Skype Invades the Living Room on Up-Coming Sony Blu-Ray Players

Skype video conferencing on the PC has been the reality for a while now, and their recent expansion into mobile devices has helped turned the software client into a household name. With few places left to expand it should be no surprise that the VOIP solution is coming to the living room, but this time you’ll find it packed into upcoming Sony Blu-Ray players.

At the Sony CES booth in Las Vegas they were showing demos of the interface which requires not just the player, but a separate proprietary camera accessory. Video quality will be limited to SD resolution at launch, and according to Sony representatives they have no plans at the current time to make the leap to HD.

With Video calling being a built in feature of Kinect, I’m a bit surprised Sony hasn’t tried to make this happen first on the PS3 first. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see if they end up changing their mind, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time.

#deals

Someone Wants $15,000 For Legend Of Zelda Dishware

The starting bid is not yet met on this set of new-in-the-box Legend of Zelda dishware from 1989, a three-piece set the seller hopes to sell for $100,000 but will be willing to part with for, presumably, $15,000. More »

Create an LED Blinker to Notify You of New Messages on Your PC

While your computer has on-screen ways of notifying you of new email, IMs, and other messages, they aren't much use when your display is asleep. DIY web site Instructables show us how to create a small LED blinker for notifications.

This little hack makes use of a parallel port on your computer (which you might have to add yourself if your computer is new) and a small Greasemonkey script. All you need to do is stick some LEDs inside the open, female end of a parallel connector (as shown above), download the blinker application (Windows only), and load the user script into Firefox or Chrome. The user script was designed for Facebook notifications, telling the app to blink one LED for new messages and the other LED for other notifications.

While it was originally designed for Facebook notifications, you could probably tweak it to notify you of just about anything—perfect for when you're letting your computer's display sleep but are still in the room doing other things. Check out the video for a demonstration, and hit the link for detailed instructions on how to put it together.

Facebook LED Blink on New Notifications and Messages [Instructables]

Send an email to Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com.

Holy Buckets! Superman Is In DC Universe Online

The online beta for DC Universe Online ended last week, and it went out with a bang. Players were able to team up alongside Batman and Superman or the Joker and Lex Luthor in an old-fashioned street brawl. Now, Sony has announced that Superman is in the game. Wait, didn't they get that out of order?

At any rate, Superman is in DC Universe Online, playing the role of captain of the good guy squad or whatever heroes are calling themselves these days. He wears a cape. The letter "S" is emblazoned on his chest. Sparks fly from his loins. He's basically the Superman that everyone has been familiar with for the past 70 years or so. Really, though, even if he hadn't appeared in the street brawl, would anyone be remotely shocked by the news? Aside from him and Batman, who else does DC have? Green Lantern? Hawkgirl?

This is what Superman looks like when he's getting a spray tan.

innuendo

Samsung BabyView Monitors Still Have Value Even After Junior Grows Up

So Samsung, maker of the multifaceted Galaxy S line of smartphones, makes baby monitors now. More »

#anniversaires

iTunes Turns 10

Back on January 9, 2001, iTunes—just a day old—was a vastly different beast. Hell, the world was a different beast, and by that I mean Apple actually participated in MacWorld. What did you think I meant? More »

#hivefive

Five Best Question and Answer Tools

When you've got a question but no answer, you can always ask the internet. But where do you start? Here are five popular options for finding answers online. More »

#handson

Hands-On With the Ion Audio iPad iCade: Buttons Fit For Mashing

I'm not good at videogames. And while I don't even attempt to figure out most of today's crazy-ass console games, I can certainly appreciate some old school arcade-style button mashing. Ion Audio's iCade brings that familiar satisfaction to your iPad. More »

I Just Want a Dumb TV

#tvs

Hey, so remember when building VCRs into TVs seemed like a good idea? And then how it turned out that is wasn't? Yeah, connected TVs are basically just like that. More »

#userscripts

Better Grooveshark Adds Lyrics, Ad Removal to the Web-Based Music Service

Firefox/Chrome/Opera/Safari: Our favorite music streaming service Grooveshark has been running better than ever since it updated to a Flash-free interface, and now you can further improve your experience with this ad-removing, Last.fm-scrobbling user script. More »

This Clever DIY Briefcase Only Opens When You're at the Right GPS Coordinates

The case is called a reverse geocache and it can only open when it's in a certain spot in the world. It was made with a metal box, IKEA door handles, nixietubes to display distance, a GPS sensor and an Arduino.

It looks like a pretty complicated project (the paint and IKEA door handles as bars do a good job to add to that), but I love the idea of reverse geocaching. It's like the perfect gift box. [Arduinovia MAKE]

Send an email to Casey Chan, the author of this post, at cchan@gizmodo.com.

Open Doors [Game]

Open Doors - How-To Geek Arcade

Kotaku 'Shop Contest: Tron-ify Everything Winners

I'll be candid, I thought I was copping out with last week's challenge. Turn everything into Tron? Giving you no source images? Yet we got more than 700 entries, one of the biggest 'Shop Contests, by entry, ever.

So that made picking this week's top 20 a little tough. Again, we had a ton of worthy submissions. Someone inevitably got left out.

The best of the best? Dillinger playing Angry Birds (Jimmy_Jazz, 12) was a gut-buster. So was xerokitsune's (20) Angry Birds 'shop - I can't stop laughing over the pig as the MCP. Infinituswolf's Prime (11) seems to be saying "Open, dammit, open!" and yes, I'm aware that line was Ultra Magnus'. Kristinn Saedal's Mario (13) was a sleeper hit.

biko (3) and chandan (4) did excellent jobs Tron-ifying LittleBigPlanet and Team Fortress 2. GodhandX (10) came up with a brand of football I think everyone would enjoy watching.

packetloss (14) proves there is no exhausting the Bad Dudes meme. ElectroHarbour (8) put in multiple submissions, and Mario on a light cycle was a crowd favorite. So was Wade McGillis (19) and his Minecraft take.

But duck45 (7) spent forever getting a Minecraft poster right, and it is outstanding. He's my personal No. 1. Who's yours?

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Send an email to the author of this post at owen@kotaku.com.