This owl earbud holder gives a hoot and he won’t pollute your desktop. In fact, he will help keep your desk tidy by holding your earbuds all neat like. It’s a DIY project that’s simple to do. Just take a piece of wood, cut several holes in it, and make it look like an owl. Then wrap your portable MP3 earbuds around it. It’s cute.

Much cuter than my solution which is wires all over my desk in a huge mass that is more puzzle than usable gadget cords. To each their own.

Forget the Swine flu. The thing that’s becoming a real epidemic is buying stones in place of things like a Nintendo DS and in this case a MacBook Pro.

In this case, a buyer named Ryan bought a Macbook Pro and when he got home he opened the box and found a paving stone packed with bubble wrap, instead of a Macbook Pro. He returned to the store and the manager, “Keith”, was not very helpful. He kept falling back on the line “Apple seals the boxes, not us. Take it up with Apple.”

Are you doing stuff that you shouldn’t be doing? If so, then you probably don’t want to get caught doing that stuff. We don’t want to know. But the Ghost Pigeon can help you keep things on the down low. It’s a piece of cloaking software that masks all incoming and outgoing calls and text messages on your handset so people can’t examine your phone and discover who you’ve been in contact with or even when.

It’s not all shady stuff. It’s likely useful for employees searching or interviewing for a new job on their company phone, or for CEOs negotiating a golden handshake and stuff like that. I mean, not everybody is a drug dealer or a smuggler etc.

On May 5th, general users will have access to Windows 7 for one full year. It is already available for download for MSDN and TechNet subscribers. This is only the Release Candidate version and will expire on June 1, 2010. The Release Candidate is basically the near finished product and the final stage in testing.

Supposedly it will have all the features of the final version. We still don’t know when the final version will be released but according to rumors it’ll be late 2009 or early 2010. Windows 7 features a bunch of new features including a new taskbar, libraries, jump lists, and more. Windows 7 will also come packaged with the newest Internet Explorer (IE8).

There’s a reason that Nintendo’s Wii has dominated this generation of consoles. Here’s a hint. It’s the Wii’s motion-sensing capabilities. Microsoft isn’t blind to this fact. And according to the latest rumor, they’re hard at work on a new system that will let you control games not just with a Wiimote, but with your entire body.

This add-on for the Xbox 360 includes a sensor bar that needs no controllers at all. Think about that for a second. You would be free to punch, kick, put some dude in a headlock etc. Sounds like a dream to us, and we have no idea how it would work, but who knows, maybe we will hear about it at E3 in June.

This is one of the cooler Lego Donkey Kong things we’ve seen in quite some time. Sure, it doesn’t move and actually do stuff like this one, but just look at all that amazing detail.

Hammers, barrels,fire, it has it all. It’s all the more impressive because it doesn’t move. After taking it in for a bit, you feel like it could/should. Sure, Mario and the Princess are just generic Lego people, but that’s maybe it’s only flaw. Look at those ladders and beams. My inner nerd is happy now and so I share it with you.

Vending Machine from Ellie Harrison on Vimeo.
So the other day we saw a vending machine that quenches your thirst during an emergency. The British now have their own vending machine that does one better. It dispenses snacks when the BBC reports bad news about the economy.

Why, we would be fed all day here in the US. I can get behind this kind of machine. The whole deal is actually an art project designed and created by Ellie Harrison as part of her residency at the Plymouth College of Art. The monitor on the right tracks the BBC’s RSS feed, and whenever doom and gloom news stories hit, you get a snack.

This isn’t 100% confirmed yet but the folks at BGR have some launch details for the the Palm Pre. Apparently Best Buy will be getting a limited inventory of 4,500 Pre handsets for a trial launch on June 7th. The story goes that Sprint will be direct-shipping them to arrive on the 6th. So, about 4,500 units will be spread throughout Best Buy Mobile locations across the country.

Yeah, that’s spreading them pretty thin. Rest assured that each and every Best Buy Mobile will be getting at least one Pre. Pricing is apparently still being decided on, but here’s what is likely: New customers with a 2-year contract, $199.99. Existing customer upgrades, $299.99. Outright, $999.99. Ouch!

JD Power has released their 2009 Wireless Consumer Smartphone Satisfaction Survey and Apple has topped the list with the iPhone and iPhone 3G. The survey covered several aspects of the phones including design, operation, operating system, features and battery.

Apple received a score of 791 out of 1,000, which will likely not surprise iPhone users. It excelled in areas like features, operating system and design and received 5/5 stars in every category, except one. The battery category received only 2/5 stars. Next in line was LG with a 772 score and Samsung with 759.

Designer Philippe Starck and Parrot have teamed up to release a home sound system designed for iPod, iPhone and other digital audio sources. They call it the Zikmu and it features a pair of 2.5-foot black monstrosities that look like trumpet ends.

The system is shipped in a recyclable package designed to look like a musical instrument’s carrying case. The system can also stream music from any PC or Mac over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth A2DP wireless technology. It features a class-D amplifier rated at 100W RMS, and the speakers can output frequencies from 50Hz up to 20kHz.

Following the confirmation of the Palm Eos for AT&T, PhoneNews is claiming to have insider information about the existence of a CDMA version of the Palm Eos that will work on Sprint’s network.

Supposedly, the lower-cost Web OS phone is currently testing at Sprint and should be available sometime in the third quarter, after the release of the Pre. Other than running on CDMA, it should be identical to the AT&T version. We’ll let you know more when we know more.

If you’ve ever broken any bones, then you have likely seen an x-ray of your insides. But I bet you’ve never seen x-rays of your favorite game consoles. Gamers and Doctor Mario types will be happy to know that the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft’s Xbox 360, and Sony’s Playstation 3 (among others) have been x-rayed and are perfectly healthy.

Reintiji uploaded this set of x-rays to Flickr. It’s nerdy, it’s geeky and it’s even damn artistic. There’s some beautiful images in this gallery. Even the simple nunchuk. Wait. Do I see a problem with a torn rotator cuff on it’s analog stick?

Swine flu got ya down? Robots will make it better. Take off your surgical mask, kick your feet up and have a look at some of what we covered this week over at Botropolis. Our future metal masters have had a busy week.

Snackbot- Beware robots bearing snacks.

Homeless?- Have a robot Beg for you.

More than meets the eye- Nike Transformers.

As you may or may not know Japan is prone to many an earthquake. Japan’s major cities have an extended underground transportation system. So when a quake happens, people could be potentially trapped for long periods of time and suffer from dehydration.

That’s where these updated vending machines come into play. During an emergency, they’ll give out free drinks. But…Won’t people just turn into A-holes and start fighting over the drinks?

Someone created an application to detect metal using the Android G1. This isn’t because the G1 is so much more awesome than other smartphones. It’s done through clever use of the built-in compass. A compass detects the magnetic field of the Earth.

Sadly it won’t help you find treasure at the beach. Think of it more like the ones they use in airports. The kind that let you magically pass your hands over someone’s body to see if they are hiding metal somewhere. Which is great I guess. If you are security in the lowest budget airport ever.