met with a lot of enthusiasm from the gadget community when announced, but its taken a while to get here. Shortly after the initial launch announcement of July 7, the company came out with news of pre-orders and then some pricing and a delay.

Sony has announced today that the 40GB Playstation 3 that was recently announced for Europe and Japan will indeed be coming to the US this fall as well. The new 40GB PS3 will retail for $399 and start selling on November 2. It looks like it has the same configuration as the other releases as well including the lack of backwards compatibility for PS2 games, no memory card reader and two USB ports short. No word on a white version of the console for the US, but the 40GB PS3 will also come bundled with Spider-Man 3 on Blu-ray disc.

Sony states in the press release that those wanting backwards compatibility should look to the 80GB model which is also receiving a price cut effective immediately. Sony has given the 80GB PS3 a $100 price drop from its original launch price of $599, pricing it a $499 today. We can never complain about price drops but even with the cut the PS3 is still the most expensive latest-generation console on the market compared to its rivals Wii and Xbox 360.

This week the news seems to be all about hard drive manufacturers pushing the limits and getting big results. Today Western Digital announced that it broke a record for hard drive density. They accomplished the milestone by using their own perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR)/tunneling magneto-resistive (TuMR) technology, and achieved 520 Gb/in2 areal density in a demonstration. Why is this important? Because, this is the highest density ever reached using continuous media. It produces a 3.5-inch hard drive that stores 640 GB per platter as well as single hard drive capacities as large as 3 TB. If you are doing the math, that’s more than double today’s max of 200 GB per square inch.

Following an earlier demonstration in California, they announced the news this week at the Perpendicular Magnetic Recording Conference in Tokyo. As usual you won’t be able to get one overnight.(Though that would be nice.) They estimate a release date sometime in 2010.

Automotive electronics company Alpine said shipments of a new portable navigation device began. The Alpine Blackbird PMD-B200 is priced at around $750.

The Alpine Blackbird PMD-B200 is the second generation of its Blackbird GPS navigation platform. It runs off of the Windows CE system. A built-in hard drive stores maps for all of the United States and Canada, including six million points of interest. Maps can be viewed a variety of ways and directions can be offered in turn-by-turn voice instruction.

After Apple iPhone developers have already had a couple of volleys with hackers who want to run 3rd party applications on the new phone Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, has today let the hacking community know that they can stop, or at least slow down for a few minutes. Jobs has announced that Apple is going to open up both the iPhone and the iPod Touch for third party application development on the device in February of 2008.

Prior to this the only way to get any third party applications on the iPhone was through an “open” platform on the Safari web browser which runs on the device and was still fairly limiting. Jobs attributed the these development restrictions to security issues stating that open development increases risks of viruses. He also states that these security risks are also why it will take until February to release an SDK for developers.

SanDisk knows those who own high performance digital cameras demand memory cards offering better transfer speeds and storage capacities. The company thinks it can meet that need with its new SanDisk Extreme III 8GB, priced at around $180.

The SanDisk Extreme III 8GB memory card is in the SDHC format and comes bundled with a SanDisk MicroMate SDHC Reader. A typical Extreme III 8GB card can store more than 4,000 high-resolution pictures or up to 16 hours of MPEG 4 video. Transfer speeds are rated at 20MB per second.

Nokia seems to think there is a growing market for devices whose primary application is Internet access, despite the many product corpses littering the Internet appliance highway dating back year. The mobile manufacturer is taking a shot nonetheless though with its new N810 Internet Tablet, priced at around $480.

The pocket-sized Nokia N810 is Linux based and runs a variety of Internet enabled software. You can connect to the Internet from a wireless hot spot or via your Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone. Once connected you can make Internet calls, check email, watch YouTube videos, etc. There’s also a slide-out keyboard to help you type out your URLs and emails.

Verizon Wireless and Samsung today introduced a fun, cool-looking music phone available in three colors as one of four new phones coming out this fall. The new Verizon Wireless Juke is priced at around $100 after a mail-in rebate and two-year contract.

The Verizon Juke takes the form of a slim swivel mobile phone designed to be music focused. With its swivel ability it can open 180 degrees to reveal a keypad. A navigation thumb wheel lets you move through on-screen information like your MP3/WMA/AAC music files. Bluetooth support is also offered for hands-free driving and wireless music enjoyment.

Onkyo recently announced a new home theater in a box system which is in tune with the HDMI v1.3a standard. The Onkyo HT-SP908 is priced at around $1,100.

The Onkyo HT-SP908 7.1-channel audio system comes with the company’s TX-SR605 A/V receiver. This receiver has two HDMI v1.3a inputs and one output which are “fully compatible with 1080p video, including DeepColor technology.” The receiver also supports the latest high audio codecs as well as being XM and Sirius satellite radio ready. Basic iPod control and audio playback is offered to the A/V receiver via an included S-A1X Remote Interactive (RI) control dock.

How do you know the analog television era is truly coming to an end? When retailers announce publicly they are no longer going to carry these products on store shelves. Such is the case with an announcement today from Best Buy.

Best Buy, the largest CE retailer across the land, has “pulled all remaining analog television products from store shelves and will only sell digital video tuners in the future.” It will also take part in a national coupon program to help people purchase digital converter boxes for existing analog televisions.

It looks like that USB Mini Fridge we saw earlier this year, not unlike Spiderman, has had it’s suit changed from red to black and has come up with some advanced powers. Now this little fridge that snugly fits a single 12 ounce can will not only cool it down, but can also heat it up.

The USB Mini Fridge and Heater appears to carry the same shape and always-on blue LED lighting, but now with the flick of the inline switch on the cord can heat up its contents by by 34°F or cool it down by 28°F. The little refrigerator/heater can achieve these temp changes in a matter of 5 minutes and is powered by a standard USB connection to just about any computer.

The Nissan NV200 concept vehicle gets you from your home to the office in under 10 seconds flat. That’s because your entire office IS the van. Instead of driving to work, you will instead, drive your work everywhere. It’s obviously designed for those people that work literally, all over the map. The entire back end of the van slides out, which gives you a nice roomy office inside, while exposing the exterior storage areas that are fully customizable.

For the 2007 Tokyo Motor show, they decked it out as if it belonged to an ocean photographer, complete with the storage area full of various tools of that trade. They even put in an editing station and a remote control panel for a spider camera. I think I’ve found my new office. Next time you read me, I’ll be on the road…