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If streaming your iTunes music via Airport Express isn’t for you, then perhaps the iHome iH21 is more your fancy. Consisting of a dock and matching speakers, the iH21 let’s you beam your tracks to the basement, the kitchen, and even your bedroom.

Plus, the speaker is water-resistant and remote control-friendly, meaning your music’s safe even during your wet and wild orgies. Too bad the same can’t be said of the rest of your furniture. – Jason Chen

Product Site [iHome]

Although we pay as much credence to Apple rumors as K-Fed does to the little voice in his head that says “don’t do that, you’re an idiot”, DigiTimes usually knows what they’re talking about. The Taiwanese website with contacts deep in the Taiwan manufacturing industry says ViewSonic and Apple are both gearing up to launch 17-inch widescreen LCDs in the 1st quarter of 2007.

Even though Apple got out of the 17-inch monitor business a while back, preferring to overcharge people for the 20-, 23-, and 30-inch models, a reentry into the thrifty-end may not be out of the question. – Jason Chen

Apple and ViewSonic to unveil 17-inch widescreen LCD monitors soon [DigiTimes]

The makers of a sound-activated vibrating sex aid, a two-man company in Osaka, Japan, have managed to get Apple all riled up. The reason? They’ve named their gadget the gPod, after “the G-Spot and jii, the Japanese word for masturbation.” Stuck inside the cooter (the official medical term), the gPod connects to iPods, cellphones or music players, and apparently vibrates in sync to the audio.

Apple started fighting the Japanese company when the latter started applying for trademarks around the world, eventually sending a Japanese lawyer and repeated requests to stop using the gPod trademark. The company laughed off Apple’s requests and said they would fight if Apple ever decides to sue.

Apple Computer Inc., meanwhile, is, unlike gPod users, keeping tight-lipped about the case.

– Jason Chen

Buzz on handy gPod a poison apple for US giant [Mainichi - Thanks Walter!]

Not from Apple. The online retailer, Play.com, that looks a lot like a shittier Amazon, somehow managed to wrangle up the specs of the Core 2 Duo MacBooks that have been rumored since Apple released the Core 2 Duo MacBook Pros. Play.com says the MacBooks will have a max 2GHz processor and 512mb of ram. They also claim a release date of November 13. Prices will be the same as current MacBooks.

While this is nice to see it, I’ve learned to take Apple rumors with a grain of salt, especially when they are coming from a half-ass online retailer like Play.com. Pre-order at your own risk. –Travis Hudson

Product Page [Via Spymac]

Are the updated Core 2 Duo MacBook Pros really 39% faster than their Core Duo predecessors? MacWorld takes a look to see how much the speed boost and additional L2 cache really helped.

Scoring times in photoshop a full 24 seconds faster in Photoshop, and 45 seconds faster in Compressor, the Core 2 Duo models quite speedy, but not 39% faster. In fact, in some tests they were only marginally faster (a time of 1:06 down to 1:01, time of 0:58 to 0:54, and frame rate of 59 to 63.9). In tasks that were more processor oriented, the Core 2 Duo’s speed improvements were “substantial”. In disk or graphics intensive tasks, were quite a bit smaller. Just be aware what kind of performance gains you’re getting when you upgrade to a Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro. – Jason Chen

Benchmarks: MacBook Pro gets its Core 2 Duo boost [MacWorld]