November is here and it looks like Apple just pulled the retail trigger on its 24-inch LED-backlit Cinema Display. While it still says "ships: November" Apple just added the "Add to cart" button allowing you to place your order with standard 5 business day, 2nd day, or next business day shipping. $899 takes home a 1,920 x 1,200 resolution, DisplayPort, built-in iSight camera / mic, integrated stereo speakers, 3-port USB hub, and MagSafe adapter for your like-equipped MacBook. Sure, it'll look great next to all your Apple gear but you can get a similar panel (if not exactly the same) or better with more expansion for a lot less.

Update: It's worth noting that while there are plenty of bright, 24-inch LCD monitors on the market, Apple's is relatively inexpensive (possibly the cheapest) for LED backlit monitors of this size. We'll have to see how it stacks up side-by-side before getting too huffy about the price. As to the lack of additional ports for game consoles, etc: huff away.

[Thanks, Rob P.]

Men, be careful with the lies your tell your wives. See, there's this thing called the Internet which is... uh, like a series of tubes connecting everybody. On The Internets you'll find services like Google and places to discuss just about anything imaginable, even the iPhone. So when you tell your wife that there's a bug in the iPhone that causes photos of your naughty bits to "sometimes automatically attach themselves to an e-mail address and appear in the sent folder, even though no e-mail was ever sent," well, it won't take long before she's on the Apple Discussion forums asking if this is true. Buddy, we hope you get what you deserve.

[Via The Inquirer]

Ah yes, one more item to tick off the yes it runs Crysis checklist: Fujitsu Siemens' GraphicBooster hooked up over PCI Express 2.0 to an AMILO Notebook Sa 3650. While ATI's XGP tech is pretty sweet, the Fujitsu Siemens GraphicsBooster implementation only works with the Sa 3650 laptop according to the spec sheet. Shame. For everyone else there's ASUS' ROG XG Station. Peep that 470% performance gain over the Sa 3650's Radeon HD3200 graphics in the video after the break.

[Thanks, Hero_p]

Microsoft's new Xbox Experience dashboard doesn't officially launch until Wednesday the 19th. But if you signed up for the preview (and who didn't?) with a valid console ID then it's available now according to Major Nelson. What's more, Netflix has confirmed its Xbox 360 launch details: more than 12,000 movies and TV episodes and 300 streaming HD titles. Remember, streaming is free for Netflix members who are also Xbox Live Gold members. The HD video streams will be limited to SD audio, however -- multi-channel audio is in the works as are additional HD titles. Now get outta here kid, NXE awaits.

[Via Joystiq]

Read -- Major Nelson
Read -- Netflix

After a flurry of leaks and announcements caught our attention last year, we've heard nary a peep from Toshiba about its multi-faceted device since. Suffice to say that's it's out in parts of Europe and countries with a penchant for the backward "R" and "N." Great, but what is it and how well does it do what it does; that's the convoluted question. Fortunately, IntoMobile went hands on with the USB memory stick / alarm clock with snooze / MP3 player / 7.2Mbps HSDPA USB modem / tri-band GSM cellphone and came away with the opinion that "the device is excellent." It pulled a respectable 2.7Mbps off O2's UK network and performed reasonably well as a "backup phone." The 160MB of storage for MP3 / AAC music playback was disappointing but it served its purpose in a pinch. Still, that's a lot of device for £140.

[Via IntoMobile]

[Via Impress]

You know the drill: for $399 you buy one OLPC XO laptop and a second is sent to a child somewhere in the developing world. Same deal as last year only now with the help of Amazon's powerful retail reach. Devices begin shipping in about 30 days -- a bit longer outside the US. Naturally you can also just gift the $199 laptop direct to a kid of OLPC's choosing. About the quickest way to become a donor short of meeting a hotel stranger in possession of roofies and a bathtub full of ice.

[Via PC World]

Read -- US site (live)
Read -- UK site for rest of world (limbo)

Simple in design, perfect in execution, we bring you Santiago Cantera's Escape Clock. No tiny snooze buttons to fumble with here dozy Joe, just one big key that shuts off the alarm when meeting the business end of a morning beef hammer. Set it on edge and you've switched from alarm clock mode to an in-room stereo. The worst part? It's just a concept... for now.

[Via Design Launches]

The OLPC, Give One Get One program is heading to Europe on November 17th -- the same day the deal kicks off in the US. Thanks to the Amazon hook-up, 27 EU nations as well as Switzerland, Russia, and Turkey can grab an XO laptop at a cost of about £268 / €313. That's one XO running Sugar (not XP) for you and one for a child in a developing nation... other than your own.

ASRock has a ploy to sell more of its motherboards: Instant Boot. The BIOS update for select MoBos promises to boot XP or Vista systems 10 times faster than standard PCs -- in other words, about 3 to 4 seconds from a full shutdown. ASRock achieves this minor of miracles through manipulation of the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface that Microsoft manipulates for its sleep and hibernate modes. At the risk of oversimplification, ASRock appears to add the processing baggage to the backend of the shutdown process, essentially rebooting the OS and then dropping it into a suspended state ready to instantly pop on the next time you hit the power button. Pretty smart actually. Here's the catch: the system you're using must be limited to a single user account without any password protection -- a definite no-no for corporate environments. See what happens when Hugo and George steal Dad's camcorder after the break.

[Thanks, Daniel]

Everyone and their grandma loves the Wii. But even Nintendo's new dual-axis MotionPlus struggles in 3D space due to limitations presented by the sensor bar. Mgestyk thinks it can do better by marrying its interesting gesture processing technology to the sensor data received from devices like the Wiimote. Mgestyk Fusion replaces the sensor bar with a 3D camera and image processing to translate yaw, pitch, roll, forward/back, right/left, and up/down motions from the Wiimote connected to a PC over Bluetooth. Sure, it seemed to work reasonably well at slaying clones in the video, but we're more interested to see how it holds up to the live scrutiny of a public demo when it makes an appearance at the Montreal International Games Summit next week. Until then, you'll have to feed your awkward, down-in-the-basement, lightsabering fantasies with the clip posted after the break.

After last year's CES fiasco and the non-launch of a Snapdragon device in June, this is what it's come to: the no really, manufacturers love our platform press release. According to Qualcomm, HTC, LG, ASUS, Samsung and other leading device manufacturers have created more than 30 device designs based on Snapdragon chipsets. No word on when these will come to market though. Sigh. In a more meaningful announcement, Qualcomm claims to have doubled the power of Snapdragon with its new dual-CPU, single chip, QSD8672 running up to 1.5GHz. The chip is designed for low-power pocketable or netbook-style devices and should be out the door for sampling sometime in the first half of 2009. Hear that Intel? AMD's not the only cat looking to soil your Atom sandbox.

Read -- Hey look at all our vaporgear
Read -- Dual-CPU QSD8672

It's not the quality of the Photoshop that made the Google Switch one of the great product fakes of all time. In fact, it was questionable enough that we asked the tipster for more detail and a second picture before publishing, and only then did we do so with skepticism. Still, once it was out, it gained so much traction in the Google-crazed Kingdom of Nerd that its image quickly became synonymous with the Googlephone -- the sweaty-palmed rumor circulating back in late 2006. When it became clear that the HTC Dream was to become the Googlephone, many editors and readers alike were left wondering about the Google Switch. After all, the rumor had never been properly debunked. Turns out that the Switch was the idea of three ordinary Dutch students -- Egbert Veenstra, Sytse-Jan Kooistra and Sam Baas -- who had already rendered the finger-touch phone-concept in late 2006. Miffed upon seeing the iPhone unveiled with many of the ideas they felt were theirs, the trio decided to generate some buzz for their concept and hooked it to the rumor du jour: the googlephone. That's when they contacted us. In retrospect, it's amazing how much they got right... or perhaps, how well Google and HTC listened. Hit the read link for their full story.

[Via the Next web]

After a morning of drip-fed images, RED just went official with its DSMC (Digital Stills and Motion Camera) System. The system starts with your choice of the professional Scarlet or "master professional" EPIC brains which can then be bunged into about 2,251,799,813,685,248 possible camera configurations, RED only half-jokingly chides. The brains are built upon Mysterium-X and Mysterium Monstro sensors which start at 2/3-inch and end at a whopping 6x17-cm -- when a new sensor comes out you just upgrade the brain. Scarlet will launch in 4 choices ranging from $2,500 (and possibly less) to $12,000 with a variety of lens mounts (yes, Canon and Nikon) capable of shooting 3K @120fps on up to 6K @30fps. Epic will offer similar mounts with capabilities spanning 5K @100fps ($28k) to 9K @50fps ($45k) -- a 28K system hitting 25fps is expected in 2010 for $55k. Still image resolutions will range from 4.9 megapixels to a freakish 261 megapixels. The first Scarlet systems could come as early as Spring of 2009 while EPIC should arrive by summer. Of course, the brain is just the beginning of the costs. RED also introduced a 3D camera configuration today in true, "one more thing" fashion. See all the details in the gallery below, 3D camera after the break.