1. A projector in an umbrella, so you can collide with even more people than usual

2. This one glows different colors to tell if it's raining or not, in case you couldn't already tell

3. Is there an umbrella with a built-in MP3 player? Why, of course there is!

After the jump, you get seven more.

4. Another inevitability, an umbrella that's Made for iPod ^TM

5. Aerodynamic umbrella makes you the Lance Armstrong of walking in rain

6. Nanotech means one shake and it's dry

7. Umbrella for uncomfortable-looking couple

8. Umbrella for uncomfortable-looking dog

SW freaks, you've been very patient. So here you go:

9. Lightsaber Umbrella Number One

10. And finally Lightsaber Umbrella Number Two

There you go. Happy puddle jumping! –Wilson Rothman

Umbrellas [Gizmodo]

What'd we miss? And what's in your Easter basket?

– Matt Buchanan

Inspired by Flickr via Dethroner

a 42-inch plasma TV! Wow, now there's a way to win her heart. "But honey, it's high def. That means I can, like, see Payton Manning's sweaty crotch in excruciating detail." So the holiday has transformed from being a gimmick to sell cards and flowers to a gimmick to move electronic merch. Cheers. – Nicholas Deleon

Image via ClipartSpace.com

Top 10 Gadget Gifts for Your Valentine [Sci Fi Tech]

10. Robots

9. Deals

8. Smartphones

7. Digital Cameras

6. Home Entertainment

5. iPod

4. Laptops

3. Portable Media

2. Gadgets

1. Cellphones

–Noah Robischon

10. Samsung D900 Black Carbon Reviewed (Verdict: Sexy All-Around)

9. Fly By Wire: 25 Minutes of Screaming Terror

8. Samsung m610 Cellphone Unwrapped: Thin Like Kate Moss

7. Sony Ericsson Ai Concept Renderings

6. Xbox 360 Wireless Wheel Hands-On (Verdict: Driving 2.0)

5. Zune Dual Unboxing: Nice Package

4. Macbook Pro Batteries Are Inflating?

3. Moto KRZR

2. The Smallest Cellphone We've Ever Used - Exclusive Haier Black Pearl Gallery

1. Wii and PS3: Complete and Synchronized Unboxing

–Noah Robischon

10. USB Powered BBQ—WTF?
Note to George Foreman: There is a huge and untapped market for in-office grilling solutions. At least judging from the popularity of this mod, which uses 30 USB ports spread out over five USB PCI cards to power a grill that cooks 1 ounce of steak (or bacon—it's hard to tell from the photo). The YouTube video of the USB BBQ is, sadly, no longer available.

9. Exclusive Microsoft Zune Details
The first grope of the Zune music player, as leaked to Gizmodo's Jason Chen, revealed all kinds of juicy details about the buttons, the interface, the FM transmitter and that magnetic headphone thingy on the back. Second base.

8. Zune: First Full Review
A little feel just wasn't enough for you, was it? So Jason had to go all the way and slide the Zune down his pants. We also learned that the device would be upgradeable, and got to skulk around the Zune Marketplace looking for records.

7. Gizmodo Knows: iPhone Will Be Announced On Monday
The post was just one line long, but it turned into a full-blown iPhoneyGate.

6. Lexus Self Parking Car Video and Review
Gizmodo usually leaves the car scoops to our pals over at Jalopnik. Except when the car is a Lexus that has the ability to park its own bad self, as well as adaptive cruise control, 8-speed transmission and an optical drive in the dash that rips CDs.

5. Microsoft Argo's Final Name: The Zune?
Microsoft changed the name of its music player from Argo, the ship sailed by Jason and the Argonauts, to Zune, which was invented by Lexicon Branding and cost several hundred thousand dollars. Runner up name: Henrietta.

4. Wii and PS3: Complete and Synchronized Unboxing
As if it weren't enough to receive the final consumer version of Sony's PlayStation 3 a full day before anyone else, an ice cream truck drove up and delivered a Nintendo Wii to Gizmodo Editor Brian Lam as well. Over the next few hours, Lam would achieve gadget geek nirvana by simultaneously unboxing the two most sought-after tech toys of 2006.

3. The Japanese Wii Safety Manual is Crazy
Gizmodo has seen a lot of weird Japanese things over the years, but none matched our discovery of a secret battle between Godzilla and several Gundams in the early 1980s that bombarded the whole of Japan with cosmic G-rays, which allowed then-youths to grow up and draw this weird-ass manual for the Nintendo Wii.

2. Exclusive Microsoft Zune Picture-Zune In The Wild!
Gizmodo gets to first base with Zune. Who could have known then how short our romance would be.

1. LG "Chocolate" Phone Not What You Think
LG's little Valentine's Day gift to Gizmodo was this adorable picture of the "Chocolate" phone. I hear she's quite popular.

–Noah Robischon

10. Proprietary connectors and software: Seems the scribe (let's call him John) doesn't appreciate the fact that many smartphones require super-de-dooper special connectors in order to interface with a PC. That's a pretty valid complaint, but companies like HTC are moving toward miniUSB connectors, so things may get better sooner rather than later.

9. Important features hard to get to: This seems a little whiny, but John doesn't like how certain functions of many smartphones are hidden underneath mountains of menus. He also wants an actual mute switch: not a menu thing, not touch-sensitive, but a mechanical switch. John also prefers to travel by horse and buggy over the modern jet airliner.

More after the ol' jump.

I'm not gonna sit here and rip off John's words to a "t," so accept the following hit and run highlights wherein I expose his madness.

John hates the horrible battery life, the feature creep, the overabundance of terrible software, poor phone support (that is, it sucks as a phone) and Windows Mobile 5.0. Yup, he outright hates a mobile OS. The best line here?

It's like a telephone menu system without the nice lady telling you what to do.... Press 8 to slow things down to a crawl by adding more than 50 contacts in your address book! Write once! Run everywhere!.... Windows Mobile 5.0 must die and let us be the ones to bury it.

Overall, not a bad list. It points out many of the things that smartphones need to do to in order to shape up, all while keeping a smile on its face. Not as good as our top 10 reasons why the iPod sucks, but good nonetheless. – Nicholas Deleon

Smartphones Now: 10 Things I Hate About Smartphones [CrunchGear]

10. These models above are notable just for their Korean to non-Korean ratio. It's not often that Samsung finds off-peninsula models to demo their goods—and for good reason. Look at the way the middle one's angling that cellphone! The glare just blinded my whole family.

Click through to see the rest.

9. This model clearly has the four cellphone fan-display down pat. The camera captures her friendly smile while showing off Samsung's new sliders, but what it doesn't capture is that she has 13 fingers to hold up those phones with.

8. Blu-ray enabled PC. Very nice. No points off for this one, save for our general tepidness towards anything Blu-ray.

7. We couldn't decide what to focus our attention on when we first saw this one—the huge Samsung screen or the model's gorgeous gams. After 20 minutes of our eyes darting back and forth, we decided to take a nap. That was a good day.

6. Like a reader noticed when we first posted about Samsung's digital photo frames, either those photos were taken the same day, or that lady should probably change clothes once in a while. Nice frames though.

5. Pow! Pow! If you liked the legs on #7, you'll love the double action for Samsung's Anycall slider phones. Sophisticated, yet kind of slutty at the same time. We heard that young woman in the red is actually the daughter of LG's CEO. He was furious.

4. This one's notable for being one of the only male product models Samsung's used. What? Oh.

3. ARE YOU AS EXCITED ABOUT THIS SAMSUNG PORTABLE DVD PLAYER AS I AM?! HUH!? MY FACE IS CONTORTED BUT THE CAR'S NOT EVEN MOVING!

2. Does the model on the right have a lazy eye, or is her thousand-yard-stare a result of Samsung's lackluster whatever-that-is that she's holding. Enthusiasm, kid. That's the ticket! Try and be more like #3.

1. And our number one Samsung product model shot is of...some PCs or something. The one on the right is a looker, while the one on the left brazenly insults my manhood. Thanks lady, but the wife , my secretary, the kids, some lady at a bus stop, my mechanic, and grandma can handle that find on their own. – Jason Chen

We're already well into July, meaning that 2006 is slowly approaching its glorious end. More importantly, that also means that we've had more time to see what terrible gadgets, gizmos and other technological toys companies have come up with. The crack staff at CNET have come up with a list of 10 of the worst tech ideas seen during the past three months. Some gems include Steve Wozniak riding on a Segway playing polo; the Kodak EasyShare One Wi-Fi, complete with awful interface and low quality pictures; and "X-Men: The Official Game," so bad that our soul still aches. – Nicholas Deleon

The 10 worst technologies in Q2 2006 [CNET]

10. Top 10 Strangest Japanese Gadgets and Accessories

Many of the tech toys that we enjoy oh so much come from Japan, and this is but a small sample of the wildest and craziest. You'll find plenty of pointy objects designed to clean out your ears and other orifices. Here, we have one combining MP3 with a toilet (above), since reading the newspaper in the bathroom is so last century. You'll never think of Whitesnake the same way again. See them all here.

9. Top 10 Strangest Chairs

Sitting in a chair all day doesn't have to lead to painful blood clots. Well, it might, but at least you can develop said clots while sitting in any one of these off the wall chairs. Our favorite is the Tank Chair. What could be more fulfilling than trolling around the neighborhood with "Flight of the Valkyries" blaring? See for yourself here.

8. Top 10 Strangest Gadgets of the Past

This crazy watch radio isn't actually a watch, but it is capable of sending and receiving short waves while listening to standard radio broadcasts. Check out the rest of the old-timey goodness.

7. Top 10 Strangest Retro-Styled Gadgets

Along the same lines of gadgets from the past are gadgets inspired by the past, like the Digital Cowboy's Classic USB Skype Phone. Besides looking like something The Man with No Name would use, you can bother your Skype friends with it. What fun! Check out the rest of the retro-styled goodness.

6. Top 10 Strangest Cameras and Accessories

Nearly every day we bring news and purdy pictures of digital cameras. Perhaps even better are the camera-related gadgets out in the wild, like this Lego Pinhole Camera. It uses a manual crank to power a former Polaroid 95a. Other goodies include a camera the size of a pencil tip and a a frisbee camera. Find the rest here.

5. Top 10 Coolest iPod Accessories and Projects

Not a day goes by without us mentioning iPod accessories. The iPod Shuffle NES Controller looks great and is an iPod Shuffle stuffed inside an NES controller. Yep, we're tool makers all right. There's plenty of other useful items here, too.

4. Top 10 Strangest Computer Setups

"Post your setup!" Don't you just love those forum threads, where supergeeks post pictures of their wicked computer setups? Here's a collection of setups that probably put yours to shame. Our favorite is the Ultimate Mac Setup, since we're so biased and all. Your eyes don't deceive you: that's three 30-inch Apple Cinema Displays. Other memorable entries include a wall of monitors and a computer running out of a whiskey bottle. Ah, drink, you never talk back. The rest aren't bad, either.

3. Top 10 Strangest Luxury Gadgets

Oh, yeah, we're living in a gilded age all right. Take this $25,000 gold-plated GameBoy. The screen is lined with diamonds and the case is made out of 18K gold. Other gems from the list include other gold and diamond-encrusted cellphones. Notice a pattern? The rest of them are worth checking out.

2. Top 10 Strangest Gadgets of the Future

Just like the 10 strangest gadgets of the past, TechEBlog's got the 10 strangest gadgets of the force. Hopefully in the future, we'll all be using things like this transparent toaster. A self-cooling beer can and a video game-themed urinal are other highlights. The future looks bright, indeed.

1. Top 10 Strangest Custom Gaming Systems

The moment you've all been waiting for, Gizmodo's number one top 10 from TechEBlog's top 10 lists. Unlike Letterman, there's no pseudo-hipster pun topping this list. Nope, just good, old fashioned video games, like the portable Dreamcast. Yes, the Dreamcast died an untimely death, but at least now you can take it around with you wherever you go. There's a few other home consoles modded into portable units, like a portable Gamecube and an Atari Jaguar. Feast your eyes on the rest of the list. – Nicholas Deleon

TechEBlog

Not everyone's willing to shell out $399 for a video iPod—they're just not that into music. For those readers, CNET's compiled a list of their top 10 favorite MP3 players under $100.

Most of these have itty-bitty screens with only 512MB of RAM to back it up, save for the Sansa m250 with 2GB. Notably absent is the iPod Shuffle. Probably due to the lack of screen. – Jason Chen

Top 10 MP3 players under $100 [CNET]