The small form factor computer system has many uses. A SFF rig can make a nice gaming machine for those who frequent LAN parties. Home theater fans looking for a tiny HTPC to fit into the entertainment center often go with a SFF machine.

One of the biggest purveyors of SFF systems is Shuttle with its line of small barebones machines. Shuttle announced its latest barebone machine today called the X27D. The X27D is the first system from Shuttle to use Intel’s dual-core Atom 330 CPU.

Everyone is looking to buy some gold, seeing it as a safe bet in an uncertain economy. Why not combine your gold with say, your PC and feel like a Bond villain in some underground lair?

While we aren’t sure how much gold this PC contains, it will impress your minions until you you drop them in a shark pond. It does feature an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a 100GB hard drive, 4GB of RAM, along with eight USB 2.0 ports and two FireWire sockets. No word on price, but it’s a safe bet you can’t afford it. Anyway, you have to go through black market channels for Super-villain goods.

Nothing much new to see here, but since we have been taking a look at the pissing contest between Microsoft and Apple, I thought I’d share this one as well. Microsoft’s marketing guys are spending all the money on advertising Vista instead of actually fixing Vista, so he’s holding a bake sale with some pricey cupcakes. When will it end?

ASUS’s new Eee PC S101 will be landing in the States on November 1st. Landing with a thud thanks to it’s hefty $699 price tag, not due to it’s weight. You’ll get a new super-slim enclosure that’s just 0.75-inches thick, but the specs are pretty standard.

It sports an Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM, matte 10.2-inch 1024 x 600 LED-backlit display, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, multi-card reader, multi-touch touchpad, VGA webcam, 5.4 hours of quoted battery life that you can believe when you see it and Windows XP. No Linux option in the States. It all weighs only 2.3 pounds. This expensive laptop comes in copper brown and graphite varieties. Are you impressed?

So Apple and Microsoft’s pissing contest continues. Apple has some new ads now. Instead of attacking Vista directly, they now attack Microsoft’s marketing of Vista. After watching this one it seems clear that they are saying less and less with each new ad campaign. It just gets more and more pointless. It’s basically just a “I know you are, but what am I?” type thing. I’m waiting for Microsoft’s next ads to retort, “Infinity!” so we can just all shut up already. Do you guys even care anymore?

New notebooks are being introduced by the dozen this time of year. This year we are seeing some new types of systems hit the market with netbooks being very popular. Gateway is also introducing a notebook with a different size LCD than we are used to seeing.

The new Gateway MC-Series has a 16-inch edge-to-edge seamless glass display. The aspect ratio for the screen is 16:9 and it has a screen resolution of 1366×768. Other features of the notebook include Illuminated Multimedia Touch Controls.

Looking like typical Samsung LCD digital photo frames, these have an interesting and more useful feature. You can use them as a secondary PC monitor and you won’t need a special video card. The 8-Inch Samsung SPF-85H LCD will cost you $142 and 10-inch Samsung SPF-105P LCD costs $204.

Thanks to some hocus pocus called UbiSync PC, you can display computer imagery on them via the USB port. The 8-inch version will give you 800×600 resolution, while the 10-inch has a 1024×600 screen. Both models offer 1GB of internal image storage and a memory card slot if you want to use them as a plain old digital photo frame. Pretty cool.

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.

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.

The DVR has been the best thing to happen to TV since programming went color. Before the DVR, we had to record shows with a DVD recorder or even worse — a VCR. Anyone who has tried to program a VCR to record a show that isn’t on yet will recall the anxiety. The DVR came along and made recording programs as easy as clicking a button and one of the pioneers in the DVR realm was TiVo.

Nero and TiVo announced that they have teamed up for a new software and hardware product called Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC. The product allows users to record TV programs on their PC with typical DVR ease as well as pause and rewind programs. Once TV programs are recorded, the shows can be exported to PSP, iPod or DVD automatically.

Here’s an odd sight. A PC with a built-in 7-inch touchscreen that looks more like a microwave or other appliance. We are used to bulky PC’s that have to be tucked under desks well away from your external monitor as if they are mortal enemies in some secret war. But now it’s as if the two are enjoying a nice soft cuddle, with the Shuttle D10.

As you might expect, it only has a resolution of 800×480, so it won’t replace your current PC. Well, unless the one you’re using is reallllly old. But it might be a good PC for those odd places, like the kitchen, or in an RV or something. It will be available in Japan this week for under $500. I don’t think it’s a great idea personally. Did we not learn from TV/VCR combos?

Sotec’s E7 media center PC series adds an iPod dock. A hidden compartment at the base houses a slot where you can plug in the mp3 player. The 21.6 inch PC also features a DVD drive, built-in card reader, 1.3MP camera, wireless keyboard and mouse, 8W Onkyo speakers, NVIDIA GeForce 9300 video card, integrated 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi module, Gigabit Ethernet, 1GB of RAM and a160GB hard drive as part of the standard option.

It’s powered by an Intel dual-core 2GHz with optional enhancements like 2GB RAM, 500GB hard drive, and a 2.53GHz processor. The E7 should be arriving with an October launch date. The standard version is priced at about $950, while the fully-loaded options will cost you $1560. It’s nice to see an iPod dock included, but it doesn’t make it stand out enough in a sea of PC’s that are all very much the same.

Some say that the days of the familiar computer mouse are numbered and in the future navigation on computers will be done via touch screens or other input methods. Touch sensitive devices are coming in all sorts of electronic products today from PCs to cell phones and more.

HP announced a new line of touch screen PCs called the TouchSmart IQ800 series today. The system uses an all-in-one design with a 25.5-inch screen that allows users to control the system with a finger. The line of computers offers features like integrated Blu-ray players, color changing lighting that shines on the keyboard, and a HP MediaBay for extra storage.

Baseball fans can now show some love for their favorite team with a MLB Baseball cap USB mouse. You can choose from 17 Major League Baseball logo designs. Specs include: 800 cpi, compatible with windows XP, ME, 2000 and 98, Button swap for left or right handed users and all the other stuff a mouse does to enrich your life. It will cost you $24.95 and hopefully they have your team. Get a mousepad with your favorite MLB players bald spot and it’s perfect.

It’s hard to take the Stix Wiimote knockoff for the PC seriously when it looks the way it does. It’s trying to hard. But the proof is in the play and at least one reviewer failed to shake any fun out of the thing. It’s only a 2D controiller after all.

The Stix 200 may look a lot like Nintendo’s wiimote, but it’s more like “a set of slightly unresponsive, highly inconvenient arrow keys” instead of an awesome motion controller. Like the device itself, the PC games that can be played with it are bad. The 3D-capable Stix 400 controller might do better, but the consensus seems to be that it’s not worth the bother after this review. The reviewer pretty much sums it up by saying, it’s the kind of gift “parents who can’t get their hands on a wii should get their children to make them cry.”