There’s been a lot of talk about a special version of the Verizon Droid 2 that will look like R2-D2. The special-edition phone isn’t supposed to be shown until tomorrow’s Celebration V show, but the folks at Technabob stumbled upon this picture one day early.

Yep. The shell looks like R2 alright. Hardcore Star Wars fans will want to get on this one right away when it arrives this September. We think R2 makes for a damn fine looking phone if you ask us.

Finally, at long last Verizon has confirmed that the Droid 2 is real. Even though we knew that already. The details were spotted at Best Buy yesterday. The Droid 2 will ship with Android 2.2, mobile hotspot, Flash Player 10.1 and a revised QWERTY keyboard.

It also has Swype pre-installed. Some other features include a 3.7-inch multitouch display, 5 megapixel camera, DLNA streaming, 8GB of onboard memory and a 8GB microSD card. It goes up for pre-sale tomorrow at $199.99 on a 2-year contract, with in-store availability on Thursday.

Artoo is back. This time from Hammacher as a Voice Activated R2-D2 toy for rich geeks. This motorized replica will respond to various voice commands, going through your halls and rooms as if easily as he traverses Tatooine.

He can obey over 40 voice commands. Stuff like “Turn around!,” “Move forward two units!” etc. Which makes your droid seem like a lame version of R2, but it’s the best we can do right now. He also has games like tag, relying on his built-in infrared sensor to search for you.

Dyzplastic’s blank Android canvas is awesome. You can make it into any droid that you want. Give it a Joker face, make it into R2-D2, whatever floats your boat.

This $6 Do It Yourself geek project will be available at Comic-Con this week and should pop up for sale on Dyzplastics in early August. The possibilities are endless. Create an Android Steve Jobs or make it look like an X-Man. I want one.

Consumer Reports stated that it “can’t recommend” the iPhone 4 until the antenna issues are fixed. It’s labs as well as others have verified the issue. Now it looks like Apple is trying to mind-wipe their users of the whole affair.

Apple has apparently deleted threads about the Consumer Reports article from its support forums. Keep in mind, this is nothing new; there’s moderation, plus the company regularly deletes discussion of hardware flaws that it’s not ready to confess to. Plus, Jobs was responsible for deleting R2-D2′s memory of Anakin building 3PO, so the prequels would make sense. Thank God Apple doesn’t own the internet.

Too bad they didn’t have this lunch box when I was a kid. It is of course, our favorite droid R2-D2. Not only does it look like R2, but it’s shaped like him as well.

Sadly this one doesn’t exist just yet. At the moment, it’s just a design. Hopefully they bring this into the real world soon. I would use it even today as an adult. It’s just plain awesome. Any droid that holds snacks is good with me.

Pranks are fun as long as no one gets hurt. When you can put a geeky twist on a prank, it can be gold. That’s what we have here. Pure nerd gold. See that giant R2-D2? It used to be an observatory.

Well, until students at Minnesota’s Carleton College turned the campus astronomical observatory into a giant R2-D2. Man, I hope the Empire can’t see that from space. They might come looking for the Death Star plans.

3D is nothing compared to holograms. R2-D2 knew it way back in 1977 when he broadcast Leia’s message to Obi-Wan and the rest of us are just catching on. Now Japan wants to broadcast 3D holograms to stadiums all over the world for the 2022 World Cup.

They claim they will able to capture the action with 200 3D HD cameras at each game while microphones under the field would record the sound. They also assume the technology would be available for projecting 3D holograms onto the field itself, making it seem like you were watching the game in person.

If you consider yourself a true Star Wars fan, then you will want to check this out. Bigbadtoystore.com is offering an item that will geek up your mail delivery/reception. This R2D2 mail box is available for pre-order on the site for $38.99. A collector’s edition will cost you an additional $2.00.

It just sits there and doesn’t really do anything, but who cares? It’s cool. At least until your neighbors steal it. They don’t say how big it is, but for that price it is obviously on the small side.

May the force be with you as well as fresh wine. Any wine drinking geek worth his puny weight in galactic credits needs himself a cool Star Wars Wine Stopper. These fun Star Wars Wine Stoppers include R2-D2, Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker and even a stormtrooper.

Who knows more about stopping wine than these guys? C’mon the original trilogy stopped you from dating girls, now it’s characters will stop your wine. If you want one, they are available for $12.00 each over at Etsy.

Nothing says Christmas like a string or two of droid lights on your Christmas tree. Besides you probably already have all of the other Star Wars ornaments on your tree.

It’s like having a whole clone army of Astromechs. The little robot lights come in a set of 10 per strand and are 12 inches apart. These are priced at about $15-$25. And if you don’t want them on your tree they make great geek gifts.

Looking for a radio that both Ewoks and hippies can endorse? Here it is. The Log Radio. A wooden wonder device that looks like the escape pod that R2-D2 and C-3PO took to Tatooine. It’s from designers Solène Le Goff and Christophe Gouache.

The radio is powered by solar or wind-up. It should work for a good long time until Squirrels start living inside or your senile dad chops it in half for the fireplace.

It’s the daily robot roundup. Time to take a look at some of the stories we covered over at Botropolis this week. What we do is kind of like a police lineup. We show you the suspects, so you can pick them out and let us know if you’ve been attacked. Just tell us if you need any of them to turn to the side and remember, they can’t see you.

Gary The Cylon: By your command.

Galileo Robot: Converts From Wheeled To Tank Vehicle.

HRP-4C: I know why the caged bot sings.

This R2-D2 may be the best mod ever. It was created by Popular Science reader Brian De Vitis and holds not one, not two, but eight consoles, a sound system, and a projector. You had me at eight consoles R2. This all started with an R2-D2 shaped cooler that he modified.

Then the consoles were gutted to rearrange the controllers inside so all the ports could face in the proper direction. He still had enough space inside for a projector and a sound system. This man is my new hero.

Sure, the obvious choice would be to buy an R2-D2 USB hub, but this guy is cool because he has that dark side look. Serious nerds know who he is already, despite the fact that R2-Q5 was only in the movie for like 2 seconds.

To the rest of you, all you need to know is that R2 was painted black and given a new name so that George Lucas could keep himself in flannel for another million years while he writes scripts in his crypt and while wearing pajamas and hugging a Jar Jar plush toy.