BBG points us to this Palm Pre commercial remix that forces us to ask the question: Was Tim Robbins dead or dying in the Jacob’s Ladder. Was it like in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge? Why haven’t I watched that movie lately? It was really good.

Even crazier REAL commercial after the jump.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
by Ambrose Bierce

A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man’s hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the sleepers supporting the metals of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners–two private soldiers of the Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. He was a captain. A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as “support,” that is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight across the chest–a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge; they merely blockaded the two ends of the foot planking that traversed it.

Beyond one of the sentinels nobody was in sight; the railroad ran straight away into a forest for a hundred yards, then, curving, was lost to view. Doubtless there was an outpost farther along. The other bank of the stream was open ground–a gentle acclivity topped with a stockade of vertical tree trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the bridge. Midway of the slope between the bridge and fort were the spectators–a single company of infantry in line, at “parade rest,” the butts of the rifles on the ground, the barrels inclining slightly backward against the right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock. A lieu tenant stood at the right of the line, the point of his sword upon the ground, his left hand resting upon his right. Excepting the group of four at the center of the bridge, not a man moved. The company faced the bridge, staring stonily, motionless. The sentinels, facing the banks of the stream, might have been statues to adorn the bridge. The captain stood with folded arms, silent, observing the work of his subordinates, but making no sign. Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference.

The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-five years of age. He was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit, which was that of a planter. His features were good–a straight nose, firm mouth, broad forehead, from which his long, dark hair was combed straight back, falling behind his ears to the collar of his well-fitting frock coat. He wore a mustache and pointed beard, but no whiskers; his eyes were large and dark gray, and had a kindly expression which one would hardly have expected in one whose neck was in the hemp. Evidently this was no vulgar assassin. The liberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds of persons, and gentlemen are not excluded.

The preparations being complete, the two private soldiers stepped aside and each drew away the plank upon which he had been standing. The sergeant turned to the captain, saluted and placed himself immediately behind that officer, who in turn moved apart one pace. These movements left the condemned man and the sergeant standing on the two ends of the same plank, which spanned three of the cross-ties of the bridge. The end upon which the civilian stood almost, but not quite, reached a fourth. This plank had been held in place by the weight of the captain; it was now held by that of the sergeant. At a signal from the former the latter would step aside, the plank would tilt and the condemned man go down between two ties. The arrangement commended itself to his judgment as simple and effective. His face had not been covered nor his eyes bandaged. He looked a moment at his “unsteadfast footing,” then let his gaze wander to the swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet. A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down the current. How slowly it appeared to move, What a sluggish stream!

He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and children. The water, touched to gold by the early sun, the brooding mists under the banks at some distance down the stream, the fort, the soldiers, the piece of drift–all had distracted him. And now he became conscious of a new disturbance. Striking through the thought of his dear ones was a sound which he could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith’s hammer upon the anvil; it had the same ringing quality. He wondered what it was, and whether immeasurably distant or near by–it seemed both. Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell. He awaited each stroke with impatience and–he knew not why–apprehension. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer, the delays became maddening. With their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength and sharpness. They hurt his ear like the thrust of a knife; he feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch.

He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. “If I could free my hands,” he thought, “I might throw off the noose and spring into the stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously, reach the bank, take to the woods and get away home. My home, thank God, is as yet outside their lines; my wife and little ones are still beyond the invader’s farthest advance.”

As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed man’s brain rather than evolved from it the captain nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside.

II
Peyton Farquhar was a well-to-do planter, of an old and highly respected Alabama family. Being a slave owner and like other slave owners a politician he was naturally an original secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern cause. Circumstances of an imperious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking service with the gallant army that had fought the disastrous campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth, and he chafed under the inglorious restraint, longing for the release of his energies, the larger life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction. That opportunity, he felt, would come, as it comes to all in war time. Meanwhile he did what he could. No service was too humble for him to perform in aid of the South, no adventure too perilous for him to undertake if consistent with the character of a civilian who was at heart a soldier, and who in good faith and without too much qualification assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war.

One evening while Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a rustic bench near the entrance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water. Mrs. Farquhar was only toe, happy to serve him with her own white hands. While she was fetching the water her husband approached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerly for news from the front.

“The Yanks are repairing the railroads,” said the man, “and are getting ready for another advance. They have reached the Owl Creek bridge, put it in order and built a stockade on the north bank. The commandant has issued an order, which is posted everywhere, declaring that any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels or trains will be summarily hanged. I saw the order.”

“How far is it to the Owl Creek bridge?” Farquhar asked.

“About thirty miles.”

“Is there no force on this side the creek?”

“Only a picket post half a mile out, on the railroad, and a single sentinel at this end of the bridge.”

“Suppose a man–a civilian and student of hanging–should elude the picket post and perhaps get the better of the sentinel,” said Farquhar, smiling, “what could he accomplish?”

The soldier reflected. “I was there a month ago,” he replied. “I observed that the flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity of driftwood against the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is now dry and would burn like tow.”

The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. He thanked her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband and rode away. An hour later, after nightfall, he repassed the plantation, going northward in the direction from which he had come. He was a Federal scout.

III
As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lost consciousness and was as one already dead. From this state he was awakened–ages later, it seemed to him–by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen, poignant agonies seemed to shoot from his neck downward through every fiber of his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well-defined lines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivably rapid periodicity. They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him to an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of fulness–of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced; he had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion. Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely the fiery heart, without material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash; a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and dark. The power of thought was restored; he knew that the rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was no additional strangulation; the noose about his neck was already suffocating him and kept the water from his lungs. To die of hanging at the bottom of a river!–the idea seemed to him ludicrous. He opened his eyes in the darkness and saw above him a gleam of light, but how distant, how inaccessible! He was still sinking, for the light became fainter and fainter until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began to grow and brighten, and he knew that he was rising toward the surface–knew it with reluctance, for he was now very comfortable. “To be hanged and drowned,” he thought? “that is not so bad; but I do not wish to be shot. No; I will not be shot; that is not fair.”

He was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wrist apprised him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the struggle his attention, as an idler might observe the feat of a juggler, without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort!–what magnificent, what superhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor! Bravo! The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated upward, the hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched them with a new interest as first one and then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations resembling those of a water snake. “Put it back, put it back!” He thought he shouted these words to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded by the direst pang that he had yet experienced. His neck ached horribly; his brain was on fire; his heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself out at his mouth. His whole body was racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish! But his disobedient hands gave no heed to the command. They beat the water vigorously with quick, downward strokes, forcing him to the surface. He felt his head emerge; his eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his chest expanded convulsively, and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs engulfed a great draught of air, which instantly he expelled in a shriek!

He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed, preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf–saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant-bodied flies, the grey spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon flies’ wings, the strokes of the water-spiders’ legs, like oars which had lifted their boat–all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting the water.

He had come to the surface facing down the stream; in a moment the visible world seemed to wheel slowly round, himself the pivotal point, and he saw the bridge, the fort, the soldiers upon the bridge, the captain, the sergeant, the two privates, his executioners. They were in silhouette against the blue sky. They shouted and gesticulated, pointing at him. The captain had drawn his pistol, but did not fire; the others were unarmed. Their movements were grotesque and horrible, their forms gigantic.

Suddenly he heard a sharp report and something struck the water smartly within a few inches of his head, spattering his face with spray. He heard a second report, and saw one of the sentinels with his rifle at his shoulder, a light cloud of blue smoke rising from the muzzle. The man in the water saw the eye of the man on the bridge gazing into his own through the sights of the rifle. He observed that it was a grey eye and remembered having read that grey eyes were keenest, and that all famous marksmen had them. Nevertheless, this one had missed.

A counter-swirl had caught Farquhar and turned him half round; he was again looking into the forest on the bank opposite the fort. The sound of a clear, high voice in a monotonous singsong now rang out behind him and came across the water with a distinctness that pierced and subdued all other sounds, even the beating of the ripples in his ears. Although no soldier, he had frequented camps enough to know the dread significance of that deliberate, drawling, aspirated chant; the lieu. tenant on shore was taking a part in the morning’s work. How coldly and pitilessly–with what an even, calm intonation, presaging, and enforcing tranquillity in the men–with what accurately measured inter vals fell those cruel words:

“Attention, company! . . Shoulder arms! . . . Ready! . . . Aim! . . . Fire!”

Farquhar dived–dived as deeply as he could. The water roared in his ears like the voice of Niagara, yet he heard the dulled thunder of the volley and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of metal, singularly flattened, oscillating slowly downward. Some of them touched him on the face and hands, then fell away, continuing their descent. One lodged between his collar and neck; it was uncomfortably warm and he snatched it out.

As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had been a long time under water; he was perceptibly farther down stream nearer to safety. The soldiers had almost finished reloading; the metal ramrods flashed all at once in the sunshine as they were drawn from the barrels, turned in the air, and thrust into their sockets. The two sentinels fired again, independently and ineffectually.

The hunted man saw all this over his shoulder; he was now swimming vigorously with the current. His brain was as energetic as his arms and legs; he thought with the rapidity of lightning.

The officer,” he reasoned, “will not make that martinet’s error a second time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He has probably already given the command to fire at will. God help me, I cannot dodge them all!”

An appalling plash within two yards of him was followed by a loud, rushing sound, diminuendo, which seemed to travel back through the air to the fort and died in an explosion which stirred the very river to its deeps!

A rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him, strangled him! The cannon had taken a hand in the game. As he shook his head free from the commotion of the smitten water he heard the deflected shot humming through the air ahead, and in an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in the forest beyond.

“They will not do that again,” he thought; “the next time they will use a charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon the gun; the smoke will apprise me–the report arrives too late; it lags behind the missile. That is a good gun.”

Suddenly he felt himself whirled round and round–spinning like a top. The water, the banks, the forests, the now distant bridge, fort and men–all were commingled and blurred. Objects were represented by their colors only; circular horizontal streaks of color–that was all he saw. He had been caught in a vortex and was being whirled on with a velocity of advance and gyration that made him giddy and sick. In a few moments he was flung upon the gravel at the foot of the left bank of the stream–the southern bank–and behind a projecting point which concealed him from his enemies. The sudden arrest of his motion, the abrasion of one of his hands on the gravel, restored him, and he wept with delight. He dug his fingers into the sand, threw it over himself in handfuls and audibly blessed it. It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he could think of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon the bank were giant garden plants; he noted a definite order in their arrangement, inhaled the fragrance of their blooms. A strange, roseate light shone through the spaces among their trunks and the wind made in their branches the music of Æolian harps. He had no wish to perfect his escape–was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken.

A whiz and rattle of grapeshot among the branches high above his head roused him from his dream. The baffled cannoneer had fired him a random farewell. He sprang to his feet, rushed up the sloping bank, and plunged into the forest.

All that day he traveled, laying his course by the rounding sun. The forest seemed interminable; nowhere did he discover a break in it, not even a woodman’s road. He had not known that he lived in so wild a region. There was something uncanny in the revelation.

By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famishing. The thought of his wife and children urged him on. At last he found a road which led him in what he knew to be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as a city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwelling anywhere. Not so much as the barking of a dog suggested human habitation. The black bodies of the trees formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point, like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great garden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret and malign significance. The wood on either side was full of singular noises, among which–once, twice, and again–he distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue.

His neck was in pain and lifting his hand to it found it horribly swollen. He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope had bruised it. His eyes felt congested; he could no longer close them. His tongue was swollen with thirst; he relieved its fever by thrusting it forward from between his teeth into the cold air. How softly the turf had carpeted the untraveled avenue–he could no longer feel the roadway beneath his feet!

Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking, for now he sees another scene–perhaps he has merely recovered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have traveled the entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide white walk, he sees a flutter of female garments; his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He springs forward with extended arms. As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon–then all is darkness and silence!

Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.

A few days ago I reviewed Snatch, an app that allows you to use your iPhone as a trackpad and keyboard to control any PC or Mac on your home network. A couple of commenters gave me a tip to check out Air Mouse, a similar app that they claimed offered greater functionality at a lower price. Always being game for a good software rumble, I spent a bit of time with Air Mouse tonight to see what all the fuss was about.

Air Mouse contains a lot of features similar to those found in Snatch: a full-screen multitouch trackpad, a keyboard, and remote controls to manipulate all your favorite apps. However, it also has a lot of bells and whistles that are nowhere to be found in Snatch, such as dedicated media and web browsing keys, as well as gyroscopic mouse control, a feature that allows you to move your cursor by waving your phone around in the air like some sort of 21st century smartphone-toting wizard. While the gyroscopic pointing seems to be a huge selling point of Air Mouse, I found it utterly unuseable. We use a lot of Gyration mice around my office, so I may be spoiled by the smooth-as-silk pointing that they afford, but it took all the concentration of a heated game of Jenga just to click generously-sized buttons on my screen, and I found myself retreating back to the tried-and-true trackpad method of input in short order.

That’s not to say that there aren’t areas where Air Mouse shines, however. The interface is incredibly polished, and makes Snatch feel clunky in comparison. I also really dug the landscape trackpad, which can be accessed by tilting your phone on its side. My favorite feature of the app, though, is its ability to detect when certain programs on your host computer have focus, and to remap the controls of your remote accordingly. The server comes pre-loaded with remotes for several commonly-used programs such as iTunes and VLC, and allows you to configure additional profiles for other programs you might wish to control.

I did encounter a huge bug when using Songbird: the app stopped functioning entirely when I opened it, and wouldn’t start working again until I minimized or closed the program. Whether this is a problem exclusive to Songbird or not I don’t know, but it’s a program I use often enough that it’s a big issue to me. I also would’ve liked to see more customization options with the remotes: you’re given a pre-set number of buttons, and while you’re free to reprogram them to whatever function you choose, it would be nice to have the option to add more. I understand that this was a design choice made for aesthetic reasons, and I can respect that, but it’s also the biggest reason I’ll continue to use Snatch as my remote input app of choice.

If you’re not concerned about gyroscopic mousing or button customization, though, Air Mouse is a solid choice for your iPhone mousing needs, and at two bones less than Snatch, it’s a pretty decent deal.

Air Mouse Pro, $5.99 in the App Store.

Short Version:

As a mouse, it has the standard two buttons, plus a clickable and tiltable scroll wheel. In addition to the normal vertical scrolling, tilting the scroll wheel to the side will allow you to scroll horizontally. It uses Bluetooth, so as long as your laptop has Bluetooth built in, or you already have an adapter (http://www.amazon.com/Kensington-K33902US-Bluetooth-Micro-Adapter/dp/B000YA1XU2/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1226856381&sr=8-2), there are no additional bits to plug in to make this device work. Pairing is a snap and you’ll be up and running in a minute or two.

Surrounding the scroll wheel is a button that switches the device from mouse mode to presentation mode. You have to double-click this button and that is not obvious at all. It does prevent you from accidentally switching modes, but I had to read the instructions to figure out how it worked. It’s a bit odd to have to read instructions for a mouse. Anyhow, once in presentation mode, the left and right mouse click buttons advance the presentation forward and back and pressing the scroll wheel will blank the screen.

It runs on standard AAA batteries, so no custom batteries to charge, and it will automatically sleep when your laptop sleeps or you can manually turn it off.

The best thing about this mouse is the size. It is pretty slim at about an inch thick at it’s tallest point. For a little more money, you could also consider getting a Gyration In-Air Mouse. The Gyration uses a gyroscope to sense movement in space, letting you move your mouse without a flat surface in front of you. This is really helpful if you want to point out things on the screen during a presentation or if you switch to an application/website to demo something. The Gyration is bulkier, so may be inconvenient for hard-core road warriors and those giving fairly straight-forward presentations may not need the extra features.

Bottom line: If you need a fairly basic wireless mouse and you do a lot of presentations, the Slimblade Bluetooth Presenter Mouse is a reasonably priced option.

The Slimblade Bluetooth Presenter Mouse retails for $50.

Product Page

Prepare to commence hand flailing. Gyration’s new Air Mouse will feature “MotionSense” technology which apparently “delivers precise in-air cursor control,” allowing you to ostensibly pick the mouse up off your desk, point it at your screen, and click your way through web pages, documents, and more with the greatest of ease. Should you grow weary of in-air mousery, you may, of course, return the mouse to the surface of your desk and use it like an ordinary human interface device.

There’s an RF USB dongle that allows the Gyration mouse to work from up to 100 feet away — even through walls – and you can configure the included GyroTools software to handle multimedia and presentation tasks for software like iTunes and Powerpoint.

It’ll be available in early October for $99.99 if you’re interested.

Full release:

GYRATION AIR MOUSE WITH MOTIONSENSE™ NOW AVAILABLE AT RETAIL

Portable Mouse Ideal for the Road Warrior; Works Both In-Air and On Desktop

Milpitas, CA, September 24, 2008 – Movea, Inc., the leader in motion-sensing technology for business communications, home entertainment and mobile computing, today announced the retail availability of its new Gyration Air Mouse with MotionSense technology.  The compact, wireless mouse was created with the mobile professional in mind, and is designed to work in the air or on a flat surface like a desktop.

Movea’s MotionSense technology provides precise in-air motion tracking, so users can control the mouse cursor intuitively and with ease, whether delivering a PowerPoint™ presentation or watching online videos. Precision motion sensors guarantee faithful responses to natural hand movements whether in the boardroom, the living room or a cramped space, such as a seat on an airplane or train.  A simple flick of the wrist will command presentations, enhanced with Movea’s GyroTools™ presentation effects, or control multimedia entertainment on a laptop, allowing users to change the volume or skip a song on iTunes™, or flip a TV channel on Slingbox™.

Weighing less than four ounces, the Air Mouse is compact enough to fit in a messenger bag, briefcase or purse, and versatile enough to be integrated with a PC or laptop from wherever a user wants to work or enjoy digital entertainment. With a sleek, ergonomic design, the Air Mouse works very comfortably for left- or right-handed consumers.

“The market for notebooks is transforming, as more people are buying them equipped with wide screens and media features, and using them not only for traditional business applications but also for entertainment access,” said Greg Smith, Vice President for Marketing at Movea Inc. “The Air-Mouse was designed with such people in mind, providing mobile workers and entertainment buffs the freedom to control their PCs whether they’re at home or on the road.”

Using a proprietary radio frequency (RF) technology, the in-air controls are effective up to 100 feet and work through walls. The Air Mouse includes a laser sensor for precise desktop tracking, making it ideal for working at a desk or other flat surface. The RF USB dongle stores conveniently inside the mouse, which ships with an elegant travel case and, due to its small size, easily packs into the smallest of handbags.

The device will be available for purchase in early October with a suggested North America retail price of $99.99. For more information on this and the family of Gyration motion-sensing products, visit www.gyration.com.

The GAMR is available now and retails for $179.99 or you can get one that’s bundled with a keyboard for $229.99.

What sets it apart is the incorporation of Logitech’s Freespace motion control technology. This allows users to simply pick the device up and use it as a gyroscopic pointing device. Hand movements track remarkably well and the transition from surface to air is entirely seamless and implemented perfectly. This is the first device I’ve seen that stands to usurp Gyration’s longtime domination of the HTPC controller market.

There is a tiny learning curve to the device, one that requires you to stop making wild gestures and begin depending on subtle flicks of the wrist. Once one incorporates that into the movements, the accuracy hits 100 percent. Furthermore, there is something distinctly enjoyable to me, a lifelong mouse-user, being able to mouse around a table and then transition to live movements.

Another aspect of this device is its svelte exterior. It looks better than any mouse one might imagine. A perfect addition to any home theater, especially when coupled with a Logitech diNovo Edge keyboard.

It also incorporates all the controls one would demand from a home theater controller. Sexy touch-sensitive buttons light up that allow users to play and pause, adjust volume, and select media. What’s more, holding specific buttons and making specific gestures with the hand can enact certain functions, like skipping tracks forward or backward.

The MX Air functions on a 2.4 GHz RF signal and can get a range of about 30-feet. It’s made for Windows, but it’ll work with OS X — although some of its functions will be limited. Look for it in August for an MSRP of $150.

Logitech

If you’ve got some cash to spend and AppleTV doesn’t really fancy you well, it may be worth a minute to check out the new Hangar18 HTPC from Alienware. Equipped with radical features such as a Gyration remote, this box will kick new life into your home theater setup. Dual tuners, a 5.1-channel amp, HDMI, and 1080p output are all included. You’ll also find 2TB of storage space, 4GB of RAM, and an AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core CPU.

So you’ve got the power, but what about the pricetag? Extremely rad features like these don’t come cheap. The Hangar18 will set you back $1999, not including the 2TB of content you’ll need to come up with to make the most of this unit.

Alienware Lifts the Veil on its High-Def Hangar18 HTPC [Gizmodo]

I was very self conscious of the weight of it in my pocket, and I found I babied it a bit. If I owned it I’d have to get something to carry it in, a case.

As an exercise for the reader, please write a glowing, overwrought, Proustian paragraph about your favorite gadget in the comments. The winner, chosen by poll, will get a Gyration cordless Gyrotransport presenter. Clack, keyboards, in sweet surrender!

The Riddle of Convergence, or: The Seductive Nokia N93 [Meerkat via Gizmodo]

We already did a nice video on the GyroTransport last weekend, so we’ll just comment on this a bit more and leave it at that. I’ve rarely used presentation remotes because, thus far, they’ve been fairly innacurate and bulky. Luckily, the $199 GyroTransport is neither.

It works with Macs and PCs seamlessly and includes 1GB of memory built-in to the wireless dongle. It’s essentially a plug and play mouse that appears on your system immediately without drivers. There are four buttons: left and right mouse buttons, an activation button for moving the cursor, and a “swipe” button for moving quickly across the screen. The pointer itself is nicely weighted in the back so it feels like you’re actually holding something more substantial than a hollow piece of plastic.

It runs on one AAA battery, included, and pairs upon touching two buttons. It’s absolutely portable – it weighs about three ounces wet – and the wireless dongle connects to the back of the pointer to keep things nice and neat. It’s available now online and if you do any sort of presenting it’s definitely a useful and usable tool.

Product Page [Gyration]

Here’s a quick video of the Gyration Gyrotransport in action. This $199 device will be out on Monday, September 18th. It’s extremely small and worked on both PC and Mac with absolutely no trouble – just plug it in and you’ve got an AIRMOUSE (!!!!). We’ll have a full review on Monday.