Or, of course, that’s just the point: home theatre PCs (HTPCs) aren’t supposed to look like PCs, they’re supposed to look like the typical A/V components. In this respect, at least, Alienware has hit a home run (except for the out-of-place alien head, but what are they supposed to do? That’s their logo!). The specs are a curious choice, from the AMD Athlon X2 4600+ (why no Core 2 Duo?) and relatively low-end nVidia 7600 GS (why no ATI/AMD card with its enhanced AVIVO capabilities?), resulting in lower-than-expected performance results. And, the price is up there: $3,199. There are some other faults, but overall, this looks like a decent HTPC if you just gotta have one NOW.

I sure hope so. Modular PC’s make perfect sense. Start with a core module that provides the basic guts of the machine–in this case, a Core 2 Duo T7600, 2GB of fast RAM, a hard drive, and embedded graphics–then add components as needed. It’s worked for A/V equipment for decades now. Eventually, a standard will emerge whereby different vendors can provide different modules, all interchangeable and interoperable. That’s my dream, anyways. Looks like MiniPC has a good start on this concept with the SA800–and, maybe, it’ll even make it to the US someday.

Didn’t you wish as a child as you wore your 3D glasses, everything you saw was in 3D? Well, here’s a company that came up with a wired/wireless 3D glasses that allows you to play your PC games and have it virtually come to life.  They also have some for your DVDs and TV…why not jump out of your seats with everything your eyes are on?

Play the new StarCraft with this and your sure to have UFOs floating in your room. 

The feeling of depth enhanced the visuals by a factor of ten. When I rolled in on my ground targets, I found that my aiming of rockets and bombs was actually a lot better in 3D than in 2D.

Did you ever wonder why science fiction novels or films seem to use older, outdated technology in their visions of the future? Chalk it up to the influence of steam punk, a genre of speculative fiction that re-imagines the future with gadgetry of the past.

While the others peer 15 minutes into the future, steampunk envisions a future that has collapsed onto a re-imagined Victorian past. Steam and clockworks replace silicon logic, brass and copper stand in for titanium and plastic, and airships replace spaceships. Link

Jake von Slatt runs a Steampunk Workshop which is a combination workshop, inventor’s haven and online art gallery, where he attempts to take the new and make it old. Pictured is his Steampunk monitor and computer. Check out the Wired article for a slide show of his various inventions.

Alienware displays yet another product to its innovative, and slightly creepy looking, computer retail line. This time it’s the Area 51 m9750 Notebook. The screen is 17" and includes Intel Core 2 Duo mobile processors and dual 512MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX graphics cards with NVIDIA SLI technology.

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