Not sure what to make of this. FX company Artem have taken it upon themselves (likely with a little cash incentive from Sony) to create an object out of Sony products that… beats. It doesn’t really look like a heart, though, does it? And it’s related to soccer how?

Samsung just unleashed the powerhouse that is the Mondi. This massive handset comes packing with speedy WiMAX support in a big daddy slider form factor. Winmo 6.1 powers the device and it seems that Samsung has big hopes for the huge device as it’s got just about everything possible in a mobile computing platform. Check it: MS Office, WiFi, BT 2.1, GPS with preloaded maps, 4 GB of internal memory, support for push email, instant messaging support, 3.0 MP camera and camcorder, Opera 9.5 browser, HDMI out, and a huge range of supported video and audio player formats.

Sprint and Samsung have just taken the wraps off the Instinct s30 aka Mini Instinct at CTIA. It launches on Sprint April 19th in two colors – Cobalt Metal or Touch of Copper. The s30 doesn’t deviate too much from the original Instinct, but developers can now jump on the s30 with open access to core Java APIs like, Multimedia, Messaging, Bluetooth, Contacts/Calendar and File Access. The Instinct s30 will cost $130 with a two-year contract extension. You can preregister now at the Sprint Instinct s30 page.

I just saw this app the other day, and now — it’s gone! How shocking! It looks like “Wifi tether for root users” was in violation of T-Mobile’s terms of service, and Google has shown its cards by removing it. No one really thought the Android Marketplace was going to be a Wild West of G1 apps, but it’s a little disappointing to see just how locked-down it really is.

Ruh roh. Hitachi exec Sakae Someya along with other unnamed conspirators have just been charged in the global price fixing LCD scandal that rocked the tech world. OK, it didn’t really rock the tech world, but it was a pretty big deal and I’m sure Dell wasn’t too happy about it.

We’re in good ol’ Sin City, fresh out of a pre-CTIA 2009 meeting with HTC. While most of the hardware they brought to the party were things we’d seen at Mobile World Congress last month, they had one thing on the software end that was just out of the oven: the latest build of the Android “Cupcake” release.

The firmware build number we were playing with was 1.5/CRA79. We didn’t spot any major new features in this build – but we did see a good number of things we’d heard about previously get their first implementations. Oddly, we also noticed at least one thing missing since last time.

Imagine you’re a serious Final Fantasy XI player. You might be afraid of someone stealing your store of Phoenix Down, or maybe that Coral Sword you’ve worked so hard for. You might be wanting to take steps to protect your investment. Luckily, SquEnix has you sorted out. It may be a bit overkill, but their new “security token” is probably as secure as you’re going to get. Bonus! Free “mog satchel” with every purchase. Your guy can now hold more items.

Unless you’re like me and buy all your EA games via Steam, you’ve got some serious DRM. And once you uninstalled the game, you’ve still got DRM. While EA has released a few game specific tools for removing said DRM, they haven’t exactly made it easy have they? Well good news – EA released a tool today that will help you manage the DRM from any game you’ve uninstalled from your system that was released after May 2008.

TechCrunch reported on the Mozilla Labs Personas work, allowing you to theme your Firefox web browser. I share Robin’s opinion that Mozilla should maybe, just maybe, focus on making Firefox a kick ass web browser, and leave the doodads and geegaws for other folks. Enter Brand Thunder, a company in Columbus, OH looking to “offer companies a compelling, patent-pending solution for creating a more persistent presence with their internet consumer.”

Samsung is rolling out some new products this spring, and they want you to know all about it. We’ll be looking at three basic product lines: their mp3 players, Blu-ray players, and LED-backlit televisions.

We saw some of these back at CES, but now they’re priced and coming out at a store near you. Lots of info after the hump.

First announced at CES, Yahoo!’s widget engine, Connected TV, is now shipping with the Samsung 7000 series LED HDTV, which starts at $2500. The 7000 series Samsung LED HDTVs can either be wired into your home network or connected through a wireless router that costs an extra $80 from Samsung.

The widgets essentially let you surf the Web while you’re catching up on some boob tube. There are shortcut buttons on the TV controller itself and new widgets can be downloaded via the Widget Gallery. Here you can find widgets for Twitter, USA Today Sports, Flickr, Netflix, Amazon, The NYT, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Weather and Yahoo! Finance.

The advent of the touchscreen era is good news for many, but for the blind it has to be a pretty difficult transition. Slick interfaces like wall-mounted touch kiosks are practically impossible to adapt for usage by blind people since, obviously, there is nowhere to put Braille keys. One company thinks they may have something that works for some devices, but it’s far from a universal solution.

Congratulations, America, you’ve finally designed a product that looks dumber than both the Snuggie and Smittens, combined. It’s called the Peekaru Original Fleece Baby Carrier Cover, and it’s ridiculous.

A patent just came across the tubes a moment ago for a treadmill with “a simulated cobblestone running surface,” the idea supposedly being that running on a flat, smooth treadmill belt doesn’t simulate the harsh old-timey cobblestone streets of Anytown, USA.

Odds are you’ve already played Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. Perhaps you haven’t opened the box, popped out the game card and moved your Nintendo DS’ Power switch to “on,” per se, but trust me: you’ve played the game. And depending on your point of view, your attitude toward the GTA franchise, that may or may not be a bad thing.

If you’re lookin’ for a barebones QWERTY candybar on the cheap, Sprint and Sanyo have a handset you should see. Well, they will in May.

We’re not quite sure why they announcing this one a whole month early, but Sprint and Sanyo have let it be known that the SCP-2700 will be hitting the shelves (exclusively at Sprint) come May 10th.

This fun little video demonstrates how to become an evil, bitter human being and take it out on the world. An interesting alternative to the Terminator-style robocalypse, and possibly worse, since you can’t shoot nanobots. They’d just eat the bullets.

So there’s a longish—the better ones are always longish—post over at Fast Company that details the perils of using Google to find tax documents. (International readers: April 15 is Tax Day in the U.S. It’s a time that drives normally serene men, if I may, batshit crazy.) If you’re pinched for time, the moral of the story is to actually go to www.irs.gov for all tax forms and whatnot, and not to rely upon Google to steer you in the right direction.