Making Pancakes is trickier then it seems. If your temperature is too low you’ve got a long wait for that perfect pancake. If the temp is too high, you’re gonna burn them. It’s part instinct and part science. But it helps to have a pan that will tell you the precise temperature. After all, once the guesswork is taken out of the equation, all that’s left to do is make some perfect pancakes and eat.

Getting the temperature just right is the true secret of cooking. This Digital Thermometer Pan shows you the exact temp of the middle of the pan, displayed on a removable readout in the handle. It will cost you $50. Completely worth it for that perfect breakfast. The pan is 7.8 inches in diameter, and we’re hoping it shows up in a wide array of sizes.

Most people either find wind chimes charming or annoying. You either love them or you hate them. Well, I’m not sure if this update to the classic noisemaker makes things better or worse. Korean designer Lufdesign has a new spin on chimes. The concept is called Tinkling, not to be confused with your favorite bathroom pastime. No, this tinkling is different. The chimes aren’t set off by the wind, but when you receive a digital message via email, voicemail or SMS. It’s blowing tail will change color and a message is displayed across the embedded screen.

Obviously, they would need to be wireless for this to work and you would place this inside as opposed to outside. Or both. Why not annoy the birds every time you get an email? I suppose the idea is that you can wander inside and outside of your home, while never missing that important message. I personally like this a whole lot better then chimes activated by wind. At least you can turn these off.

According to the TimesOnline the lack of High-tech garbage cans in UK cities have pedestrians complianing. But not for long. Next year hundreds of bomb-resistant bins with “blast intelligent technology” and LCD screens displaying the news will be placed throughout London’s financial district.

Many bins had to be removed during the 1980s at the height of the IRA bombings as bombs were regularly left in them. So, London has been without places to put their garbage for nearly 30 years? I thought that’s what the BBC was for? I kid. I kid. Though putting the news on garbage bins has a certain irony to it.

Gaming on the iPhone and iPod touch could be awesome with some kind of thin DS-like overcoat, but the fugly looking thing above doesn’t fit the bill. Two large foam handles only make it look like a reject from a kid’s version of the podracer scene from Star Wars. Yeah, this thing could definitely win in a Special Olympics pod race, but that’s about it.

Your sleek device is lost within. You can almost hear it’s muffled cries for help. This thing doesn’t even sport any buttons, no extra battery life. No functionality period. All for $50. It’s as if your precious iPhone were some drooling abomination that earned itself a “special” helmet for rides on the short bus.

Wii RapidFire Kit by Acidmods.COM from CyberPyrot on Vimeo.
Here’s a pretty simple Wiimote hack that will take you back in time and get you all nostalgic for those days when the NES Advantage gave you “turbo” fire while playing the classics. Is it cheating? We don’t care. It was awesome and many games fell to the magic of turbo-firing. The hack even makes your Wiimote look cool with a new LED light, but mostly you’ll have rapid fire on virtually every wii game.

We’ve been hearing from a couple of sources that on Monday, Circuit City will be closing a whopping 155 stores and leaving the consumer electronics business for good. Most store closings are expected to be done by December 31, 2008. A full list of stores will apparently be revealed in the next few days. Not entirely unexpected, but still sad for those CC employees losing a job during the holiday season.

Last week Sprint launched the HTC Touch Pro at “select national retailers” and said that the device would be available online on November 2nd. True to their word, it’s available. The base retail price of the smartphone is $579.99. There is however an “instant savings” of $180 combined with a $100 mail-in-rebate which will bring the price down to $299.99 (with a 2-year agreement). That’s a whole lot of savings. Don’t forget you can always do it the old fashioned way and find a Sprint store and buy one there.

Looks like Western Digital has entered the world of HD media streaming. The WD TV HD Media Player is said to “turn your USB drive into an HD media player, allowing you to watch your favorite HD movies on your TV.” So, basically it lets you plug in a USB hard drive and play multimedia clips up to 1080p on your HDTV via HDMI/composite outputs. Comes with a remote control and browsing software. The small 1.6- x 4.9- x 3.9-inch box is pretty portable and the $129.99 price doesn’t hurt too much.

Those who tote around a portable projector for presentations will appreciate this one. Connecting to your computer with a VGA or DVI cable is very clumsy. The great advantage of the Epson EX70 is that you can connect via a USB cable. There are maybe one or two other projectors that can do this. If you want that convenience, check out the Epson EX70 for $799. You’ll like the fact that a USB cable is pretty easy to carry with you rather then a DVI or VGA cable. It makes setting things up a breeze.

The WXGA 1,280 by 800 resolution will go good with widescreen notebooks and the EX70 is easy to carry around. You can even show presentations without a computer, using an SD card or a USB drive. All of the ports are easily identified. Even a monkey could do it.

These Wii dogs win any costume contest hands paws down. Now I have a burning desire to see a Wiener dog as a Wiimote. While the dogs look thoroughly humiliated, this sort of thing pleases humans. How about a cat connected to the Wiimote dog, acting as a Nunchuk? Just awesome. Truly awesome. They even went so far as to recreate the wrist strap. I just hope the creator got them out of costume before they made Wii-wee.

Dell just released two more wide-aspect LCD displays, the 22″ S2209W and the 23″ S2309W. Both reduce the 16:9 aspect ratio without compromising resolution. Shared features on these guys include, Full 1080p resolution, 16:10 aspect ratio, 1,000:1 contrast ratio, 5ms pixel response time, DVI with HDCP encryption support and VGA support. The S2209W runs on a lower-cost twisted nematic panel and the S2309W doesn’t. The Dell S2209W will cost you $239, while the S2309W is a bit more expensive at $299.

I had thought, or hoped that the whole Apple/Microsoft war was deflating. Sadly it looks like Microsoft just fired the next salvo at Apple. It’s parking “I’m a PC” recording booths outside of Apple stores. The one pictured is in Birmingham, England. The booth is staffed with three Microsoft peeps who will no doubt preach at you about the awesomeness of all things Vista.

The whole deal has to be like wandering into a Jehovah’s Witness den. You know you should run, but you’re too stunned at the fact that you ran into THEM for once, instead of them coming to your house. (Or appearing on your TV) They’re swell guys and gals. They’ll preach the word and even invite you to make a short video explaining why you are a PC. The bottom line here is that we can now look forward to more ultra creepy videos of mankind proclaiming that they are PC’s, when really they’re just people we need to have a restraining order on.

JVC’s Sound Garden concept blends tree-hugging with design. It’s a full hi-fi speaker system with bass-reflex ports and little pot areas for your plants. (Which don’t have that much room.) And it’s all made of some wonder material called “eco-plastic”. If you want, you can connect a whole bunch together for massive sound and massive plant life. Just a concept right now, but rest assured they are working on more music/plant tech as I type this.

Online movie rentals are one of the most convenient ways for movie fans to get their favorite films without leaving the house. The catch is that many of the newest releases aren’t available for streaming rentals. Netflix offers a streaming on demand library of 12,000 movies and TV shows to its subscribers.

Several hardware devices will allow Netflix members to access the streaming content including the Xbox 360 and some DVD players. Netflix and TiVo announced today that TiVo DVR subscribers would be able to access the streaming content library over certain TiVo DVRs.

The small form factor computer system has many uses. A SFF rig can make a nice gaming machine for those who frequent LAN parties. Home theater fans looking for a tiny HTPC to fit into the entertainment center often go with a SFF machine.

One of the biggest purveyors of SFF systems is Shuttle with its line of small barebones machines. Shuttle announced its latest barebone machine today called the X27D. The X27D is the first system from Shuttle to use Intel’s dual-core Atom 330 CPU.