The UK phone-shifter and the American technology super-chain will soon publish their plans for selling us lot in the UK cheap electronics.

Over 100 electronics warehouses will launch in the UK under the Best Buy brand, as the tech-seller pushes out of its homeland to crush the likes of Currys and Comet over here. The plan is thanks to Best Buy's deal to buy half of Carphone Warehouse earlier this year to push its expansion in Europe.

The shops will be similar in size and style to Best Buy's American uber-warehouses, which are vast, supermarket-sized halls rammed full of everything from MP3 players and cameras to cherry-effect PC desks and TVs. The move has been described as "Seriously bold given the current economic situation," with Andy Merrett from Tech Digest clearly sceptical of the wisdom of such a huge retail launch in these troubled times.

(Via PC Pro)

Related posts: CW sells with music | CW's white iPhone 3G

This week, I take a look at fires in the house. Not as dangerous as you may initially think, plus burning wood is a superb, environmentally sound and low-cost solution to home heating.

It's also great fun if you draw effigies of your enemies on the logs, then watch them BURN.

CONCLUSION: Everyone should buy fires for the home. Watching wood effigies of people you don't like BURN is far more entertaining than television.

Related posts: E&E Episode 1 | E&E Episode 2

Today, I'm looking at renewable energy sources, with this video review of a wind-up torch. Is it a good idea? Does it work? Is manual electricity generation a viable alternative to traditional plugs, bulbs and power leads? Let's find out!

I apologise for the poor sound quality.

In summary, wind-up torches work, but require constant winding. There is an additional energy saving to be found thanks to the physical effort of winding keeping you warm and therefore saving money on heating bills, but otherwise I'd have to say wind-up is not a sustainable way to light the home.

Related posts: E&E Episode 1 | RIP, battery videos :(

There is, we can exclusively reveal today, more than one kind of power cable in existence. Some power cables are better than other kinds of power cable. And the Furutech Powerflux Power Cord, which costs $1800, is presumably being pitched toward the high end of the power cable scale.

Here is why this cable is worth more money that a perfectly usable second-hand car...

It'd be hard to claim that the Mirage Home Bar was good value for money at £2,299, especially as it could quite easily be a large, metal mantelpiece by the look of it, but at least it's not quite as face-slappingly costly as the Beer Station.

Then, at least the Beer Station comes with a pump and room for your keg as well, whereas this, is, well, a bit of a dead lump. I wouldn't be featuring it at all if it didn't have some rather nice, soothing, blue lighting from LEDs behind the glass and I didn't happen to like beer very much indeed, which I do. Beer is good.

Turns out that Brits are the biggest consumers of digital photo frames in the world - god knows why. They're expensive and not very useful. However, upping the usefulness of these devices is the Compositor Media Streamer. It lets you stream all kinds of content - photos, videos, even movies to a bunch of frames around your house. Susi from our sister site ShinyShiny has had a look:

For more IFA coverage click here.

(via ShinyShiny)

Related posts: IFA 2008: Coverage roundup | IFA 2008: iRobot automated vacuum cleaners

I tell you, this IFA place is great. The show has barely begun and already I'm getting excited about the pending UK release of robotic hoovers. This is actually a little footage I grabbed last night of the Roomba and Scoomba from the slightly "er...didn't they call a film that?" company, by the name of iRobot.

The Silent Alarm clock concept design has hit me right where it hurts - the bags under my eyes. I go to bed later than my girlfriend and she gets up earlier than me through a lengthly process of around five snoozes. I love being woken up every 10 minutes during my last hour of sleep. It means I get up so refreshed.

So rather than throttle my loved one, I'd like to get my hands on Johan Brengesjo's brain child which wakes you up with wireless, soundless, vibrating rings for two. Sounds kinky and, who knows, maybe they could be but first I'd need to catch up on a bit of shut eye.

Cathode ray tubes aren't old-hat now we have flatscreen TVs - it turns out that they have another use: making damn cool clocks.

If you've got $999 burning a hole in your pocket, and you're too late to buy the "I am Rich" iPhone app, then you could get a Scope Clock. It can do both analogue and digital faces and even has built in GPS - not for navigational purposes, but so it can get the exact time to atomic precision from the GPS satellites. The main thing though is that it looks incredibly stylish, and would look at home in both the slick apartment of the sort of person who'd refer to it as their "pad", or underground in a distopian Matrix-esque future. I want one.

(via DVICE)

Related Posts: An equally high-concept clock | A slightly more conventional musical alarm clock

If there's one thing I like when entertaining at home, it's getting guests to do as much of the work as possible. That's why this adaptable cooking grill from Electrolux is so great.

It features a variety of ceramic hot plates which food can be fried on directly, or pots placed on for boiling. That way your dinner guests can cook things the way they like and only have themselves to blame if it's under or overcooked.

Easy to clean, but if one of your friends burns any food on, they have to wash it up themselves. That's just the rules.

(Via The Design Blog)

Related posts: B&Q Memphis BBQ | Squirt baby food spoon

This is a nice and simple gadget, and I like nice and simple gadgets.

The problem: You wake in the night and you need to take some medication / answer your mobile / put your glasses on - but it is too dark.

The answer: Night Coaster sits on your bedside table with your medication / mobile phone / pair of glasses on it's surface. By simply waving your hand over the Coaster, a soft blue light is emitted and you are able to retrieve your item.

This solves: 1. Lurching around in a state of semi-blindness, flailing your arms about on your bedside table and potentially smashing stuff like your medication / mobile phone / pair of glasses. 2. Waking others from their slumber by smashing stuff in the dark, cursing loudly, then ultimately switching on the bright bed-side lamp and spending half an hour cleaning up your broken medication / mobile phone / pair of glasses.

Other features: The Night Coaster shuts off automatically, and features a hard-wearing plastic waterproof casing.

Things to note: It takes four triple-A batteries, and it costs about £15.

And that's it. I won't be getting one. I'd rather flail in the dark. But it's nice and simple, isn't it? Just the kind of thing that would make a great gift for an elderly relative when you don't know what else to get.

[via 7Gadgets]

Related posts: Alarm Clock | Lego Lamp

Seeing as I work from home, I don't have an awful lot of use for home security gadgets. However, it struck me, during a recent power cut (when nearly every house in the local vicinity decided to chime their annoyance at the lack of electricity throughout the remainder of the afternoon) that standard burglar alarms are pretty much useless.

Unless a would-be thief is actually bothered by the loud ringing, assuming that they can even hear it through their buzzing smack withdrawal, then there's little chance that anyone else is interested either. Unless you can actually see a broken window, or a front door hanging off its hinges, then it's more than likely to just be another glitch in the burglar alarm system. That is, in a nutshell, the problem that AlertMe hopes to overcome.

The AlertMe system, as the name implies, is designed to let you - the owner - know when someone has broken into your house. It can do this by making quite intricate but clever use of the internet. As you can see, the standard AlertMe package comes with a standard Hub and a wide range of sensors for you to arrange however you like around your home. Once alerted, it will send you a text message to let you know.

It looks like an H.R. Geiger creation from the wrong angle, but it isn't - it's the latest in home entertainment solutions for the single man.

It's a wanking toy, basically. Let's not beat about the bush. We're all men here. You put your winkle in it and imagine it's your favourite one out of Girls Aloud, until you lose interest and need to get a cup of tea and a sandwich.

A tube filled with soft silicon lumps, the Tenga Flip can safely accommodate "items" with a "width" of up to two inches (*looks down*) and a length of up to 6.5 inches (*looks down again, tears start to well up*).

Say hello to the Freud coffee maker. It is not named after the famous psychologist who thought everything looked like willies and that everyone secretly harboured Oedipus complexes. It is named after because it was designed in a cafe in London's Neal Yard, called Frevd [sic - oldwoldy spelling alert].

I don't actually like coffee, so I wouldn't have any use for this. As soon as they come up with a decent kettle and / or tea pot that looks like this - as in something right out of BioShock - you can sign me right up.

So you can get them in USB form but now, they don't just have a 12V attachment, they come in novelty too. Behold, the football fridge!

Yes, this little baby ball will keep your six pack cold, or even warm if it's some kind of filthy bitter, while you and your crew head off on your away trip with hopes in your hearts and now beer in your stomach.

The Sci-Fi Channel has created a special limited edition run of Battlestar Galactica toasters for the San Diego Comic-Con. The smoothed lines and polished finish tie in neatly with the re-imagined series' Cylon concepts, and it sports the Battlestar Galctica branding. However, the lack of a red light slowly panning from side to side accompanied by a sinister hum feels like a very serious oversight. Come on, how much extra would a few red LEDs have cost?

There is one neat trick up its sleeve though - the toaster will brand your toast with the image of a Cylon Centurion. Imagine that staring out at you from the depths of your marmalade. We're also hoping for a three-barrelled automatic weapon attachment to be released later.

You can pick them up from the Sci-Fi store for $65 (around £32); shipping begins at the end of the month.

Cylon Toaster (via /film)

Related posts: A see-through toaster | A phone that looks like a toaster

Icetris is one of those ideas. One of those ideas you look at and think "Gosh, what a clever idea!" and possibly even wish you'd thought of it yourself.

You then also wish you had the Photoshop/Illustrator skills to knock together a concept image of your amazing idea, because you could then put it on your web site and have other people look at it and think "Gosh, what a clever idea. Isn't that man clever?"

The only problem is - someone's had this idea before. So who had the idea first? Has there been some idea-thievery going on? Or is Tetris ice cubes just one of those ideas that everyone has, then assumes it's so great and original that no one else could've possibly thought of it before?

(Via GearFuse)

Related posts: Tetris chocolate | Cube Tray #1

Experts from the computer retailer PC World have created this concept of a new breed sun longer; one designed for the modern gadget-dependent consumer.

On the outside it looks like nothing more than an ordinary chair, although its occupant is probably far too attractive to be found sun-bathing on your cluttered patio. Inside however, it is packed full of enough gizmos, sockets, wireless connectors and general tech to force any true geek to make a dash for the cold shower.

The concept design packs in long-range WiFi, Bluetooth, camera docks, MP3 docks, a games console holder, a laptop holder, USB ports, headphone sockets, speakers, an LCD screen and solar panels. And with just one short rainstorm, it will instantly revert to being a plain old deck chair again! Incredible!

Welcome to the wine elevator, sir. What level would you like? Sozzled? Hammered? Or shall I just hit the emergency stop button and we can stay inside until you've drunk the lot? Come on, tell me it doesn't look like a lift to you?

For those unable to read big print, this is in fact a walk-in wine cellar, except it's not underground and it looks like a displaced lift carriage. On the other hand, open it up...

The Pop-O-Matic Juke Box Popcorn Maker yearns for a time when music was not delivered via BitTorrent websites and portable MP3 players, but instead streamed directly from coin-operated machines housing individual records. Apparently that's no longer considered a practical way of doing things, so the Pop-O-Matic opts to deliver delicious movie theatre style popcorn instead of vinyl.

It has a classic chrome finish and will pop your corns using "healthy hot air". Not that high-carb hot air that some lesser brands often choose. Unfortunately, despite the presence of all those unsightly numbers and letters, the Pop-O-Matic Juke Box has no music playing facilities at all, which seems like a bit of missed opportunity given that pretty much every other home appliance we see these days contains at least one iPod Dock or FM receiver.

It is only available in the US, for a mere $49.95 and weighs in 3lb with dimensions of 13.5" x 12" x 7".

Richard Solo (via RFJ)

Related posts: A transparent toaster | A wipe-clean fridge