It’s really more of a pyramid and less of a tree, but I guess that’s what you can expect from all that drinking. Frankly I’m surprised there isn’t a guy passed out in the center. Or maybe there is. Maybe a few guys.

It actually comes from Shanghai, where someone went through the trouble of clearing these bottles from their backyard to make this Christmas tree. It’s outside the Nanjing mall and if you listen very closely you can hear the guys underneath scream for help between belches. The tree took hours to make and 1000 beer bottles.

This may look like a curling iron, but if you wind your hair up in this thing it’s likely to disintegrate in a fiery poof. Basically the Looftlighter is a handy way to light fires without using fire or even lighter fluid. What it does is blast out hot air at temperatures above 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Now that’s a fire.

At $80, it seems expensive, but it should save you money in lighter fluid over time. Heck, it just makes things easier if you start a lot of fires in your fireplace. Just don’t mistake this for your hair dryer.

The computer mouse has been the input device of choice for a long time now in the computer world. There are other mouse alternatives, but odds are most of us use a traditional mouse. If you like the traditional mouse but would like something a bit different and more ergonomic, the Jelfin mouse may be perfect for you.

The Jelfin mouse is a ball-shaped mouse that is covered with a gel material. The gel material makes the mouse more comfortable and the maker says you can squeeze it like a stress ball. Sensitivity is 1000 dpi.

We already knew that we wouldn’t be seeing the Apple tablet this year. The latest rumors have some analysts saying we’ll be seeing a 10.1-inch tablet in March or April of 2010, and it will cost $1000. They also say that the tablet’s multitouch screen will not be an OLED panel, but an LCD display that could be up to 12 inches with “stunning graphics.”

1080p video? The sources claim that manufacturers are getting ready up to drop up to 10 million tablets in 2010.

Look we all know that Motorola has a hit on their hands with DROID. So it should be no surprise that sales are brisk. Sales have been great since it’s first weekend. People are questioning their brand loyalty. Cats and dogs are getting along. It’s end-times.

The actual sales figures are reportedly around 700,000 to 800,000 devices, and with the holiday season upon us, the phone might hit the 1 million mark before 2010 arrives.

Late last year and this year a legal row has been going after several of the world’s largest manufacturers of LCD panels pled guilty to price fixing in the notebook market. Nokia has now filed suit against several of the same companies alleging price fixing in the LCD market for mobile phones.

Nokia has filed suit against Samsung Electronics Co., LG Display Co., Sharp Corp, Hitachi Displays Ltd., and Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd and other firms. According to Nokia, it was hurt because the firms conspired to charge more for LCDs than the market would have normally supported.

The economy has been very hard on traditional print publications like magazines and newspapers. Shrinking subscriber numbers, increased costs, and less advertising have all conspired to drive more than one publication out of the black. Even large papers like The New York Times are looking to new methods to distribute their paper.

The NYT has a digital version of its paper called the Times Reader 2.0. The digital version looks much like the real paper and can be accessed via a computer or netbook. The big catch is that the service is a whopping $179.40 for a year.

If you purchased a netbook from Asus a while back that used an SSD, you may have the thing packed with files now and be out of storage space. If so you are in luck; a company called Active Media Products has unveiled a line of upgrade SSDs that offer more performance and more storage.

The new line of SSDs is called the SaberTooth S4 series and they are compatible with the Asus S101, 900, 900A, 901, and 1000 Eee netbooks. They will also work with other machines that use mini PCIe card storage with the SATA-II interface.

If you’ve always wanted your own USS Galileo, your dreams can now come true. A Utah school is selling its Star Trek USS Galileo Shuttle simulator. The question is, where would you put it? The garage or the backyard?

This space ship simulator is all decked out inside with stations, networking, speakers, and a main viewscreen. The $1000 reserve hasn’t been met, so you can still take this baby home. How you explain it to the wife is your problem.

Motorola is offering up some new digital photo frames, including dual display frames and a Wi-Fi model that lets you send images directly to the frame by email. The LS1000W has a 10.4-inch display, with 512 MB of built-in memory, an MP3 player and speakers, an alarm clock and calendar function. The £200 frame has Wi-Fi connectivity and content from the thousand FrameChannel online channels that can be viewed on the device including internet radio.

The £80 LS420 Duo on the other hand offers two 4.2-inch displays, one of which can be used to view calendar and clock info. The LS720D offers the same, but with larger 7-inch displays and MP3 playback, speakers and a remote control for £130.

I like it when my electronic gear can serve more than one purpose. My iPhone can act as a MP3 player and a MID in addition to making calls and I would like it if my normal monitor could do other tasks as well. Samsung has announced a pair of new LCDs called the 933HD and the 2333HD that work for your computer and work as normal TVs too.

The 933HD is a 19-inch unit selling for $249.99. The 2333HD is a 23-inch unit selling for $329.99. Both displays have integrated TV tuners, 10000:1 contrast ratio, and 5ms response times. Both of the screens also have stereo speakers.

So now we have two major manufacturers offering multitouch displays. Who will be the third? HP Compaq’s L2105tm is available today for $300. This display is fully certified for Windows 7 and features a 1920×1080 resolution, 1000:1 contrast, 5ms response time, and sports VGA, DVI-D with HDCP connections.

It supports one and two-finger control. If you are old school there’s a plastic stylus hidden in a nook around back.

The last projector I played with was one of those tiny pico projectors that was not bright enough to use in any room with ambient light. Sanyo has announced a new projector that promises the most brightness you can get in an 110V unit at 12,000 lumens.

The projector uses two lamps to get all those lumens and offers a 4000:1 contrast ratio. Sanyo builds in its active maintenance filter as well. The projector uses the Sanyo QuaDrive optical engine that adds a yellow light controller to the red, green, and blue chips of the 3LCD system.

Lately many all-in-ones have featured multitouch monitors. Well here’s a multitouch 21.5 inch monitor from Dell, the SX2210T, without the all-in-one PC included.

This monitor hasn’t yet been officially announced, but we can guess that it’s IR-based. Other than that, specs are what you would expect from your typical monitor, with 1920×1080 resolution, 1000:1 contrast and 2ms response time. You also get HDMI/DVI-in and a webcam/mic. We like. Nothing on pricing and no release date yet.

Apple’s Mac mini server gets rid of an optical drive and gains room for two hard disks. It uses Snow Leopard Server, and has the same 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo processor as the updated 320GB Mac mini.

For $1000 it includes two 500GB hard disks, 4GB of RAM, and GeForce 9400M graphics. The 320GB Mac mini will stay at $800, but has the already mentioned new processor, and ups 2GB of memory to 4GB. The $600 entry-level Mac mini has a faster 2.26GHz processor (was 2GHz), 2GB RAM (was 1GB), and has 160GB of storage (was 120GB).