We told you back in April that Blu-ray players for $99 would be hitting this year. Here’s the first. The latest Curtis Mathes offering, the CMMBX130. Offered by Meijer, this new Blu-ray player can play 1080p Blu-ray discs and will even upscale regular DVDs. Outputs include an optical digital audio, composite and HDMI 1.3.

Some other specs include a 24-bit 192kHz audio converter, a BroadCom 7440 processor and an 11-bit 108MHz digital-to-analog convertor. It also features an Ethernet jack for downloading firmware updates.

Do you really need a dog translator? I can do the translating for you right now. Dogs are simple creatures, who only say a few things with their barks. Stuff like, “Holy crap, are you gonna take me for a walk or am I gonna poop in your shoe again?” or “Hey. Guy who kidnapped me as a puppy, do you plan on feeding me that garbage you call food anytime soon?”

But if you don’t want to take my word for it, then check out this gadget. TakaraTomy may have developed the world’s first dog translator. Just “place the bark-sensor collar around your pup’s neck, then grab the wireless controller and the Bowlingual Voice will speak on your dog’s behalf.”

Check this out. A fully-functional, licensed Commodore 64 emulator for the iPhone. Pretty sweet. But sadly, Apple rejected the app “based on the SDK clause specifically prohibiting interpreted or executable code.” Lame.

The app would have played classic games and even run Commodore 64 BASIC. The full list of features are as follows: Full speed, Commodore 64 emulator, SID sound emulation, Auto-save, to continue exactly where you left off, Realistic joystick and beautifully crafted C64 keyboard, Portrait and Landscape play, Vertical and Fullscreen gaming (auto rotate for iPod users).

The Sony VAIO NW is the latest 15-inch notebook from Sony featuring a fairly reasonable price tag. The base price is $880 and goes up from there. This one offers a 15.5-inch widescreen HD display with 1,366 x 768 resolution and an Intel Core 2 Duo processor.

Some other features include an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 graphics card, 4GB RAM, a 400GB hard drive, a 1.3MP webcam, Blu-ray drive, WiFi, Bluetooth, an HDMI port, 3x USB ports, an ExpressCard port, a microSD card slot, a memory stick PROTM slot and Windows Vista as the OS. You can get the VAIO NW notebook starting this month in three colors.

As men, we really only need a few things to be happy. Two to be exact. Food and beer. But it isn’t always easy to juggle them both. Now, thankfully you can carry both in one hand thanks to the Go Plate. A Pack of 42 will cost you $49.

They let you hold your beer and food in one hand, while your other hand is free to text, smoke, twitter, whatever. It’s a plate that fits over your bottle, cup or can. When you want a drink, just lift the plate off. Don’t be that guy who goes to take a sip and dumps all of your food all over yourself.

Some people really love transparent gadgets. Sometimes they can really beautiful, but sometimes they just look like 2 giant transparent bullhorns with a woman wearing a nightgown in between. This is a new design from Ferguson Hill dubbed the FH001.

The horn speaker pumps out 3 to 50 watts, so it isn’t much of a speaker, but they are green. How are they green? Well, the speakers are made of clear acrylic and have a ultra high efficiency design. There’s also a spherical subwoofer that looks like a fishbowl.

Yep. It’s another Hello Kitty notebook. This Hello Kitty mini laptop is from Medion and will make all of your little girl wishes come true. It features a Hello Kitty mugshot on the outside and another on the keyboard. This one is dubbed the S1211 Medion.

This kitty branded notebook comes with a $578 price tag, in your choice of white or black colors. Some other features include: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, 1GB RAM, 160GB hard drive, 10” TFT display, Webcam, and wireless connectivity.

Yamaha just released its MusicCAST2 network music system that can wirelessly transmit music to 32 different rooms. At long last, we have something for all of that silence in our mansions. The MusicCAST2 supports various file formats including iTunes AAC, MP3, WMA, FLAC and WAV, and can play back tunes from iPods, Bluetooth devices and other Yamaha accessories with its built-in dock port.

If you prefer, you can even plug in USB flash drives and the MusicCAST2 can also pull audio from sources such as Rhapsody, Internet radio, PC and Macs and NAS devices.

Dane-Elec has decided to sell games in a new way. One that has nothing to do with the optical disc format but instead is in the form of a USB flash drive. As you might expect, these are bargain bin titles.

Dane-Elec will make available older titles like Rainbow Six Lockdown , Blazing Angels and Fashion Designer which are going for just $19.99 or $24.99, depending on the game. I guess the upside is that after the installation, and after you’ve beaten the game in a few hours, you can use them as standard USB flash drives.

Somebody loves the Gameboy so much that they took it from vertical to horizontal. It’s still fat, but a little more sexy. The knock-off supposedly has a sharper image than the original. Sadly, details are scant on this baby.

All we really know is that it showed up in a Photobucket set. If you’re nostalgic and like your GB wide rather than tall, you’ll have to scour the knock-off district of the internet in search of one. Then tell us where we can get one.

5.11 Tactical has finally released their brand new flashlight known as Light for Life. It comes with three LEDs for backup, but its main selling point is the Flashpoint Power technology, which is basically an ultracapacitor energy storage system.

What this means to you is that it requires just 90 seconds to charge fully, then it will shine at 90 lumens brightness for up to 1.5 hours per charge. Impressive huh? You can choose from bright (270 peak lumens), standard (90 lumens), and strobe modes, depending on the circumstance. The LEDs have a 50,000 hour lifespan and were specially designed never to be replaced, while the flashlight itself was engineered to “offer 10 years of maintenance-free service under typical conditions.”

The XCM Eye-Candy Crystal Clear DSi shell aims to give those who look at your Dsi a lesson in internal Nintendo anatomy. It will keep your portable handheld safe from nicks and scratches, while everything underneath is protected

The kit offers a full DSi replacement case, buttons and even a screwdriver so you can disassemble and re-assemble your DSi. Which isn’t something the faint of heart should attempt. And those who worry about voiding their warranty should not bother. But if you like to see the guts of your gadgets, go for it.

It hasn’t been long and there may not be a ton of Pre apps available yet, but apparently there are enough for an impressive 666,511 downloads as of June 17th. By now it is likely close to or past the 700,000 mark.

I’d call that a success. As shown in the above graph, they’ve been rising steadily as more apps become available, and we don’t see any signs of the numbers dropping. It’s still early, but things are looking great for Pre app downloads. That graph is sure to spike as more fart and beer apps show up.

It isn’t easy keeping track of all the robot toys, apparel, etc, while also keeping a watchful eye on various robotic Frankenstein creations over at Botropolis. Luckily we have a sharp team that isn’t afraid to take caffeine intravenously. There’s also the added incentive of me letting the team use my underground Bot-shelter whenever we do face an imminent robot attack. What they don’t know is that I have a few traps installed. Stuff like a trap-door with Rancor pit beneath. You know, if rations start to get low. Hey, I have to look out for me. But I digress. Here’s some of what we covered this week.

Contest: Win a Pimp Bender T-shirt.

Damn that’s huge: Giant Gundam now complete.

Wall-E: New toy actually cleans.

Transformers: Devastator Has Balls.

Remember when that computer asked Matthew Broderick “Do you want to play a game?” in it’s cold electronic tones? Yeah, this is like that, minus Broderick. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers holds a symposium every year on Computational Intelligence and Games. Sounds innocent enough. But part of the symposium is a kind of “Turing Test” challenge, in which contestants program an AI to play a videogame. The objective is to trick a panel of human judges into thinking the AI is a human player.

This year’s videogame is DEFCON, the nuclear war strategy game from Introversion. Good idea? Probably not. I liked this better when it was just a stupid 80s movie.