The iPhone’s display is capable of switching automatically from portrait to landscape mode when you rotate it. So you should have a dock that allows you to view it either way. Sadly most docks are oriented for the vertical portrait mode.

Not this one made by Steven Combs. Steven can go both ways. Rather, his iPhone can. This dock lets him rotate his iPhone and better still, it’s made from gray, black, and white Legos. Instead of buying an expensive rotating dock, why not just do what Steve did?

Here are some useful electronic combination locks from Kiwkset. Great for added peace of mind when you are on vacation or if you just want to keep track of your kid’s comings and goings when you are at work. These locks will send an email to your cellphone when someone unlocks your door.

Locks from both companies are designed to be integrated with a wireless whole house automation system; Kwikset is partnered with Control4 and Schlage has its own system called LiNK. You can do things like program the lock so that when you enter your code you initiate other activities such as lights turning on, music or TV switches on, etc.

Universal remotes are nothing new. You can find them everywhere and they’re usually overpriced and boring. Why not leave the clunky oversized remotes to the muggles. Remotes should practice magic, not tech science.

Like a magic wand that will change your channels. Like the Kymera Magic Wand. It can be flicked up or down to change the channel, or turned in a clockwise motion for volume up or down. It features a total of 13 “magical functions” on your TV in all. The wand is battery powered and they even throw in the batteries.

Who has money for a fancy case to protect your iPhone during this recession? You’ve probably tried wrapping it like a mummy in paper towels or loading it up with 2 inches of duct tape, but it just didn’t work. Well, this case offers you a lot of customizing possibilities for only $0.99 or 10 for $8.

You can glue some crystals on it, draw with a sharpie, paint it, whatever you like. It also has other benefits. Normally people want to steal your iPhone, but in this case it just looks like something wrapped in cardboard. Which it is of course.

Now I’ve seen everything and I suddenly want to raise frogs thanks to this Dagobah frogtank. That’s right, you can put your frog in a Dagobah environment, teach him to lie to others about his Jedi master identity, then train them to lift X-wings from the swamp while talking cryptically.

It features a Hideaway Hut, Yoda figurine, a Vented, see-through lid for safe and easy viewing and a Feeding hatch. Only $39.99. Grow legs your tadpole will. Then he will be strong in the force.

Looks like Sony’s PS3 Slim is paying off for the company. Sales of PS3 hardware at “top retailers” jumped 300% for the first week of September compared to the week before the system’s price was cut to $299 for the “slim”.

Yes, people are actually buying the console. This news surely makes the folks at Sony feel all warm and tingly, but that’s not it for good news. According to a survey by GamePlan Insights, five of consumers’ top 10 most-wanted games are actually on the PS3 (Gran Turismo 5, Final Fantasy XIII, God of War III, Assassin’s Creed 2, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2).

Well, that didn’t take long. ColorWare is bringing PS3 Slims to life with a rainbow of colors. They aren’t just colorizing the console, but the controller as well. You can customize the color of the PS3 logo, the top of the console, or the bottom. That way you can make it look super funky.

Once it’s been colorized, everything is high-gloss and scratch resistant, so it’s more than just a paint job. If you want to send yours in, it will cost you $149 or you can just buy one from them for $449.

Wow. We are really seeing some actual cool iPod docks this week. Yamaha’s latest are amazing looking. It’s not just looks either, it’s made with metal, not plastic and apparently that doesn’t hurt the audio quality very much. In fact it is said to have a very rich sound and the “highs aren’t tinny like most—and there’s some nice bass response”.

What strikes us most about the MCR-140 is the awesome retro look, but some other features include: a wireless transmitter that attaches to the bottom of your iPod and streams music using Yamaha’s “uncompressed” wireless tech instead of using Blueooth. The MCR-040 (the orange one) is the exact same unit, but not wireless. They also handle CD, FM and USB.

There’s some good news and some bad news. We’ll give you the good news first. You’ll like it. Nokia is making its Booklet 3G netbook available for pre-order. Awesome, I know. However the bad news is that it’s only available in Italy right now.

To refresh your memory the netbook weighs 1.25 kg and is just over 2cm thick, with integrated 3G/HSPA connectivity and Wi-Fi. Other features include 1GB of RAM, 160GB HDD, and HDMI out.

If you are reading this then I have to assume that robots have not killed you yet. Let’s all take a moment to thank our maker that we haven’t yet been crushed by a robot arm or shot by one of DARPAs mutant creations. Thank god a garment folding bot didn’t fold your shirt with YOU in it. Yes, we are all very lucky to be alive. Make the most of it meatbags. It can’t last forever. It’s time to take a look at some of the robot news we covered this week over at Botropolis.

DIY Robot Mask: With iPhone Display.

God Hands: This can’t lead to anything good.

Guy builds Master-Slave Suit: Enslave them before they enslave us.

JVC’s latest pair of soundbars, the TH-BA1 and TH-SB100 are basically the same unit, but the TH-SB100 has a JVC Blu-ray player along for the ride for your home theater needs. The low-profile soundbars include four individually housed 3 3/16″speakers, an amplifier and a sound processor with 220 watts of total system power.

They decode Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic II and DTS decoding. The two outside speakers deliver the left and right channel information, while the middle two deliver center channel information plus the surround/left and surround/right channels.

Looks like LG is jumping on the portable hard drive bandwagon with their new line of XD3 Slims. These trim hard drives measure just 13mm thin and sport rubber-padded sides for impact protection. They connect by your USB 2.0 port, but the XD3 Slim can also connect using SATA II.

Storage capacity maxes out at 500GB. The 320GB model should arrive in Europe and North America for about $90 later this year. They look pretty good. We really like the brushed aluminum finish.

Pioneer has unveiled a new line of iPod/iPhone docks that have actually been available in Europe for about a week now. Both new XW models feature 2.1 surround sound, 60W output, and Bluetooth connectivity. The XW-NAS5 is available in multiple colors, along with a radio and a built-in ambient sound player for relaxation.

The XW-NAS3 on the other hand, comes in white and will play music from your iPod or iPhone, but that’s it. No word on pricing yet, but we should see these by the end of the year.

We all know Facebook is continuously evolving, and just recently the social networking behemoth made some announcements that will likely make its popularity even larger, partly by making things smaller. On Thursday Facebook launched Facebook Lite, which is basically a scaled down version of the current Facebook site. Existing users can log onto Facebook Lite and it even uses the same cookies to recognize you if you are already logged in. All you friends are there and you can post messages, but it’s just got a little fewer “pieces of flare” about it.

The idea for Facebook Lite is to make a slimmer version of Facebook, not too unlike Twitter, that more people could use in places that have limited access to bandwidth, so the pages are not so “heavy” to load. So far the site is ironically only available in the U.S. and India, but I suppose they have to test it out somewhere. Chances are it will be rolling into some more obscure areas of the world soon.

Photos: ifixit.com

If you haven’t seen this yet, you’ll want to check it out. The folks over at iFixit.com have taken apart Apple’s new 5th Generation iPod nano with the camera, FM, etc., using some tools that are custom and some that you can find around the house. They have a whole mess of detailed step-by-step coverage and photos that are pretty interesting. See if you can find the typo on the battery warning!