Specs on the full-tower go as high as a factory-overclocked 3.86GHz Core i7 975 processor, 12GB of DDR3-1600MHz memory, and dual 1.8GB GeForce GTX 295 graphic cards. Both it, and the standard Area-51, also have a variety of high-end Blu-ray and RAID hard disk configurations (the case supports six SATA 2 hard disks). Prices start at $2000.

The redesigned Aurora MicroATX (mid-size) desktops are a little cheaper; they start at $1200. They're also liquid-cooled systems, and options include a factory-overclocked 3.6GHz Core i7 processor, dual 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphic cards, and up to 24GB of DDR-1333Mhz or 12GB of DDR3-1600Mhz RAM.

Pricey beasts, but definitely some cool ideas at work here. They're on show at Gizmodo Gallery, so stay tuned for our hands on impressions. And if you're in New York, come on down and see for yourself. We gots Pancakes!

According to their forums, if you opt-in to the community feature, Aurora Feint looks through your contact list, sends it unencrypted to their servers, and matches you up with your friends who are currently playing right now. Great feature, for sure, but that whole looking through our contact list and sending it in plain text to your server is cause for us to go OMGWTFBBQ.

When we discovered that the Apple SDK allowed us to look through your contact list we thought it would be a great idea to automatically show you which friends are playing the game. Why automatically? Well, everyone always complains about the keyboard on the iPhone and how annoying it is to type on it. So we thought, "Hey, why don't we make this feature REALLY easy to use – no typing!" And such, the community feature was born. Some people have said that it would have been ok if we had a better notice explaining what was going on. I agree! We weren't trying to be sneaky about how this worked. It was just overlooked. No one we showed it to even asked a question about it – nor did we. It just simply never came up as a potential issue when we beta tested the game with early users.

Upside is, if you didn't use the community feature, you're OK.

In the 1.0 version of the game we just didn't get around to doing everything we wanted to do in time for the launch: remember we tried to do a high quality game in 10 weeks flat. So, if you opt-in to the community feature, when you refresh your friends, the data is sent unencrypted to our web servers. Before you freak out though, let me explain why this was done. We just thought that it was a cool feature and that we'd implement security stuff if we became popular. To that end, the web server we launched with was a teeny box with almost no power. We spent the first few days scrambling to scale our servers. We really had no idea how popular we were going to be. We added this feature in near the end of our development cycle and simply decided that we didn't have enough time to spend to make it secure in advance of knowing if it was even going to be a hit.

Good intentions by slightly amateur programmers. It's alright. No malice intended. They're actually asking the community as to how they should proceed, and you should go tell them.

It's also a credit to Apple for finding out the mistake and shutting it down. Even though the line about having all apps be vetted through the store in the first place was to make sure all of them are safe, some stuff like this still slipped through because it's pretty much unfeasible to test each application to make sure they're not sending out your private data. Apps and app updates are already delayed for a week or more because Apple's checking them out. [Thanks mjborch1]

The Waci-Pad is essentially a IR/RF/Ethernet front-end to control your DVD/TV/CD/Blu-ray player and your lights, which means it's perfect for flipping on all your junk at once. It's home automation on the level of home-builders or home-modification, which is a step above just getting a universal remote, which might be a safer bet for most readers out there. But if you want to get fancy and outfit your entertainment room like an auditorium, there you go. [Aurora Multimedia - Thanks Jason!]

The catch: The good news is that you can use this laser during your next board meeting without blinding your colleagues. The bad news is that you can use this laser during your next board meeting without blinding your colleagues. Here's a totally unfair comparison against a $380 Wicked Laser 95mW Nexus model, just to show you the difference in scale with the 5-9mW blue laser brightness of this $830 Aurora.


The Verdict Part II: We tried the Aurora outside at night, and we could barely make out the blue laser streak shooting for the sky. So unless you are a hardcore laser aficionado or have particular love for the color blue, we think you'll have more fun with brighter, deadlier lasers in different colors for the $479.99 to $1400 you would otherwise spend on an Aurora (DragonLaser's top 125mW green laser runs only $399.99). Then again, blue is so pretty...just as we'd always pictured our lightsaber... [dragonlasers]

Back in the '80s, they would have called this one a "wood beeper" but now it's called the m:ssage, a mobile phone with dual massaging heads designed to give you pleasure each time you receive an SMS. Which is exactly what any other phone can give you if a) placed in the right places, b) equipped with the right accessories or c) all of the above. The m:ssage is made of handcrafted solid wood, probably because molding metal was too expensive or latex was not readily available. More models after the jump.

The Boom Tube is made of two kinds of wood and is designed to allow the user to communicate with tunes and interact in group jam sessions. While I like the concept, I guess its use is probably limited to musicians, French scientists trying to talk with aliens who love jazz improv concerts or virtually deaf people who listen to Milli Vanilli.

This one is the Aware, a pendant phone that will make your spine tingle using some kind of technology you probably never wanted to tingle you. In theory, you add people to your network and when someone is near you "there will be a tingle down the users' spine from the vibrators down their back." According to the creators, it's for teenagers. If I remember well my teenage years, I really never needed extra tingling or vibrators.

Then there's the Aurora, which aims to communicate "young adults" using LEDs, with "emotion transferred into a pattern of lights." I can imagine Shannon: "what did he meant with five blue lights, seven green sparks and a red star? He doesn't love me anymore? I AM GOING TO BREAK HIS LEGS! I HATE HIM!" while Tom waits at the movies: "I told her to be here at 9. Where the heck is she? Aw women."

The Hive is not as defined as the other concepts, just talking about "both physical and electronic interactions" which can be either Really Good or Really BAD™ stuff. I would play it safe here and say: "it just looks like a crappy wood box."

The Eo Una pictured here, however, looks much more attractive. Not only the solid elm wood with beeswax finish makes it look nice, but the concept is simple and effective: make your loved one know about your state of mind remotely. It operates by tilting it and it has four faces each representing a different emotion. While it's unknown if it includes the "I'm so pissed off with you! DON'T YOU DARE TALKING TO ME!" or the "I'm horny. Let's get a real phone and talk" emotions, I like the simplicity of the concept and the execution. – Jesus Diaz

Product page [Phone|Not Phone via BBC News]

AuroRa is based on an RF (radio frequency) remote control system that Lutron has perfected with its RadioRa, high-end lighting control technology that works better than any of the X10 or Insteon switches we've tested.

This kind of quality doesn't come cheap, though—the set of five switches, a table controller, a remote for your car and the security interface will set you back $950. Without that alarm interface, the package is $750. – Charlie White

Product Page [Via BIOS]