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Cybernaut

There are some deals coming that you're not going to want to miss. For example, Nintendo has announced that the next generation Wii will be available in 2012 and then dropped the price of the first generation Wii by $50 to $150.

There are some deals coming that you're not going to want to miss.

For example, Nintendo has announced that the next generation Wii will be available in 2012 and then dropped the price of the first generation Wii by $50 to $150. It's a slightly different package - it will come with Mario Kart and a steering wheel attachment instead of Wii Sports.

Nintendo is expected to show off the next generation Wii as early as June, which should be good for building buzz but could also destroy Wii sales. A price drop is a good tactic, and it won't be hard to get $150 in value out of the first generation system.

If you want a tablet but don't have $500 to spend, Barnes & Noble has dropped the price of a Nook Color to $249 as it prepares to launch the third generation of its e-book readers.

The Nook Color is not a bad deal, especially if you plan to use it mainly for books anyway and the growing number of interactive titles out there. The 1024x600 screen (seven inches) is quite nice, it supports a wide variety of music, video, photo and e-book file formats, it has a web browser that can do Flash - something most other tablets other than the RIM Playbook can't do - it has email and productivity software and a wide variety of apps including some games. It also has removable storage, so really the sky is the limit.

The battery life is a reasonable eighth hours and it has onboard WiFi for connecting to the web and a built-in accelerometer. The processor and internal specs are on the light side but more than up to the task.

The primary reason to buy this is as an e-book reader, but it does a lot more than that and does it reasonably well. Best of all, you can root it (expert only) and get it to run Android 3.0. That opens up the Android store and thousands of apps.

And at that price - you can buy two for the cost of most tablets - it's something you can pass on to your kids with lots of interactive kids books, paint programs and games to mess around with. Check it out at www.barnesandnoble.com/nookcolor/.

I'm also predicting a drop in the price of a PS3, based on the massive theft of data from both the Playstation Network and Sony Online Entertainment. It's being called the biggest data theft of all time, affecting over 100 million customers - names, email addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers, passwords, and, in some cases, credit card data. Sony's been called out by governments in the U.S. and Canada, and there are class action suits being launched.

But besides the fact that Sony kind of sucks when it comes to protecting personal information (a lot of it wasn't encrypted), they still make awesome technology. The company isn't going to want to lose its momentum there, or risk losing the next generation, so I'm expecting a dip in PS3 costs to make everybody forget all about that whole unfortunate data thing.

Now's not a bad time to buy a desktop PC either, especially if doesn't have the newest, next generation processors and graphics cards - which only the people doing things like photo editing and high-end gaming really need.

All of the chip companies are also in the middle of increasing from "duo" to "quad" configurations, and there are some great deals available. Consider; $349 will get you a Dell Inspiron Zinio HD, which makes an awesome media PC if you hook it up to your TV (easily done with a full range of ports). New iMacs announced last week should make older iMacs cheaper. The rush to tablets has also resulted in a big price drop for laptops of all sizes.

 

A browser plug-in for research

If you're a student or your work/hobby involves doing research online then you're going to need this plug-in. It's called Scrible (www.scrible.com), a free took that lets you save web pages for later without worrying about broken links, annotate pages right in your browser, organize your research by colour-coded highlights and navigation tools, and access your research through the cloud.

If this sounds like something you might find useful, visit the website and watch the video to see it in action.

 

China's iPad 2 launch comes to blows

China has always been a bit different when it comes to technology, with less focus on brand names than you might see in another market. After all, they make the majority of the electronics in the world and making good-quality knock-offs for a fraction of the price comes naturally.

However, the launch of the iPad 2 in China showed that Apple's brand seems to matter. A lot. On launch day in Beijing and Shanghai, hundreds lined up to be the first to buy Apple's "magical" tablet, and several fist fights were reported - and some caught on film - as customers scrapped over the devices.

You know a technology is demand when...