Put a normal computer monitor outdoors and the first sign of rain, sprinkles or dew it will be history. A screen that will be left outside or used extensively outside really needs to be rugged and able to stand up to liquids. Stealth computer has announced just such an LCD.

The little screen measures 8.4-inches and is water resistant meeting IP68/NEMA 6P specifications for water tightness. The rugged display is mounted inside an aluminum housing that provides strength and protection and supports IR touchscreen functionality.

It’s very nearly the ides of March meaning that the summer is only a few months away bringing with it the summer movie season. Certainly one of the most anticipated movies of the season is the new J.J. Abrams directed Star Trek film.

The trailers I have seen for the flick appear to do the series justice, all without the over acting William Shatner made famous. Paramount Pictures announced recently that the latest trailer for the film that debuted March 6 exclusively on Apple.com has broken download records for the site.

Ask a few people what they think about netbooks and you will get varied answers like “netbooks are great,” to “the screen is too small,” and “they can’t process HD video.” Intel tried to address that last complaint with its new Atom N280 processor that with its chipset can decode 720p video. Still, some users want the full 1080p monty and VIA has announced a new media processor that can deliver.

VIA has unveiled its new VX855 Media System Processor and calls it a highly integrated all-in-one chipset addressing key areas for SFF and mobile PC systems. The key areas the new MSP addresses are small size and the ability to hardware decode full 1080p resolution video.

For those of you who like crystals and cute robots playing jump rope, meet Robot Dreamy Tina. She’s the newest member of the Philips Active Crystals line from Swarovski. She joins her blinged out robot relatives Robot Happy Laura and Robot Naughty Raymond.

Perfect for robot-loving geek girls and can be worn as a pendant or charm. It will store up to 500 songs or 2000 photos with its 2GB capacity. The LED ears light up as data is transferred.

There’s nothing like having pictures of family close by to remind you of your loved ones. The Memory Cup Digital Photo Frame Pencil Cup/Desktop Organizer is a great combo desktop item that will keep your loved ones nearby at all times.

And if they do something to piss you off, just display their head and pretend that you’re jamming a pencil in it. Then repress that anger when you head back home. Ain’t life grand? It has a 1.5″ LCD screen to display all your favorite photos and will store your pens, pencils, erasers, and paper clips. It connects via USB to both PC’s and Macs and can hold up to 70 pictures.

This is bound to be the preferred mouse of housewives and maids everywhere. Shunning conventional computer mouse design, Oliver Rosito’s Zero Mouse concept “combines state of the art design with lightweight materials.”

We’re just a little concerned that the lack of side grips may have your grandmother holding it like an iron and accidentally fake-ironing your shirt, which has now become a mousepad, while chatting on the Martha Stewart forums and playing online bingo.

There’s a new universal remote sheriff in town. The Xsight Touch makes a bold claim with that name(It’s exciting to touch apparently) and features a huge database of more than 3,300 unique brands and 285,000 individual codes.

All you need to do is point and press the button to select the type and brand of the product. Once you’ve got it setup, you can customize the settings for your activities and favorite channels. A touchscreen display and a slider bar make navigation easier. You can buy the Xsight Touch for about £147.

Okay, so you’ve been walking around all day and your feet are killing you. There must be some faster way of getting around without having to steal some dudes bike. What to do. If only you had a scooter kiosk at your disposal. You may be in luck if this idea catches on. It’s Anton Grimes’ entry into the Australian Design Awards competition and it would make life easier for those on foot.

The Link scooter system attaches to lampposts that are already there and it holds a lightweight electric scooter. It also charges it. The idea is that you encounter the lamppost, take a scooter and when you’re done, put it back at another station.

Looking for a neat place to hide those game codes as well as your various tiny trinkets and doodads? Well, here it is. A trinket box in the form of an original classic NES controller.

It’s from Etsy seller GeekGear. All of the buttons are glued into place, making look just as it did before it was modified. Great for keys, spare change, a thin usb stick may even fit inside. It’s storage is a little limited since the inside plastic has not been sanded down, but we love the simplicity of it.

Robot gardeners? Students and researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed robots that actually tend to tomato plants, with no human intervention. The plants have soil sensors and can network with the robots, which is a great way of letting them know when they need water or nutrients. The robots are equipped with watering pumps and robotic arms that are gentle enough to pick cherry tomatoes without bruising them.

And so we enslave the plant kingdom with their new robot overlords. It’s a great way to see how it works out with plants first. If you start seeing a bunch of squished tomatoes, plants blackened and burnt, and greenhouses that look like a hurricane hit them, than we will know what they have in store for us.

Rumors continue to swirl around whatever(if anything) Apple is building. Reports are that Apple has ordered 10-inch touchscreens from Taiwan. That part is looking more like fact. So the question is, will those screens end up in a netbook?

Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun-Times has a slightly different and interesting theory about the device. He thinks it might be an ebook. Which makes more sense as the only real competitor they would have is Amazon.

Fusion-io is famous for producing the world’s fastest and most expensive SSD solution. Now it has another blazing fast innovation that should have you drooling in no time. The ioDrive Duo is hailed as the fastest and most innovative SSD on the planet thus far.

The server-based PCI Express SSD is aimed at enterprises who can and will pay more for vast quantities of lightning fast storage space. So, what’s the speed? 1.5GB sustained read speeds and 1.4GB sustained write speeds. Say it with me. Wow!

The new voice-enabled iPod shuffle. It’s like Stephen Hawking is there to guide you through your songs in between constantly touching your earbuds wire. I’ll be honest, I think it’s a lame move. A gimmick. One designed to get more money out of the consumer and give you nothing extra.

It has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, but it’s controlled by proprietary headphones. Non-Apple headphones will require a special adapter that includes the required three-button controller. According to Apple they are working with third parties to put other compatible ear phones on shelves.

Have you been hoping to score a deal on the T-Mobile G1? You got it. Instead of $200 w/ contract directly through T-Mobile, you can get one from Amazon for $97! Sure there are some strings, what did you expect?

You have to be a new customer and sign up for a two-year contract. But if you really want it, it’s worth considering. Oh, no white version for you. Amazon is only offering the black version for this deal.

It looks like Sony’s Vaio P will have some competition very soon if this prototype from Lenovo pans out. It looks an awful lot like the Vaio P. Although it looks much longer.

We don’t know much about the specs, but obviously a full keyboard and some form of leather case. Looks like there’s a pointing device in the upper right of the keyboard. We are hoping that Lenovo puts an affordable price on this so it can compete.