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.

The MacWorld 2008 week is just about to come to a close but the new product announcements aren’t quite over yet. XtremeMac, maker of Apple product accessories, has launched the InCharge Home and InCharge Travel as the latest addition to the companies lineup of chargers for the iPhone and iPod. The products bear the “Works with iPhone” and “Made for iPod” brands making them Apple approved, which is something we really like to see anytime we connect something between the wall outlet and our multi-hundred dollar gadgets.

The InCharge Home is basically a $30 wall outlet adapter that will charge your iPhone or iPod without the use of a computer and without the risk of burning it up. XtremeMac says that the InCharge Home will bring your iPod or iPhone to a full charge twice as fast as it will through your computer connection.

Here’s an interesting social network concept device. The handshake ring is like one of those James Bond gadgets, where you shake hands with your secret spy contact and instead of passing money or a secret note, you exchange digital contact details.

The rings exchange and store your information automatically for you to browse through later using the card. The power used to operate the ring is generated from the users body temperature so no plug or batteries are required.

Do you like to to save money? To qoute Sally Struthers, “Sure, we all do.” Do you like to save energy? To qoute my father when I was growing up, “Turn the damn light off. Were you born in a barn?”…Or something like that. The point is, with all of our Plasma TV’s and many gadgets, it’s nice to save money and energy when possible. But do you have any idea how many kilowatts your gadgets use?

Kill-A-Watt EZ Plug Power Meter measures just how much juice your gadgets and appliances are using, much like the Intelliworks Energy Saver. It will not only measure the power your gadgets are using, but it will tell you how much it is already costing you and what it will cost in the future.

According to Wired magazine, a insider to Apple who works at a third party vendor to the company got the “skinny” on the new super-thin ultraportable MacBook that we’ve been hearing rumors about. The MacWorld 2008 keynote speech is just hours away and according to his source Jobs will be announcing a very thin, wireless Apple notebook dubbed the MacBook Air due to it’s like of wires. Supposedly it will have no Ethernet port and rely solely on WiFi. It also will not come with any type of optical CD/DVD drive and could look something like the photoshopped design shown here. There were not details given on actual dimensions, price or real specs but more than likely we’ll get the real scoop later this morning.

With the beginning of a new year, we have several exciting new things in store for you, our valuable readers. This is one of them. We will be featuring several contests and giveaways, so tell your friends, alert the neighbors and most of all keep a close eye on the site and come back often. Whenever we can, we will be sending cool stuff your way. So don’t miss out! You might even want to comment and let us know what you think about getting free stuff.

This time around we have something for you from our friends at Baylis. We have 5 My Magic Torches w/ phone charger. And we have 2 LED Eco Lanterns. These are some very handy gadgets and the winners will be very happy campers.