I have never been fond of food that has eyes and can look at me as I eat it. As such I stay away from salty, fishy snacks like sardines. ThinkGeek has a new survival kit that is packed in a sardine can to provide a waterproof seal for the necessities of life should you find yourself stranded on a desert island.

ThinkGeek says the can is airtight, waterproof, crushproof and packed with 25 survival items including a non-aspirin pain reliever, adhesive bandage, alcohol prep pad, antibiotic ointment, book of matches, compass, chewing gum, sugar, salt, energy nugget, duct tape, fire starter cube, first aid instructions, fish hook and line, note paper, pencil, razor blade, safety pin, reflective signal surface, tea bag, waterproof bag, whistle, and wire clip.

Turn signal gadgets for cyclists is nothing new, but you don’t often see them in clothing. Ph.D student Leah Buechley on the other hand, has designed several items of electronic clothing, but her signal jacket for cyclists really stands out.

LEDs are embedded in an arrow formation and they flash to indicate that you are about to turn left or right. That’s a good idea since it will warn motorists, and prevent you from becoming roadkill, which we know some rednecks eat. The LEDs are powered by the round device in the center of the jacket, which is a small, sewable computer chip that Leah also designed herself. She obviously needs to be working with clothing manufacturers.

We thought we’d take a little break from the usual and take a look at some cool art cars that geeks have modded into their own visions of coolness. So here’s some random pimped out tonnage of pure nerd love coming at ya. When a nerd has a car, all things are possible…Though it will usually end up having something to do with the Star Wars universe.

With the biometric fingerprint door lock, you can secure your home with the latest in technology and at the same time, you won’t have to worry about shared or lost keys. Just give it the finger. It’s the only key you’ll need. The lock only opens at your touch.

It’s super easy to install since it’s all built into the door lever. Fingerprints can be registered or erased directly with the lock on your door - and, if you have alot of friends and are very trusting, the lock will accommodate prints from up to 120 of your closest friends. Let’s face it, there are too many keys in use. It drives you nuts doesn’t it? It drives me nuts. Eliminate another key from your life and up your security at the same time.

The University of Melbourne announced on Friday a new technology they are calling “GiFi”, which promises some serious game-changing wireless transfer speeds for all types of consumer gadgets. The tiny silicon chip invented by professor Stan Skafidas is able to move data through the air as fast as 5 gigabits per second at a distance of just over 30 feet.

This short-range wireless technology would potentially be a competitor or more than likely a replacement for WiFi, and things like Bluetooth might want to look out as well. The transfer speeds combined with the constantly increased storage capacities of small handheld devices could really take media down some new avenues as well. The Age newspaper uses an example of transferring a high-definition movie from a kiosk at a store to your mobile phone in seconds. Then that same movie can be transferred just as quickly from the phone to your home computer or entertainment system to watch.

Here’s a strange combination you don’t see everyday. It mixes a 7-in-1 card reader with a floppy drive. This allows you to transfer files from your old floppies over to memory card. Limited to the speed of the floppy. The problem is not many people use the floppy anymore.

Even if you have some floppy disks laying around, chances are they no longer work. This one is probably not a great idea, even though we do love gadgets where they’ve combined new with old. Though some pack rats are sure to have boxes of disks and refuse to stop using them, those people are surfing the net using a 286 machine and will never find this article.

When geeks set out to make home theaters, the results are often astounding, with some very cool themes. Often based on Sci-Fi flicks, these amazing works of art are expensive labors of geek love. I proudly present some of the cooler home theaters that have recently caught our eye.

For those who hate to get out of the car to fill up their gas tank, a new robot friend is only too glad to be of service and he may be in your future. Those who live in the Netherlands can take advantage of it right now. The Tankpitstop robotic arm cost it’s Dutch inventors $111,100, and it uses sensors and a car database to accurately open a car’s gas flap, unscrew the cap and fill the tank with gas.

Nico van Staveren, the inventor got the idea when he spotted a robot arm milking a cow on a farm. He figured if a robot arm could extract fluid from a cow, why could it not then put precious gas in a car. He hopes to see his robot arm in service at more gas stations around the Netherlands soon.

Vudu is making some moves to keep in strong competition with the yet-to-be-released second version of AppleTV, this time offering a software update and more high-def content. This software update to version 1.2 comes not much more than a week after Vudu gave their system a 25 percent price cut bringing it down to $295 and closer to AppleTV’s $229. AppleTV had recently announced the “take 2″ version will add on features that will allow users to download video content to the appliance without the need of a computer in between, which is a feature that Vudu possessed and AppleTV did not.

The recent software upgrade for the Vudu video system brings some new features to improve user experiences with choosing videos to download. A new indicator will evaluate the current broadband speed and indicate if the selected video will download and show well without any skips or extended delays. When searching for a video it can also recommend titles for instant start based on the connection speed.

Like many Sci-Fi novels shows and movies, Star Trek showed us futuristic gadgets that at the time were complete Science fiction, but soon came to be a reality. Here’s a list of such technology, in no particular order.

These might be new to you if you have always been far to enamored with the women of Star Trek to notice the tech and gadgets. I don’t blame you, from Yeoman Rand to Tasha Yar, to Beverly Crusher and beyond, there’s some hot babes gallivanting around in the final frontier. Before we get so easily sidetracked, back to the theme. Star Trek gadgets and tech. Some you can own, some are in the works and some are just strange.

What happens in Bespin stays in Bespin. When you are taking in Cloud city, otherwise known as Bespin, and you sit at the table to play a round of cards hoping to score a Millenium Falcon, you don’t want to use boring old poker chips. You want the power of the force. You’ll need it too, players like Lando and Han are tough. How do you think they won the ship?

The set even features a chrome dealer token that looks like the Death Star, plus a set of translucent chips illustrated by artist Russell Walks. You get 50 blue Luke Skywalker chips, 50 blue Obi-Wan Kenobi chips, 50 green Yoda chips and of course 50 red Darth Vader chips. The case even has 72 LEDs that make the chips glow like lightsabers when they’re stacked in their slots. Now that should make other players quake in their boots. The fun doesn’t end there. You also get 2 casino-quality card decks that come in their own foil boxes.

Polaroid’s DPJ-08580B is only one of a hundred gadgets that go with your iPod, but it manages to stand out admirably. The device is basically a portable DVD player with an embedded iPod dock, which will allow you to view videos stored on your iPod in a larger format. Not huge mind you, but larger. The screen is 8.5 inches.

It retails for just 28,000 yen, which is about $252, but if you absolutely have to buy an accessory for your iPod, you will probably get more enjoyment out of this one then most of the other gadgets out there.

Revo, a British radio maker, launched the Blik Wi-Fi clock radio late last year providing a clock radio that can pick up local FM stations or over 6,000 internet radio stations around the world. The device connects wirelessly to your home Wi-Fi connection and will list the internet radio stations alphabetically organized by country or music genre.

The Blik can also stream in audio content from the digital audio stored on a PC or Mac through the Wi-Fi network, and can connect directly to an iPod providing simple speakers for your player through the Blik M-port. And of course it works as a clock radio with an alarm, waking you up to your favorite local or internet radio station. It also features a wireless infra-red remote, a jack for headphones and an interesting design that comes in black or white.

Here’s a third-party handheld Nintendo emulator that doesn’t look like total garbage. Though it has the typical generic name of Solar MP4, this little device actually has some impressive features. It can play MP4 videos up to 320×240 in size on its 3.5 inch TFT screen, it also has built-in emulators for NES, GameBoy and GameBoy Color games. Of course you have to use ROMS loaded via an SD card, but those are easy enough to find. It can even function as an e-Book reader with the ability to read out loud any text file as long as it’s written in English or Chinese.

And of course, it has a DS-like design with solar panels, so you can play games using the power of the sun. Not bad for a knock off. You can get one for $123.32.

Data Drive Thru, the makers of the Tornado USB peer-to-peer connection device for PC’s, have given it an upgrade this year and are launching the iTornado sometime in March of this year. The iTornado works much like its predecessor making a direct connection between computers via USB. The upgrade for this model allows users to not only connect two PC’s, but also allows them to connect a PC to an Intel based Mac to transfer files back and forth.

The device consists of two retractable USB cables and built-in software so there is nothing to install. Simply plug-in both computers and a list of files available on both computers will display, and it will display on both computers. From there users can simply drag and drop files between the two and transfer them via USB 2.0 at up to 25Mb/second. The iTornado can make upgrading or switching from a PC to a Mac a lot easier than trying to find the other computer via a common network or copying back and forth with a thumb drive.