Inside this ancient phone you'll now find a fully-functioning PC, plus a USB hub, Wi-Fi card, sound card and a 128x128 OLED screen on the handset. Is it the most powerful or cost-effective media center PC around? Uh, no. But it's certainly one of the most impressive. [Metku via CrunchGear]

A few days back, I showed you the new touch interface for Media Center PCs running Windows 7, and though I had to pull the video, I promised a walkthrough of proposed Windows 7 Media Center features. I say "proposed" because, like everything else about Windows 7, this is all alpha and subject to change. But these features are very cool, and really should be included. One more thing: These screens were projected on a wall in a well-lit room, so they look horrible, but anyone familiar with Media Center (and Microsoft has shipped like 100 million of them, so that should be plenty of ya) will have a good idea of the pleasantness to come. Or you can just drink in the following prose descriptions:

• Shows appear dissolved behind menus - When you're watching something and want to pull up a menu to add a new show or browse the channel guide, or even go into another area of the Media Center, the current show stays on, not as a picture-in-picture, but tastefully dissolved into the background.

• Chronological turbo scroll for channel guide - When you're looking at the channel guide, but want to go from Tuesday to Sunday in a hurry, you just hold down the arrow button on the remote, and the days start to whip by. Listings become a blur, but the days of the week, and the portions of the day, appear floating over the listings to give you an idea of when to stop.

• Live thumbnail forward and rewind - During HD video playback, you might want to jump around. Grab the time marker and drag it forward or back, and as you do, you see a miniature version of the show playing backwards or forwards at the same speed.

• Launch TV from Start menu - Media Center can occupy a pole position in the Start menu, and when you hover over the MC logo, a list of recently recorded shows pops up, along with other frequently used MC features.

• Floating Media Center gadget - Not only can you access shows from the Start menu, you can browse MC features from the desktop with the gadget. I am not clear whether or not you'll get to have actual video playing in it, but for people who need MC at their fingertips, this appears to be a nice, subtle execution.

• Alphabetical turbo scroll for music - The chronological turbo scroll on the channel guide is cool, but this one will come in more handy for me: As you scroll through the countless artists in your music collection, the names become a blur but your location in the alphabet is denoted by two letters, probably so that those longer letters like J, M, R and S can be broken up better.

• Drifting cover art grid - When you're playing a song, the album art for that track appears with some basic metadata, and all the cover art for every other track you own materializes and drifts in the background. The primary cover art jumps from side to side and top to bottom, so that everything is in constant, fluid motion.

• Scattered photos picture show - As you're playing music, you can opt for a photo show that essentially reaches into a folder, grabs a handful of shots, scatters them evenly around the page, and then zooms in on one at a time. A nice touch: In the wide angle, all the photos look like desaturated black-and-whites, but as each shot gets its own screen time, it magically becomes full color.

• Copy remote content - If you are browsing multiple libraries or Media Center PCs and come across a show you like, you can watch it or save it for later by hitting "make a copy." As long as there's no broadcast flag or some other DRM, the vid will flow over to your local HDD so you can watch it when you've left the network.

• Virtual channels without TV tuner - One of the new Media Center's central concerns is the new popularity of internet-based video, not just YouTube clips but whole TV episodes like those shown on Hulu. DVR functionality is key to making the most of an MC, but at launch there will be loads of virtual channels with shows you can watch just as easily. Microsoft demoed a special MSNBC channel that had clips and full shows; it's of course feasible for them to build similar channels for third-party web video services too. [Windows 7 on Giz]

It turns out that crappy old PCs are kind of a hot commodity nowadays; numerous software projects have succeeded in dressing up retired computers for purposes that often didn't even exist when they were first wheeled out of Circuit City. Here are a few suggestion for your dumpy old rigs:

Make a browsing machine for your grandmother and/or kitchen

The most straightforward, obvious use for an old PC is to wipe it clean and install a lightweight, browsing-oriented OS. With a modest PC, you can run the web-app-inclined gOS, which is essentially a modern, stripped down Linux distribution with a modern web browser and lots of links to cutting edge online services.

For older hardware, there's always Damn Small Linux. This superlight distribution will boot straight from a CD in about a minute on just about any box you can find — and it's fast. It'll make your Pentium feel like a Centrino 2. Until you try to play YouTube.

What it can salvage
gOS has room to breathe on just about anything from about 700mhz and 256mb of RAM. It's based on Ubuntu, so it's not the lightest distro, but it get good mileage out of your hard. DSL will run on anything, seriously.

How you do it
Download, burn to a CD and pop in in your computer. Both will ask you if you'd like to install or just run from a CD. Give them a try first, but you'll get your best results running from a hard drive.

gOS download page
Lifehacker's gOS Post
DSL download page

Make a professional grade home router

For people who want to rule their home networks with an iron fist, Monowall a FreeBSD-based operating system that flips any PC with two network cards into a superrouter. If that sounds boring to you, I completely understand — but if full bandwidth monitoring and control, easy setup VPNs and a complementary web server with a remote interface perk your ears up, then you should give Monowall a shot. And step outside for a few minutes a day.

What it can salvage
Got a 486? It'll work, with 64MB of RAM. If your hardware is less than five years old, though, you should probably aim a little bit higher than making a Linksys out of it.

How you do it
Again, this is a wipe>install situation. m0n0wall is based on FreeBSD, which is based on Unix. None of that matters much, though — the m0n0wall team has designed a pretty straightforward installation routine.

m0n0wall download
m0n0wall HowTo page

Create a media center PC

There's no reason to spend money on a Windows Media Center PC if you've got an Athlon XP or Pentium 4 machine with an s-video port at hand, because you can do better with the free XBMC Live. Without modern hardware you won't have much luck playing back HD video, but virtually everything else — music, standard def video, streaming content — will play beautifully. The interface is very intuitive and gives a solid set-top box feel.

What it can salvage
Recently obsolete PCs. Don't expect to get a good experience on a 1GHz Athlon or Duron system, but anything newer can handle the load.

How you do it
Like most of the other hacks here, this one is a start-from-scratch project. If you want to run it within Windows or Linux there is also an option for that. The full, OS-replacement XBMC Live is ideal, however.

XBMC Live download
XBMC HowTo
Note: Boxee is a much more polished and feature-rich fork of XBMC that runs on Linux and OS X currently, but it's in a semi-public alpha. Use this link for Gizmodo readers to skip the line a bit and get invited into the alpha.

Run a server

An obvious use for old PCs for years, running a web server has now gotten easy enough for anyone. Apache is the de facto free web server, but it's a pain to set up. Enter XAMPP, a super-simplified click-and-run version of Apache. Forward a few ports on your router and get yourself a static DNS and you've got your very own website, with as much space as you've got on your hard drive and as much transfer as your ISP will let you get away with. If you have no need for a website, you can host your music, video and files for easy access from anywhere.

What it can salvage
Anything that can run Windows or Linux, gOS and Damn Small Linux included. You can reach waaaayy back into your closet with this one.

How you do it
It's a matter of running the installation routine on your chosen operating system — there's no drive wiping or OS installing involved.

XAMPP Download
Port Forwarding Guides
Free Static DNS

Dealzmodo Hacks are intended to help you sustain your crippling gadget addiction through tighter times. If you come across any on your own that are particularly useful, send it to our tips line (Subject: Dealzmodo Hack). Check back every Thursday for free DIY tricks to breathe new life into hardware that you already own.

The question is, are we turning a corner? The AP story below addresses how badly the cable companies are taking this new mandate. One industry spokesman called it a "set-top box tax" with "no benefit to consumers." A cable-co watchdog countered that cable companies have no problem raising rates anyway, so having a reason shouldn't make them mad. But what about those third-party products? The sad truth is, a set-top box issued by the cable overlords will still have more functionality than any third-party product, at least until CableCard 2.0 gets here.

Cable firms to raise set-top box rates [AP]

While the system records two HD shows at the same time, it can play back a third prerecorded show or HD DVD, Blu-ray or anything else. And you can pack 3.75TB of storage in there, too. This sounds like the home theater convergence machine we've been waiting for.

The only catch?

These monsters cost in excess of $4399, and that's before you pile on that extra storage and the HD disc players.

Since these CableCARD-equipped units will ship in March, we're thinking they'll be loaded with Microsoft Windows Vista.

While the VidaBox Max and Lux units appear to be the ones packing this dual HD capability, we're also quite impressed with its Stealth model (pictured below), which the company says is completely silent.

Combine that quietude with all this HD and CableCARD capability, and you'll have what we're thinking is the home theater PC of the future. Oh yeah, make it all cost $800, and that'll be the sweet spot. – Charlie White

Press Release [VidaBox]

What good would a 3-inch screen on your MCE PC be if it's tucked away in your A/V cabinet or if you're sitting far away from it? Otherwise, the concept is very much a Sideshow rip off. – Louis Ramirez

Supplementary Display for Media Center PC Front View [AVING.net]

The Stealth comes in 4 different configurations (starts at $4,399). Each model is powered by a dual-core AMD processor and comes with a minimum of 1GB of RAM, dual TV tuners (1 HD and 1 SD), and enough space to accommodate a 1.5TB SATA drive. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth aren't built-in, which is a sin considering the starting price, but to make up for it you get enough ports for pretty much everything that sits in your living room, and it's even HDCP-compliant. The pricing is too high for this blogger's wallet, but any MCE fans out there with cash to invest can't go wrong.

– Louis Ramirez
VidaBox Stealth

Verizon Near Content Deal with YouTube [via SlashGear]

I've always thought all monitors deserved a beautiful border like that. Just so I could muddle it up with post it notes, photo-booth stickers, and finger prints.

The as of right now Europe-only PC has a 1680 x 1050 resolution, a Core 2 Duo processor and Motion-Eye webcam and Remote Control.–Brian Lam

UPDATE: Well would you look at that. You can find the same design over at Sony Style under the LS-series designation. Just goes to show you&mdashNever believe what you read on blogs. Thanks John Nye.
Sony Vaio LA-Series [Sci Fi Tech]

This all-in-one multimedia system is pretty impressive, but for those of us who depend on those dreadful cable services, the lack of CableCard support is a dealbreaker. The launch of these units begins April 14th with the less-capable TX90S/D selling for $3800, followed by the TX95S/D available in June for $5065.

Fujitsu TX Series with Blu-Ray Drive [Newlaunches]