Optimus Prime’s day job may be fighting the forces of evil Megatron and his Decepticons but I bet that you didn’t know in his offtime he also volunteers teaching math and spelling to little kids down at the Y, did you? This new gadget is the Transformers Trans-Portable PC that combines the fun of soundbites and images of Prime and the other Transformers with learning your 1-2-3s and A-B-Cs.

There are 36 different activities that can be tried out on the tablet including old standbys like Hangman and the ever popular Word Jumble and it supports English to Spanish real-time translation for its instructions and select words. Special Transformers hot keys lets your child press on Starscream or Brawl and not have to worry about a plasma shot taking their cute little head right off. You can also input the name of your lucky offspring into the PC and it will relay the questions to them using their name (which is something that the action figures can’t do.) The SMART chip inside the unit will also adjust the difficulty level depending on how well the user is doing which is nice since no one wants Prime to be no fun and have all the answers.

We’re one week away from the “Transformers” movie arriving on DVD and we thought it would be time for a related story. A pair of gearheads in Nanjing must be really big fans of the Transformers franchise because they turned a real-life Citroen car and turned it into a Transformer-looking robot. The project cost the geeks in disguise about $8,000 while the actual Transformer model weighs in at 600 kilos. The thing looks awesome and more than a little like Bumblebee in the “Transformers” movie. Now if these guys could build Soundwave next they would forever be my heroes.

You know that the world has changed when Optimus Prime can transform into an iPod. While the movie took some artistic liberties with the design of Prime (hot rod flames?) Takara’s line of music Transformers pushes the envelope even further than that. Not only has Optimus lost all of his color but his trailer section now transforms into an iPod docking station. The tractor part of the Autobot still morphs into the same classic Prime we all remember so at least the old school fans won’t be completely aghast.

Takara is also offering an …

Similar to gadgets like the iDog, iFish and the I-CY Penguin, Sharper Image has moving and flashing robot, Transformers-style with the Beatmix Bumblebee Speaker. Connect the Beatmix Bumblebee to your iPod or other MP3 player and it moves its arms, flaps its wings and its eyes lights up bright. It also plays some music back to you distinctive of sounds from the Transformers movie.

Bumblebee is one of the main characters in the 2007 Transformers movie set to premier July 4th. This “dancing” speaker stands about 10″ tall, …

In one month the mega-budget live-action “Transformers” movie will finally be upon us. Some are already calling it the biggest movie of the summer even though “Spider-Man 3” and the new “Pirates of the Caribbean” are making oodles of money at theaters right now.

Hasbro, the owners of the toy line that started the whole thing off, are cashing in on the buzz surrounding the movie by releasing not just a line of movie tie-in toys but also a wave of mini-Transformers that harken back to the days when all Transformers …