MacSkinz. Add some pizzazz to your G4, iPod, or iBook. And we're talking PIZZAZ!

FRIDAY MORNING LITE


DEAR SANTA,
Can I have one of these? They're only $3600!


ALWAYS LOW PRICE DOWNLOADS
Walmart fires a broadside at the music download world with an .88 cent pricepoint!


CAN YOU SEE ME NOW?
With CameraPhones invading society enmasse, LG has ratcheted up the ante with a CameraPhone which can take ONE HOUR of full motion video. And yet, still no effort to secure phonecalls from being dropped!

Meanwhile, members of the British Parliment are being removed by the Sargeant at Arms for using their cellphone cameras - even if it's just for a phonecall!


1-800-P2PCOLLECT?
Doing what they did for file-sharing, Kaaza is now setting their sights on free long distance phone calls.

I can see it all now, this time next year, MA BELL will start dragging it's customers in court for phonecall swapping!

HERE WE GO AGAIN
Being charged with Anti-Trust is nothing new for Redmond as they head into court again for the latest round. This time, they square off against REAL NETWORKS.


JUST IN TIME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
iTunes essentials - the Holiday edition.

For other ideas, visit here.


SPANKED!
The Federal Appeals Court in D.C. has ruled AGAINST the RIAAs terror campaign by saying they may not subpeona records from ISPs.

Couple that with this report from the Netherlands of a ruling that Kazaa is legal to distribute and you can say it's a bad day for the RIAA jihadists.

DOIN' THE LORD'S WORK
An anonymous donor is giving military personnel and their familes free computers so they can communicate while the soldier's are in Iraq. Can the President give an anonymous Medal of Freedom?


HAPPINESS IS A WARM MARTIAN LANDER
Great Britain reports that BEAGLE 2, the Royal Mars Lander, has successfully separated from it's mother ship and is on schedule to make a Christmas Day landing on the Red Planet.


Meanwhile, NASA has taken to creating Movie TRAILER style animations to promote their Mars landing programs.

THERE'S NO COOL TERM FOR THURSDAY'S NEWS
(not that there is much anyway)


FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD BLOGGING
Perfect for the Spiderman in all of us, you can now go to SONY and download the latest Blogg Templates for Spiderman 2. Now you too can turn your blog into a Spiderman Billboard!


PRETTY GOOD PRIVACY
The RIAA has succeeded where cyberpunks have tried before ... in getting users to think about ENCRYPTION in order to protect themselves against their jihad.

Now all we need is a Department of Download Security.


GAME ON
CNN TECH lists the top games of `03 - the Winners - STAR WARS and THE SIMPSONS.
D'OH!

viPOD?
PortalPlayer, the company that actually makes iPOD for APPLE, has added a photo function to the latest iPod generation. Is this a harbinger of things to come? Could there be a VIDEO IPOD on the horizon? Let's hope so.

TOUGH ROOM
Toy manufacturers go to THE SOURCE for testing their latest Toys for the holidays .... KIDS.


HOW STUFF WORKS - CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

YA'LL DON'T COME BACK NOW, YA HEAR?
The City of Austin is dumping Windows and going OPEN SOURCE.
Yee hah!

INNERSPACE IN CYBERSPACE
Anyone miss Monsanto's Journey through Innerspace at Disneyland? Well, now you don't have too.

IF IT'S TUESDAY, THIS MUST BE CYBERSPACE

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING premieres at MIDNIGHT. Line up now - actually, you should've last week!

Speaking of Return of the King:


HE WHO FIGHTS AND RUNS AWAY ...
For the battle scenes of New Line's LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING, CGI programmers created autonomous CGI warriors Orcs who could think for themselves. And apparently, their instinct was to RUN AWAY from the battle, rather than engage in it!

If you want to see clips from THE RETURN OF THE KING, go here. There are ELEVEN of them!


TECH TUESDAY - TECH TOYS
Learn what's hot and what's not in this week's Tech Tuesday.


HOW STUFF WORKS - SPAM
This week's HSW focuses on how SPAM works. Learn how those evil spammers find you.


MUST SEE TV
If ever there was a reason to make the switch from Palm to Pocket PC - THIS IS IT.
Available next year for a price of $99.

Now all we need is PocketPC TIVO!


And with Toshiba's new .85 inch hard drive which holds up to 2 hours of video, that possibility isn't far fetched.

SOUNDS GOOD
WINAMP 5 is out. Word on the street is that it's like Winamp 2 + Winamp 3. That adds up. ;)


SOUNDING DIFFERENTLY
Apple announces that iTunes has surpassed 25 MILLION downloads. And they haven't made a penny on it? Well, at least it fuels sales of the iPod.


AWARD WINNING
ATI's RADEON™ 9800 XT card has been awarded the 2004 Innovations Award for Consumer Electronics Show. Which is something considering that C.E.S. doesn't take place in Vegas until next month.


iPOD GADGETRY
If you're an iPod fan you'll wanna get TRANSPOD FM - which is a car mount/charger/FM transmitter. The The TransPod saves on your iPod's batteries by plugging into the car's cigarette lighter. Available just in time for Christmas!

USB CRAZY
How about these interesting USB devices - perfect for stocking stuffers?!

USB electric blanket
USB coffee heater
USB toothbrush
USB fan
USB light
George Foreman USB iGrill (My personal fav)
USB electric razor

MONDAY, MONDAY


BLAME CANADA
Canada did it. They are now charging an MP3 tax. Next up - takes and tarrifs and ISPs.

Yeah, that'll move things forward.


GOOGLE IS YOUR FRIEND
Google adds to it's tool quiver by tracking packages for you.


ONE FRUITCAKE TO RULE THEM ALL ...RFID technology proves the "one fruitcake" theory. Now we know that fruitcake just keeps being passed on and on.


WIRELESS NATION
Faced with being unable to get broadband in their area, the City of Cerritos has turned to WIFI.


CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? GOOD!
After scoring his second touchdown of the day, New Orleans Saint's Wide Receiver Joe Horn celebrated by taking a cell phone from beneath the padding around the post and calling his mother. He was penalized 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct and is due to be fined about $15,000. OUCH. That's some "roaming charge!"


PSX ARRIVAL
Sony's new Playstation, the PSX, has arrived in Japan with a thud. Apparently, even though it has a DVDR burner and hard drive to record and burn TV shows, last minute changes to other features (SONY dumped the ability to playback CD-R and DVD+RW discs and MP3 music files, and its Ethernet port) makes the PSX more of a high priced "dog." So much so that it's probably cheaper to buying a PS2, a DVD recorder, and a digital video recorder separately.

OUCH.