We have heard for a while now that sales in Q4 2008 were abysmal for many retailers. The final quarter of the year is typically huge for most retailers and companies as consumers buy for the holiday season. Q4 2008 was different though and thanks to the poor global economy, not much happened in the way of sales.

Vizio issued a statement today that provided numbers for its shipments over Q4 2008. Despite what most of the rest of the electronics industry reported, Vizio had a great quarter. The company says that over the quarter it was the second largest shipper of HDTVs in America.

I really like netbooks, the small systems are perfect for the light work I and many others need to do on the road. Moreover, they are cheap, small and light making them easy to carry and fit into the budget. I haven’t used a Dell netbook yet, but I may consider one now that a new 10-inch version is official.

I was never a big fan of the Mini 9 or Mini 12 netbooks; they were too small and too large. As the antagonist of the three bears would put it, the Mini 10 is just right. Dell says that we will be able to buy the Mini 10 directly from Dell.com on February 26 and that QVC is offering pre-orders on the netbook right now.

Oil prices have come down from their dramatic highs of last year, that doesn’t mean we should start burning more so called fossil fuels just because it’s cheap. I mean when our economy finally does get better, those prices are gonna be back. Mark my words.

The Wheego Whip offers a compact electric alternative and it’s ready for sale this May. It will retail for $19K, and can handle a 50 mile trip on a full charge with a top speed of 60 mph. The acceleration and speed should be a good fit American roads, though you won’t win any races.

We all know the economy is bad, businesses are closing, people are out of work and technology and many other industries are seeing very slow sales. The housing market in many areas is virtually dead. The recession has significantly impacted TV sales.

According to DisplaySearch, Q4 2008 was the first quarter in history that saw a decline in TV revenues. At the same time revenues declined shipments were up 33% year over year. The reason for shipments increasing and revenues falling is lower prices forced by poor sales.

Sony claims to have sold 50 million PSP handhelds worldwide as of January 2009. That number includes all PSP-1000, 2000, and 3000 devices sold since December 2004. That’s a pretty impressive number, for sure.

But not so much if you’re sitting in Nintendo’s corporate offices, looking at 96.22 million DS handhelds sold between December 2004 and December 2008. I guess since they can’t brag about how many PS3 units have been sold, they have to have something to give them hope.

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.