Medion is a good choice for solid and reliable, if a little uninspiring, in-car satnav devices and is updating its range with the new GoPal P5430. This little number will suit those who find smaller, budget alternatives a bit difficult to manage since it sports a large 5″ widescreen display and full maps of Europe are preinstalled. There’s also an FM transmitter, a fingerprint reader for security, a built-in TMC antenna for navigating your way around traffic jams and Bluetooth for pairing with your mobile phone. Add an MP3 player, travel guide and even a game of Sudoku to keep you entertained when you’re stuck in traffic and it becomes one of the most feature-packed on the market. The good news is that Medion is sticking with its policy of offer a lot for your money and the GoPal P5430 will set you back just £175 when it’s released at the end of the month. - Paul Lester [TechDigest] Medion GoPal GPS

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If you’re wondering what to buy a tech-obsessed relative for Christmas then why not pick up a USB toaster so that they can prepare breakfast at their desk or via a notebook on the commute? Only one slice of bread can be done at a time and it’ll take between seven and nine minutes to toast it properly. It also supports Firewire 400 and 800 for Mac owners and you can remotely control toasting levels via the supplied software on your computer. It’s been named as Best Cooking Peripheral at the Golden Floppy awards, which is the gadget industries most prestigious cooking event. Seem like a genuinely useful invention to you? Of course it doesn’t, its ridiculous, and luckily nobody has really been paid to design and build such an absurd product (though we wouldn’t be that surprised if they had). The USB toaster is actually a joke present from US comedy website The Onion and in reality is an empty box that you can wrap up and put under the tree just to see the feigned delight on the face of the poor sap you bought it for. You still have to pay £5 for the privilege of owning an empty box, but if you’re that kind of prankster you might think it’s a good idea. - Paul Lester [RegHardware] USB toaster joke

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You’ve probably seen the 3G iPhone advert that shows Apple’s baby browsing around web pages, fixing GPS locations and downloading files ‘really fast’. The ad states “So what’s so great about 3G? It’s what helps you get the news, really fast. Find your way, really fast. And download pretty much anything, really fast. The new iPhone 3G. The internet, you guessed it, really fast.” Well, following a number of complaints from customers about the fact that their iPhone doesn’t even come close to the sorts of speeds shown, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has rapped the company on the knuckles and ruled that the advert be removed in its current form. Apple’s argument is that the speed shown is relative rather than absolute in comparing the 3G model to the old 2G iPhone but despite the fact that it does state that ‘network performance will vary by location’ the ASA weren’t buying it and said that it would be likely to mislead. This isn’t the first time Apple has ‘exaggerated’ the features of its products and the ruling leaves the company rather red-faced so soon after its rather puerile mickey-taking of Microsoft in a recent campaign. - Paul Lester [BBC] Apple iPhone advert

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We are not talking about silly Wii peripherals here but the real deal, the mother lode, the real [although without the body chopping laser] lightsaber that Mark Hamill waved around in the first Star Wars flicks. And, a snip, at only £120,000. Used by farm boy Skywalker in Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, this is the original hunk of Jedi hardware. If that’s too rich for your blood, you could always opt for C3PO’s face and metal hands for £54,000 and £19,500, respectively. No? How about a bit of that Indy magic then? You can pick up Indiana Jones’ fedora hat and his whip from Indiana Jones in Temple of Doom for a cool £40,000 apiece. Maybe you fancy some original signed Ian Fleming Bond books or a signed collection of the Lord Of The Rings books, complete with fold out maps? Jump to see some of the highlights. • C-3PO face for $83,000 and hands for $30,000. • Mohawk and Brain Gremlins puppets for about $7,000 each. • The original Jor-El tunic wore by Marlon Brando in Superman for $51,000. • His t-shirt in Apocalypse Now for $20,000. • An original set of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, bound in red cloth, signed by Tolkien, and containing a fold-out map of the Middle Earth for $124,000. • For the same amount you can also snatch an 82-inch flying saucer made of wood, steel and fiberglass from Forbidden Planet. • First editions of James Bond novels inscribed by Ian Fleming, including one that said “To the real James Bond from the thief of his identity”, which was dedicated to American Ornithologist James Bond. These items make up a treasure trove [almost 500 objects] of Hollywood-related gems spanning movies to the silent era. They will will be sold at aution on December 11 by Profiles in History.-Martin Lynch [Source and thanks to Gizmodo US for the pics] hollywood movies star wars

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Know someone who wants an iPhone dock for Christmas but are too tight/broke/environmentally conscious to buy one? Well bleed the latter angle to save face and download and make your own, from recycled cardboard of course. Geeky Gadgets decided to go all Blue Peter and make its own iPhone 3G dock, since Apple isn’t prepared to do it for us, from an A4 piece of card. It recommends at least 200gsm thickness with 270gsm being ideal, which obviously means that those with a decent photo printer may well decide to customise the design with a range of wacky images. Needless to say, it doesn’t charge your phone while docking, won’t synchronise it with iTunes and there’s no video out for watching clips on a larger screen but hey, environmentally conscious relatives will be unable to complain on general principle. You can download the PDF from the link below and if you need further instructions on how to follow a line on a piece of card with a craft knife, there’s a video there as well. - Paul Lester [iPhone Dock PDF] [Geeky Gadgets] iPhone dock Apple

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Ever dropped or damaged your phone by accident and had that sinking feeling that your new, uninsured handset is gone for good? Of course you have, we all have, and speaking from a personal point of view I’ve always been pretty pleased by how well most can withstand being dropped, kicked, drop-kicked or sat on. The only time I’ve had to replace a handset entirely is when it was accidentally submerged in water (never text while relieving yourself after eight pints of beer). I’m a Nokia fan, and tend to stick with handsets from the Finnish giant because I’m used to them and have always been impressed by the features and performance. Well, this very company has recently decided to show everyone exactly what hoops it jumps through to maintain quality standards. Nokia Labs is a dedicated facility that contains an array of weird and wonderful machines to simulate environments such as hot and cold extremes, drop-tests, keypad tests and there’s even one to mimic your phone being slid in and out of a pocket a few thousand times to make sure the fabric doesn’t scratch or damage the casing. It’s a little cheesy but worth a watch, if only so you know exactly how much damage your handset should be able to take before it breaks. - Paul Lester [TechRadar] Nokia mobile-phone quality assurance

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If you’re lucky enough not to have been affected by the economic crisis (ie: you’re filthy rich) then why not laugh in the face of the rest of the planet by picking up a ridiculously big TV? Runco has recently announced a 100″ VideoWall TV (the VX-100HD) to compete with Panasonic’s similarly extravagant 103″ plasma. It’s actually a rear-projection design but is different to most being completely self-contained, which means the rear assembly is about a third of the size of a traditional screen of this type. It’s capable of 1080p resolutions, a contrast ratio in excess of 5000:1 and features ‘positive pressure cooling’ that allows for quiet operation and ‘high altitude operation’ so it can work up to 3km above sea level, so you’ll be fine in your penthouse suite. It’s a little more expensive than Pannie’s screen though, £26,300 to be exact, but look at it this way, you’ll be saving a cool £657.50 thanks to Mr. Darling’s generosity. - Paul Lester [CNet] Runco TV rear-projection

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If you’re lucky enough not to have been affected by the economic crisis (ie: you’re filthy rich) then why not laugh in the face of the rest of the planet by picking up a ridiculously big TV? Runco has recently announced a 100″ VideoWall TV (the VX-100HD) to compete with Panasonic’s similarly extravagant 103″ plasma. It’s actually a rear-projection design but is different to most being completely self-contained, which means the rear assembly is about a third of the size of a traditional screen of this type. It’s capable of 1080p resolutions, a contrast ratio in excess of 5000:1 and features ‘positive pressure cooling’ that allows for quiet operation and ‘high altitude operation’ so it can work up to 3km above sea level, so you’ll be fine in your penthouse suite. It’s a little more expensive than Pannie’s screen though, £26,300 to be exact, but look at it this way, you’ll be saving a cool £657.50 thanks to Mr. Darling’s generosity. - Paul Lester [CNet] Runco TV rear-projection

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We don’t know about you but our calendars [and we have a quite a few] tend to be either (a) free from some bank or religious organisation (b) kid-drawn anti-litter campaign calendar or (c) scantily clad ladies draped over fast cars. They are, then, a very long way indeed from the Living Calendar or, to give it its correct title, Living Concept 2009. It looks like a large clock and in many ways it is, with the hands designed to track days, weeks and months. The large hand tracks the current day [and month] and will do one full circle in 365 days. The little hand tracks the day of the week and the hour. Like LED watches, this looks a bit confusing when your eyes are first assaulted by it, but it is easy enough to follow. I can see some room around the outside for writing reminders but it looks limited indeed and would get head-wrecking fairly fast if you have a day with say, 5-10 things, to do. I’m guessing slapping Post-It Notes on this would defeat the purpose and destroy all that design finery. Designed by Maksim Biriukov for newave.com.ua it’s actually being launched as a product next month. The only confusion - since the site is not in English - is whether it costs $94.95 or $94,950. We’re plumping for the former but don’t blame us if your credit card snaps in half.-Martin Lynch [Bornrich] gadget home

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Microsoft Xbox folk are probably still back-slapping each other and popping champagne corks at the news that the Xbox 360 console has outsold the original Xbox earlier than expected. Just days after the Xbox 360 turned 3 years old, Microsoft has said that the Xbox 360 has outsold the original Xbox, with sales topping 25 million units. It even managed it a week or so early, thanks to the recent bouts of generous price cuts. Speaking to MCV, Vice president of interactive entertainment business for EMEA Chris Lewis, said: “We’ve already surpassed the installed base of the original Xbox - which is a really significant milestone. We’ve been blown away by the appetite of people to consumer digital entertainment experiences.”"We’re at a price point that is uniquely placed - not least of which because we’re in somewhat of a challenging economic time. Ever since we dropped the price seven weeks ago, we’ve outstripped PS3 on a weekly run rate in all the territories we care about in EMEA - specifically the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Russia.” Interestingly, elsewhere Microsoft execs cite stats which claim that 75% of most console sales happen after the price drops hits $199 or less - something the 360 price did just a couple of months ago. Somehow though, I doubt the 360 will be around long enough to push that 25 million to 100 million.-Martin Lynch [MCV] xbox Microsoft consoles

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