Upcoming gadgets, and currently hot items- literally

Christmas is still four months away, but for the tech industry it’s already time to preview the Holiday shopping season.

PlayStation just debuted it’s PS3 Slim, a slimmer (duh) and cheaper version of it’s console. With it’s 120 GB hard drive and $299 price tag it’s set to truly compete with the XBox 360, which has the same amount of storage space for one hundred dollars more. PlayStation also introduced it’s newest generation of portable gaming, the 16GB PSP Go, and a new, smaller assortment of PSP games. They’re called PSP Minis, and won’t exceed 100 MB. Sony calls them “snackable” gaming experiences, meant to compete with casual gaming concepts usually found on the Nintendo Wii. Among the titles currently available from Sony’s Minis collection are a Sudoku game, Tetris and Galaga, i.e., arcade classics. The Minis store and the PSP Go will go live October 1. The PS3 Slim releases September 1.

Bill Gates, always the one-upsman, is working on a peripheral for the 360 that will, once again, revolutionize the gaming industry. You may have seen Microsoft’s Project Natal previewed on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. The best description I can come up with is that it’s a wireless, virtual controller. A camera/infer red detector puts the player in the game. Like the Wii, a player’s movements control the game. But, unlike the Wii, there is no controller– every movement of the player’s body is read by the detector and is translated into game commands. On Jimmy Fallon a simple kickball game is demonstrated, as well as a not-so-simple driving game. The device’s accuracy seems to be above par. Expect to see this cool gadget on store shelves in time for Christmas 2010. Sorry, you’ll have to wait a year to experience the next level in virtual gaming.

iPhones are blowing up– literally. There have been at least two reports of exploding I-tech in recent days. An iPhone 3GS owner in the Netherlands reported that his celly blew up while it was sitting on his car’s front passenger seat. It was “locked in his car at the time of it’s combustion,” according to a report from slashgear.com, a technology news site. In another incident a teenage girl’s iPod Touch “made a hissing noise,” and within 30 seconds “there was a pop, a big puff of smoke” before the MP3 player exploded ten feet into the air. Apple offered the Liverpool girl a $271 refund but required that the girl sign a confidentiality agreement, which she did not. In both cases Apple refused to admit liability for its volatile products.