Logitech has been dying to get into wireless whole-house audio like Sonos and not a whole lot of others Now that CNet has favorably reviewed the $400 Squeezebox Duet we told you about at CES, it may well have a shot.

That’s right, in living video, our buddy John Falcone explains the Wi-Fi-powered system, and notes that, aside from DRM protected content, the Squeezebox Duet gets at “any music, anywhere” including stuff from Rhapsody, Slacker, and Pandora, plus internet radio and podcasts.

Falcone was particularly excited about the Squeeze network, which lets you manage all your music online, and says that because of the open-source and Linux-friendly nature of Squeeze, the “tweaker or hacker type” will have lots of fun.

In the written portion of the review, Falcone mentioned that “it lacks the iPod’s speed-sensitive ability to quickly jump up and down through long lists,” something that scares me a bit because I have lots of music and very little patience. Also in the prose, Sonos is mentioned as an expensive rival good for people who want to fill five or more rooms with sound, or people who already own Sonos.

In the end, Falcone says he “couldn’t be more pleased with it,” which is good news for those of us unwilling to start at $1,000 for a wireless audio system, and bad news for the good people over at Sonos. Sorry dudes! [CNet]

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I suppose it goes without saying, but the “Backpack House” concept is probably the most ill conceived design idea ever. Basically, the idea is that the square footage of an apartment can be increased by hanging a 2-ton add on from the roof or the facade of a building. That means that users would have to crawl through their windows to enter a room that hangs precariously over the street below. Fortunately, the idea was intended as a work of art—not an actual means of increasing living space. Let’s just hope it stays that way. [Convertible City via Freshome]

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Garmin has announced a few upgrades to its popular line of entry-level nuvi 200 GPS devices in the form of the nuvi 255 / 255W and the 205 / 205W. Fans of the series can expect improved mapping and routing features, faster satellite acquisition, navigation by photos, FM traffic updates and content from MSN Direct.

The 255 units will also include street level voice prompts while the the less expensive 205 units will offer mapping choices such as the contiguous United States, Canada or regional sections of Europe. The nuvi 255W, 255, 205W and 205 will be priced at $373, $320, $266, and $213 respectively. [Garmin]

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After a long night at the roadhouse, nothing beats regaining consciousness in the morning to a fresh cup of coffee in a brass knuckle mug (version 1 or version 2), then sitting down in your comfy Brass Knuckle Chair to ice down your wounds and unwind. Careful though, the upholstery is white—so you wouldn’t want to bleed all over it. Prices available upon request. [FistFire via DVICE]

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A month after he personally seized the reigns at Motorola’s beleaguered handset division, CEO Greg Brown is already looking to hand off the responsibility—and maybe the flack?—to someone from outside. Maybe a new perspective is what it needs, all those RAZRs start to look the same after a while. Oh wait. [Into Mobile]

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At Microsoft’s Techfest, a researcher was showing off a smart shuffle system that uses tags and meta data like tempo and genre to direct playlist creation in a portable music device. The demo was being done on a first generation Zune.

The system is being developed in direct response to the huge number of songs people carry around on their media players, and specifically the millions of songs a Zune library can stock using a Zune pass. The system automatically recommends new songs based on songs played, and the logic is continuously “steered” by voting tracks up and down.

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Now I don’t want to alarm you, but there just happens to be a binary star about 8,000 light years from us that’s on the brink of exploding. Not a big deal normally, but this one happens to have its pole pointed right at us, which means that if it explodes in a gamma-ray burst it could shoot a beam of destructive, ozone-layer-melting gamma rays at us all Death-Star-like.

There are enough ifs involved in the situation to make the likelihood pretty slim, but this is definitely one of those situations that astronomers are keeping a careful eye on. It all revolves around WR 104, a humungous star classified as a Wolf Rayet star. Generally, these blow up as a supernova, which is no biggie. But sometimes, they blow up as gamma-ray bursts. What’s that mean?

When a very massive star explodes, the inner core collapses, forming a black hole, while the outer layers explode outwards. Due to a complex and fierce collusion of forces in the core, two beams of raw fury can erupt out of the star, mind-numbing in their power. Composed mostly of high-energy gamma rays, they can carry more energy in them than the Sun will put out in its entire lifetime. They are so energetic we can see them clear across the Universe, and having one too close would be bad.

Oh, well at least we will avoid it since it only shoots that energy out the poles, right? Uh, well, actually, its pole seems to be aimed right for us. And what happens if it does hit us?

Models of a GRB exploding at roughly the same distance indicate that the immediate impacts are damage to the ozone layer, and the creation of nitrogen dioxide, which is basically smog. Gamma rays emitted by the burst would hit ozone molecules and shatter them, and models indicate that a GRB at this distance could deplete the ozone layer by 30% globally, with local pockets depleted by 50%. It would take years for the ozone to recover from that. Note that the ozone holes we have been dealing with the past few years are actually depletions of less than 5%. Obviously, this is a big deal.

The good news is that we don’t know when this guy is going to explode, be it tomorrow or 20,000 years from now, and we don’t know how it’ll explode either. Basically, the chances are really slim that anything bad will happen, but I just wanted to add a nice dose of apocalyptic dread to your afternoon. You are welcome! [Bad Astronomy via Neatorama]

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We have all seen the futuristic sci fi movies and TV shows with their fancy technology, and the question we all ask ourselves at one point or another is “when are we going to get some of that?” Unfortunately, the answer is “not very soon” when it comes to most of the choices listed below. So the question is: which future technology would you like to see most? Teleportation, time travel, laser weapons, gadgets that can miraculously cure illness, robots that will do your bidding, or robots you can have sex with (a guy can dream can’t he?)

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you’re viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

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When we last saw the $25,000 all-singing, all-dancing ITC One, the one component it mysteriously lacked was a Blu-ray player, throwing in its lot with an Xbox 360 HD DVD setup. Stepping to the times, it’s been updated to support our new optical overlords with a standalone Blu-ray drive. It’s a little bizarre they didn’t go with a PS3—it’s the most futureproof Blu-ray player on the market since it’ll support the 2.0 spec that most won’t, plus hello, games. But if you were opening your wallet before that sentence, it’s not like it matters to you anyway. [Crave via Kotaku]

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