They may have taken the first steps in Frustration-Free Packaging last November, but now Amazon is ready for the next phase. I think we can all appreciate this one. Most of us are tired of struggling with the packaging that our gadgets come enshrined in.

Amazon is making good on their promise to kill clamshell plastic cases and other annoyances. With partners like Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft and Transcend, Amazon has now announced that Kingston is also getting behind the initiative. David Sun, co-founder and chief operating officer of Kingston is also pointing out the eco-friendly benefits of the decision. Awesome news.

Verismo Networks recently added Roxio CinemaNow streaming media purchases for the VuNow IPTV box, further enhancing the usefulness of the device. The video-on-demand box can already show streaming content from local network storage or YouTube, but now adds access to Sonic Solutions’ 250 content providers.

The VuNow system is a set-top box that comes in both standard and HD versions along with a USB Wi-Fi dongle to stream content straight onto the VuNow. That’s not all though. Apart from CinemaNow content and YouTube, this setup will be able to connect to popular websites, internet TV and will play content stored on USB drives.

iLuv has announced its new vertical CD/MP3 Hi-Fi audio system dubbed the iMM9400. This one is similar to the i9500 we featured awhile back. Not sure if this is the same model with a new name or just an update.

The design is pretty stylish, with a sleek finish and sexy looks. This system comes packed with a 4-CD/MP3 audio player, two channel speakers, AM/FM radio with PLL digital tuning, SD card slot, a USB port and the required universal dock for your iPhone and iPod.

Calculators come in all shapes and sizes these days. One of the geekiest and neatest may just be this Lego calculator. It could help you count all of the Lego pieces that you have stored in that dumpster next to the garage or count how many bricks it will take to make a cool statue.

This one comes in four colors, red, blue, green and black. Not sure if you can actually connect your Lego pieces to this though and get creative. The building block calculator will be available in August, but you can pre-order it now for $27.

Seagate’s giving its FreeAgent Go drives a new 640GB capacity. It may not be the first external to cross the 500GB threshold, but it’s certainly one of the slimmer ones, physically. Other than that, there’s nothing too special here.

It’s still the standard USB-connected with up to 480Mbps transfer with multiple color options. We don’t have any info on pricing or availability, but since Seagate’s posting promotional materials on its main site, it won’t be long.

The N97 that Nokia unveiled way last December is hitting stores tomorrow afternoon. Well, at least hitting the Nokia flagship stores in New York and Chicago. If you’re not already in line at one of these two places you might have some luck online as Amazon appears to have some in stock and we would imagine (or at least hope for the sake of all you that pre-ordered) that they will start shipping today or tomorrow as well.

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Eli Harari, CEO of Sandisk, recently admitted what has become very obvious. That Apple rules them all when it comes to the portable media player market. Everyone else is just trying to keep up. In a recent Fortune interview Harari admits that “you can’t out-iPod the iPod.”

SanDisk is a distant second place in the sector, and its flash memory is used in all kinds of PMP devices. They can admit that Apple rules in that sector, because flash memory chips are Sandisk’s primary product, not PMPs. Still must have been hard to actually say it.

First launched in the spring of 2008, the Samsung F480 is Samsung’s most successful touchscreen phone to date. It’s sold more than 5 million units worldwide (under various names. You may know it as the Samsung TouchWiz, Samsung Toco or Samsung F488. Yeah, it has an identity crisis).

Anyhow, now the F480 comes in a Games Edition, with five full games pre-installed, including “Pacman”, “Who wants to be a millionaire 2009″ and “Millenium Poker.” Those names don’t seem all that exciting to us, but your mileage may vary. Aside from that feature, the Samsung F480 Games Edition looks to have the same features of the original phone: QVGA touchscreen display, 5MP autofocus camera, Bluetooth and HSDPA connectivity.

Sky and Microsoft are striking a deal that will see the Xbox 360 Console playing live broadcast TV. Xbox users will be able to upgrade to Sky channels this autumn in the UK and Ireland. Xbox owners would have access to sports and programs, and also be able to order movies on demand without a set-top box or satellite dish.

Existing Sky subscribers don’t have to worry. The company has hinted at reduced costs if they prefer to use the Xbox console. The line-up of channels and content available on the Xbox would be similar to the existing Sky Player service, available on PCs and Macs.

The original ZEN Mozaic was too loud for it’s own good, what with all those different colored buttons. So Creative has chilled out the ZEN Mozaic EZ300 by getting rid of hose button colors and will now never stray from pink or black.

Everything else remains the same. It features a 1.8-inch 160 x 128 resolution display, 4GB or 8GB of internal capacity, up to 32 hours of audio playback, MP3 / WMA / WAV / JPEG file support, an FM radio tuner, a five-band custom equalizer and USB 2.0 connectivity.

Samsung is recalling 160,000 Jitterbug cellphones. The handsets targeted seniors they want them back since they are missing one very important feature. They don’t connect to 911 services whenever the handset is out of their service area.

Jitterbug owners get an “out of range, try again later” message instead of help. The recall will apply to SPH-a110 and SPH-a120 Jitterbug models that are equipped with standard keys and were sold between March 2008 and May 2009. Owners of the OneTouch model don’t have to worry since that handset is not affected.

This rumor, if true, may be a sign that Apple wants to compete with netbooks or that in this economy, they don’t think that consumers will continue to pay a premium for the Apple name in the longterm. Either way, Apple may push the cost of the MacBook Air down while extending its feature set. Unnamed sources for SiliconRumors claim that an entry-level model will push the price down to between $1,300 and $1,500, or at least $300 less than the current model. Whether this would be a smaller model or just a price cut isn’t clear.

The same tips say that Apple will add at least an option for built-in 3G for wide-area wireless and may make solid-state drives standard on all models instead of a high-end option. GPS to locate the Mac is an option but “less likely.”

Here’s some more Zune/Windows Mobile rumors. According to Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet she has specs for Windows Mobile 7 Chassis 1, the heart of that rumored “Pink” smartphone. Here’s the rundown.

Chassis 1 phones will all have 3.5-inch or larger multitouch displays with ARM v6+ processors and OpenGL ES 2.0-compatible graphics hardware, 256MB or more of RAM and 1GB or more of storage, as well as at least a 3 megapixel camera, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, compass, and accelerometer. And a 3.5mm headphone jack is required. Get this. NVIDIA’s Tegra platform is specifically listed as meeting the core CPU requirements, as well as TI’s OMAP 3 platform and “Qualcomm 8k,”.

Say what you want about the folks at LaCie, they do not stand still. They just keep upping the storage at an alarming rate. The company has announced product upgrades for the 2big Network and 5big Network devices, featuring Apple Time Machine.

The 5big device even has iTunes server support. The 5big also features five hot-swappable drive bays for up to 10TB of storage for a $799.99 MSRP. The 2big device features a ho-hum 4TB of RAID at an MSRP of $319.99.

Acer entered the smartphone market just a few months ago, but sadly they’re now having problems with several U.S. carriers, which means we most likely won’t see any smartphones in the U.S. from the company until next year.

According to Acer’s PR people, they don’t have any phones planned for the U.S. until 2010 now. It sucks for those of us in the states because other countries are already getting their hands on the devices.