Powerful laser pointers are something that many people are often curious about, however not too often does someone get a chance to handle one. The folks over at WarnLaser recently gave us at the ‘Brick a chance to try out one of their lasers to see what we thought. This is not the first time we’ve had our hands on a laser of this caliber and through this we’ve learned that all lasers are not created equal.

The sample we received is a 120mW Tiger Series GX, running on a couple of standard AAA batteries in a frame about the size of a large pen. In fact, this laser has pen-like clip and can pretty easily fit in a shirt pocket, but might be a little bit heavier than most of the items in your pocket protector at 55 grams. The Tiger Series is a nice balance between power and portability in the array of lasers from WarnLaser. It’s about in the middle of the road - you can get weaker lasers and you can get them much more powerful.

The Rubik’s cube is more popular then ever. It’s getting a spherical update, it’s also a lamp and it makes a great alarm clock too. So this touchscreen Rubik’s cube makes perfect sense.

Plus, if any toy/puzzle needed a touchscreen, it’s the Rubik’s cube. It’s a natural progression. Obviously the TouchCube works just like the old version, but instead of turning it’s segments, just swipe a finger in a straight line or an ‘L’ shape. There’s even an accelerometer built in so that only the upwards-facing surfaces respond to your touch. How awesome is that?

This is a lot like Truphone, which we told you about in December. Leading IP telecommunications company JAJAH has announced a complete overhaul of the iPod Touch. They want to turn the device into a fully functional iPhone.

The new capabilities will enable carriers and non-carriers to launch the service under their own brand and provide customers with the ability to make low-cost phone calls and send SMS text messages to any phone in the world from their iPod Touch. Consumers would only need a Wi-Fi connection, no SIM card or contract. This is big news, what with the iPod Touch being one of the most popular consumer devices in the world.

Video: Kylie
In the latest $300 million “I’m A PC” ad campaign, set to air Sunday night during the Grammy awards, 4 and a half year old Kylie uses Windows Live Photo Gallery to send a picture of her fish to her parents. So, now they’re using cuteness, which is a steep departure from their previous attempts. Some of the previous ads were downright creepy.

Cute is probably the way to go. How many 4 year-olds do you know that use a mac? I bet they aren’t as cute as this kid. How Apple will retaliate is anyone’s guess, but the ball is now in their court.

This interesting concept comes from designer Billy May. The OLED Blackberry is a combination of a Blackberry 7130 and an Optimus Keyboard. This OLED Blackberry was designed for the Mozilla Phone project, and obviously it takes the best of both devices and creates this stunning concept seen above.

The OLED keys, just like on the Optimus Keyboard can be programmed and change their look. It looks stunning and the minute you see it, you realize that you are looking at a device that has some actual richness of personality and could provide a richer experience.

We first told you about Ecobee’s Smart Thermostat last October. The device claims that it will pay for it’s $385 price tag within the first 12 to 18 months of use. Now’s your chance to find out if that claim is true.

The WiFi-enabled smart thermostat, complete with ZigBee expansion slots, is now available to order from the company’s website. The cost includes the $35 access fee for first year of use. If it lives up to it’s claims, this should be a real money saver. It helps you get to know your energy usage patterns and make the necessary adjustments.

Netbooks are one of the hottest items in the computer market right now. According to a recent report from Pricegrabber.com one in ten Internet users owns a netbook. Many users have found that a netbook provides the performance they need for normal computing tasks and is cheaper than many normal notebooks.

HP has one of the popular netbooks on the market called the HP Mini 1000. If you are in the market for a HP netbook, this may be the time to buy. The HP Mini 1000 model 1010NR is available at Staples with a coupon for $75 off.

There is more than a little truth to the fact that when money is tight and the economy sucks, people want to spend what little money they do have on things that take their mind off how bad the economy sucks. Thanks to that fact entertainment industries tend to weather recessions pretty well.

Netflix is among the companies that are still doing well despite the weak economy. Netflix has announced its Q4 2008 financials for its year ending on December 31, 2008. The mail-order movie rental service finished the quarter with 9,390,000 subscribers for a 26% growth compared to the same quarter of 2007.

The economy is bad and when the leading CPU maker in the world, Intel, announces that its profits aren’t that great and it will be restructuring to better compete you can bet that the second place chipmaker is on rough times as well.

AMD, said second place chipmaker, announced its Q4 2008 and fiscal 2008 revenues and things don’t look good for the company. AMD posted revenue in Q4 2008 of $1.162 billion, a decrease of 35% from Q3 2008 and 33% percent down from the same quarter of 2007.

The I-Turtle is here to chew bubble gum and dance to your tunes. And he’s all out of bubble gum. It works pretty much in the same way as its predecessor, the I-Dog. It acts as an external speaker for your digital audio player.

Sure, it will respond to your tunes by moving it’s body and bobbing its head, but the I-Turtle is deeper then that. It’s also capable of expressing a wide range of “emotions” through the blinking of lights on it’s shell. That’s all well and good, but what I really want is a turtle that will mimic the turtle from the Comcast commercials. Something I can take to the movie theater, so it can shush loud people with sayings like, “We got a real talker over here. A real talker”. That’s just me.

I have been using Logitech products for years now and I am particularly fond of the gaming peripherals and keyboards that the firm makes. I type everyday on a Logitech Illuminated keyboard and game with several Logitech products.

The firm announced its financials for Q3 fiscal 2009 and as you expect in the poor global economic climate, the numbers aren’t good. Logitech has posted sales for the quarter of $627 million, down 16% from the $744 in sales in fiscal 2008.

One thing is for sure, XCM really knows how to get a gamer’s attention. After making us wait several months, they’ve announced that the Dominator Joystick for PlayStation 3 is ready to ship this week.

The programmable arcade-style stick includes such things as Combo Attacker and Rapid Fire mode. Is it cheating if your arcade stick allows it? I say no. The four memory buttons will let you store macros and keep them handy. To top it all off, this gaming joystick has super cool blue LEDs. You can pre-order now if you want for $89.99.

If a Gremlin had sex with a bird, then decided to have a threesome with Keepon, then a Furby wandered by delivering a pizza and getting in on the action, this would be their bastard lovechild. It’s name is TOFU, a “squash and stretch” robot with OLED eyes developed by the boffins at the MIT Media Lab.

Tofu uses techniques of social expression that have been employed by 2D animators for ages, to explore the impact on robotics. One thing is for sure. That bot knows how to groove and puts most humans to shame with it’s dancing skills. The video above shows off his moves, which are strangely very pimp-like.

It used to be that bar codes were just for use in grocery stores. That’s not the case anymore. Grocery cashiers have hogged all of that swiping bar code glory for long enough. Personal bar code readers, like ScanLife’s latest for Android phones, allows you to quickly visit Web sites, phone numbers or videos.

It’s a shortcut for typing on your keypad or browsing. You can even create your own bar code on ScanLife’s Web site for quick access to functions that you use on a daily basis. The software has been available as a free iPhone app since August, but now you can download it for Android phones as well.

One of the coolest games that was available for the PS3 and Xbox for the holiday season in 2008 was Mirror’s Edge form EA. The game is called a first-person action adventure and has players taking the role of Faith as she runs, jumps, and slides across the rooftops of a future city.

EA has announced that Mirror’s Edge has now shipped for the PC. One of the big changes from the console to the PC is that the PC version fully supports NVIDIA’s PhysX physics processing to bring more features and realism to the game.