Don’t get too excited about bagpipe lessons, because so far garageband only teaches guitar and piano, but that’s still pretty cool. Also there are artist lessons by famous musicians. Artists include John Fogerty, Patrick Stump, Sting, Sarah McLachlan, Norah Jones and a few more.

iMovie 09’s new features are the precision editor, advanced drag & drop, dynamic themes and animated travel maps. Apparently the new video stabilization takes some time but has amazing results, perfect for all you shaky handed people out there.

I’m not gonna lie, really the only use I can think of for travel maps are all Indiana Jones remake related and I don’t think it is nearly as big a deal as Apple is trying to make it.

The face detection software is supposedly able to identify the same face in different photos, making it easy to find photos of the same person in your large photo collections.

Geotagging does not only show the coordinates of where the photo was  taken, but seems to say major landmarks if the coordinates are close to one. It also appears that you will be able to group your photos by location, which seems like a good idea.

There also appears to be some kind of facebook button in the bottom corner, and not being a Mac user i think this is new. Edit: This is a new feature

The X-Slim is almost as thin as the MacBook Air, measuring about 0.78 inches and weighing under 3 pounds.  Luckily for consumers, the X-Slim does not share the MacBook Air’s dearth of ports.  The X-Slim has 3 USB ports, Ethernet, VGA, and a multi-card reader.  Additionally, MSI fit the X-Slim 320 with a 13.4″ screen, 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, and even a removable battery.

Apparently, this is one of the first netbooks we have seen that uses the Nvidia Ion platform.  This chipset is supposed to bring better graphics performance to the netbook category.  Pricing is not yet set, but estimates say the X-Slim 320 will start at $800.  Given how well the Wind lent itself to be “hackintoshed”, this might be the closest we ever get to an Apple netbook.

With its circular display and cover that rotates around it, the AURA is clearly influenced by the classic Motorola V70.  These two phones have much in common, although it is clear that the AURA is much more modern and exclusive.

The Motorola V70 cost $400 when it first came out and was the it phone of 2002.  Movie stars were regularly seen with this phone after they were included in the Oscar’s gift bags.  The V70 was known for its rotating keypad cover and white on black LCD screen.  Later on, the phone came in down price and became a pretty popular seller for Motorola.

The AURA takes the form factor of the V70 and updates it, adding a little haute couture in along the way.  The monochrome screen of the V70 has given way to a 16-million color display covered and protected by a 62-carat synthetic sapphire crystal.  The only thing that will scratch that screen is all the diamonds on your fingers.  To protect its aluminum keypad, AURA uses textured stainless steel instead of plebeian plastic.  It takes a full two weeks to machine just the front plate.  Finally, the mechanism that rotates the keypad cover uses Swiss-made ball bearings and tungsten carbide coated gears.  These amount spent on raw materials for this phone can only be matched by the likes of Vertu.

The actual phone specs of the AURA are all too pedestrian: quad-band GSM, microSD slot, stereo Bluetooth, 2-megapixel camera, and 2GB of memory for its media player.

The final place where the AURA outdoes its V70 predecessor is price: the AURA costs $2000 and is in very limited supply.

If we look back in history, back when AT&T was AT&T Wireless (before Cingular bought it and then changed its name back to AT&T), there was another Sidekick competitor called the ogo.

The ogo was actually not a phone.  Despite having a phone number, it was purely a messaging device.  It could not make phone calls, but was pretty good at sending text messages, checking email, instant messaging, and surfing the web.  Imagine it like a proto-Peek, with more features.

Unfortunately, after Cingular snapped up AT&T Wireless, the ogo was dropped unceremoniously from the lineup and forgotten by the general population.  The new Quickfire, which thankfully looks much better than the ogo cosmetically, is its successor in spirit.  It is a good option if you are looking for a 3G feature phone with a keyboard.  It can currently be had for $99, which puts it in direct competition with the T-mobile Sidekick 2008.

In 2008, the Splashtop pre-boot version of Linux really caught on.  Asus bundled its own version, called ExpressGate, into many of its motherboards and computers.  Voodoo also put a “Voodoo IOS” version on its Envy 133 laptop.  The benefits of an instant-on OS are that it allows the computer to used almost immediately.  With Splashtop, you can surf the internet with Firefox just seconds after opening up the computer.  It allows you to access many of the basic functions of your computer quickly without having to wait for a full operating system to load.  An added benefit of an instant-on OS is efficiency; Dell claims that you can get up to 19 hours battery life using its Latitude ON instant OS.

Unfortunately, the way Splashtop works, it is a combination of hardware and software.  Asus stores ExpressGate on a 512MB chip on its motherboards.  Dell even goes so far as to use a separate ARM processor-based subsystem for Latitude ON.

I think Apple’s lineup would benefit more than most from an instant-on OS.  Not that Mac OS X does not start up fast enough, but especially with Boot Camp, an instant-on OS would allow you to use your computer quickly and then choose which OS (Windows or Mac) to boot into.  While this feature may not be useful to everyone, but there is definitely a number of people out there who would find this feature helpful.

Like I said, to implement something like this, there would need to be hardware modifications made to the current Macs.  Here is to hoping that Apple will announce something like this at Macworld in a few days.

The Rolly is part AIBO (Sony’s robotic dog), part MP3 player, and part lightshow.  The Rolly’s egg-shaped body will dance, flap, and light up as it plays songs.  It is much easier to see what the Rolly does than to explain, so take a look at this video below (courtesy of AkihabaraNews).

The Rolly is pretty pricy at $400, but artificial intelligence does not come cheap.

This water gun has two firing modes: the familiar Super Soaker stream and a multi-burst mode that has less range but has more drenching power.  In addition, the Hydroblitz has a huge 101 ounce tank, so you have to refill less often.  It is also compatible with the Max Infusion Backpack, if you really cannot be bothered go back to the hose.  Given the large size of the water tank, it is a good thing the Hydroblitz comes with a strap to make it easier to carry.

For those who take their water gun fights seriously, there is simply no better option than the Aquashock Hydroblitz.  Nothing else provides the huge capacity and blasting strength of this Super Soaker.