TOP TECHNOLOGY NEWS

Pop singer Michael Jackson is set to sell off 2,000 of his most cherished posessions in an upcoming auction intended to bring in a huge amount of money to pay off his various debts.

Why do we care? Because it turns out the King of Pop collected a huge amount of interesting gadgets and it’ll be interesting to find who ends up with them. We’ll make a quick guess and say that Macaulay Caulkin (hands on face!) will probably not be able to bid on any of the mostly overpriced items.

Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills will manage the huge collection auction from Jacko’s Neverland Ranch, including engraved broadswords, a robotic human-sized head, and even Edward Scissorhands’ blades, seen above.

Barcelona — Acer might have entered the smartphone fray a little late, but it is making up for that by announcing a staggering eight new models, all of which will ship this year. The phones were unveiled last night at a special event in the wilds of Barcelona as part of the Mobile World Congress event.

The phones are aimed at every conceivable demographic, a point hammered home by a succession of Acer executives. (Hint to Acer speechwriters — don’t have your CEO joke about "being the only thing keeping 200 people for dinner" and then have him bang on about "segmenting the long tail" for another half hour before even mentioning the phones). The only things they have in common are Windows Mobile — the old version, not the shiny new 6.5 version just unveiled by Steve Ballmer, and the screens — and that they are all touch screens.

Instead of listing all the specs (you’d just fall asleep), we’ll take a look at two standouts in the range (pictured below).

Bryan Haggerty and his partner Jeannie Choe call themselves "Romantech" because they’re geeks at heart. So it only made sense for him to propose to her this week with an iPhone app, which he designed by himself.

The technological Casanova on Wednesday asked the big question, only after putting his girlfriend through a video scavenger hunt of sorts guided by his iPhone app.

"I thought about all the typical kinds of ways, and they all kind of just weren’t working for me," Haggerty said. "I said, ‘That’s not really how I would do it.’ So I came up with the idea."

Haggerty designed the web app, befittingly titled Romantech, to display a map containing location points throughout San Francisco.

Internet connectivity is set to join pretzels and orange juice as one of the options on airlines as flight attendants roll their cart down the aisle.

After Virgin America and JetBlue, Southwest has become the latest airlines to start testing Wi-Fi connectivity on its flights.

Southwest, along with private company Row 44 that develops broadband connectivity for airlines, has Wi-Fi enabled one aircraft. The company will extend it to three additional aircrafts by early next month.It will also partner with Yahoo to offer an in-flight homepage.

Vudu on Monday slashed the price of its TV set-top box in half.

The price cut brings the Vudu HD movie rental box down to $150 — about $80 less than its major rival, the Apple TV.

Vudu launched its set-top TV box for $400 in September 2007, and just four months later the price dropped to $300. The company’s EVP of strategy Edward Lichty said the "reaping awards of success in the retail channel over the holidays, lower component prices and higher movie revenues" enabled Vudu to reduce the price.

However, Vudu declined to provide sales numbers to substantiate its success. And Wired.com finds the claim dubious, as we believe the price cut has more to do with competing with Apple than high sales.

They say the pen is mightier than the sword. So what would you say about a pen designed to look like a ray gun?

That’s the idea behind the Ray Gun — a retractable rollerball pen, which you’d mount on a stand resembling a gun grip (right).

UK designer Ben Hall created the pen, which will be available mid-February for $130 at ACME Studios.

"No drinking or Smoking Over the Table". So reads the annoying sign in any bar with a pool table, a killjoy message which destroys the whole point of playing the game.

Perhaps these grumpy bar-owners should consider instead the G-1 from Nottage design, a pool table with a glass bed and a transparent, waterproof (and beer proof) resin coating. This resin has been named Vitrik, and appears to be only mentioned by Google in relation to clear pools tables.

Nikon today announced eight (count ‘em) new Coolpix cameras, from a cheap-as-chips $110 (L19) up to the $400 Coolpix P90. The range is, of course, confusing. Nikon gave me a sneak peek of all the new models at
CES this year and even my head is spinning sifting the press releases.
We’ll concentrate on a few key models, and point out the truly useful new features hidden amongst all the usual marketing bunk.

Sometimes the simplest technology is the best. The Watercone, a solar-powered water purifier, is a testament to that.

The cone-shaped device turns salty or dirty water into up to 1.7 liters of fresh water in a matter of hours, according to Watercone.

Here’s how it works: You pour the bad water into a black pan, and then you screw on a cone. The black pan absorbs sunlight and heats up the water. Then, the evaporated water condensates into droplets on the cone’s inner wall, and the droplets drop into a circular trough at the inner case of the cone.

A dissatisfied customer has filed yet another lawsuit against Apple concerning the iPhone 3G.

In a 14-page complaint filed this week, California resident Jason Medway alleges that the iPhone 3G suffers from a defect that makes its connection to the 3G network unstable.

"Thousands of consumers who purchased Apple’s iPhone 3G and accompanying
3G service from AT&T have experienced broken promises regarding the phone’s transmission speeds," the complaint stated.