Blu-ray was able to beat HD DVD early this year to become the HD format champion. After it won the format wars many hoped that the price for Blu-ray players would become more affordable. So far that price drop hasn’t really materialized.

According to ABI Research, the Blu-ray price drop may finally be here. ABI says that prices for Blu-ray players this holiday season could be as low as $150 to $200. Amazon has a Samsung Blu-ray player for $200 that includes four Blu-ray movies with it. According to ABI Blu-ray hardware makers need to reduce prices to gain the momentum needed to penetrate the market further.

No one can deny that Apple’s iTunes store is seriously popular. The store is the single largest music retailer and has one of the largest collections of music available. The App store is wildly popular and the iTunes movie rental, sale, and TV show market is booming. It seems that Apple can’t do wrong with iTunes.

In fact, Apple has announced that it has now sold over 200 million TV show episodes via iTunes. Apple also says that over 1 million of those shows sold have been in HD resolution. Major networks all contribute programs to the iTunes store including FOX, CBS, ABC, and CBS.

For those of you who like to have a home that is more bar then dwelling, consider this device instead of a jukebox. It will go great with your round pool table. The IntelliTunes Digital Jukebox. It features two screens and mounts on your wall. It doesn’t just play CDs.

It will also network with your computer so that you can play all of the music you have stored on it by remote control. On top of that, it sports a visualization screen for animations to play along with the music. Consider it a Mega iPod. What we’re talking about here is a built-in UltraHiFi 360 watt 2 channel amplifier and full windows XP functionality, wireless internet, online radio streaming, DVD drive and iPod/MP3 support all in one unit on your wall. Sweet.

Apple’s iTunes store is hands down the most popular place to buy music around. Many people have tons of tracks in iTunes and teh ability to listen to those tracks on a wide variety of mobile phones while on the move would be a great thing for most music fans.

Didiom has announced that its placeshifting application for iTunes is in beta. The application allows iTunes users to stream music from iTunes on their PC to a mobile phone wirelessly. The software works with both BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices.

When customizing your PC at Dell, you can now click on a $19 option called “Iron Man movie with bonus content?” Say what? We love Iron Man, but surely it’s full of evil DRM. It’s what Dell’s Global Consumer Group Director is calling Dell’s “slow immersion into content as a major piece of the puzzle in terms of what consumers want from a PC.”

The flick can be had on the Inspiron, Studio, or XPS laptop or desktop, playable on that machine or your choice of Windows Media Extender. Dell will soon offer more movie preloads and eventually a whole iTunes type of download store. The move is a gutsy one and could let them get to customers first, before Apple. Customers getting movies when they purchase their PC should give them an advantage.

Apple has reached an agreement with the Massachusetts attorney general’s office and the National Federation of the Blind and they will make the iTunes service more accessible to the blind. It will be called iTunes U and that area of the iTunes Store will feature educational content from colleges and universities for the blind from December 31st onward. That’s just the beginning.

Apple will also continue toward providing full accessibility of iTunes before the June 30, 2009 deadline. To top it all off Apple will be donating $250,000 to the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind. Nice move by Apple, because like the new windows campaign suggests, not all users come from the same mold.

FRED isn’t the hippest name for a UFO shaped humidifier, but hey it’s a UFO in your room, which is always awesome, so call it whatever you like. This UFO runs on steam, not gravity waves, using a 2 gallon water reservoir to boil 1-2 gallons of water per day, making your environment pleasantly humid, moist and tropical. The way “their” home planet is.

See, once they convert your home into a rough approximation of their atmosphere, it makes the whole abduction thing much easier. This way, they can take their time, raid your fridge, flip through your iTunes library and do whatever invasive stuff they do to orifices. But don’t worry, chances are you won’t remember and if you do, you can take some consolation in the fact that FRED is available in 4 different colors for $99.

Kevin Rose of Digg and TechTV fame claims to have the skinny on the next iPod nano. He’s even got a picture of a thinner, longer iPod nano that’s a bit curvier. It fits perfectly with other rumors we’ve been hearing. We reported the possibility back in July.

Kevin is also saying that the iPod lineup will undergo large price cuts. The iPod touch will have some minor changes too, like a new 2.1 firmware update. How about a new iTunes 8.0? According to Rose’s sources, it will all happen “in the next 2-3 weeks.” Check out the video below.

I have no idea if this is a concept or some geek’s elaborate prank in order to get girls or something. It could be a modified cassette player, but somehow I doubt it. You would need a few AA batteries at least. All I know is that had the actual iPod and Walkman merged in the 80’s, this would be the result. I suppose it would download music off of itunes, and store it on it’s cassette hard drive. When that casette is full, insert another and begin again. Very bizarre, but a cool pic.

A new breed of Walkmans has hit Sony’s New Zealand website and they are colorful as a bag full of skittles in a Leprechauns pot o gold. The new models are the NWZ-E435, NWZ-E436, and NWZ-E438. They all feature a 2-inch QVGA LCD display, FM tuner, codec support for MP3, AAC, WMA, and Linear PCM files, and clock in a very small package of 8.5mm.

The devices will be available in 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB sizes, each model having various color options, the NWZ-E438 being the exception as it only comes in black. Supposedly the PMPs are compatible with both Windows Media Player and iTunes, with a drag and drop interface. Nothing on price yet or what country will see it first. Not even a release date, but expect them on the next month or two. We’ll let you know when we hear more.

For a long time one of the things that drove users of cell phones to upgrade to newer devices was the addition of a camera. Today, pretty much every cell phone produced features a camera built-in. Typically, these cameras aren’t that high quality, but work in a pinch to take pictures on the fly. However, applications are starting to surface the take the use of a cell phone camera to new levels.

A good example is a new application available today for the Apple iPhone via the Apple App Store called ScanLife. The application allows iPhone users to take pictures of 2-D barcodes with the iPhone camera, and then link to more information about the product associated with barcode. According to Scanbuy — the maker of the ScanLife application — ScanLife can launch any URL address.

Not sure how much we are willing to believe this, but AppleInsider has found a patent that apparently shows music over the internet streaming to your iPhone and iPod touch. You wouldn’t have to sync content to your device. Instead, you’d sync only the metadata and stream whatever you wanted direct from your computer. Like i said, we aren’t sure if we’re buying this just yet, but it’s interesting. My guess is that there may be just a smidgen of truth to this, but we’re missing some kind of important piece of info. While you’re waiting on this, get an iPhone arm.

Logitech launched the diNovo Edge for Windows computers a long time ago, and it is one of the best keyboards ever from Logitech in the opinion of many users. I used one exclusively for a long time until I got tired of changing it out for my gaming keyboard every time I wanted to play a video game.

Mac users are being embraced by Logitech with a new version of the diNovo Edge designed specifically for the Mac. The keyboard is called the Logitech diNovo Edge Mac Edition and it is the first diNovo keyboard designed specifically for the Mac. The Mac edition of the Edge has all the features the original Edge offered including semi-translucent Plexiglas on the frame, orange backlighting, and a very thin 0.5-inch profile.

We entered the Politically Correct or PC age sometime in the 90’s, and the effect that it has had on censorship, whether blatant or mild, continues in one form or another to this day. Take the above image for instance. Moronic as it may seem, the cigarette in the hand of the man in the Mad Men promotional image was digitally removed when it was placed on iTunes.

Apparently Apple thinks that anyone who sees (a rough poster outline) of a man smoking, will begin smoking a pack a day immediately. It proves one thing I’ve known for years: Consumers are not nearly as stupid as those in charge of making such idiotic decisions as whether to remove a cigarette from a TV character’s hand or not. Yeah, people have been having trouble getting their iPhone to work for like a week, but they have the cigarette until control, never you fear.

What’s better then the new iPhone? Two things actually: An iPhone from the future and a nice cold beer. Now you can combine your love of brew with your iPhone love thanks to this neat app that uses the iPhone’s tilt sensor to simulate you drinking it down as you raise it to your lips.

Just don’t lick your lips and slam it down on the table like a mug. You paid a lot for that thing. iBeer can be found at iTunes for $2.99. They also have iMilk for some reason. Check out a video below.