The scenario has happened countless times before. A pesky fly interrupts a dinner party. Brad, the club's resident tennis pro and notorious alcoholic, takes to his feet, Prince racket in hand, and smites the beast violently into a wall with a few tottering swings. OK, so it doesn't happen exactly like that, but you get the idea. Fly swatter, tennis racket or bare hands, the end result is the same. Boring. Enter the misnamed, but nevertheless brilliant, Bug Bat.

The Bug Bat is shaped like a tennis racket, but the similarities end there. Anything that touches the strings on the racket face receive a powerful electric shock. Gizmag got their hands on one and said the shock is enough to sting your finger if you touch it, and packs more than enough juice to end the life of an insect. Fittingly, the insect's death is punctuated with the satisfying crack of an electrical discharge. And a smile. Your smile.

The rechargeable Bug Bat retails for about $20 (or $3, if you happen to live in Bangkok). [Gizmag]

Our friend Robert Woodhead (of slow-mo Mentos-n-Coke fame) has kindly shared another of his Casio Exilim EX-F1 masterpieces, this time water balloons and china slowly shattering (and occasionally not shattering) to the tune of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. They're a mixture of 300, 600 and 1200 frame-per-second shots, set up in an uncomfortably vertical version of widescreen (tallscreen?), but they sure are fun. When will the slow-mo clips cease? you ask. Never, that's when. [Robert Woodhead]

One fun rumor bopping around the phone sites is that MWg, the smartphone maker previously known as O2 Asia, will be rolling out a Windows Mobile 7 phone in the fourth quarter of 2008, specifically the Flame II shown above. That's about a year earlier than we last heard. Everyone sounds skeptical, but you never know, the timeline could have been Boy Genius, or to see the whole MWg presentation, have a accelerated because WM6 isn't exactly a crowd pleaser. If you want a more complete roadmap, check out Boy Genius; for the original video presentation from MWg, look at MoDaCo. Either way, take it with a grain or two of salt. [MoDaCo via BGR]

Usually camping and showering are either/or activities, but for those of you who absolutely have to cart the body wash and loofah into the wild, the Pocket Shower from Sea to Summit could be for you.

The 2.6 gallon Pocket Shower sports a compact showerhead that operates with twisting on/off valve. Bathers can adjust the stream to produce a slow trickle, or open it up completely for a dousing 8-minute power shower. Want a warm shower for those cool, crisp camping mornings? Leave the black fabric out in the sun.

Alternatively, the Pocket Shower can also be used as a dry sack to transport clothes, a sleeping bag, or those aforementioned beauty products no self-respecting city slicker would be without on the open range. [Sea to Summit]

Far be it from me to tell you guys and gals how to drink your coffee in the morning, but I think this innovative glass mug from France is the future of drink. The mug eschews the standard practice of stirring milk into coffee or tea with a spoon, which must then be placed on the dirty, germ-ridden table of a guest, or worse, your cubicle desk. Instead, this mug uses a float that is supported by a ceramic ball. The tapered sides allow you to stir the drink by giving it a gentle shake, and then keep the float and ball at the bottom of the cup when you go to drink. Safety and design. An ironic twist from the makers of the Maginot Line, if I may so so myself. [Dame de Comer via The Design Blog]

Last time I was in a store, I was like, "Why is there no creepy animatronic sea captain here to tell me today's specials?" Apparently that's what the founders of Characters Unlimited thought too, because they've come up with a vast array of Hall of Presidents-style robotic people—and a few animals, too, like the ever-popular dog in overalls, or the smoking buffalo—aimed specifically at retailers who want to jazz up their stores, maybe after striking out with Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men. The things can move and talk, their lips synched to either live or pre-recorded messages. (Was that a tape recorder I saw?) The company president told Aving they'll do custom jobs, can even clone you if you want, but from the look of their lineup, it helps if you're old and/or disfigured. There's a video after the jump if you're not already properly skeeved out. [Aving USA]

Remember when it was cool to joke about how the vibrating Wii remote looked, felt and behaved pretty much like a vibrator? No? Well, too bad, because it turns out that the two were more similar than the light-hearted humor suggested. In fact, both tools of pleasure employ technology built from a patent from the same company, Immersion.

Sure, Immersion uses an alter ego, "Internet Services, LLC," as an alias for when it licenses the rights to its "teledildonic gaming devices" patent to pleasure seekers of the flesh variety, but it's still the same tech at heart. Next up: A DIY project that turns the Wii Fit balance board into a customized Tantric sit-and-spin BMI calculator. Who's with me? [Boing Boing Gadgets]

When I look at the classic Nintendo Zapper I think of my younger days as a screaming, hot-headed 8-bit gamer, but not Fluffypants. No siree. The enterprising DIY lamp artist looked at the orange and gray plastic and saw a lamp. A few hours and one fabricated cardboard NES cartridge stand later, that laughing dog was back in action, ready to haunt my dreams once again. If this model played the level intro music I'd be tempted to break out the glue gun, but for now I'll just marvel at its brilliance from afar. [Craftster via Boing Boing Gadgets]

The vanity-saturated life of a Gizmodo writer means no scars, visible or otherwise, so this breakthrough procedure for appendicitis is a godsend for those among us who still have the vestigial organ. According to doctors who performed the operation in San Diego, a flexible tube is used to thread miniature surgical instruments down the patient's throat into their stomach. At that point, the fun begins—unless you're an appendix, of course.

Once the tools are safely inserted into the patient's gut, a tiny incision is made in the stomach wall to get at the appendix. The inflamed appendix is cut away, grabbed by one of the mini-tools, and bagged in a special mesh pouch. The organ is then pulled back into the stomach and out of the mouth.

The benefits of this new procedure go beyond aesthetic, as pioneering patient and ex-Marine Jeff Scholtz confirmed in a post-op interview. "They told me to take it easy but I felt great. I was eating pizza and doing situps three days later," Scholtz said.

That's right, no week-long downtime or months of low-intensity activity, and no more huge scars from huge incisions. No hernias or infection either, said Santiago Horgan, of the University of San Diego Medical Center. Doctors say this is the way forward for other procedures, and I'm inclined to agree, so long as we keep the colonoscopy relegated to the rear where it belongs. [Daily Mail]

David Pogue has a quick video review of Livescribe's Pulse Smartpen that does a very good job of illustrating the concept. Worth watching on top of our own review. [Pogue's Livescribe Pulse Smartpen Video review]

Hey, Justin Timberlake here. Just checking to see if you senoritas are n*sync with my plans to bring sexy back to reality television. Next season, MTV's going to rock your body with a new reality game show called "The Phone," to be executive-produced by yours truly. Here's the premise:

Each episode will begin with two hidden cell phones ringing at opposite ends of a major city. Contestants who answer the phones will get to go on a timed mission for a cash prize. While they're racing through the city, a helicopter will track their every move. Kind of like that scene in the Bourne Ultimatum where Matt Damon's trying to get that journalist dude to follow his instructions—but sexy. Also nobody's going to get their heads blown off.

What? You think this sounds unbelievably lame? You're not lovin' it? Well buddy, cry me a river, because last time I checked, I was Justin Timberlake and you weren't. I get to do things like make out with Scarlett Johansson and have four cellphone channels devoted to my life. I think I would be the king of knowing what's lame and what's not. Where is the love, man? God, you guys are such dicks (in a box). [Reuters]

Train operators-in-training will no longer have to deal with plain, unrealistic, standard-definition simulations thanks to a new system that uses full HD video. Jointly developed by Fujitsu and video game maker Ongakukan, the world's most advanced train simulator uses variable-speed playback technology and HD video that was shot on actual train lines.

The simulator delivers an unprecedented level of realism that gives trainees a better and more accurate learning experience. Never again will a train operator not know what to do when he or she encounters something on the tracks (here's a hint: 'stop'). The system just became available commercially for three million yen ($29,000), so extremely rich Thomas the Tank Engine fans, it's time to make your train-operating dreams come true! [Fareastgizmos]

Ultra low-cost PCs such as OLPC's XO laptop could end up bundled with copies of Windows OS after all, if Microsoft's most recent scheme to grab market share works. The company is giving computer manufacturers Windows XP Home Edition at a steep discount to put on ULPCs, in hopes of luring them away from Linux.

In order to be eligible for the price cut, tech firms need to be making low-cost PCs that limit their screen sizes to 10.2 inches and hard drives to 80GB and under. The computers must also not have more than 1GB RAM or a 1.0 GHz single-core processor, and come without touch-screen technology. These limitations help ensure that the ultra cheap laptops won't eat into the market for mainstream PCs running Windows Vista.

Microsoft will charge $26 for XP in emerging markets such as China and India, and $32 for developed markets like the United States. What do you guys think—will the price cut destroy the inroads Linux has been making into the consumer market? [ ComputerworldUK]

John Nilsson is the man behind the jDome, an invention that will give gamers a massive 180-degree field of vision instead of the usual 15 to 20 degrees they get from their monitors. All you do is put the jDome in front of a projector, mirror the image in the projector, change the Field of View and you're good to go. Nilsson's already patented his idea, and he's looking for donations to get the jDome into production—he reckons it will cost between $125 and $200. [jDome]

Japanese semiconductor maker Rohm is looking to vanquish vampire power, the energy wasted by tech on stand-by, with its new LSI circuits. The circuits consume no electricity even when in stand-by mode, allowing for a quick power up without the power drain. Considering that roughly 10% of a house's energy bill goes to these silent suckers, Rohm's circuits could save money and the planet at the same time.

Rohm estimates that around 15 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, roughly the output capacity of two nuclear reactors, are consumed every year in Japan by devices on standby. In the U.S., vampire power is estimated to cost consumers $3 billion annually.

Experiments have already shown that an average game console could cut its power use by roughly 70% if it adopts circuits incorporating the new technology—exciting news for people like me, who tend to forget to power off their Wiis at night. Rohm says it'll start producing the circuits on a commercial basis within a year or so. [Japan Today]

The cops in Canada seem to be getting the hang of the Taser business. Mounties summoned to a British Columbia hospital tased an octogenarian patient after he pulled a knife from his pocket. Eighty-two-year-old Frank Lasser, who was suffering from pneumonia and had been admitted to Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, claimed that sometimes he got delusional when he got short of breath. Did that, however, make it right for the police to tase him, bro?

Mounties corporal Scott Wilson defended his colleague's grandad-bashing actions. "Whether the person is 80 or 20, we are dealing with a person who had a deadly weapon in their hand. We could not deploy our ... pepper spray, because we could potentially contaminate the entire hospital."

Lasser, a former prison guard, reckons they overdid it, claiming that, with three Mounties in the room, they could have overpowered him without using a Taser. Lasser said there were three RCMP officers in his hospital room and believes they could have easily handled him without the use of a Taser. "I was laying on the bed by then and the corporal came in, or the sergeant, and said to the guys, 'OK, get him because we got more important work to do on the street tonight,'" he said.

"And then, bang, bang, bang, three times with the laser, and I tell you, I never want that again." That'll teach him to bring a knife to hospital, then. [CBC News via Dvorak]

The U.S. Military has spent millions of dollars on counterfeit computer components over the years, according to an FBI report. This not only screws over businesses, but it also makes it easier for cyber-terrorists to hack into our systems by putting trojans and viruses in fake circuitry. An anti-counterfeit initiative by the FBI, led to 15 criminal cases and over $3.5 million worth of seized products.

The FBI op, named Cisco Raider, was a two-year-old operation that targeted illegal distributors of fake network hardware, mostly manufactured in China. With the help of their Chinese counterparts and Cisco Systems, the FBI has so far executed 39 search warrants and confiscated roughly 3,500 network components.

The FBI is still not sure whether the counterfeit goods were distributed for profit or for reasons more insidious. Though Cisco says none of the counterfeited goods contained spyware, the threat of hackers infiltrating our systems is very real.

Modern circuits have billions of parts, so it's incredibly hard to detect the tweaked bits that could help nefarious foes take over our military infrastructure. And once the cyber-terrorists take over, who're we going to call? John McClane? [New York Times]

The iPhone is "currently unavailable" at the AppleStore US, following the dry-out in the UK. Does this mean they are waiting for the shipment of the next version? If so, this is a brilliant and rare move for Apple.

We won't know for sure until next month, but knowing Apple's tight command of their stock levels, it looks like this may be the reason. But considering we're almost exactly 30 days from the WWDC keynote, it could mean the 3G iphone is coming sooner than we think. Let's assume this is what is happening. If so, this move is brilliantly kind and uncharacteristic of Apple. What they're doing is trading off secrecy to protect people from buying the first-gen iPhone in its last days before its successor is unveiled. I mean, if you'd bought an iPhone and it was upgraded to v.2 days after your purchase, wouldn't you be pissed? Maybe they'd rather short the sales for a month and not have to deal with thousands of pissed off customers. [Apple Store—thanks, Erik]

Emergency communications kits destined to help the clear-up of the Burmese cyclone have been held up by the Asian country's military junta. A five-man team from NGO Telecoms Sans Frontieres has been waiting all week for its entry visas from the turds powers that be of the brutal regime. And, until the visas are issued, over 175 pounds of vital equipment will stay right where it is, in a Thai warehouse.

As well as printers, PCs, scanners, cellphones and laptops, the kits contain a large VSAT satellite dish, two satellite phones, including a mobile device, routers and access points, wireless relays, GPS, power packs that include car batteries and solar panels. Primary connection is provided by an AsBGan satellite link, with a Gan M4 giving back-up.

The gear will be used by both aid workers and any locals affected by the disaster who need to get in touch with friends or family. However, despite continuing diplomatic efforts, the generals are refusing to allow foreign aid workers into the country to help the estimated 1.5 million Burmese caught up in the tragedy. "There is a lot of frustration among aid workers," says a TSF spokesman. "We want to help the people of Burma but the authorities aren't letting us do our job." [BBC News and NY Times]

TiVo has officially confirmed that Amazon Unbox will get HD content in the near future, but execs at the company say a few kinks need to be ironed out first. The current version of Unbox can't process HD content, and availability is limited by bandwidth constraints—something cable companies are in the process of solving. If a previous customer survey is to be trusted, an HD movie rental will cost $4.99, the same as iTunes. [Zatz Not Funny! - Thanks Dave]

The LA Times has written a sweet little feature about Livermore Fire House's lightbulb that has been burning for 107 years without a break—unless you count the 22 minutes it took to transport the bulb from Fire Department HQ to Station No. 6 in 1979. That's almost a million hours' worth of low-wattage, you know. Unofficial keeper of the bulb, retired firefighter Tom Bramell reckons its longevity is down to old-fashioned craftsmanship. "I believe the bulb has stayed alive so many years because the makers gave it a perfect seal, so no air gets inside the bulb to help disintegrate the carbon filament. This bulb operates in a vacuum and it doesn't burn hot. That's the secret." [LA Times via Boing Boing]

A company called Lextech has created an application that lets you control surveillance devices via your iPhone. As well as watching the action on the phone, the app also lets you control the cameras via its touchscreen. See the system in action in a couple of videos after the jump.

I guess this means no more security guards numbing their arses as they sit, bored, behind banks of monitors. [Lextech via Nowhere Else 2.0]

This Smart Dog USB hub is a bit of a three-in-one marvel. As well as the four USB ports, the bow-wow acts as a shonky computer speaker. Then, if you rip the head off this irridescent puppy, you've got yourself a portable radio with autoscan capability. Cost is $19.15. [Gearlog via UberGizmo]

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