I must admit that I’m not very good at flying it as of yet – but I’m getting better. I’ve been playing too many computer games where the impulse to release the accelerator and jam the brakes are the solution to most trouble spots. With the helicopter the opposite seems generally needed – dropping into a hazardous area of your home? Gun it and the little thing zips upwards.

It’s not suited for outdoor use – a slight breeze will alter it’s flight path and the sunlight will interfere with it’s infared reciever. I think there was some wisdom to the use of infared instead of radio transmitters – many homes and offices are ripe with radio waves bouncing around. Electronics devices, wireless networks, cellular and cordless phones all would create interferance. Infared is much less likely to recieve crossed signals in such conditions.

They offer three different models (varying in appearance not construction) which allows you to fly three simultanteously since each has it’s own channel. Once I get the hang of getting mine to fly where I want it to go it’d be fun to get some dog fights going.

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It even has the ability to detect areas that are extra dirty and gives them a little extra attention. This is great, for someone like myself – I have a tendency to operate in my own little world and that sometimes leads to unintentional neglect of such tasks such as floor cleaning. Advanced models allow for scheduling of the little cleaning beasty and the Roomba can even park itself in it’s charger by itself.

Imagine you can go about your daily life and this small droid takes care of your floors for you. Replace frequent cleaning tasks such as vacuming and sweeping with merely picking up the Roomba and emptying it’s dirt chamber occasionally.

Of course, at $300 and up (although a refurbished model goes for $200) such convenience is not cheap.

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On a more pertinent suit another company, Interlink, is launching legal action because they claim the Wii controller is infringing on their patents for a remote controlled pointer device.

Pictured here to the right, is Interlink’s pointing device. These remotes are not used in a game system (operating as a PC mouse for presentations) however, other companies have successfully taken legal action against console manufacturers for similar technologies, such as the rumble feature in Sony’s Playstation controllers.

Interlink is claiming lost profits and royalties. I’m not sure that Nintendo Wii users are forgoing purchasing remote office devices because they have a game console. I would surmise that, if anything, they’re more likely to purchase Interlink’s device due to being familiar with the technology involved, but what do I know?

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First they had to put “HOT” warnings on hot beverages because of stupid people and their lawsuits – now they’re gonna have to label electronic children’s toys with “don’t throw this at your glass t.v. screen, dumb ass!”

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USB Flash Wristband: Yeah, it’s a flexible wristband that when removed has a USB plug you can stick in and use the flash like a drive. Very cool.

Pocket Scanner: A small scanner, approximately 9 inches long and about the thickness of a permanent marker. Drag it over any page and it scans to onboard memory (I believe it could do 11 pages) then you can unload it to your PC. If I where a spy, I’d find this very cool. But I’m not, so the chances of me buying one is slim to none.

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