Vail Christian High School is educating students about the dangers of texting while driving. Students hold the motion sensitive wheel in one hand, and a cell phone in the other. It’s unclear if they are required to drive as Toad, Mario, or anyone else. But were they sorry when they ended up getting hit by a turtle shell? Did they learn not to text while driving?

Apparently some did. One player said, “I ran into a lot of things and it was very stressful,” Which is interesting, because how stressful can texting and Mario Kart really be? Still, I’m sure it drives the point home to these kids.

If you have to throw your Wiimote at the TV, it might as well resemble a dart. Now it can thanks to this new add-on kit from PEGA that turns your Wiimote controller into a giant… dart.

It’s designed specifically for games like PDC World Championship Darts. The kit adds a soft arrow tip and feather-shaped tail to your Wii controller, making it more like a lawn dart than a regular dart. Hey, if you have to throw it through your TV it might as well be dressed appropriately.

Edmund Dohnert has always had some uncertainty about whether he’s an artist or an engineer. We don’t really care. His works are just plain cool. And yes, they are both art and engineering. Just plain fun to look at and watch.

For instance, the Victor Rat Trap No. 1 pictured above has a knight repeatedly attacking an evil jester in order to save He-Man’s life. The only power source is a simple rat trap on a wooden base. The rat trap’s spring can be pulled all the way back and held, thanks to a cord and roller arrangement attached to a crank shaft.

Here’s another option for you in MSI’s Turbo Drive laptop series. The company has unveiled the GX723. The 17-inch, WSXGA+ portable boasts an Intel Core 2 Duo, NVIDIA GeForce GT 130M, Windows Vista Home Premium, up to 4GB of RAM, and either a 320GB or 500GB HDD and six or nine cell batteries.

It’s also features the ECO quick launch touch sensor for cycling through five performance settings, and W/A/S/D buttons for gamers who lack FPS directional keys. Nothing on pricing or availability yet.

Samsung’s latest 55″ LN55B650 LCD HDTV is no slouch, boasting a 100,000:1 contrast ratio along with full HD resolution (1080p) for the crispest images possible. We’re talking 120Hz and support for Medi@2.0, which allows viewers to receive content over Yahoo! and Flickr directly on the screen.

It’s also DLNA-certified, so you’ll be able to connect to your computer’s personal media collection remotely and watch it on a huge screen. What would it be without a USB 2.0 port? You’ll get one so you can share images with others in the living room and bore them senseless.

There isn’t a whole lot of information on Albatron’s upcoming netbook, but one thing is certain judging from the first live photo. It’s surprisingly thin, much like the MacBook Air, which makes it a tempting choice already.

We do know that this Albatron netbook will come with a 10.2″ display and has a lightweight design that weighs under 1kg, with audio in/out ports and a memory card reader. We should be getting more pics and possibly a video soon.

Robots have been busy this week, which is fitting since they are our slaves. When they are finished being busy with all the chores we give them, they’ll be busy wiping us off the face of the Earth. This week over at Botropolis we got to check out a Roomba’s chaotic path, saw one printing on the floor, and learned about a bot that asks for directions. Here’s some other stuff we covered.

Roomba mod: Roomba gets a hand.

SOBEaR: The Robot Panda Bartender.

Jackoon: The Soul Of Jackson Pollock In A Robot Body.

Looks like LG will be releasing a new 12-megapixel cell phone later in the year. Take it with a grain of salt, but it could very well happen. 12-megapixels will likely replace the new 8-megapixel camera phones that are all over the market.

Sure, the lens isn’t up to par with those of a standard digital camera, but it’s always a march forward. Lens tech will just have to catch up. Who cares if those extra MP are useless?

Looks like the HTC Magic will feature Microsoft Exchange support, which will allow users to synchronize with their Outlook emails, contacts and calendar entries in a hassle-free way. Just make sure you keep your HTC Magic juiced up if you’re relying on a push connection.

This is interesting because there is a lack of native Exchange ActiveSync support on the T-Mobile G1 so far, restricting its use in the corporate world.

Tony Hawk’s new game will come with a skateboard peripheral so you can do all kinds of amazing tricks. The motion controls are pretty detailed and feature an advanced mode that will allow for in-place 180s, but it doesn’t look like you’ll be lifting the board off the ground.

Grabs are performed by actually grabbing the board as it senses your hand position, and pushing is performed by running your foot along the side of the board. Obviously, ollies and flip tricks are going to be different than the real thing.

I really like my iPhone and I have had it since the first generation devices launched. It’s about time for me to upgrade to a new handset and I am just waiting until June to see if any of the rumors about a new iPhone coming are true. Being a married geek one of the caveats of upgrading my gear is that it has to make it through the wife approval o’meter. Scoff all you want single geeks, any married guy will know what I mean. One good way to get the approval on an upgrade for my iPhone is to convince my wife that she should take my current iPhone over her Blackberry, which is honestly nowhere near as good as the iPhone.

The problem is that my wife always wants to use her nails to work the capacitive touchscreen. Anyone who has used an iPhone knows that won’t work. Another big problem for users in cold environments is that you can’t work the iPhone with gloves on. Today we are going to look at the Pogo Stylus for the iPhone that will solve both of these problems. Read on for all the details on the Pogo Stylus for iPhone.

I watch my share of online video and my video streaming site of choice isn’t YouTube. I don’t care much for videos produced by people with the cheapest cameras they can get their hands on. I prefer full length professionally made TV shows and movies like Hulu provides.

Nielsen Online has released its latest figures for video streaming sites and YouTube still sits in the top spot with a massive lead over the second place site. In April YouTube streamed 5.5 billion videos with Hulu coming in a distant second place.

I have played most all of the MX vs. ATV games that have been launched for the PS2 and PS3 game consoles over the years. My favorite was the most recent PS3 version MX vs. ATV Unleashed. The game offers good graphics and fun game play.

THQ has announced that the next installment in the franchise will be hitting store shelves just in time for the 2009 holiday season. The game will be called MX vs. ATV Reflex and offers a new control system and physics engine. The control system allows players to control steering and rider body position independently.

Sony often announces limited edition entertainment packs for its PSP console that bundle some new game with an exclusive color and other items to entice users to buy its portable console. The PSP-3000 is getting a bit long in the tooth now and rumors are circulating that a new PSP may be coming.

I’m not sure about the new PSP yet, but GameStop is getting a new exclusive PSP bundle to go along with the launch of the Dissidia Final Fantasy game. The bundle will include a mystic silver PSP-3000, Dissidia Final Fantasy game, Final Fantasy VII Advent Children CGI movie UMD, and a 2GB Memory Stick Pro Duo.

I haven’t used a microscope since I was in college. I had on old school microbiology teacher that liked to torment students by whipping out an old microscope that actually used a mirror rather than a plug in light source. Thankfully, for identifying unknown microorganisms we got to use modern microscopes.

A company called Extech has unveiled a new digital mini Microsoft that looks more like a digital camera than a microscope that we would see in school today. The device has an optical zoom of 7x to 27x and includes an additional 4x digital zoom for a total of 108x magnification.