Grand Theft Auto IV went on sale worldwide today and many retailers such as Best Buy and GameStop opened their doors at midnight last night to meet fans across the country who created long lines to be one of the first to get their hands on a copy and spend the rest of the night playing. The GTA 4 launch from Take Two is expected to see sales that will rival that of last year’s Halo 3 release, with numbers nearing $400 million for around 6 million copies sold around the world.

The Grand Theft Auto 4 game is available for both the Sony Playstation 3 and the XBox 360 which greatly broadens the audience. Some speculate that the launch delay from last October also allowed more people to have time to buy the latest generation of game console and built more anticipation for the launch. Take Two says the delay was due to technical hurdles that needed to be overcome.

If you’re looking for new and better ways to spoil your pet, you might want to look into the Luxury Pet House. Sure, it looks like a toaster oven, but don’t worry, nobody is going to make toast out of your little furry friend. Apparently it’s more about keeping fluffy comfortable and happy in his/her own little environment. Paris Hilton would love this thing for her weird little animals.

The Luxury Pet House offers PC-managed controls, temperature and humidity limits, infrared radiation and carbon heating walls, antibiotic air, solenoid valve “medical treatment,” and carbon filter-based deodorizing. I’m guessing that the only thing it doesn’t have is an option for cryogenic freezing.

Amanda Parkes’ dress will get a woman a ton of unwanted attention from geeks and nerds. That’s because it generates power when the wearer moves, using kinetic energy as a result of natural movements of the human body. Piezoelectric material around the joint areas, like the elbows and hips of the garment generate power in response to the mechanical stress. Electricity will be stored as voltage in a tiny centralized battery.

As far as style, it leaves something to be desired. Unless you’re auditioning for the latest Star Trek maybe. If an alien abducted you, I’m not sure if they would be impressed by this garment or just end our misery with a giant death ray.

The Philips MCD299 will cost you just $348, which is a bargain. This thing has style oozing from every inch of it’s surface. It’s got a four-disc changer for uninterrupted music and DVD movie playback, a motorized sliding door, and Moto Razr-type metallic buttons.

JPEG, MP3, and WMA via CD or USB. Plus it has a 140-watt digital amplifier driving a pair of flat-panel speakers with bass-centric subwoofer. For the price you get an awesome looking theater. While it may not have everything, you won’t grow tired of it’s looking at it.

The Overall Health Balance Scale from Japan’s National Electric takes fitness feedback to a new level. The device hasn’t been released yet, and that may be due to the fact that it makes women look silly. Judging by the images, women have to pretend that they are piloting a plane while standing up. At the same time, it will help you avoid obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.

It seemingly measures everything from weight and BMI, the amount of fat under your skin, organ fat, how muscular you are, and your metabolic rate. It takes all of the readings, then tells you how out of shape you are for your age on a scale of 1 to 5. If you want, put the sensor over your huge ass and see just how much junk is really in your trunk.

Fanatec, a developer of input devices for game consoles and PCs, unveiled today Porsche-inspired racing hardware for the PC and PlayStation 3 gaming platforms. It is called the Porsche 911 Turbo Racing Wheel and you’ll find it pricing at around $350.

The Fanatec Porsche 911 Turbo Racing Wheel is licensed by Porsche and designed to work with racing games like Gran Turismo 5: Prologue and Racedriver: GRID. It makes use of wireless USB technology for the wheel and pedals. Key features of this product include three force feedback motors, a smooth belt drive, 6+1 speed H-pattern gear stick and a clutch pedal and brake with soft-stop for the pedals.

DXG has introduced a new HD camcorder which can record video up to 1280 x 720 at 30fps. It is known as the DXG-569V and you’ll find it pricing at around $170.

The DXG-569V, available in black and white body colors, takes the shape of a vertical, slim design. It has a five-megapixel CMOS sensor for still image capture up to eight-megapixels and, as for the video recording, captures moving images in H.264, MOV file format. It comes with 32MB of memory built-in, which can be expanded via a SD memory card slot.

Apple made some updates to its line of popular iMacs today, including adding the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors. These new iMacs have starting prices of around $1,200.

The refreshed iMacs now include, according to Apple, faster Intel Core 2 Duo processors across the line, a 1066 MHz front-side bus and up to 4GB of 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM memory. The 24-inch iMac also offers a 3.06 GHz Intel processor and the high-performance NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS graphics as options.

A long time ago…On a lawn far far away… Lawn mowers were tethered to a power cable. Not anymore. Battery technology has finally reached the point where you can buy an electric mower that doesn’t need to be plugged in to an outlet. Which is awesome because some of us like to run over said cable and kill the lawn mower. The Neuton CE 6.2 model features a removable rechargeable battery that’s ideal for lawns up to 1/3 of an acre or about 15,000 sq. ft. in size. That means about 45 to 60 minutes of mow time per charge.

The battery is removable, so you can swap it out with a backup if it dies before your lawn is finished or if you want to use the trimmer/edger accessory. The batteries charge in about 8 hours and are said to last for about 5 years. You green sorts out there will also be happy to know that the battery is 95% recyclable when it finally does die.

Antec has launched a new PC enclosure which looks to blend style with a solid cooling system and lots of internal space. It is known as the the Twelve Hundred and you’ll find it pricing at around $210.

The Antec Twelve Hundred, according to Antec, is composed of a top 200mm TriCool fan, two rear 120mm TriCool fans and three front 120mm fans. All come with three-speed control. You also get for additional cooling optional graphics card 120mm fan mounts, a water cooling platform, perforated front panel and cable management for better airflow.

Yamaha has a new concept digital musical instrument known as “Tenori-On”. The device’s LED buttons are used to play phrases and tempos, making it pretty unusual and unlike any other musical instrument. Both rear and front sides feature 256 LEDs.

The LEDs on the front side can be pressed by the user to play music and compose songs, while the rear side LEDs show the same pattern in order to provide viewers with a visual presentation to complement the audio part. You can save the songs you created on the Tenori-On by recording them to an SD memory card. This concept digital music instrument will retail for $1,158 later this May.

You might think that this Bat MP3 player is from Wayne Industries, but it’s not. Though it would be pretty cool if Batman’s own company made all of his gear. That would give up his secret however.

I have no idea who makes it, but I do know that even Batman needs tunes while beating the tar out of the Joker. It’s shaped after a 2.75″ black batshuriken, and comes with 1GB of flash memory within and features stereo headphones that look like…bat ears. It will be available this July for $80. The Batman probably could dock this on his chest.

How attached are you to the messages you get from social networking sites? Enough so you would pony up around $100 for a dedicated wireless text messaging device? The developers of the new TextCu.be hope so, as they plan to launch such a product this July.

The TextCu.be is primarily designed to work with a dedicated social network tied to the device’s launch. There will be no monthly fees associated with the service and it is said full management and privacy controls will be provided. You’ll also be able to integrate into your other social networking profiles a TextCu.be widget which lets you receive similar messages from friends.

Vertu is a British-based company that produces luxury mobile phones and they’re celebrating their 10th anniversary with a special event. The company is launching another luxury series, called the Constellation Rococo Collection. The stylish devices are inspired by eighteenth century French art, fashion and the interior design movement by the same name.

The series will go on sale this summer and will be available in noir, scarlet, ivory and an exclusive sapphire edition. The sapphire edition has a cabochon sapphire for a center button, cabochon sapphire screws, and of course Rococo patterns engraved onto the bezel. No pricing available yet, but my guess is it will not be cheap.

The studios won’t like this device one bit. The MZK-NAS02SG1T network attached storage device from Planex. The $524 1TB Gigabit Ethernet block claims “universal access” for all your devices, courtesy of its DigiJuke browser, searching and tagging BitTorrent and YouTube content you want downloaded in the appropriate PSP and iPod (MPEG-4), Wii (FLV), or TV (MPEG-2) format for in-home or portable viewing.

The NAS will also stream audio and video to your iTunes laptops or desktops, DLNA TV, Xbox 360, or other compliant device in the home. A USB 2.0 jack offers one-touch dubbing of USB sticks while a second around back offers storage expansion. It ships with a pair of 3.5-inch 500GB drives, which you may want to swap out for higher capacity drives at a later date.