jcatcw writes in with Computerworld's staff suggestions for the coolest gifts this year. Who wouldn't appreciate either the retro handset for IM or the animatronic Elvis?

BlaineZilla pointed us to one of the earliest annual 'best of' roundups: Popular Science's Best of What's New awards. The winner this year is a nanosolar powersheet that may someday change the way we think about renewable energy. Other winners include the corot satellite, a project aimed at searching out habitable planets in other solar systems, and the world's most advanced bionic hand.

colenski writes "My vote for the coolest toy of the decade so far has to lie with the EyeClops Bionic Eye. As one reviewer noted, simply, "Microscopes never worked this well or looked this good when I was a kid." An ingeniously simple and brilliantly designed product, the EyeClops plugs into your TV and magnifies anything you put it on 200 times. Brain dead simple to use, EyeClops is a cheap $40 US / $60 Cdn gift that your nephew or nerdy niece would probably freak over. Here's some cool and disturbing pictures I got after about 20 minutes playing with it. Check out the money shot." I always struggled to focus through a microscope as a kid, and this looks like a great inexpensive present for a little kid since every cool chemistry kit is totally nerfed now. Any other fun ideas?

Esther Schindler writes "Every year, there's some retailer whose e-commerce or supply chain fails. And it's a big deal, since the holiday shopping season can make or break their year. The IT challenge encompasses everything from server scalability to supply chain management to search engine optimization to database cajoling to business integration to... well, come to think of it, just about everything. To explore this, CIO.com has a big package of articles examining "Black Friday" and its implications, entitled E-Commerce and Supply Chain Systems Gird for Black Friday. Topics covered include online shopping and holiday IT failures. Despite all this—and at least ten years of industry experience in e-commerce sales—we all just know that someone will make yet another big mistake. I wonder who it'll be this year?"

It is well worth mentioning that a post by Tycho over on the Penny Arcade site signals the kickoff for Child's Play 2007. This year they have over 30 hospitals spread across five countries, and (as always) every little bit helps. From Mr. Brahe's post: "At the last Child's Play dinner, a man whose son was currently staying at Seattle Children's Hospital - he'd left him temporarily, to attend - literally could not produce the words to thank me. The depth of his appreciation bordered on anguish. I hardly knew how to respond, other than attribute those comforts to their true authors. The opportunity to be excellent has arisen again. Just as in years past, visit the site proper, choose your favorite hospital, and select your toy. We promise to let you know how incredible you are at regular intervals."

Gamsasutra reports on analyst predictions of another PS3 price drop in time for the holidays. This time, the 80GB sku would take the place of the now fully-cleared-out 60GB unit. "Jesse Divnich from fantasy video game prediction market simExchange has said much the same, adding that 'after examining more closely the hardware sales of the PS3 over the last 6 months we have come to the conclusion that the PS3 cannot remain competitive in the current North American environment at its current retail offering at $499 and $599 ... To remain competitive against the other consoles, the Sony PS3 would have to reduce its 80GB SKU by $100 down to $499. Other options, besides a price drop, could be the bundling of more free software titles, which has always been a popular option during the Holiday season.'"

pluke writes "According to the Daily Telegraph, the Wii has sold 1,000,000 units during 38 weeks in the UK. This makes it the UK's fastest selling console ever, beating the Playstation 2 (50 weeks) and the Xbox 360 (60 weeks). Some industry analysts are also reporting that the Wii has overtaken the XBOX 360 to now become the worlds market leader across console and handheld fields. 'The sales figures are particularly impressive because the Wii was in short supply following its much-heralded launch just before last Christmas [ie, Xmas 2006], and has only recently become easily available again.'"

schwaang writes "Advertising is an integral part of the Web, and its revenues make the likes of Google possible for all of us. But when PR firms promote products by pretending to be real bloggers, some think it crosses the line into unethical 'astroturf'. The Consumerist held a contest for best 'Flog' of 2006. And the winner is... Sony for it's fake all-I-want-for-Xmas PSP blog (which Slashdot readers will no doubt remember). Runners up included Walmart and McDonald's. And the award itself? Well, it's something you might find on on a fake lawn."

An anonymous reader writes "Some coders modified Introversion's DEFCON, the game of nuclear war, by replacing the audio and visual components and some code to make a Christmas mod where you deliver presents instead of nukes to children (Bombers become sleighs, Fighters become reindeer, SAMs become Snowmen, etc). Their site explains the x86 assembly hackery and artistic components of their holiday hack."

digihome writes "CRN.com chooses the ten best new products of 2006, including the best development tools, server, notebook and storage device. Some of the choices may surprise you ... such as their choice for operating system of the year." From the article: "With Windows Vista, Microsoft has refreshed the user desktop experience. While debate rages over whether the five-year wait was worth it, the truth is Vista is pretty much the only game in town. One may question whether Vista should be bestowed with Product of the Year recognition in the operating system category. But the product unquestionably brings new features and capabilities to solution providers that in turn promise new revenue generation dialogues with end users."

Knutsi writes "InformationWeek is reporting that Polonium 210, the radioactive material used to poison former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko is not as hard to get your hands on as some have previously stated. American family business United Nuclear is actually selling the stuff, and other equally exotic materials, on their company website. Could come in handy for the xmas shopping season."

GiovanniZero writes "Child's Play, the Penny-Arcade based charity just kicked off their 2006 season. Stop by, donate and bring some cheer to sick kids all over the world. 'Since 2003, gamers have banded together through registered Seattle-based charity, Child's Play. Over a million dollars in donations of toys, games, books and cash for sick kids in children's hospitals across North America and the world have been collected since our inception ... Last year's drive raised over $605,000 for sick children, and we're hoping to smash that record total this winter. Check out the wish lists, read up on the local events and let's show the world what the gaming community is all about!'"

GamesIndustry.biz has an article up right now indicating that, at least in the UK, Microsoft is worried about meeting demand for the 360 because they think so many people are going to want to buy the console. From the article: "We feel as a company we've done the groundwork to get to a point where we can do the global release; we feel we're going to deliver and have a great Xmas...Will we execute well so retail will have good volume? Yes. But I don't think we're going to meet demand as people are going to come into this platform in a big way."

Mr. Christmas Lights writes "CNet is reporting that Netscape Navigator Version 8 has been released. The 8.0 Beta debuted back in March, with the final version being based on Firefox 1.03, and includes Trust Rating, a feature which identifies sites as safe or unsafe. Netscape 8.0 also includes a toggle which allows switching between Mozilla and Microsoft's rendering engines as needed. The Main Netscape 8 page has more info, and the 'Download Now' page is already serving up the new browser."

Mr. Christmas Lights writes "According to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times is mulling subscription for Internet Archives. It doesn't appear that the free (but subscription required - BugMeNot to the rescue!) ability to read NYT articles less than a week old would change. However, instead of paying $2.95 per article for stuff that is more than a week old, one idea being floated is an annual fee of $49.99 for unlimited access to anything in the last year." (More below.)

Mr. Christmas Lights writes "Dr. Mark Roth at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has successfully induced a state of reversible metabolic hibernation in mice which (no surprise) is getting quite a bit of publicity. Attempts in the past have used cooling techniques, but Dr. Roth uses hydrogen sulfide (80 parts/million) to basically put the warm-blooded mice into an advanced hibernated state, with a drop from the normal 120 breaths/minute to less than 10. Core body temperature also drops as low as 11C (50F) to match the ambient room temperature. The mice recover in about two hours once normal air/temperatures are applied, with no apparent ill effects - apparently there is a mice IQ/motor-skills test. In addition to the obligatory reference to Woody Allen's Sleeper movie, this has applicability for emergency rooms as it would be beneficial to in ER medicine as a way of "buying time" while diagnosis is performed."

IgorMrBean writes "Just before xmas, Novell has released their public beta of Open Enterprise Server. Novell had promise this a couple months ago, and the product seems to work well for beta... Kernel choice for OES : Linux 2.6 kernel - From SuSE Enterprise Server 9, and Netware 6.5 kernel. Also, many improvements for Netware 6.5SP3, including BASH support, PHP5 and more. Download details here (pdf)."

millert writes "Alek's Christmas Lights Webcam is back again which allows you to: 'pan/zoom the webcam and control the 17,000 christmas lights - yep, turn 'em on and off and annoy my understanding) neighbors! ;-)' For those who like a lot of links, check out his christmas lights summary, christmas FAQ (answers quite a bit), what's new for Christmas 2004 (optimization of analog controls and mod_perl on the web server -- he says "I might stand a chance against Slashdot" ... we'll see about that!), real-time Christmas stats (including browser percentage -- go Firefox, currently at 13%), and his analysis of the Slashdot effect." Read on for more.

Mr. Christmas Lights writes "'Have you ever dreamed of being carried into the sky by a giant bouquet of colorful toy balloons?' John Ninomiya does exactly that using 50-150 four-seven foot diameter balloons filled with helium ... and sealed with tape (duct?) and cable ties. Folks may recall the lawn chair man who floated up to 16,000 feet, but John takes this to a whole new level and his site has some wild pictures ... and includes the comment 'Kids, don't try this at home!'"

Mr. Christmas Lights writes "While Google is currently the king-of-the-hill in search engines, Microsoft continues to lag in market share and uses Yahoo's technology/results. But Cnet reports that they'll launch on Thursday their own homegrown search engine , although it appears this is mostly a face-lift (despite a year of development and $100 million investment). According to Bill Gates, they 'will introduce a homegrown web crawler and algorithmic search engine ... later this year,' which is almost certainly their tech preview (you can look at this now) -- but will that be ready for prime-time in less than two months?"