This is news to our ears,fingers and teeth. Amazon is questioning the necessity of those rage inducing hard plastic containers that can presumably stand up to bombs and the jaws of life. They’re actually doing something about it. Starting today, consumers who are tired of fighting with this evil packaging can opt for products in Amazon’s “Frustration-Free Packaging,” which offers streamlined packaging that often includes recyclable cardboard.

19 products are currently available in friendly containers from companies like Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft and Transcend. They have hopes of offering their “entire catalog of products in Frustration-Free Packaging” within a few years. Hopefully others in the gadget world will join in on this.

Unless you live under a rock you know that the economy in the U.S. and abroad is taking a beating right now. Despite the slow economy PC sales and shipments have continued to grow. Some research firms attribute the continued growth in part to the shipment of netbook computers.

IDC reported today that CPU shipments for Q3 2008 hit record highs. Worldwide CPU shipments for PCs grew 14% compared to the previous quarter and grew 15.8% over the previous year. The research firm reports that the Atom from Intel contributed significantly to the overall market performance. Even taking the Intel Atom out of the equation IDC reports that the CPU market grew by 8.3% from the previous quarter and 8.7% from the previous year.

I have talked before about how cool I think Burnout Paradise is. The game has great graphics and great gameplay to go along with it. One of the best parts about Burnout Paradise is that Criterion is always working on new download content that is normally free for owners of the game.

EA has announced a new box set of the game called Burnout Paradise The Ultimate Box. The game has the Burnout Paradise original content plus comes with the Cagney and Bikes updates pre-installed. Also included with is a new party game called Burnout Paradise Party.

Every time I look up it seems like someone else is introducing a new set of earphones. I guess considering that the quality on most MP3 player or music phone earphones are seriously lacking it’s no real surprise at the wealth of aftermarket options.

The latest aftermarket offering is from a company based in Switzerland called Stafa. The earphones are the Audeo earphones and they claim to be some of the most comfortable earphones on the market. The manufacturer promises that the earphones can be worn for hours without getting uncomfortable.

There’s always room for dessert and nothing beats a fresh and cleverly made geek cake. In recent years “Geek cakes” have become an art form, hopefully not your pet name used by your significant other. One thing is certain, if geeks love a thing, chances are it will become a cake. So, we wanted to take a look at some of our favorite geek desserts and celebrate the clever bakers and icing artists that make geek birthdays and weddings just a bit more fun. Click through for cake and prepare to get hungry.

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.

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.

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.

When electronic devices break and are no longer usable many people, don’t realize that you can’t simply toss them into the trash and send the devices to the landfill. Many electronic devices have varying amounts of hazardous substances inside them.

That leaves many consumers with no way to dispose of electronics in a safe and convenient method. Panasonic announced this week that it would be launching a nationwide electronics recycling program for Panasonic branded electronics items.

Everyone is looking to buy some gold, seeing it as a safe bet in an uncertain economy. Why not combine your gold with say, your PC and feel like a Bond villain in some underground lair?

While we aren’t sure how much gold this PC contains, it will impress your minions until you you drop them in a shark pond. It does feature an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a 100GB hard drive, 4GB of RAM, along with eight USB 2.0 ports and two FireWire sockets. No word on price, but it’s a safe bet you can’t afford it. Anyway, you have to go through black market channels for Super-villain goods.

Notebook computers outsold desktops for the first time ever recently, but the desktop is still alive and kicking. The desktop is especially popular in the corporate world when mobility isn’t needed for workers. Companies that deploy hundreds of computers across the enterprise also want systems that are power efficient.

Lenovo has announced new ThinkCenter desktop computers called the M58 and M58p. The two systems feature Power Manager and are the first Lenovo systems to do so. Power Manager allows administrators to program the machines to turn off automatically at set intervals like holidays and weekends.

A KVM switch is a necessity in some environments, like the sever room. In other places, a KVM switch can simply make things less cluttered and less complex. This is especially true when you need two computers, but don’t have room for two keyboards, displays, and mice.

For the laptop user looking for a way to control another local laptop or desktop computer ATEN Technologies has introduced the Laptop USB KVM. The device connects to both computers via a single USB port and offers plug-and-play functionality that requires no software installation.

Obama has an iPhone app, so it’s only fitting that John McCain have one too. Here you can interact with the cranky maverick and get him to make all of his weird old man grunts, say “My friends” and such. It’s not official, and may only work on jailbroken iPhones, but this is way too much fun. You can even put the old sour-puss to sleep when he gets too cranky.

Several people are getting SMS messages from AT&T reminding them of the long-awaited “free wireless at Starbucks” plan. It was first announced in February with a target launch spring 2008, the service has been quietly running on and off since April, including two hours of daily access at any Starbucks store or AT&T hotspot.

T-Mobile users with existing hotspot accounts are supposed to have ongoing access to the network in Starbucks stores. The service has been available on a spotty basis, but this is an official “yes it’s working” announcement that has been a while in coming. Hopefully we can put an end to this chapter and the service stays on at long last.

I’m A PC — Crowdsourced from AlleyInsider on Vimeo.
Alright, so the Seinfeld-Gates ads were interesting. Then came the “I’m a PC” ads that were different, but not really all that cool. That’s when Apple’s latest ads began to get lamer as well. So now we’re on to the latest round of “I’m a PC” ads and this one is appropriately creepy for Halloween. It features a bunch of Youtube types saying “I’m a PC”. Problem is that I found them all to be pretty creepy.

It has me seriously thinking about a Mac. I’ll break it down for you. A few could easily be serial killers, specially the first dude who is so in love with his shirt, one chases zebras and obviously is on serious medication, an old lady who wrangles lamas looks like she has to have about a million cats and I’m sure must throw them at people, a bling lover and more. Yeah, this one is just wrong.