Who knew, but apparently the world’s been clamoring for the sneakers that Marty McFly wore in Back to the Future: Part Two. Shoe collector Mark Kurath’s been trying to find an exact replica since he first saw the movie, initially purchasing a pair of 1989 Nike Air Pegasus shoes and sewing some namby-pamby cloth to the tops of them before throwing in the towel.

Fast forward to the present day and Kurath finally broke down and hired a professional shoemaker to build his dream kicks. Total cost? $4000. That sounds insane to most people but for a guy who has over 500 pairs of sneakers in a dedicated showroom in his house, that’s probably nothing. He’s planning to open up his own shoe store early this year.

[Sneaker Freaker via Neatorama]

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Previously foreshadowed but now with some photos and specs to back it up, it appears that Acer will indeed be shipping a 10.1-inch version of its Aspire One netbook this February.

Couple things to note: First, Acer loves the "don’t-show-the-front" product shots, so we can’t really ascertain if anything looks drastically different. The so-so keyboard from the current models will be the same on the new ones. The trackpad buttons, however, will be moved from either side of the trackpad to underneath it. I guess that’s good, although it’d be nice to see a bigger keyboard as well.

Second, it doesn’t appear that there’s been much done in the way of upgrades or improvements under the hood. The machine appears to be virtually identical, spec-wise, to the current models with the exception of a card reader replacing the storage expansion slot and a single memory slot that can take up to 2GB instead of two 1GB slots. Bluetooth and 3G will be optional, too, although the 3G thing’s already been done with that RadioShack promotion.

This all begs the question: why wait until February? This could have been pushed out months ago and sold alongside current models.

Also, and this isn’t aimed at just Acer, but it’s time for netbook manufacturers to either bump up the screen resolution or offer it as an upgrade on build-to-order machines. The 1024×600 thing isn’t doing it for anyone and the 8.9-inch HP Mini Note 2133 that came out a trillion years ago had a 1280×800 resolution, so we all know it can be done.

[macles* via JKKMobile]

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Vuzix will be showing off some updated VR glasses at CES: the Wrap 920AV. The glasses are actually starting to look more and more like semi-normal frames that you might actually be able to wear on a plane, train, or bus without drawing too much attention.

Aside from the new-and-improved looks, Vuzix is claiming that these glasses will feature much better technology that’ll more realistically emulate the viewing of objects thanks to a mish-mash of virtual and augmented realities. Things will apparently appear to be floating directly in front of you, rather than seeming like they’re on a far away screen of some type. We’ll try to take a look at them at CES to see what all the fuss is about.

[via Wired]

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Call me crazy, but $90 for a handsome-looking clock adorned with various pewter Star Wars vehicles seems like a pretty okay deal if you’re a Star Wars fanatic.

Each clock is apparently one-of-a-kind and you can even request certain vehicles, which the creator will add if they’re in stock. Some vehicles include: Star Destroyer, TIE Fighter, Jabba’s Barge, X-Wing Fighter, and the Rebel Snowspeeder, to name a few.

Star Wars Starships and Fighters Clock [Etsy.com via Likecool]

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Billed as "an ultra portable car media player with FM transmitter function," the Plug-in Car MP4 Player from Chinavasion appears to be a pretty simple and straightforward solution to getting some music and movies going in your car with minimal fuss.

Everything’s encapsulated in a cigarette lighter apparatus with a 1.5-inch screen. There’s 4GB of built-in memory along with an SD card slot for adding more storage. Just plug it in, find an empty FM station, and start transmitting music.

The UI looks like it’s probably atrocious at best — as are most of the interfaces on these cheapie doodads from the Far East — but the side-mounted forward and back buttons are likely all you’ll really need to worry about, right?

File support includes MP3 and WMA for audio and "AMV" for video, even though it’s listed as an MP4 player. I’ve never heard of AMV, but hey, if you’re hell bent on watching video on a 1.5-inch screen while behind the wheel of a moving vehicle, then you’ll probably find a way to convert the files.

So how much would you expect to pay for such a device? $300? NO! $200? NO! $150? NO! How about $29.88?! Hooray!

Plug-In Car MP4 Player with LCD Display + 4GB Memory [Chinavasion.com]

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Taking a tip from a Google developer who claimed to have Android running on an older Asus Eee 701, Daniel Hartmann over at VentureBeat.com got Android up and running on an Asus Eee 1000H in about four hours. Geez, that was easy, huh?

The ease at which the Android OS was able to be installed on a computer shouldn’t be too surprising, as Android itself is Linux-based, and it also underscores Google’s goal of getting Android onto more than just mobile phones.

Apparently VentureBeat had a few problems with the sound and networking at first but after that, everything came together pretty smoothly. The screen automatically resized to fit the Eee’s larger resolution and the web browser worked just fine. There’s no Android Market on the open source version of the code but other than that, everything else seems to be the same as what you’d find on an Android phone.

Says VentureBeat:

Overall, we’re impressed with the relative ease of the compilation. Android code is very “portable” and neat. Many observers, specifically Symbian supporters, have opined that Android would have problems because of its “open source” nature, leading to “chaotic code” and tendency toward disintegration as developers take the OS in different directions. If true, that could give more controlled OS’s like Symbian, not to mention the iPhone’s, an advantage. Based on our experience with Android, we don’t see that danger mid-term.

Hmm. Making things easier on developers. What a concept! That just might result in more widespread adoption of an operating system. It’ll be really interesting to see if and when Android turns up preloaded on netbooks as opposed to a custom-built Linux OS like you’d find on current-day machines. VentureBeat guesses it’ll be 2010, although I could see some smaller, more nimble companies loading it up this year already.

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Laptop Magazine’s gotten their grubby little hands on a new concept notebook from Voodoo (HP) called "Firefly." It’s one beefy flying insect, too, at 17.1 inches and 13 pounds.

After the big 17.1-inch, 1920×1200 screen, the machine sports a secondary 4.3-inch screen at 800×480, handy for checking e-mail, various widgets, and even full web pages. Under the hood, there’s a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 4GB of RAM, a 250GB 7,200 RPM hard drive, and two ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 GPUs set up in CrossFire mode.

Other features include a side-mounted multi-touch trackpad, backlit keyboard, Creative X-Fi audio, and a built-in webcam with night vision features. Yes, night vision.

The Firefly apparently blasted through Far Cry 2 with all the settings on "Very High," which is mighty impressive for a laptop. It should be noted that this specific rig might not ever make it to market, as it’s just to show off what’s possible, although we’ll likely see similar offerings from HP/Voodoo in the near future.

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The Dell S2309W is a 23-inch monitor that handles full HD at 1920×1080 resolution and a 16:9 aspect ratio. You also get a 1000:1 contrast ratio, 300 cd/m2 brightness, and a 5ms response time. There’s no HDMI input, unfortunately, just DVI and VGA. No speakers either.

It’s all covered under a three-year warranty. Use coupon code 1V2XKF69BS3MFD to knock the price down to $249, which includes free shipping. The deal’s good until January 3rd and that code will work for other monitors as well.

Dell S2309W [Dell.com via dealnews]

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The wait for a suitable extended battery for the G1 is finally over. I picked up the $42.95 Innocell 1400mAh battery from Seidio.com and I’m happy to report that the promise of 15% longer battery life seems to be legit.

The battery itself is a smidge larger than the standard 1150mAh battery that ships with the G1 and the 1200mAh battery that I picked up on eBay about a month ago. It should be, too, as it’s gotta cram all that extra juice in there somewhere.

It fits in the phone just fine, though, no replacement shell necessary. Surprisingly, I could feel the weight difference at first, but it’s not noticeable enough to really drastically change anything over the long haul. I don’t notice it any more.

Without having actual equipment to test the battery, I can tell you that it definitely “feels” like I’m going substantially longer between charges. I still need to recharge every night if I’ve been using the phone moderately throughout the day, but watching the meter go from green to yellow to red is a much slower process now. There’s no more looking at my phone at noon and seeing that the battery’s halfway gone already. With moderate usage – checking e-mail every hour or so, some light web surfing, a voice call or two — the phone tends to make it until the early evening before getting into the more-than-half-gone range.

As for heavy usage, I sat out on the beach while on vacation and cranked the brightness all the way up so I could see the screen (I usually have the brightness turned all the way down). I then read short articles on the web, using the data connection about every five to ten minutes for a little over three hours before the battery meter went red at around 15%. Now this was using EDGE data, not 3G, as my location wasn’t covered with high speed data, so keep that in mind. I’ve also used the new battery in 3G areas and it still seems to be a noticeable improvement, although I haven’t tried any aggressive drain tests yet.

All in all, the phone feels more “normal” now. Usage seems to be more in line with battery life, whereas before I’d be like, “What? The battery’s dying already? I’ve barely used the thing today.” Now it’s like, “Ah, I just surfed the web for a half hour straight and played a game of Baseball Superstars and the battery’s a little over a fourth gone — seems about right.”

I’m still conditioning the battery and I haven’t put the phone through any vigorous video or audio testing yet, so I’ll update this post if I come by any more interesting data. As it stands now, though, the $43 seems to have been a worthwhile investment.

Innocell 1400mAh Extended Life Battery [Seidio.com]

Previous Coverage: Extended 1400mAh G1 battery now shipping

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I’m on a new kick: silent wake-ups. The vibration setting on the SleepTracker watch I reviewed has turned out to be a far less agitating way to start the day than waking up to a blaring alarm clock.

Even our own Greg Kumparak has developed a method called iPhone-in-the-pants wherein he sets his iPhone alarm to vibrate and sleeps with it in his jammie pockets. Dangerous? Maybe. Weird that he still wears jammie pants? Definitely.

Perhaps splitting the difference between alarm clocks and vibrating pants is the vibrating alarm clock pillow, available in Japan. Designed to prevent waking up your partner, the Vessel Bururu runs about $50 and gently rattles your head until you wake up. There’s a built-in clock/panel on the side of the pillow, allowing you to set everything and the whole shebang’s powered by six AA batteries. Hopefully the pillow itself is comfortable.

[via SlashGear]

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So Apple is facing opposition to putting up one of its gigantic glass-everywhere stores in one of Washington D.C.’s historic neighborhoods, the complaint being that it’d be too big and too modern to fit in with all the other quaint, cute buildings in the area (see our artist’s rendition above).

I propose, however, that the complaint is a cover-up for a much more massive and sinister conspiracy involving Apple, Satan, and the White House.

If you diligently follow Freemason conspiracy theories you’ll know that the Freemasons, who built Washington D.C., arranged the various main avenues that lead to the White House to form a pentagram, with the bottom point of said pentagram spiking right into the White House itself.

Now from the bottom point of the pentagram, the White House, we can draw a new line directly along Pennsylvania Avenue that will eventually run smack-dab into the location of the proposed Apple store at 1229 Wisconsin Avenue.

We can then mark that point and draw an equidistant line from 1229 Wisconsin Avenue, all the way down M Street NW, directly through the middle of two of the pentagram’s intersections, finally ending up at a mysterious address: an apartment here at 40 L PI NW.

An apartment, we can assume, that serves as a pied-a-terre for none other than Satan himself. Connect the line from Satan’s apartment to the beginning of the Apple line, and they reconnect spikey-style in the middle of the White House.

I’ve taken the liberty of drawing up a map and I’ve taken a StreetView photo of Satan’s apartment, pointing out some interesting information. If you’re from the government or Apple, please don’t contact me as I don’t have any additional information for you. I’m just a mild-mannered gadget reporter with a keen eye for details. Thank you, that is all.

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