After all the rumor and excitement, Apple basically did a bare minimum Mac mini update. Still, the five USB ports will be good for homebuilt RAID enthusiasts, and the Mini DisplayPort and DVI plugs are nice for dual monitor support.

The new SKUs both feature 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo processors with an NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics.. The price is $599 and you get 1GB of RAM and a 120GB hard drive, $799 gets you 2GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive. Both minis sport 8x SuperDrives.

Mac Mini 2009 Edition – video powered by Metacafe
This Mac mini on video looks like the one we saw the other day sporting five USB ports and dual display. After we showed you, some sites were claiming that it was a fake, but this video looks pretty convincing. Does this put an end to the debate?

Some alleged specs: a 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor with 3MB Level 2 cache, 2GB DDR 3 memory at 1066MHz and a ATA Super Drive. Looks real. If so, the question is when and how much.

Kids have it good today. I don’t think we had any cool projectors when I was a kid. This one is from toymaker Jakks Pacific and looks pretty neat. It’s expected to be at next week’s Toy Fair in New York.

There aren’t any full specs available yet, but we know that it will project a 70-inch image via LED, and it can be hooked up to the other gadgets your kid owns, like DVD players, cameras, and game consoles. What’s interesting is the price. The device is expected to sell for under $100, which is much cheaper than the adult versions we enjoy.

Rumors of an Apple Netbook aside, we still don’t have one and likely will not for a good while. So designer Isamu Sanada decided to take it upon himself to try his hand at designing one. Obviously it has Apple good looks and portability. But it’s not quite there yet.

When folded, the MacBook Mini would measure 5.4-inches thick. Wow. That’s too thick. But the design is interesting. When fully expanded, the laptop will give you a keyboard, trackpad, 10-inch LED display, and 128GB SSD. Looks like there’s no optical drive either. And I would hope that the trackpad, cool as the design is, would fold under as well as over, because as it is, it’s going to get in the way.

Lancerlink of Japan has introduced its MPJ-101 mini projector that also doubles as a decent portable media player. It doesn’t come cheap though at $1,000. Some features include: 640 × 480 resolution, 10 lumens brightness, 1GB internal flash memory, SD/SDHC/MMC/MS Pro memory card slot, USB connectivity and Two 0.5W speakers.

Supported file formats include MPEG-4 (AVI/ASF/MP4), H.264 (MP4)?MotionJPEG (AVI), MP3 and JPEG. MP4/ASF/AVI. It comes bundled with the ArcSoft Media Converter, so you can carry around your favorite shows and movies on a memory card and watch them whenever you want.

Small PCs are the way to go for HTPC enthusiasts. It fits in a component shelf, offers cutting edge performance and connectivity without being an eyesore. This one is engineered with the latest blazing fast Intel 64-Bit EMT64 Core 2 Duo Processors, and packed in a 6×6.5-inch enclosure. The Stealth computer LPC-650 offers another mini PC with desktop power at only 2-inches tall.

It boasts a rugged all aluminum chassis and is loaded with desktop-grade connectivity with Gigabit LAN, Wi-Fi 802.11g, 4-USB 2.0, Serial, 2-VGA Video, Audio and HDMI ports. The board supports 3D GPU with memory expandable up to 4GB, and has a built-in 2.5-inch anti-shock hard drive slot.

Last week we told you about some of WowWee’s new products. Much to our surprise that included non-robot items. Like these Cinemin mini-projectors.

They’re all designed to support your iPod or iPhone. The projector product line includes the Cinemin Swivel for $299, which features an adjustable 90-degree hinge for ceiling projection, the Cinemin Stick for handheld projections, for $349, and the Cinemin Station at $399, a base station of sorts that allows you to dock your iPod/iPhone and features embedded speakers. This entire line of projectors connect to all the iPods and most laptops.

Add this one to the ever growing pantheon of Apple rumors. PCPerspective has reason to believe that Apple is preparing a 24″ iMac. They say that we will get a set of four new iMac computers announced this week. Two 20″ iMacs with an NVIDIA integrated-GPU chipset based on the MCP79 design (the same used in the most recent MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks) and one of those will include the mobility GeForce 9600-series discrete GPU as well. This integrated + discrete graphics solution is basically identical the setup the new 15″ MacBook Pro includes.

If you buy into the hype, the 24″ iMacs will have the same integrated chipset but both of these will include discrete graphics solutions. The lower-end 24″ model will use the same mobility 9600 series that the MacBook Pro uses and the higher-end model will use a slightly faster GeForce 9800M solution. That would make the new 24″ iMac a useful gaming machine.

The Apple rumors never stop. They’re flying fast and furious. According to the newest rumors, we may see an updated Mac Mini with dual display support when and if Apple announces the new machine at the upcoming Macworld conference. MacRumors is reporting that the new Mac Mini will feature both a mini Display Port and Mini DVI connector, which leads them to believe that Apple is gearing the machine towards users wanting multiple screen access.

Other rumored new features include a modular design that would allow for a second hard drive in place of the optical drive, an enhanced graphics chipset, and a new color scheme.

Designer Sait Alanyali is a proud Mac Mini user. So proud that he designed his own. One of the problems he has with the current machine are the I/O ports. It’s a hassle to plug things in and take them out. Hence the “V” shape. It puts the ports within reach while keeping cables tidy. The shape also comes in handy by improving cooling as air moves freely through the heatsink.

Hard drives are hot swappable with a 2.5″ hd installed and an empty slot to use any way you like. It also features an HDMI port and does away with the power brick because this one has it built inside. Another new feature is the embedded logo display. It sports a sensor inside that detects it’s orientation, so that the logo is always facing up.

I would venture to guess that there’s not many of us looking for a stand-alone radio in the age of iPods. But if you do like carrying around an FM radio, why not make it this cute little cartoon mouse? He’s even got a spring tail, which I assume means that he’s happy to see you. Best of all, he’ll only cost you $6.99, but you’ll need 2 AAA batteries.

Sadly, you can’t even use this mouse as a portable mouse. If I were you I would hurry. Innovation like this won’t stay in stock for long. I haven’t seen such amazing vision in a gadget since the Creative Zen Moo.

Lately Dell has gone a little artist crazy with new colors and art for many of their models, so it’s not very shocking to see the Inspiron Mini 9 and 12 get into the action. There are five patterns by artist Tristan Eaton, with the same stuff you are familiar with under the hood. These painted Minis will run you an extra $50 over the base price of the regular models, $349 for the Mini 9 and $549 for the Mini 12. I’m sure you can’t contain your excitement.

Many of us have fond memories of Pac-Man as well as other Namco arcade classics, so what could be better then putting a whole bunch of Namco classics in a portable? That’s what modder Sam Thornley did. The portable Pac-Man Mini console is built around one of those Jakks Pacific Namco Arcade Classic systems, with a tiny 2.5-inch LCD display and it gets it’s power from a set of 4 rechargeable AA batteries.

He did a great job as the end result is a nice clean retro looking portable that will match your Wii. Thanks to a direct composite video connection, the screen image is super sharp. It will play Pac-Man, Galaxian, Rally-X, Bosconian, and Dig Dug.

This thing looks like it’s alien in origin, but it’s made right here on Earth. It’s the future people! It’s the size of a small apple. And they crammed a lot inside. A 300 MHz processor, 16MB of onboard flash memory, 64MB of SDRAM, and a 1GB CompactFlash card loaded with Red Hat Linux. On the outside, it’s got a single USB port, VGA, Ethernet port, RS232 port, and mic and speaker plugs.

The entire deal is powered by a 5V plug. But that’s not all. It’s also got a “Space Wire” port, which is a proprietary interface used by people like the ESA, NASA and JAXA, for when the Cube actually goes into space. Get it? Space cube. But it’s not just for space, you can get your own soon, “once a few technical issues have been ironed out”. They will retail for as much as $2,769.

The manufacturer claims that this $45 Star Wars USB Lightsabre is a lamp that connects to the USB port to charge up its battery and glows in the dark with a blue light, is “a lamp”. At 33 x 6cm, that’s not much of a lamp. It’s a toy, plain and simple. Jedis are shrunk down to tiny proportions and put into a ring for an all out death match, where they use these babies to slash each other to bits. I’m not entirely sold on the fact that such a small lightsaber can be fun for my desk, but since it glows and all, it must be true.