Developed by AT&T, the Anywhere uses RF tech to control your various home entertainment baubles from anywhere in the room. Behind a couch; with the cable box behind an opaque cabinet door; or even from the dark basement dungeon you set up for when the AT&T U-verse guy shows up late for his ambiguously defined 9-5 appointment window (yes, it's back lit!).

We've covered RF remotes before, most notably the recent Loop Remote, which controls TVs using a mix of Wii-like wonder, some pointing, and plenty of kitsch. The RF Anywhere is perhaps a bit more practical, but again you need to be a U-verse user to enjoy it.

The remote will cost U-verse customers $50 (slightly more than the one they get with service), and that includes the RF dongle. After that's paid up, you're free to change channels blindly from the pooper at your convenience. [AT&T via Engadget]

Beyond the haptics, the MX-5000 is a fairly standard high-end universal remote, intended for system builders to pair with similarly high-end home media systems—not your 40-inch HDTV. This explains the unorthodox button choice and inclusion of Wi-Fi, which the remote uses to display all manner of information broadcast from your receiver. It also explains the price price—although there's no official figure, Crunchgear's inquiry was answered with an ominous "below $1500."

Even if most people could never dreaming of needing one of these, the concept is still exciting: having to looks at a remote every time you use it feels like a step back, so if URC can clear that hurdle, more power to them. [Crunchgear]

Or, if you're interested, this remote control RMS Titanic is a mere $2,500 away.

What do you get for that lofty sum? Well, aside from the inevitable date with an ice cube you're already planning in your heads right now, you'll get a six-foot 1:150 scale model that's been hand crafted from 300 pieces over the course of 400 man hours.

Some of those 300 pieces sound pretty impressive too, like the real mahogany and cedar used in the superstructure and detailing. The three propellers guide this Titanic lite around at 5mph for up to three hours. [Hammacher Schlemmer via OhGizmo]

Better yet, in addition to having a power source that lasts the life of the device, the new radio technology powering these prototype remotes is also low-cost to boot. Oh, and the remote would have an increased range as well, making it effective up to 100 feet—even through walls. Triple threat!

Contrary to popular belief, there are no magical gnomes hiding inside Green Peak's remote controls. Instead, inside the remote you'll find a pair of cheap lithium ion button batteries. Using these instead of AA or AAA batteries could go a long way toward eliminating some of the 8 billion batteries that head to landfills each year.

Today, Green Peak is hard at work pitching the tech to big name companies like Sony, Samsung and Philips, for use in their RF remotes this fall. There was no shortage of upcoming TVs and Blu-Ray players from those companies at CES this year, each with their own remote, so this is the kind of tech that could really make a difference. [DVICE]

Designed as the world's first voice-enabled remote control for Vista Media Center, the Amulet Remote makes it easy for you to enjoy movies, record and watch TV, listen to music, and view your photos. Simply say a voice command into the remote, like "Watch TV program South Park" or "Listen to David Bowie's Changes". The remote will then send your command—via built-in microphone—to Amulet software in your media center, which will carry out your orders.

Because the Amulet uses position sensing technology, this remote will only pick up your commands if you speak directly into it, ignoring all other background noises—such as my boyfriend yelling, "AMULET, WATCH PORN!" everytime Sex and the City comes on.

The Amulet Remote is expected to cost $299 and will begin shipping in March of this year. [Product Page via CNet]

Lazy Bones (1950) - According to Electronic House, it was the world's first commercially available TV remote control. It could only flip through channels by triggering a motorized knob. Needless to say, its secondary skill as a tripwire caused problems in the living room.

Flash-Matic (1955) - Billed as "absolutely harmless to humans," this focused flashlight could be aimed at one of four light sensors on the TV itself, in order to turn TV on or off, change channel or adjust volume. But like Gyration mice and other gestural devices of today, it was a challenge because people forgot where and how to point the thing to activate each function. Also, sunlight really played havoc with the sensors.

Space Command (1956) - A much better system than Flash-Matic and as comfortable as a pack of Benson & Hedges in the hand, the Space Command used ultrasound—ingeniously generated without batteries by plungers hitting aluminum tuning forks—to change channel, turn TV on or off, and adjust volume. It did have one problem, though: Some dogs couldn't stand the noise.

Check out EH's "A History of TV Remote Controls" for the full story. [Electronic House]

The One to Watch: Logitech Harmony One Introduces Significant Evolution in Home-Entertainment Control

Logitech Harmony One Advanced Universal Remote Introduces New Design with Full-Color Touch Screen, Intuitive Button Layout

Winner of CES Innovations 2008 Design and Engineering Award

LAS VEGAS — CES - Jan. 5, 2008 — Today at the Consumer Electronics Show, Logitech (SWX: LOGN) (NASDAQ: LOGI) unveiled the Harmony® One advanced universal remote control, marking a significant leap in the evolution of the best-selling line of Harmony remotes. Offering the same one-touch, activity-based control as other Harmony remotes, the Harmony One makes controlling home entertainment even easier with a full-color touch screen, an intuitive button layout and an exceptionally comfortable user-friendly design. The product has received the CES 2008 Design and Engineering Award: Best of Innovations in Home-Entertainment Accessories.

As home-entertainment systems become more sophisticated and complex, people are often frustrated and overwhelmed by the need to have multiple devices, the frequent necessity for family members to have written instructions to control the system (otherwise known as a cheat sheet) and the growing number of remotes on the coffee table. And, according to industry research, more and more families will face this problem. IMS Research's report, "The Future of High-Definition TV - 2007 Edition," forecasts strong worldwide growth for HDTV over the next four years (nearly 148 million HDTV households by 2011). And in the U.S. alone, consumer spending on digital-living products is on track to hit $300 billion in 2010 (Parks Associates, "Digital Living Forecast," Dec. 2006).

"The Harmony advanced universal remotes have been highly successful at providing easy, one-touch access to favorite activities, such as watching TV, playing a video game, or listening to music - all with a single remote," said Ashish Arora, vice president and general manager of Logitech's Harmony business unit. "To further improve our lineup, while developing Harmony One, we sought to intimately understand the interaction between people, their remotes, and their entertainment systems. In fact, Harmony One is the result of our most comprehensive research and development undertaking ever - more than 20,000 hours."

A key outcome of Logitech's research is a 2.2-inch color touch-screen that uses capacitive technology, which responds to tiny electrical charges from the fingertips. Capacitive touch-screen technology is more durable, compared to touch screens that respond to pressure. The color touch screen provides control of any home entertainment device with an infrared receiver, including digital video recorders, high-definition televisions and many household appliances. The Harmony One remote's touch screen can also display icons of specified TV stations for quick access to favorite stations.

Based on a customer survey, Logitech also determined that it could improve its customers' experience with the Harmony remote by creating a more intuitive button layout. For improved ease of use, the Harmony One remote provides an intelligent and intuitive button layout divided into four distinct zones (numbers; traditional DVD controls; D-pad with volume and channel up/down; and on-screen menu buttons) for seamless control of today's most popular home entertainment devices. Only the 40 most-essential buttons appear on the Harmony One remote - so people can find the right one quickly. Each button is individually sculpted, providing useful tactile cues so people can operate the remote by touch, rather than relying on sight.

To better address ergonomics, the Harmony One remote features a curved, exceptionally comfortable shape that is easy for anyone in the family to hold, regardless of hand size. Presenting an elegant piano-black top and a silver base, and black buttons with white backlighting, Harmony One is the perfect complement for any living room. And the rechargeable remote's recharging station has a sleek profile with an adjustable light that makes it easy to find, even in the dark.

In addition to its optimized design, the Harmony One delivers the renowned benefits common to the Harmony family of universal remotes, including its exclusive one-touch activity-based control system powered by the world's largest A/V-control database of entertainment equipment, guided online setup and sophisticated telephone support.

The Evolution of One-Touch Activity Control
Using the Harmony One color touch screen, people simply touch the appropriate activity button and the Harmony One remote does the rest, including turning on the right components in the right order and setting the correct inputs. To watch a DVD, for example, people simply touch "Watch a DVD" on the touch screen. The Harmony One remote turns on the TV, the DVD player, and the A/V receiver. Then, if necessary, the Harmony One remote allows people to adjust the volume on the stereo system. There's no need to control components individually - the Harmony One remote manages everything. And the Harmony One remote even provides interactive on-screen help if something interferes with an IR command (for example, if someone walks in front of the set-top box).

Patented Smart State Technology
Patented Smart State Technology® enables the Harmony One remote to deliver activity-based control. Smart State Technology allows the remote to track the power state and input setting of the various components it controls. With this technology, Harmony remote users can effortlessly switch between watching home theater and listening to music by selecting a single activity button.

Guided Online Setup
Logitech's Internet-based setup makes getting the Harmony One up and running as easy as possible. With its intuitive setup wizard guiding the process, the Harmony One online interface allows people to enter their components' make and model numbers. Then, this information is automatically matched to the characteristics, discrete codes and infrared commands of the more than 225,000 devices from more than 5,000 manufacturers (updated almost daily) contained in Logitech's online database. Any devices that don't match can be added using the online system, and the setup process lets people add the control signals from the original device's remote control to the Harmony One remote. When people want to add a device to their living room, they can be confident that the Harmony One remote can control it - today and tomorrow.

Pricing and Availability
The Harmony One is expected to be available in the U.S. and Europe beginning in February for a suggested retail price of $249.99 (U.S.). The Harmony One will be showcased in the Logitech CES booth (No. 35512, South Hall, Las Vegas Convention Center).

This thing is crazy, but awfully pretty. [Art.Lebedev.Studios]

In our home theater, we like having the PC tucked away in the server closet in the next room, completely out of earshot but still close enough for its cable to reach the projector. Since this Keyspan RF remote can see through walls like some sort of electro-Superman, it will give us a computer viewing experience that's decidedly TV-like. It might be worth a try for $49. [Keyspan]

Long a mainstay of the high-end home theater installation market, the Intellicontrol has been around for 12 years, and is the device that inspired lots of universal remotes, including our favorite Logitech Harmony line that lets you just push one button to get everything going for about a tenth the price.

No fancy-schmancy touchscreens here; these are all buttons, all the time, and those buttons are much bigger to make it simpler to use. This monster comes in two pieces, the main system unit that receives the remote signals and distributes them accordingly, and then the "big button remote" that can run 16 devices, and can even control systems all over your McMansion.

The downside? This is one of the most expensive remotes you can get, with the system costing $999. It's generally installed by home theater professionals, who probably wouldn't mind charging you $300 for a couple of cables, either. Nevertheless, you get one of those pro installers to set this baby up, and all you need to do is push one of the master keys on the left and it turns on the proper components in the right sequence. Must be nice. The IC2 will be available in September, 2007.

Psst! This Logitech Harmony does just about the same thing! [CEPro]

We like the way this $149 unit uses 2.4GHz RF to communicate with its USB dongle, although we're hoping that frequency won't interfere with cellphones and Wi-Fi gear. This device could be especially useful in a home theater, where you might have your Mac or PC outside the room to avoid their noise and heat. Connect the computer to your projector or display, and you can watch iTunes movies and TV shows in your theater while controlling everything from 150 feet away, even through walls. Neat. The only downside is you're forced to use iTunes. [Keyspan TuneView]

Book-style Remote Control [Yanko Design]

Totally against my will, the missus dragged me along to Bed Bath & Beyond a couple of weekends ago. (Insert whip-cracking sound effects, wise guys.) It was every bit as horrific as I'd feared—I must lack whatever gene enables some folks to swoon over Casabella all-purpose gloves. Oh, and I had to miss the Mavs-Suns game in the name of stocking up on overpriced cleaning supplies. Brutal, just brutal.

The day's one saving grace came as we trudged toward the checkout line. To the right of the cash registers was a rack of low-end gadgets, of the sort you'd ordinarily find at an exceptionally raggedy Radio Shack. There was a USB minifan for five bucks (brand name: "Cool Breeze"), a host of Bandai-style LCD games, and quite possibly the flimsiest iPod speakers known to man. The cake-taker, however, was the Zadro iSing Shower Radio (pictured at right), which hits all the low-end high points. Shameless attempt to leech off the iPod's celebrity? Check. Using the "wow" factor of water resistance to mask otherwise craptacular craftsmanship? Check. Under a Hamilton? Yep—a lovely $9.99.

Now, absolutely no one goes to Bed Bath & Beyond looking for electro-dreck. These products were rather impulse buys, to be tossed in a shopper's cart just before she pays for a bevy of pillows and spatulas. In other words, here was strong evidence that gadgets are quickly morphing into the new ChapStick.

And that strikes me as sort of a big deal.

This wasn't the first time I'd noticed low-end electronics being hawked in a store where you wouldn't expect to find 'em, and near the cashiers to boot. Last month, while shopping for irregular tube socks at T.J. Maxx, I came across a shelf stuffed with ear buds and, oddly, large-buttoned remote controls—items that had obviously fallen off the proverbial truck. I didn't notice any takers, but T.J. Maxx (I suspect) isn't run by cretins; I'm sure someone at corporate headquarters was tipped off that, after a long hour or two of trying on size XXXL sweatpants, your average shopper may be unusually open to the idea of replacing their iPod's ear buds.

The obvious moral here is that consumers have grown inured to the ever decreasing lifespans of gadgets. I don't want to dump on the iPod too much, but I shudder to think what Apple's done to the next generation's expectations regarding how long a $300 piece of hardware should last. If no one expects a fancy MP3 player to survive much beyond the warranty's expiration, then what are they supposed to expect out of a USB beverage warmer? Or a shower radio? You've got the admire the sinister genius at work among the tech industry's powers-that-be. We've been conditioned to assume that low-end means low-qual, an equation that needn't necessarily be true.

But you've also got to consider—and, perhaps, lament—how quickly the satisfaction of buying a new gadget tends to dissipate. The thing about impulse buys like ChapStick, nail clippers, and breath mints is that folks get them even when they haven't exhausted their previous supply. That's the beauty of impulse items, at least from the vendor's standpoint—I mean, how many tubes of ChapStick or tins of Altoids do you have lying around? Probably a lot more than you need at any given moment. But we keep snatching them off the checkout-line rack anyway, looking for that quick hit of pleasure—"Hey, new nail clippers! Life is worth living!"

For us geeks with deep pockets and short arms, new low-end gadgets tend to elicit the same joyful, albeit very brief, reaction. You take home your $4.99 football remote control, use it that night, then wake up the next morning feeling slightly okay—the same buzz you might feel the day after your team wins the Super Bowlwinning $5 on a lottery scratcher. But the ecstasy fades quickly, even if the remote control works as advertised. You'd learn your lesson if it cost more but, hey, $4.99? You can barely get a decent Long John Silver's value basket combo for that. And so the impulse buying continues.

Not that I'm grumbling too much—I'm all for the free market, and people are obviously voting with their wallets if a chain like Bed Bath & Beyond sees fit to hawk iBlaster Retractable Ear Buds for $9.99. But as a controversial, now-legendary Gizmodo Ombudsman column once opined, perhaps it's wise to resist the urge to buy everything on God's green Earth that contains a circuit board. This is precisely what The Man wants you to do, which is why the iSing is positioned, Siren-like, near the Bed Bath & Beyond cash register. He knows your baser geek instincts will take over once confronted with such a novelty.

I was thisclose to heeding the Siren's call at Bed Bath & Beyond, but I didn't give in. Not that I'm calling myself a hero or anything, but I did save five bucks by resisting the urge. And I'm thus that much closer to finally having enough to buy that Apple TV thingamajig that's been haunting my dreams. And when that happy day arrives, man, that'll be a hit of rapture that a zillion iSings couldn't equal.

And, no, I don't expect my Apple TV to last more than a few days beyond the warranty's expiration. I just can't help myself on this one, and I'll bet you can't, either.

(By the way, if you ever see a low-end gadget positioned as an impulse item, please snap a camphone pic and let me know. Or just take the easy way out and share your finds in comments.)

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

Read more Low End Theory

Other than its stunning looks, it operates much like a typical TV universal remote control with its library of access codes, and thankfully, it has a sound effects mute key to get rid of those noises you'll grow weary of hearing after about two minutes.

How faithful is it to the original? After the jump, we compare this remote with the original prop from the Star Trek series.

This Star Trek Phaser remote is sold out at the moment, but the Phone Phun site vows to locate more. – Charlie White

Product Page [Phone Phun, via Red Ferret]

You won't lose anything strapped to your head, will you? [Via American Inventor Spot]

This remote is actually the Ruwido's VEXO and is supposedly "an echo of previous and current Apple products." It is also extremely large, ugly and doesn't even match the iTV. I guess the scroll wheel is kind of Apple-y, but I'm having my doubts. Hell, Jobs even said himself that the remote would be simple and easy to use, this obviously isn't. Jump for another picture.

– Travis Hudson

Ruwido's VEXO: The Apple iTV remote [FireceIPTV]