Media centers seem to be all the rage nowadays, as high definition movies and television shows, as well as higher quality picture and music have started to invade the market. While some recent additions to the media center families, like AppleTV and distinguished models from several startup companies have been impressive, none have really captured the idea of replacing a Tivo, computer, amplifier, receiver, Netflix deliveries, media players, DVD player, and catch-all computer … until now.

As Alienware describes it, the Hangar 18 can do just about anything:

* Watch - Watch, pause, and record your movies, TV shows, photos, and internet videos on your widescreen TV in high definition
* Listen - Listen to all your favorite songs and artists with Hangar18’s onboard 5.1 surround sound amplifier
* Share - Wirelessly stream all your media to other PCs, mobile devices, and media extenders throughout your home.
* Download - Download content from all over the internet to one secure location to store and share with your home and others.

Full details and more pictures inside!
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Hard drive aficionados rejoice! Check out the new Mercury On-The-Go 160GB portable hard drive brought to you by OWC.

Designed for the demanding professional in mind (or not), the Mercury On-The-Go portable hard drive is one of the faster portable hard drives on the market, running at a speedy 7200RPM. It’s also got interfaces for everything so never again choose between FireWire 800/400 and USB 2, plus it’s totally bus powered too. The thing is actually quite small for 160 gigs but the price sure isn’t - $279.99. However considering OWC is throwing in full retail versions of DataRescue III for OS X and NovaBackup for Windows, maybe it’s justified.

One can never have too many gigs especially when you’re toting around pirated music and videos. Fortunately for us, Toshiba saw fit to keep cramming more memory into their line of slick USB flash drives. Their latest offering pimps out with 16GB and has embedded Vista security features, whatever that means.

Oh and look, it’s white too!

[Via Aving Network]

Yes it’s cute and cuddly looking and yes it vaguely resembles some video game character free from its sphereonic prison, but don’t be fooled by its exterior. This robot can literally control your life.

Designed by Japanese robotics company Raytron, Chapit aims to make future home automation easy and sugary sweet. He understands and verbally responds to you in a bizarre baby voice, clearly a baby born of Scientology. His face lights up and his legs wiggle as he nods to your every demand. Anything with an IR, bluetooth or wireless connection is fair game. He even recognizes you and senses your mood. Had a long day at work? No problem, Chapit will turn down the lights and put on your favorite movie. He exists only to make you happy.

He also exists for a hefty 200,000 YEN ($1950) in stores sometime next year. Check out video of Chapit in action after the jump.

[via Electro^Plankton]

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The people over at Onkyo who brought us all of those great computer peripheral devices stereo receivers, have done it again with their new metallic keyboard and mouse combo.

This line of keyboards which is part of the “Wavio” line of desktop equipment is encased in aluminum instead of the usual plastic.  Looks kind of cool, but I think I’ll stick with my trusty Logitech.

More pictures after the jump

[Via Crave]

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That’s something you don’t hear everyday huh?  Well from the look of things it might be a phase you should start becoming familiar with.  Start-up company Zink (Zero Ink) have developed a revolutionary new type of inkless printing technology.

The Zink system “can be embedded in any device.” It is also more environmentally friendly, the company says. Ninety-five percent of ink cartridges never get recycled.

With the ability to shrink printers to the size of a PDA, I’m sure that we will see more and more uses for this type of technology. Zink will be getting the ball rolling by releasing the first two products; a standalone pocket printer and a camera with printer technology built in.

The first printers using Zink’s technology will only produce 2 x 3 inch photographs, but other sizes may be produced in the future. The target price is $99 for the standalone printer and $199 for the camera printer. Paper for the Zink items will run around $19.95 for a pack of 100 sheets. Besides working with camera and hardware manufacturers, Zink is trying to land deals with paper producers.

[via CNET]

Intel and IBM separately announced that they had developed new technology to prevent electrical current leaks from transistors. This effectively allows them to create smaller transistors continuing Moore’s law which is more of a good estimate than a law which states that the transistors on an integrated circuit double every two years.

They managed to pull this off by trading off the silicon dioxide used for the past 40 years for metallic materials. Not only is this going to allow for more processing power for desktop chips but it should allow for cell phones to encroach on desktop computing capabilities. Hit the link for the original Washington Post article.

[Via Washington Post]