When it comes to tech gear it seems like every maker wants to say they have the smallest this or fastest that. The latest new products in the tech realm to lay claim to a world’s smallest title is LaCie with a pair of new USB 3.0 HDDs.

The new drives are the LaCie Rikiki and the Minimus USB 3.0 HDDs. The USB 3.0 connectivity allows the drives to have transfer speeds up to5Gb/s in small form factors. Both of the HDDs are clad in attractive brushed aluminum cases.

I have seen the Willow Garage PR2 robot a few times around the web and the thing is really cool. When you consider the fact that the PR2 was only being sold to research institutions and universities it was easy to imagine that meant the bot was very expensive.

Willow Garage is now selling the PR2 to anyone who can afford it. That list of people who can afford the PR2 will be short considering the thing costs $400,000. For that much money, you get two arms with grippers, an omnidirectional mobile base, a sensor suite, and dual onboard Xeon servers each with 8-cores, 24GB of RAM, and 2TB of storage, and a power system on board.

Notebook users know that the power adapter for their machines often seems as big and heavy as the notebook itself. It can be a real challenge to fit that adapter into your notebook bag or suitcase when going on the road because of the bulk. Cooler Master has unveiled a new universal 95W adapter for small notebooks that is very thin and small.

The adapter is called the USNA 95 and it has 95W of power with 150W peak. The small adapter measures 2.4″ x 0.7″ x 4.1″ and is billed as the world’s smallest 95W power adapter. The device ships with nine tips that work with the majority of notebooks on the market.

Nikon has pulled the wraps off a new digital camera today called the P7000. The new camera is a high-end point-and-shoot for the advanced user that might want a smaller camera than a DSLR to take sometimes.

The camera has 10.1MP image sensors and a 7.1x optical zoom lens with ED glass elements. The rear LCD is a 3-inch 9201K dot unit and the camera has an optical viewfinder. The P7000 can shoot 720p HD video with stereo sound and has an HDMI output. The lens has 5-way vibration reduction image stabilization.

I can fix most anything with duct tape and some wire ties. The downside to wire ties is that if I ever need to remove them for some reason I have to cut them off. That can get a bit hairy if the ties are holding something delicate like thin wires.

A company called Gear Tie has unveiled a new line of reusable ties called Gear Tie that have more in common with those metal bread twisty ties than the wire ties computer geeks are used to. The Gear Tie is reusable and covered in a rubber material. The tings come in a number of different sizes and are easy to take off and reattach as needed.

We have seen gaming machines before that cram processors aimed at the server market inside for higher performance. We have also seen those machines get overclocked CPUs for even better performance. What we haven’t seen is a machine that rolls so much gaming win into one package like the new Origin gaming rig does.

The machine is called The Big O and it is an absolute beast of a computer. The machine has dual 6-core Intel Xeon X5860 CPUs that are overclocked to 4.3GHz. The machine supports ECC memory and up to 24GB of Corsair RAM can be added. The machine can also be fitted with four EVGA GTX 480 FTW video cards in SLI.

A few companies track PC shipments around the globe including iSuppli. In July, iSuppli offered up the numbers for Q1 2010 and Acer overtook Dell for the second place in the global PC shipment list.

The numbers for Q2 are out and Dell has recaptured that second spot. Dell shipped 10.5 million PCs for 12.8% of the market. Acer shipped 10.1 million PCs for 12.4% of the market. Acer had negative 6.2% growth for the quarter while Dell had negative 1.2% growth thanks to its desktop and server shipments.

Computer cases can be dirt-cheap and fall apart easily or they can cost more than some pre-built computers do to purchase. The difference is how they look on the outside and how they perform on the inside. Cooler Master has some of those crazy expensive cases and it has some cheap offerings like the new HAF 912.

The HAF 912 will ship on September 14 for $59.99 making it one of the cheaper cases Cooler Master offers. For that much money you get a mid-tower case measuring 9.1″ x 18.9″ x 19.5″ and mode from SECC and plastic.

LG is just as happy as it can be today with the announcement that it will be bringing new smartphones to the market in Q4 packing the first dual-core processor for smartphones. That processor is the NVIDIA Tegra 2.

LG is harping on the fact that Tegra 2 in its smartphones will be the world’s first dual-core CPU in a mobile device. That dual core CPU will offer two times the speed for web surfing and five times the gaming performance of current processors.

The first time I laid eyes on that crazy looking Dyson Air Multiplier fan, I thought it looked pretty darn cool. I could certainly see that thing sitting on my desk keeping me cool during the hot Texas summer. I can’t see paying the $299 price for it though.

A company from Asia called Abiko has created its own knock-off of that Dyson fan and it looks so much like the Dyson version that the company even strapped the thing with a similar price. The Abiko knock-off will sell for $223 at MSRP.

That ExoPC Slate has been teasing us with it sexiness for a while now. If you are among the many that have a hankering for the sexy little Slate, you can now pre-order yours from the manufacturer. Before you whip out that credit card, you do need to know a few things.

The big issues with the pre-order 64GB version of the ExoPC Slate is that it is unknown if GPS will be featured on the device at this time. The maker has had issues getting GPS to work. That said the final product could have GPS, but that isn’t looking promising at this point.

I will say right up front that I never really saw the point of smartbooks. They are the same basic size as a netbook, though they are a pound or so lighter. The big downside in my mind has always been the performance of a smartbook.

Inside the smartbooks netbook looking shell hides hardware with more in common with a smartphone. If you like the smartbook promise a new machine from Genesi has landed called the Efika MX Smartbook. The machine can be purchased now for $349.

If you are one of the hoards of folks that have been waiting for more info on the Galaxy Tab some news has surfaced today. We already know that here in the US the thing will sell in the $200 to $400 range depending on subsidies from carriers.

That subsidized price will obviously mean there will be a contract for a couple years tying you to the carrier and its data plan. Over in Europe the subsidized price for the Tab via O2 is said to be 99 euro with a data plan contract for a bit less than 28 euro per month. If you want the thing sans contract in Europe, Amazon Germany has priced the thing.

Toshiba has been in the notebook computer business for a long time and has over the years been forced to recall some of its machines for various reasons. Toshiba has announced a recall of some of its T series notebook computers due to a burn risk.

Toshiba is recalling the Satellite T135, Satellite T135D and Satellite ProT130 notebooks and has sold about 41,000 units globally. The reason for the recall is that the machines can overheat at the place where the AC adapter connects posing a burn hazard.

Business users who do a lot of presentations know that schlepping a normal projector around the city or an airport is no fun. The new glut of small pocket and pico projectors coming to the market promise a lot more portability, but they give up a lot in performance.

Toshiba has unveiled a new pocket projector called the Lumileo P100 that is your typical small projector. It measures 116 x 50 x 18mm and weighs 96g with the battery inside. The small projector only has 14 lumens and needs a dark room to throw its maximum 65-inch image.