Speakers that look like ice aren’t just for the desktop in Superman’s Fortress Of Solitude somewhere in the arctic. They’ll look good on your desk too. And they are extremely portable and said to be the smallest performance stereo USB speakers you can get for your desktop and notebook.

They only have a 1 watt per channel rating, but hey, they’ll look good on your desk. Like icy bling. They’ll probably make you feel cool on a hot day just looking at them. They’re powered via USB, and acoustically engineered to direct sound waves towards an adjacent chamber for $39.99.

We first told you about the Bat Signal spotlight back in March. But back then no one had seen the latest Dark Knight flick yet. So it’s only natural that we would see another version now that the movie has come out. In this DIY version, they’ve updated the Bat Symbol itself to the one from the new films.

See, that’s why Batman never showed up when you called. You were using an outdated bat symbol. This one looks much cooler. You’ll need a couple of old bottle caps, tinfoil(Some of you already have hats you can tear a piece off of), cheap USB light, small piece of clear plastic, cardboard, soldiering iron, hot glue gun, paint, and some time. Then you’ll be annoying your cubicle mates in no time.

Newer Technology was busy this past week showing off a new  FireWire/USB hub for data storage. It is called the Newertech miniStack v2.5 and pricing, depending upon hard drive storage size, runs up to around $280 for 1TB.

The Newertech miniStack v2.5 is a FireWire 400/USB 2.0 powered hub storage solution, according to its maker. At its maximum storage offering of 1TB it can reportedly store upwards of 1 million JPEGs, 350,000 MP3s or 500 DVD quality movies.

Antec has unveiled a new computing kit for those wishing to upgrade their existing PCs into being more multimedia focused. It is called the Antec Multimedia Station and there will be four models available, ranging in price from around $30 to $120.

Antec said these four new bundles, which include  IR receiver, remote and media management software, offer “1080p resolution, can play nearly all media formats and is compatible with Windows Media Center Edition, Windows Vista and XP.” More details on the four offerings can be found after the jump via Antec.

When it comes to backing up data on our computers most of us never do it. The sheer amount of data that could be lost to a hard drive crash on most user’s computers is disturbing to think about. External hard drives are the storage solution of choice for users that have more data than a flash drive will hold or want an automated backup solution.

Addonics has a new external enclosure called the Portable Dual Drive Enclosure that supports dual hard drives and RAID configurations for even more data safety. The enclosure can hold dual 2.5-inch SATA hard drives 9 to 9.5mm in height. Using SATA-CF adapters, you the enclosure can also support up to four compact flash cards.

It used to be that a portable hard drive had to be plugged into the wall AC outlet to be able to operate. Over time, some smaller capacity hard drives could be powered by the USB port totally, making them much more portable. Today even some larger capacity portable drives are powered by the USB port.

Memorex announced its new line of portable hard drives today that are completely USB powered. The line is called the Memorex Essential TravelDrive. All of the drives are 2.5-inch and are compatible with both Mac and PC systems and backup software is included with the drives.

Another Samsung flat panel line up riding the waves of the consumer electronics company’s big annoucements last week is the Series 7 Plasma HDTVs. They will be available in August in 50-inch, 58-inch and 63-inch screen sizes (model numbers: PN50A760, PN58A760 and PN63A760), pricing around $2,800, $4,500 and $5,500, respectively.

The main highlights of the Series 7 displays include the hint of red blended into the outer edges of the artsy panels, 1080p resolution and Internet-based content provided by USA Today. You can get the full details after the jump.

Samsung had a little mid-year coming out party yesterday as it unveiled a bunch of new flat panels and associated home theater gear. One of these upcoming releases is the new Series 8 850 and Series 8 860 LCD HDTVs, pricing between around $2,700 and $3,500.

Four models make up the Series 8 850 and 860, consisting of two each 45.9- and 52-inch televisions. All units will be available in September and unique features include a slim, narrow bezel with a touch of color around the edges and support for RSS feeds from USA Today. For full details, check out the press release after the jump.

Toshiba earlier this week introduced a new laptop series that integrates Garmin GPS technology into the fold. It is called the Toshiba Qosmio F55 and pricing starts at around $1,400.

The Toshiba Qosmio F55 sports a 15.4-inch screen and is powered by the Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and NVIDIA GPUs. The integrated GPS technology by Garmin lets you do all the things you’d typically do with a free-standing GPS system and the system include face recognition technology as well.

Sony is now offering up a new line of professional notebook computers powered by the new Intel Centrino 2 processor. It is called the Sony VAIO BZ Series and you’ll find pricing starting around $1,000.

The Sony VAIO BZ Series offers up a 15.4-inch widescreen display and full-size keyboard while weighing less than six pounds. It sports a magnesium alloy casing to help protect against bumping. Also noteworthy for day to day work is the shock protection on the hard drive and spill-resistant keyboard.

Sony late today unveiled the “world’s first 16.4-inch display.” It is more notable though for being one of the first notebooks powered by Intel’s new Centrino 2 technology. This laptop is the Sony VAIO FW Series and pricing ranges between $1,000 and $1,750.

The Sony VAIO FW Series is described by Sony as combining “the benefits of a slightly larger17-inch widescreen with the smaller ‘footprint’ of a 15.4-inch model.” Whether this makes much of a difference or not remains to be seen, but it does come with a nice load of technology features, including an integrated, optional Blu-ray Disc burner.

Toshiba this week announced it had updated select models of its Satellite laptops with new processor technology and other features. These models include the Satellite P300, Satellite A300, Satellite M300 and Satellite U400.

These updated Toshiba Satellite laptops feature Intel’s latest Core 2 Duo processor technology in addition to other enhancements such as “sleep-and-charge” USB ports and face recognition. You can get the full details via a Toshiba press release after the jump.

OWC continues to like to see how many directions it can go with its line of Mercury On-The-Go external hard drives. To that end it just announced what it is calling the highest capacity 7200RPM portable bus-powered storage solution on the market – the OWC Mercury On-The-Go 320GB 7200RPM.

The OWC Mercury On-The-Go 320GB 7200RPM, available with USB 2.0, USB 2.0+eSATA, FireWire 400+USB 2.0, and FireWire 800/400+USB 2.0 interfaces for a variety of prices starting around $240, offers what OWC says is 60% higher capacity to similar products. It is described as offering “3.5″ desktop hard drive performance in a 2.5″ solution.”

There is something a bit cheeky about a company who calls itself Genius. Still, I have looked at several Genius products over the years and for the most part they tend to perform well. The latest product from Genius has been announced and it is called the SP-T1200 2.0 Touch Speaker System.

As you might surmise from the name of the product, the speakers are controlled with the touch of a finger. Users are able to control the volume, bass, and treble by sliding a finger across the front of the speakers. The slide bar illuminates as you move the finger across the bar to show what level settings are at.

Buffalo Technology popped out today its own spin on portable mass storage by unveiling the MiniStation DataVault. It is set to price at around $130 for a 160GB version and $210 for 320GB.

The Buffalo MiniStation DataVault weighs less than eight ounces and includes a wrap around cable which snaps into place. The hard drive inside this Buffalo offering makes uses of hardware-based 128-bit AES technology for automatically encrypting all data saved to the drive.