The “magic wand” aspect of the Wiimote may offer better and more realistic control over some games, but many games use the Wiimote in the more traditional old school way. So the question is, how do you make the wiimote more comfortable to use with two hands?

Answer. Just shove it into a new body that makes the D pad an “analog” stick with two DualShock-like grips. Slip it on and off easily. A nice simple solution for games like Super Smash Bros. It may not look super sexy, but it gets the job done.

How many well known consumer electronics brands can be shoved under one stable? We may soon find out as word has come from the Land of the Rising Sun that Harman International has bid for D&M Holdings in a sale which could run the former around $700 million.

This bid, according to Bloomberg, first surfaced on Friday. This potential acquisition bumped up D&M stock in Tokyo. If this purchase were to go through, a news article from the Japan Corporate News Network suggests Harman would ending up taking “a dominant share in the global audio …

Check out this steampunk clarinet mod, which foregoes music and adopts violence as it’s new tune. There isn’t alot of info about it, but I like to imagine that some band geek got picked on a bit too much and went all Travis Bickle while creating it. You talking to me? You must be talking to me…

Looks like it doesn’t actually fire, but is more of an art piece. I also envision a post-apocalyptic future where a trio of musicians wander the wasteland. When trouble comes, they make as if to play some music. But when they open their instrument cases…All hell breaks loose. We love the clarinet gun.

Nokia announced a new color for its ever popular N82 today. A new sleek black N82 will join the line alongside the Silver N82 that we wrote about in November of 2007. Other than the color change the black N82 is the same feature wise as the silver one.

The N82 sports the ability to operate on the WCDMA 2100 (HSDPA), EGSM900, GSM850/1800/1900 MHz (EGPRS) frequencies. The phone weighs 114g and has up to 100MB of dynamic internal memory for messaging, ring tones, images, video clips and more. A hot-swappable microSD card slot is available for memory expansion.

We’ve always liked reporting about new LaCie external hard drives – they are typically very cool looking. It is a no-brainer therefore to let you know about the company’s quiet release of some new models, with the one grabbing our eye the most being the LaCie Desktop Hard Disk 1TB model.

The 1TB LaCie Desktop Hard Disk isn’t the best looking external hard drive ever released by the company but it still will look pretty nice sitting on your desk none the less. Beyond the simple black design you’ll find what LaCie says is a quiet and compact product for its size. It is USB 2.0 capable when connecting to a PC or Mac.

It looks like Samsung and Adidas have paired up to take on the likes of Apple and Nike+ in the fitness gadget market. The miCoach F110 mobile phone brings on similar workout tracking capabilities and then some.

The miCoach comes packaged with a heart rate monitor and a “foot pod” for tracking your steps wirelessly to the phone. The device will then keep track of your pace, distance and heart rate giving you audio feedback on your progress and exercise level during your workout.

It looks like the boys in black and white at a Best Buy retail store D.C. have allegedly messed with the wrong woman. According to the timeline give by Raeyln Campbell, she brought a broken laptop to a Best Buy store to be repaired back in May of ’07, which was stolen shortly after. As a result, Campbell is suing Best Buy for a total of over $54 million. Campbell knows full well that neither the laptop nor its contents are were worth quite $54 million, in fact the laptop was originally purchased for just $1110.35. What she wants, in her own words is “to bring attention to the reprehensible state of consumer property and privacy protection practices at America’s largest consumer electronics retailer”, and try to spare future consumers from the same fate she has experienced.

After corresponding in some manner with Best Buy for 5 months, the retail giant did offer her $900 gift card for the loss of the machine, but Campbell’s not buying. The lawsuit being filed is for $54,592,146.54 to be exact, which makes me think she must have some details behind this number, down to the penny.

Recent decisions by the likes BlockBuster earlier last year, Warner Brothers last month and Netflix just this morning are only further cementing the future of the next single high definition video format. Widening the gap today is retail giant Best Buy which has announced that they too will be supporting Blu-ray over HD DVD as the preferred format for the future.

Best Buy says they will continue to carry HD DVD products in their store as well, but will be showcasing the Blu-ray products as the emerging single format for high-definition video going forward. This move could help many consumers who are undecided about the future of video formats to make a decision and possibly make purchases that they’ve been holding out on. We also imagine that this will make life a whole lot easier for Best Buy employees working on the floor answering customer questions about which format to choose.

When geeks set out to make home theaters, the results are often astounding, with some very cool themes. Often based on Sci-Fi flicks, these amazing works of art are expensive labors of geek love. I proudly present some of the cooler home theaters that have recently caught our eye.

Here’s another huge blow that the struggling HD-DVD format did not need. Netflix, the online and mail video rental giant will follow its rival Blockbuster’s footsteps and carry Blu-Ray exclusively. With endorsement to The future is Blu campaign, the company will now only buy Blu-Ray discs going forward and will phase out their stock of HD-DVD by the end of the year.

“We’re now at the point where the industry can pursue the migration to a single format, bring clarity to the consumer and accelerate the adoption of high-def.”, said a company spokesman. Netflix stated that they expect all studios to begin to publish movies on the Blu-ray format. With Netflix’s over seven million subscribers, I think it’s fair to say that this is a killing blow in the format war, whether the effects are immediate or forthcoming.

Among the many product announcements released by Sony Ericsson today the most significant has to be the release of the new XPERIA line by introducing the XPERIA X1. The new XPERIA brand marks a new era for Sony Ericsson in mobile devices, with this sweet-looking new model featuring a whole host of communication mediums, driven from a touch screen and full-QWERTY keyboard and riding on Windows Mobile 6.

SE calls the design of the X1 an “arch slider” as it slides up to expose the full keyboard with a large 3-inch VGA display on top. The impressive list of features continues with a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus and video, a microSD slot and communications via Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi, and quad-band GSM/EDGE, and 900/1700/1900/2100MHz UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA.

$6 million is a lot of money, no doubt. What would you do with that much cash if you had it? One possible option is to hit up audiophile Jeremy Kipnis to set up for you his self described Kipnis Studio Standard. Think of it as the ultimate home theater experience.

The Kipnis Studio Standard is described by writer Steve Guttenberg as being “all about aggressively advancing the state of the art of picture and sound presentation.” Kipnis has installed in this uber-amazing screen room a massive screen which showcases video projected from “a Sony ultra-high-resolution (4,096-by-2,160) SRX-S110 digital projector.” Damm.

Delkin has a new CompactFlash card reader they are showing off this week called the ImageRouter. This device solves the problem of photographers having to download multiple CF cards to a computer after a shoot. The ImageRouter doesn’t really make the actual transfer happen any faster but what it does do is allow the multiple cards to do their transfer simultaneously so you don’t have to watch it and swap them out when each are done.

As if loading 4 of the cards at a time is not enough Delkin says that if you buy more than one you can daisy-chain them together with two ImageRouters letting you download 8 CF cards at the same time. Delkin doesn’t elaborate on their site on just how many can be connected at a time but does say that you can connect “two or more” and also mentions that the ImageRouter will help whether you have “four or fourteen CompactFlash cards”. We’re guessing that after a few connected together things might get pretty slow and according to SlashGear three is the limit.

The card readers connect through a USB 2.0 connection and reach transfer speeds of 19MB/sec reads. Two ImageRouters connected slows it slightly with a 17MB/second read and 15MB/sec write speeds. Delkin is getting these card readers ready for purchase by April retailing at $149. The BackupandBurn software can be purchased with it in a bundle for $249, which helps with automatically routing and naming files during the transfer.

Have you had enough digital camera announcements yet? Sorry – got another one for you. This time around we have a compact shooter called the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS3 and pricing is set at around $200.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS3 offers up 8.1 megapixels and a a f2.8 Leica DC VARIO-ELMARIT lens with 3x optical zoom. Panasonic has also outfitted this camera with a new image processing engine, a 2.5-inch LCD screen which automatically adjusts its brightness level and your choice of five body colors.

Panasonic expects the DMC-FS3 in stores in February. For more details check after the jump.

Panasonic announced the DMC-TZ5 as another Lumix camera heading for shelves soon with very similar features to the DMC-FX35 model including a wide-angle lens and high-def video recording. The TZ5 loses a little in megapixels compared the FX35 with 9.1, but gains in just about everything else.

The DMC TZ5 Lumix has a 10x optical zoom, generous 3-inch LCD display and a 28mm wide-angle lens that can get almost twice as much panorama compared to typical lens. It also features Panasonic’s big 5 Intellegent Auto features for automatic adjustments for exposure, scene selection, image stabilization, facial detection of as many as 15 faces and ISO Control to adjust shutter speed for moving images. This model can also record video with 1280 x 720 HD resolution at 30 frames per second with an HD out component cable port.

Panasonic is expecting to have the TZ5 available by the end of March with a retail price of just under $350. More detailed release information below: