Audiophiles won't be caught dead using the earphones that came with their MP4 payer or music phone. They are always out for a set of earphones or headphones that offer better sound quality and look cool while sounding good. Future Sonics sells a line of earphones that are certainly aimed at the audiophile and the companies latest are called the Atrio Special Edition.

The ASE earphones use a new MG7 transducer and have TrueTimbre audio quality to deliver rich, full sound to the listener. The earphones use multiple drive earphones have no crossover allowing them to be used on stage, in a studio, or plugged into your iPod. The earphones also have noise-isolating tips and come with several tip sizes for a custom fit. The drivers are also designed to deliver quality audio for a rich sound at lower volumes to protect the wearers hearing. Future Sonics earphones have been used by musicians like U2 and Phil Collins.

The ASE earphones have a frequency response of 18Hz - 20,000Hz and a sensitivity level of 112dB @ 30Hz. The ear tips can block up to 26dB of external sound to reduce the noise and allow the user to use lower volumes. The earphones are offered in a special edition brown color and come with a zippered case. The case is green with construction from rubber reclaimed from old inner tubes. The earphones sell for $229.

If you are an audio fan that has dreamed of playing a guitar instead of just listening to your favorite tracks or playing games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero Rockmaster is for you. This new stagekit is from Peavey Guitars and Wicked Audio and it packs in everything an aspiring musician needs to start playing the guitar for realz.

The kit includes a 5-in- bundle with a guitar, internal dual channel headphone amp, cable, integrated digital tuner, a strap, picks, and a GT-5 amplifier. That GT-5 amp has an MP3 input that will let the player plug in a MP3 player to play along with their favorite tunes on a real guitar. Wicked Audio also adds a set of its black Jaw Breakers earbuds to the kit.

"Peavey Guitars is a leader in the world of guitars, music accessories and everything rock, and we pride ourselves on providing ground-breaking accessories for musicians and consumers alike," said Paul Marshall, VP of Sales. "With interactive and simple music composition being such a huge trend, this is an ideal partnership to continue providing our customers what they demand." Rockmaster will land in Best Buy stores this fall for $199.99 and will hit other retailers next year.

Galaxy is one of the card partners that offers NVIDIA video cards. Not too long ago when the GTS 450 debuted, Galaxy was one of the companies with cards on launch day. Those GTS 450 cards were decent enough considering the price the cards sold for. There were probably bunches of gamers out there that liked the price of the card and wished that the clock speeds were a bit higher. For those people Galaxy has unveiled the new GTS 450 Hall of Fame edition.

The HoF edition of the video card shares the common features of all the GTS 450's with support for things like DirectX and CUDA. The big difference in this HoF and the standard GTS 450 card is the clock speeds. Galaxy overclocks the HoF version at the factory with a graphics clock of 1000MHz, a processor clock of 2000MHz, and a memory clock of 4100MHz. The card also has a special 3+1 phase power supply for improved performance.

Another special feature of the HoF edition card is that it has a unique cooling system with dual fans and four heat pipes to draw the extra heat from the card. "Our new GTS 450 Hall of Fame edition demolishes the competition with a core clock of 1000Mhz." said Shane Vance, US Sales, Galaxy. "Our custom cooler, Samsung 0.4ns GDDR5 memory and Galaxy designed board allow us to achieve these insane speeds."

Telstra is really pulling out all the stops for their T-Touch Tab.

Due out in a few days, the mobile tablet promises to gel all of the features available on smartphones (apps, internet, etc) with a larger touch screen, that will bring gaming, video, e-books and web browsing to life, kinda like the iPad.

Telstra are set to launch the T-Touch Tab on Tuesday next week (2nd of November) - the 7 inch tablet is powered by Google's Android OS, set to be $299 on Pre-Paid, it looks to be great value for money. Where it gets it's kick start from is the ability of the Android market with 100, 000 applications and counting.

Apple's fiscal 2010 report is out (10-K form) - the document is filled with information and details on the state of Apple's business - one big flashing light is just how much Apple spend on advertising in 2010.

In previous years, Apple spent $467 million in 2007, $486 million in 2008, $501 million in 2009 and this year Apple have spent an astonishing $691 million on advertising alone - a $190 million increase from last year alone. Even more surprising, Apple is continuing their trend of lowering the percentage of revenues spent on advertising.

While $691 million is a lot on advertising - keep in mind Apple had total revenues of over $65 billion - this equates to around 1 percent of their revenue, spent on advertising. Last year, that percentage was 1.37 and in 2007 it was 5 percent.

If you are a Wii gamer, you probably have a MotionPlus accessory that you use for some of your games. I think that we can all agree that having that MotionPlus accessory sticking off the end of your controller isn't the ideal way to get better control in your games. Nintendo is working on a new controller that has MotionPlus built-in. Sunflex has announced the Snakebyte controller claiming the title of first third-party controller to integrate MotionPlus.

The official name for the Wii Remote is the Snakebyte Premium Remote XL+ controller for Wii with Motion Plus. That is a seriously long name for a controller. The Snakebyte supports up to four players just as the normal Wii Remotes do. It also has an integrated speaker, memory settings, and vibration effects just as the factory controllers do.

The Snakebyte controller gets power from an internal rechargeable battery that charges from the USB port on the Wii or a computer. The controller also features an external sync button so you can synchronize to Wii consoles without having to remove the battery door. The controller is shipping now for $34.99. That price is only $5 cheaper than the official Nintendo controller with MotionPlus built-in, I'd rather spend the extra $5 and get the real deal personally.

On the short list of notable gaming peripheral makers along with Logitech is Razer. The company has been crafting weapons for gamers for years now and has offered a mouse specifically for MMO gamers in the past with lots of buttons and macro features to make play more fun. Razer has now announced a new gaming keyboard called the Anansi Expert MMO gaming keyboard that is designed specifically for the MMO gamer.

The keyboard has seven thumb-based modifier buttons that allow the player to increase their command count from the roughly 12 most keyboards offer to seven times that amount. The keyboard supports over 100 programmable keys and has macro recording on the fly during play. The keyboard supports up to 20 different profiles for individual games or for each player avatar at the press of a button.

There are five more programmable gaming keys on the left side of the keyboard that can be bound to whatever the player desires. The keyboard is backlit and has media keys as well for controlling your media when you aren't playing a game. The keyboard measures in at 515mm L x 190mm W x 22mm H and will work with PC or Mac computers. Razer expects to ship the keyboard for $99.99 starting in December with pre-orders starting "soon."

I think that 3D has been one of the most talked about (and perhaps over talked about) new technologies for the home theater and computer user this year. The thing that is so strange to me is that 3D on the computer is far from new. Gamers have had 3D drivers for years for gaming despite the huge influx of new 3D machines hitting the market this year. HP unveiled the cool Envy 17 3D notebook a while back and the machine is now shipping.

If you want to get your hands on the thin and powerful Envy 17 3D notebook prices start at $1599.99 and the machines are shipping right now directly from HP. The base configuration gets you a Core i7-720QM CPU, HD 5850 graphics, 6GB of RAM, 500GB of storage, and a 17.3-inch 1080p 3D display. The 3D machine also ships with HP's active shutter 3D glasses for enjoying those 3D effects.

HP offers a number of options for the machine that will run the starting price up considerably. HP's recommended configuration will cost you $1849.99. Shipping on the machines is free and there are some other nice savings being offered for accessories like 50% off a 6 or 9-cell battery for the notebook, and $20 off LoJack for notebooks.

Sceptre is generally associated with small screen TVs and display for computers. Most of its offerings that are for watching TV can be used as a computer screen as well. Generally, the company is associated with displays for computer users that have interesting case colors like chrome or pink. The company also makes dedicated TVs as well with its latest offering being the new 42-inch LED TV you see below.

The new TV sells for $1299 making it affordable considering the huge amount of connectivity the set has and the fact that it is LED backlit. The screen offers full HD 1080p resolution and has a 6.5ms response time. Response times don't mean much, but the screen should be fast enough to have no issues with motion blur when gaming or watching your favorite shows.

The connectivity is really impressive on the TV with five HDMI ports, my TV has only two on the back and one on the front, which is far from what I really need for my components. In addition to those HDMI ports the set also has component, composite, VGA, and S-video inputs. The stand is made from tempered glass and a USB port and a headphone port are integrated as well.

Each time a new video card hits the market we can expect a rush of individual companies tossing their own branded versions of the card onto the market and computer makers announcing new systems using the video card. This is the case with the AMD HD 6800 family video cards that were unveiled last week. The cards are now being crammed inside some nice gaming rigs from iBUYPOWER.

iBUYPOWER has a wide range of machines that span the gap from affordable gaming desktops and notebooks to high-end machines that only well-heeled gamers can afford. The newest additions to the line are affordable machines and include the Gamer Mage D295, the Gamer Mage D335, and the Gamer Paladin F820. The D295 is an AMD powered rig running a liquid cooled Athlon II X4 640 CPU, 4GB of RAM, and the new HD 6850 video card. The desktop also has a Blu-ray drive inside and a 700W PSU for $899.

The D355 is a higher-end offering with a liquid cooled Phenom II X6 1055T 6-core CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a Radeon 6870 video card. The PSU inside the machine is 800W, it has a 1TB HDD for storage, and a 64 GB SSD for the OS with prices starting at $1,239. If Intel CPUs are more your style the F820 has a Core i7 950 CPU with 6GB of RAM, a 6870 video card, 700W PSU, and a 1TB HDD starting at $1,369.

Qantas announced yesterday it's plans to go "Apple-only" on it's frequent flyer lounges around Australia - giving travellers access to the "latest generation Mac's" in a national roll out.

Alan Joyce, chief executive of Qantas said that the Apple desktops would be available immediately in the Qantas club facilities and that it would be rolled out in other cities by the end of 2010. He said, "We are launching Sydney Qantas Lounges with the new technology from today; Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne and Perth from November; and Alice Springs Cairns, Darwin, Hobart and Townsville from December."

Yesterday Qantas also launched a Frequent Flyer iPhone app - which helps members explore different ways they can use their points, the app allows tehm to track their balance, see where they have been earning points and work out the best way to use them. The free app also uses the iPhone's built in GPS features to to locate Frequent Flyer partners.

Last night at the Astral Bar in Sydney's Star City Casino - VHA general manager of Devices and Pricing, Ross Parker confirmed that Vodafone Hutchinson Australia would have exclusivity rights to the HTC Desire HD forever - this, he confirmed.

The Desire HD is the big brother to the popular HTC Desire handset - which when launched earlier this year was an exclusive to Telstra's Next G network - it ended up being very popular. With the launch of the Desire HD, it will hopefully continue the success and popularity that sometimes can rival the iPhone and now VHA will have that exclusivity.

Additionally, Parker confirmed that there will be no immediate pricing plan where customers can buy the handset outright - this leaves customers having to sign up for a monthly contract with VHA if they want the Desire HD.

iOS fans had the brief opportunity to score a sweet app this morning before Apple quickly pulled it away. iDOS, a DOS based emulator, was briefly released and then yanked from the Apple Store, but not before quite a few people got their hands on it and were using it do run things like Windows 3.0 and some old school Space Quest.

While I'm sure many of you are pretty gleeful at the thought of Steve Jobs tripping out about Windows running on an iPhone, there is precedent for the app being pulled due to it being able to interpret and run executable code. If you weren't one of the lucky few to get your hands on the app, you'll have to turn to either a jailbreak or a developer account to get it going via the sourcecode here.

Google's Android is slowly getting popular, with the help of multiple handsets it is gaining traction throughout the world as competition for the once lone soldier of the battlefield, Apple's iPhone.

Google has announced it has hit the 100, 000 apps milestone - surpassing the number of apps on competing stores from BlackBerry, Nokia or Palm. Even with 100k apps, they're still number 2 in the market, to the iPhone with over 300k.

It has taken Google 20 months to get to the 100k milestone, where it took Apple 16 months to get to the same 100k mark. The more popular the Market gets, the more work Google will have to do to it's Market to keep everything in good order. Consider that it takes a developer and average of 6 minutes to get an App into the Market, compared to *four days* on Apple's App Store - how is it that Google are falling behind in the number of Apps they host?

Nintendo has been busy the last few months with the celebration surrounding the 25th birthday for Mario and for the original Nintendo game system. Nintendo is offering up some sales details on the Wii and its accessories to show off how many units it has moved even if the popularity of the Wii is waning today. The number of controllers sold by Nintendo is impressive.

According to the gaming company, it has sold 46,000 Wii Remotes daily in the US. It has moved a total of 65.3 million Wii Remotes so far in the US alone. That number would be much higher if sales globally were figured into the numbers. Nintendo trys to give an idea of how many controllers 65.3 million actually is with some illustrations. The most interesting is that 65.3 million is enough to give one to every person living in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Detroit and San Francisco, and enough still remains for every resident of Florida, Ohio, Virginia and North Dakota.

That is huge amount of controllers. Nintendo breaks the numbers down a bit to tell how they were purchased. People that bought the Wii console purchased 30.41 million of the Remotes. 12.92 million remotes came with Wii Play and 18.56 million white remotes were purchased alone. So far, 2.44 million black remotes have been purchased and 467,500 pink remotes have been purchased along with 645,200 blue remotes. The number of Nunchuk controllers sold comes to 52.9 million.

If you try to work from an iPad exclusively, it can be done but you will not want to do that with the onscreen keyboard for an extended period. Thankfully, the iPad supports Bluetooth keyboards and you can connect an external keyboard to the iPad and work all you want in comfort. The iPhone and iPod touch also support a BT keyboard in later models.

Photography shop Adorama has been rolling out all sorts of new products into its catalog for a long time and it has a wide range of gear that has nothing to go with cameras today. The latest new item from the company is a BT keyboard called the iBoard Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard. The iBoard supports the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch and has some dedicated keys to access sites with one button press.

The keyboard is controlled by an app that gives shortcuts to the favorite apps on the device and the favorite websites of the user. The Flashpoint iBoard kit sells for $69.99 and has the same specs as the original Apple wireless Bluetooth Keyboard with the addition of the single key shortcuts. The app is on the App Store right now at no charge. The kit also includes a free iBoard waterproof skin to protect the keyboard from spills.

Western Digital is a big player in the storage market with a huge range of traditional storage drives for notebooks, desktops, enterprise, and media center needs. The company has announced that it has added a new streaming media player to its WD TV media player line. The new player is called the WD TV Live Hub and it has some very nice specifications.

The machine has support for full HD 1080p resolution and has 1TB HDD integrated that can store content from computers on the same network. The device will be offered exclusively at Best Buy online and will be inside all Best Buy locations around the country as well. The WD TV Live Hub supports streaming of flicks through Blockbuster on Demand the same day that the titles are released on disc. The device also supports YouTube, Netflix, Pandora, and a lot more.

It supports multiple video formats including .mkv, .mp4, and .mov. The HDD is small and quiet with the performance needed to stream video without any playback issues. Data can be transferred to the internal HDD from Mac and PC systems or from external HDDs, cameras, and devices directly attached to the dual USB ports of the player. Users can also stream the video from the device directly to an iPhone, iPad, or Android smartphone with third party applications installed. The streaming media player sells for $199.99.

We just got back from the Taipei launch event of the ViewSonic ViewPad7 at the second largest building in the world, 101.

There ViewSonic took the chance to officially announce its new 7-inch tablet computer appropriately called the ViewPad7. It comes installed with Google Android 2.2 and initially from our first look today it seems to be a capable little device.

It is powered by a 600MHz Qualcomm MSM 7227 processor and comes with 512MB of RAM. Sadly there is only 512MB of onboard NAND flash for your storage needs, but the device does support a single Micro SD slot for additional capacity up to 32GB - at an additional cost, of course. Moving on the 7-inch display is based on TFT WVGA technology and supports a capable resolution of 800 x 480. The screen has nothing on the iPhone 4, but it still works pretty well. It also comes with 802.11 b/g wireless as well as 3.5G (quad band). You can make calls from this thing, but you'd probably look a little silly holding it up to your ear. Rounding things out the device also comes with Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, front and back camera, GPS (and AGPS) support and it seems to work rather well using Google Maps.

Firesheep is something that has been popping up around the place for a few days - I thought I'd share it here for the uninformed, or at least, if you didn't know - pass the news on to someone you know who uses unsecure Wi-Fi.

The above picture shows what it would look like - allowing you to login as another person on the open wifi network.

A Seattle based programmer, Eric Butler has released an extension for Firefox which shows you a graphical list of the online accounts of everyone sharing an open wifi network with you - with a simple single click, you're instantly logged in as them.

As with other Apple devices of late, the new MacBook Air has been taken down a dark alley, bashed across the head and taken advantage of - but, in a good way.

We knew this before, but with it being opened it's now confirmed - the new MacBook Air is next to impossible to do self-service on, as it uses mostly propriety components. The interior is secured using five-sided Torx T5 screws - where as the rest of the components are so customised that it would be near impossible to find them in a parts store.

Interestingly, the SSD is what most people (as well as myself) want to see, instead of the standard 2.5" SATA SSD drive - they use a unique Toshiba SSD, looks purdy!