The Price: $119.95 for a two pack (currently on sale for $99.95 ) or $69.95 in a single version (on sale for $59.95)

The Verdict: The i2i Stream works as advertised. The sound quality from the streaming music is good and it holds up well inside the range of 30 feet (even when separated by walls). Furthermore, switching between audio sources is easy with the color coded channels, and it gets a decent amount of battery life (around 6 or 7 hours). Still, I can't recommend something that seems unnecessary to me. It's not that it is huge or anything (although it could stand to be a little smaller), but when you plug in an iPod and headphones it is nothing more than another cumbersome gadget taking up space and emptying your wallet. And why? So you can share your horrible taste in music with your friends? If you want to DJ your tunes, a simple portable speaker would suffice. Besides, for the price of a single i2i Stream you could get a 2GB Shuffle and listen to your own music.[i2i Stream]

The 47-inch high units have a 70Hz - 35kHz response, and will cost around $1,250, but there's no info on availability. [Yamaha and Akihabaranews]

This song came about as a call for remixes by Radiohead for "Nude." Houston notes that most of the entries were lame, and he wanted to do something a little different that fit in the theme/alternate song title offered (Bad Ideas: Don't Get Any). And he also came up with this video, which has an awesome retro, Daft Punk-ish Human After All vibe.

It's entirely possible this was all made on a computer or keyboard, but I'll take it in good faith it was made as the creator claims. And I'd say this isn't just a little different, it's way different and damn spectacular. [Youtube] (Thanks, John )

Price: £299.99

The Verdict:: For a non-smartphone, I really like the W890i. I've always been a huge fan of the Sony Ericsson OS and UI on their phones, and that hasn't changed. But what makes this phone so good is that I could see myself using this as a media player if I didn't already have five other dedicated devices lying around. Like the W880i, the W890i has full media playback, a front-side camera for video conferencing, TrackID and other music-related apps. Unlike the W880i, it also has the SensMe music mood mapper, and a higher res camera (3.2 MP vs. 2.0 MP).

The Walkman 3.0 interface is well organized and easy to use, video is crisp, and everything is responsive. I really like that the home screen dedicates one of its soft keys to the Walkman player, and there is also a side hard key for the same purpose. It seems minor, but it really makes the media player accessible and eliminates the thinking process. SensMe analyzes the song's tempo and sound to determine its "mood," and then maps out the songs on a graph for you to select accordingly, and the camera takes bright, crisp photos (indoors and outside). The W890i also has the standard array of Bluetooth, games, productivity apps, and a radio to round out the features.

What I don't like about the W890i is the continued use of proprietary Sony hardware. Audio, data, and charging are still done using a proprietary data port that uses a strange and clunky connector. Buttons are a little crammed together, but this isn't as maddening as the K850i button layout. Other than that, I have no complaints. The W890i is a good, simple music-phone for people who want a good, simple music-phone. [Sony Ericsson on Giz]

Using these devices, visitors are treated to a clicking sound indicating water being pulled up from the roots to the leaves through the xylem tube. If this sounds like some weird hippie crap to you, I definitely hear that. However, I can appreciate Metcalf's unique artistic approach. Plus, it does represent an interesting way to fuse nature and technology. The Tree Listening Installation is currently on exhibit at the Royal Botanical Gardens just outside of London. [Alex Metcalf via Oddinstrument via Coolbuzz]

The guide covers everything from making channel adjustments to positioning your equipment to reduce the effect of big bursts of sound. For the home entertainment aficionado, this advice may be old hat—but may prove extremely helpful for the novices out there. For more info, hit the following link. [Sound & Vision]

Yu said it took three years to develop the Tenori-on, and another three to get Yamaha on board with the production process. When throwing around design ideas, shapes like triangles were considered, but appeared too difficult to make usable, so they stuck with the square shape. Other interesting design aspects include making the Tenori wide enough so that the thumbs of the average adult hand meet in the middle of the Tenori when grasped, and that it was never intended to be a user-friendly music machine; it kind of just happened. Read the full interview over at [PingMag].

Tech Journalists and Reviewers Use Macs: Sure, Microsoft may not think it's profitable to develop software for a platform where users are unlikely to purchase their products, but what about drawing interest from the media? If you look around any tech media event, you're going to see more people using Macs than PCs. And sure, most, if not all, of us have both platforms running. But for those of us who use OS X as our primary OS, how many are using Zune past the initial review stage? It's more of a hassle to go back and forth between machines just to use devices, especially when it comes to the storage of media files. I think the media would be more interested in the nuances of Zune if it fit in with their daily lives.

Zune 2.0 Is a Quality Product: Pound for Pound, I'd say the Zune80 is a better product than the iPod Classic. It has a better UI, more features (hardware and software), a better platform and control mechanism for gaming, and a decent enough design. While many companies in the past have put out good MP3 players, none have hands-down outclassed the iPod. The Zune80 might be the first to challenge the supremacy of the iPod. Why not have faith that Mac users will see that?

Devices And Platforms Should Never Be Exclusive: The iPod never really took off until it began supporting Windows with it's 2G iteration. Of course, Apple had more to gain from opening up to a much, much larger Windows user base, but it never hurts to make a product more widely available to the public.

How Costly Can Mac Support Be?: Even if the number of potential Mac users who would buy Zune products is minuscule, how expensive can it be to code an app? There have been far smaller companies who have supported both platforms, and Microsoft has other Mac apps, so what gives?

All The Cool Kids Are Doing It: The iPod didn't become the de facto standard for MP3 players because of its technical prowess alone. The great white earbud craze of 2004 probably started because a handful of popular kids liked the design of the iPod a year or two earlier, which in turn made them technological tastemakers. All the kids who want to be popular generally follow along. I think it goes without saying that it's currently considered "cool" to own a Mac. Microsoft is never going to get Zunes in the hands of this group if they can't get their music on it.

It's entirely possible adding Mac support won't have a huge impact, but with open source technology and DRM-free media growing more popular by the day, giving people the freedom of platform is always good for the image.

These homes have features that include: swiveling TVs that can be viewed either from the game room or the kitchen; TVs that descend from the ceiling at the foot of the bed; spa baths with built-in speakers; automatic Lutron sunshades to dim the light for perfect TV viewing while still letting you see the sea view; 7000W surround-sound systems; and motorized theatre-screen curtains. Each piece by itself might not be all that amazing, but when you put them all together in one house it has pretty impressive results.

In terms of tech, these houses are blessed with such gizmos as Crestron home control touchscreens, rack-mounted ADA Sirius satellite radio tuners, Niveus hard drive media servers and CinemaScope screens with Runco 3-chip 1080p DLP projectors with an anamorphic lens. Basically, heaps of stuff that makes our own home entertainment systems look unbearably wimpy in comparison.

How much does this kind of installation cost? We're not sure. But when you're talking about digging a 14-foot hole beneath your garage and calling in expert designers to help with the interior and AV features, you know it's going to be just as expensive as it looks. [Electronic House]

That 256MB gives you about 10 hours of radio recording, or you can transfer music to it from a PC and it even functions as a voice-recorder. The radio itself has a digital alarm clock, 400 presets and can receive NOAA weather band info, and two-way marine, aviation and ham radio broadcasts. So, despite looks that may appeal more to your Dad than yourself, it's pretty feature-packed. Which might be why it's available for a seemingly-large $179.95. [Hammacher via Book of Joe]

The main appeal of the i931 is it's nostalgia factor, hands down. If you have any sort of infatuation with the 1988, boom-bap era of hip-hop, you can't help but be in love with this thing. And after I spent a few hours with the i931, I was ready to march down to the nearest 7-Eleven, boombox in hand, and yell at the guy behind the counter for D batteries (This boombox takes TEN D batteries, but there's also a power cord, so fear not). The i931 also stays true to the historical design of Lasonic boomboxes. The speaker grates, the cheesy color graphics, the volume knob and power button, all taken from Lasonic designs of the past. The iPod dock even pops open like a tape player and you insert your iPod like a cassette. Awesome.

The iPod function works about as well as you could expect; the menu system is semi-complicated to learn, but functions efficiently with the external button interface, and the window in the dock face makes the screen clearly visible. The i931 is compatible with any iPod up though the 5.5g model iPod and the 1g and 2g iPod Nanos. I assume its also compatible with the iPod Classic and 3g Nano, but I wasn't able to test that, so I cant confirm. There is also an AV out in the back if you want to route video playback to your TV.

On the technical side of things, the i931 has an AM/FM tuner (w/telescoping antenna), 3.5mm stereo auxiliary input, USB input and an SD card reader for direct MP3 playback. It has a glowing spectrum analyzer and a 1/4" headphone jack. The two 15w speakers are powerful and clear, with no distortion until level 35 of a 40 point volume scale (with the bass turned up).This is all controlled by 10 buttons on the right, with the standard array of play/pause, stop, track up/down, random, repeat and function buttons. It also has a folder button for browsing file structures.

There are, however, a few issues I have with the i931. The most glaring problem is the lack of support for the iPod touch and iPhone. They don't close into the iPod dock, and they can't be controlled by the button interface. And the plastic on the door of the dock means you can't get to the touch screen. There are other minor issues like the omittance of the physical EQ sliders (pure nostalgia), which are replaced by presets and bass/treble controls. The AM/FM tuner graphic doesn't actually do anything, and the former tape deck buttons have been replaced with generic graphics that don't do anything. Also odd, is that the i931 will occasionally and randomly shut off during playback. Not enough to be an annoyance, but enough to notice.

That said, the i931 gets a big, fat Giz stamp of approval. The '88-'94 golden era of hip-hop occupies a special place in my heart, and the boombox was one of it's universal symbols. This isn't the most technically advanced or well-built audio gadget around, but that's not what this is about. The i931 gives a nod to the past with it's head in the future, exuding charisma along the way. At $170, you get a that sounds good, and it doesn't break the bank if you buy it just as a novelty item. Personally, this will be one of my favorite gadgets I ever play with. [Lasonic on Giz]

This review is dedicated to Radio Raheem, who was killed on the fictional streets of Brooklyn by the fictional N.Y.P.D.

Video by Chris Mascari

The networked interface shows songs playing at different locations, who is picking the , who is at the bar, user generated content, and information pulled from users' pages on social networks. You can even gift songs to people. But the thing I like here is the cellphone control. Because when Sublime or The Offspring or something equally lame comes on at a bar for the millionth time and I'm ready to go hang myself in the bathroom, I've been known to put a few dollars in the jukebox. And now I don't even have to get up. Awesome. [Yahoo via The Web Outside via Newlaunches]

Awesome, no? Teach your kids about real audio recording, not this MP3 digital nonsense, for just $35. [MAKE via Gadget Lab]