Gamers of a certain age will remember the Official Nintendo Seal of Quality. It was a little mark placed on official Nintendo products in the NES/SNES era (well, that’s when it mattered) that let buyers know that, yes, this product has been blessed by Nintendo. It will not harm you, your cat or your NES. Fast-forward several years and now Sony has gotten into the business of slapping their logo on officially licensed gear with the “Official Licensed Product” gimmick.

An arcade on wheels? Now THAT is a good idea. Don’t get too excited, though, as these are basically glorified console setups, not old-school arcade machines. This isn’t about us, though, this is about the children. And the children think Ms. Pac-Man is boring. Ergo, no stand-up arcade machines.

Think back to the autumn of 2006, right before the big PS3 launch. Expecting someone to pay five-hundred-and-ninety-nine-U.S.-dollars was (rightly) considered ludicrous, but the ability to play the entire PS2 library on the system somewhat lessened the blow. But then Sony removed the Emotion Engine chip from the PS3, thus rendering it unable to play PS2 games. (More recent models, like the one found in the Metal Gear Solid 4 bundle, used a just-sorta-okay software emulation method to grant partial PS2 backwards compatibility.) All that may well change if Sony goes ahead and executes the idea found in this recently unearthed patent.

It seems Japanese papercraft art isn’t limited to Origami or Pellermodels but also has something in store for us gadget fans. Case in point: The Paper Speaker [JP], announced yesterday by Tokyo-based Princeton for use with your PC (or any device sporting a USB port).

Not much to say about this DIY transformer except that it’s pretty darn cool. It can transform from a car, walk, and even right itself if it falls. It could use some cool styling – maybe they could stick it into a Yugo body or something – but it’s still much better than anything I ever made in school.

This is a solar vest. You can tell because it says SOLAR VEST in big letters across the shoulders, right above the four weatherproof solar panels. This fine gentleman is carrying more than a few gadgets in the pockets of his SOLAR VEST, which he’ll be able to recharge when they run out of juice.

There’s currently a 144-page thread on the official World of Warcraft message board discussing this latest earth-shattering news: you’ll soon be able to take your Horde character and transform him to the closet Alliance equivalent, and vice-versa. So, for example, taking your Orc Warrior and changing him into a Human Warrior. And then cats and dogs will break bread with each other.

The Wired Gang has an investigation into the hot and burny iPhones 3GS that are coming out, finding that many are getting so hot as to be uncomfortable. Once these reach a certain point they become a toasty brown and could completely fail.

According to DigiTimes, ASUS is blowing out 7- and 8.9-inch Eee PCs over in Taiwan and China. According to me, those same savings may trickle into US markets too!

There are a couple of different opinions floating around right now on how to best measure the cost of printing with an inkjet printer when it pertains to the ink. In these tight economic times, determining that cost has everything to do with how often you need to replace “consumables” like ink and paper.

In 2007, Kodak began its aggressive “Print and Prosper” campaign, which claimed that consumers could save “up to 50 percent” on ink costs while using Kodak’s inkjet printers compared to printers from other manufacturers. There is even a Kodak site complete with an “overpayment calculator” that presents the savings you could earn by going with one of their printers.

HP, as expected, did not take such claims from a rival lying down. To combat what it called “misleading information,” HP aimed to debunk Kodak’s claims through its own campaign, which it calls “The Truth Behind Printing”.

Having trouble finding Onkyo products after all the Circuit City stores closed up? Yeah, sometimes we forget that when major retailers go down, some vendors suffer a lot too including Onkyo. Well, soon an underpaid Best Buy Magnolia Home Theater worker will be happy to demo and sell you products from the brand.

It’s always good to know some big companies don’t forget to come up with technological innovations that aren’t aimed at a large or wealthy group of consumers. In this case, Toyota has announced the development of a system that makes it possible for drivers to control wheelchairs with their thoughts alone. And it supposedly works excellent.

If you’ve been biting your nails off anticipating the launch of the Blackberry Tour, you probably want to visit a psychiatrist ASAP. But you can also be happy to know that Verizon Wireless just announced that they’ll be releasing the Tour on July 12th. The Tour provides anyone hell-bent on Verizon (like people who actually want their phone to make and receive calls) a good multimedia phone in the $200 price range.

My initial reaction to the news that some company called Global Gaming Factory X has agreed to buy The Pirate Bay was, “Pfft, why should I care? The was only garbage on there anyway.” And while that’s still my opinion—there really was only garbage on there—we really ought to recognize that, for better or worse, The Pirate Bay was something of a symbol for the greater “music/movies/whatever wants to be free” “movement,” if you can even call it that.

Swedish software firm Global Gaming Factory X this morning announced it has agreed to buy file-sharing service The Pirate Bay for 60 million Swedish crowns (which currently converts to approx. $7.7 million). In addition, GGF has entered into an agreement to acquire the shares in Peerialism, a software technology company that develops solutions for data distribution and distributed storage based on new p2p technology.

The transaction is scheduled to be closed in August 2009.

Update: The Pirate Bay has confirmed the news (see their commentary below).

Waves of exultation and joy must be coming out of Saigon as the first secret G.S.M. Palm Pres begin wending their way out of the secret Pre factories in the jungles to the south. A crack team of commandoes have wrested one of these super secretive models out of the hands of an unsuspecting courier and taken video and photos of it.

Remember that the Palm Pre originally came in G.S.M. flavor back at MWC 2008 and that O2 and Movistar probably have Pre exclusivity which allows us to assume the G.S.M. model will drop sooner than later.

Big savings on the complete Stargate SG-1 series if you’re looking for something to do all summer (or over the course of a weekend or two). Normally selling for $216.99, Amazon is blowing out “Stargate SG-1: The Complete Series Collection” on DVD today for $131.99 after an $85 instant discount and with free shipping.