TECH BUZZ: As usual, the big dailies get to review Apple’s newest phone before anyone else. No surprises: They like it! Beyond the fact that the two-year pricing is actually more than the earlier version of the iPhone, the only other big downside is that the GPS isn’t powerful enough to provide step-by-step driving directions, which is kind of a bummer.

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The Best Links:

1. Walt Mossberg: Note The Hidden Costs
2. Pogue: Costs More, But The Sound Quality Is Amazing
3. USA Today: It’s Worth The Wait

TECH BUZZ: The new iPhone is here. The new specs: $199 for the 8 GB phone, $299 for the 16GB, 3G (much faster networking), GPS, thinner, black plastic back (also available in white), flush headphone jack, improved battery life. The new version will be available July 11th. Plus: Lots of new applications (games, blogging, news) will be available at the Apps store.

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The Best Links:

1. Big Images of the New iPhone in White and Black
2. iPhone 3G — Twice As Fast, Half the Price
3. MacRumors Live Blog of the WWDC Keynote
4. Gizmodo’s WWDC Liveblog
5. Engadget’s Live Keynote Coverage
6. You Can’t Buy it Until July

TECH BUZZ: Dell has released photos of their first ever mini laptop, meant to be a low-cost alternative for developing countries. The third world is always getting all the cool gadgets! This one should also be available here in June, starting at $399 (according to speculation).

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The Best Links:

1. Exclusive: Dell Mini Inspiron, Their First Mini Laptop - PHOTOS!
2. Some Specs Revealed: Screen-Size, OS, etc
3. It’ll Launch In June and Start at $399
4. Looks Nice But No DVI OR HDMI???
5. Dell Mini Inspiron PC Netbook Spotted at the All Things Digital Conference
6. Official Photos from the Dell Blog
7. Is Red the New Black?

TECH BUZZ: BlackBerry announces a shiny new device. Known more prosaically as the BlackBerry 9000, the new smartphone sports a new, bigger screen and faster connection and processing speeds. No firm sales date yet, but it should be available sometime this summer.

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The Best Links:

1. Hands-On With the Faster BlackBerry Bold
2. Very early, Very Brief BlackBerry Bold Review
3. BlackBerry Bold — Official Site
4. Should Be Available “This Summer”
5. John Mayer Blogs about His Blackberry Bold
6. Bluetooth Headset-Wearing Douchebags Rejoice at the News
7. BlackBerry Finally Gets Bold
8. Like Magic, It Appeared at Midnight
9. Bold Announcement Comes Along With a $150 Million Developer Fund for New Apps

TECH BUZZ: Rumors of the next-generation iPhone started a-swirling online again yesterday. Current guesses: A slightly thicker, all-black case, 3G, GPS, and no more stupid recessed headphone jack! We’d buy it for that reason alone.

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The Best Links:

1. A Rundown of the Rumored Specs
2. June or July Launch For the Next iPhone?
3. Another Rumor Says the Next iPhone Will Have Tactile Feedback
4. Cheaper: 3G iPhone for $199?!
5. New iPhone May Have That Glossy Look
6. Leaked: New Case Design for the Next iPhone?
7. Looks Like it’s Just a New Third-Party Cover, Not a New Phone

TECH BUZZ: Who needs a clunky old iPhone when you can play music through your third-generation iPod Nano into one of these sleeves with built-in speakers? Reviews are mixed, but it’s a safer bet than lugging around a boombox (if you just arrived from fifteen years ago, that is).

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The Best Links:

1. Buy Your Audiowrapz Here (They Come In Pretty Colors!)
2. WalMart To Sell Audiowrapz, So Get Your Shoe Insoles, Butter Rum Candies, And Hot Gadgetry All In One Place!
3. “If You’re Looking for Something to Rock a Party, the Audiowrapz Ain’t It.”
4. Best Bet: Stick To Playing James Taylor
5. “For a Portable, Inexpensive and Simple to Use Combination Speaker Case, the Audiowrapz Rocks!”
6. “More Than Adequate for Casual Listening When a Better-sounding Accessory Isn’t Available.”

TECH BUZZ: A slew of new products connect GPS technology with your paranoid fantasies, making it easier than ever for someone to track or be tracked. We know: You’re saying, “Being paranoid about GPS tracking systems is only for technophobes.” But what if we told you we were watching you right now ?

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The Best Links:

1. A Cigarette Lighter-Powered GPS Tracker Blocker
2. New GPS Nav System Tells You About Bad Neighborhoods
3. Blip Snitch is a Handy GPS Tracker
4. A Wide Selection of GPS Tracking Systems From Brickhouse

TECH BUZZ: The Van Der Led WM2 finally fulfills the Dick Tracy fantasies of the shrinking segment of the population who remembers who Dick Tracy is. He was the guy who had a cool watch/phone, okay? The Van Der Led model comes out next week, sports a color touchscreen and 1 GB of storage, and actually looks kinda cool.

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The Best Links:

1. For a Mere $475, Nerd Coolness You Can’t Put a Price On
2. Van Der Led - Official MW2 Site
3. ‘Tis a Sharp-Looking Watch, Indeed
4. “Seriously, Who is This Van Der Led Guy?”

CULTURE BUZZ: A portable sleeping cube geared towards workaholics who spend late nights at the office. You no longer have to feel all George-Kostanza-esque taking naps underneath your desk. It’s also perfect for office slumber parties! Which we have all the time, btw.

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The Best Links:

1. The Official Website - German People Invented This!
2. It’s Like an Office Sleeping Bag
3. Post on Kanye West’s blog about the Nappak.
4. The Most Mobile and Portable of Any Inflatable Mattress
5. Photos Of How the Nappak Works, How It Rolls Up
6. More Example Photos
7. Not an Inconspicuous Way to take Power Naps at the Office
8. “It promotes power napping and helps the body’s biorhythm”

TECH BUZZ: Digital cameras that look like old manual cameras. Everyone’s obsessed with how slim and sleek their digital camera is, but sometimes you just want something clunky and old school.

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The Best Links:

1. Leicas Retro D-Lux 3 Digital Camera - With 60s-style Leather Case
2. New Rolleiflex MiniDigi AF5.0 - Japanese People Make the Cutest Things!
3. The Retrostyled Leica M8 10.3MP Digital Camera - Only $6k!
4. Samsung NV7 OPS Digital Camera - Simple and Basic Black Camera
5. Vivitar Retro-look Entry Level Digital Camera Looks Kinda Like an 80s Plastic Camera
6. Minimalist USB Digital Camera in Bright Monochromatic Colors
7. Mini Digital Camera Looks Like a Twin Lens Rolleiflex - Priced at $420

TECH BUZZ: A fully-automatic, basically silent mower that can pull extra energy from the sun. These just launched in the UK and go for about $4000 - which means they’re worth every penny for the lazy among you. Robots are taking over our lives, get used to it.

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The Best Links:

1. A Video of the Auto Mower in Action
2. Americans Do Love to Mow
3. Totally Quiet, and Almost Zero Emissions
4. May Cut Down of the Incidence of Lawn Mover Guy/Bored Houswife Affairs

MUSIC BUZZ: A new sampler/synthesizer out of Japan that also puts on a light show. Perfect for coming up with song sketches on those long drives in the tour van between gigs and performing avant-garde dance folk live. It’s sort of like the Monome , but easier for the beginner to grasp.

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The Best Links:

1. Welcome to the Future of Loops
2. “The beauty of the thing is how instantly gratifying it can be to an absolute beginner”
3. Overhead Demo of the Tenori-On in Action
4. Jim O’Rourke Works That Tenori-On
5. A Bunch of Tenori-On Videos on YouTube
6. You May Remember Me From The Grammys?

TECH BUZZ: A stretchy, bendable cellphone concept. OMG it’s the phone of the FUTURE - it bends and contorts and cleans itself. Also, it isn’t likely to be available for at least another seven years. Hopefully Apple isn’t working on bendy materials, too, or Nokia is screwed.

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The Best Links:

1. It Slices, It Dices, It Can be Used as a Solar Cell: Morph in Action
2. Nokia%u2019s flexible cellphone rolls up, stretches - SlipperyBrick
3. Demo at the MoMA
4. Not Realistic Yet, But Plenty Cool
5. Commenters See This as a Desperate Plea For Attention
6. Just a Concept, For Now
7. Yep, Keep Those Fingers Crossed

FOOD BUZZ: An absorbent bag for your greens. We’d like to get two of these: One for home use, one to carry around with us in case there’s a salad emergency.

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The Best Links:

1. SaladSac is the Answer, But What is the Question?
2. Even Better Than a Paper Towel
3. It’s Real Cute, Too
4. Oh, The Handy Salad Sac

TECH BUZZ: Nokia’s latest addition to its high-end mobile line is getting a lot of attention. Just unveiled at Mobile World Congress 2008, the N96 sports GPS, an accelerometer, 16GB of storage, a 5MP camera, DVD-quality video, a 2.8-inch screen, Wi-Fi, and a handy kickstand for desktop viewing.

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The Best Links:

1. Hands-On Video of the Nokia N96
2. The Nokia N96 redefines “high-end” - Engadget
3. The Nokia N96 Super Cellphone is Official: Gallery and Specs Here
4. N96 Official Site
5. N96 Buzz on Google Trends
6. Nokia N96 Unveiled

TECH BUZZ: A new cheap, tiny, highly anticipated notebook computer. Despite many delays, the lil’ CloudBook (9 inches long, 2 pounds, only $399 and running the Linuxed-based gOS system) is poised to give the Asus Eee PC a run for its money.

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The Best Links:

1. Meet The CloudBook - Official Site
2. Everex’s Surprisingly Cheap-o Cloudbook Preview
3. First Impression: Crappy Pointer
4. Has This Thing Sold Out or Not?
5. Next Generation of CloudBooks to Have SSD, Touchscreens
6. CloudBook’s Tiny Debut at CES
7. gOS - Featured on BuzzFeed

SCIENCE BUZZ: The hypersonic A2 jet could take passengers at speeds up to 3,900 miles per hour. That’s Mach 5 for those keeping score at home. Other impressive features: It runs on liquid hydrogen, it looks cool, the guy in charge of the project is named Mr. Bond. Downside: It won’t be ready for the next 15-25 years.

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The Best Links:

1. It’s Speedy AND Earth-Friendly, Yay!
2. Photo Gallery: The Plane Looks Like Something From “X-Men”
3. It Must Be Pretty Cool to Work at a Place Like This
4. Yeah, Don’t Get Too Excited, Nerd. It “Could” Be Ready to Fly in 15 Years

TECH BUZZ: Wacky motorized rollerskates that go up to 20mph are now on the market for a mere $600. They look oddly like they’re held together with silly putty and string. But we’ll bet it won’t be long before we see roving gangs of nerdy white guys sporting these.

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The Best Links:

1. YouTube - A Promotional Video for iShoes - See Them in Action
2. YouTube - Another Video Featuring a Guy at the Mall Demonstrating the iShoe
3. The iShoes Official Website
4. iShoes 2.0 Undergo a Design Overhaul
5. You Must See to Believe
6. These Shoes Make the Segway Look Cool and Hip
7. Some Good Detailed Photos of the iShoe
8. iShoe Specs!

TECH BUZZ: The Jelly Click is an extremely portable, travel-friendly computer mouse that you can blow up or deflate at whim. We want to think the Jelly Click forecasts a big trend that we feel will be big in ‘08: inflatable furniture ! It’s 1992 all over again.

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The Best Links:

1. See Close-Up Photos
2. Thank God There’s an Experimental Computer Mouse Design Collective
3. Fun AND Convenient??
4. Laptop Portability Is Becoming a Must for the Jetset
5. “They Take Space-saving Very Serioiusly in Japan”

TECH BUZZ: Garmin, a company that makes GPS devices, enters the smartphone ring with the Nuvi. The one thing this touch-screen celly holds over the iPhone is that it’s not an iPhone.

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The Best Links:

1. Ballsy Move on Garmin’s Part
2. Official Website of the Garmin Nuvifone
3. GPS-Maker Also Makes Cell Phones?
4. I Love Garmin, But What Does This Have that My Blackberry Doesn’t?
5. Garmin unveils Nuvi Phone
6. Garmin Nuvifone is the Phone of My Dreams
7. SURPRISE! We’re Making a Phone!
8. No Buddytracking?