If you’re looking to pick up a Blu-ray player for your home theater system, then Marantz has a deal for you.  If you pick up one of Marantz’s Blu-ray players, they’re offering a free Roku box for your purchase.  Not only will you be getting your Blu-ray and DVD on, you’ll also be able to stream content from Netflix, Amazon, Pandora, and more!  Best of all, it’s a Roku HD player, so you won’t miss out on the picture quality.

You can check out the Marantz Bly-ray player line-up here, but bear in mind that Marantz is the top of the line in BD technology.  That means you’ll be paying out a pretty penny for your Blu-ray, from $6000 to about $550 for the cheap version. That’s a nice bonus if you’re in the market for a Marantz, but otherwise, you’re putting down a lot of money that you could spend on other things.  For example, here’s some Blu-ray comparisons.

A new Roku HD box is only $99 at Amazon.  A new PS3 is $370 at Amazon.  Or, if you’re really looking to save some cash for this feature, you can get an LG BD 370 networkable Blu-ray player for $170 that both plays Blu-ray discs and streams Netflix and other on-demand video.  For $270 plus tax you could have the same setup that would cost you $550 via Marantz.  For $470, you can have the same setup with the ability to play video games.

The PS3 is supposedly still the best Blu-ray player on the market for the price, according to some guy I talked with at Best Buy this weekend, so shop wisely.

I know you guys can’t wait any longer, but you’re going to have to.  If you’re one of the many Mac heads looking to get your grubby little paws on Apple’s long-awaited iPad, you’re just going to have to cool your jets.  While there are a lot of questions still yet to be answered about the iPad, we do know a few things for certain, thanks to an Apple press release.

For starters, the iPad will be officially launched on April 3, 2010.  Preorders will start on March 12th, so this time next week it’s time to get to the Apple store, presumably early.  At least for the wifi version, anyway.  Apparently, the 3G version has been delayed by a month for some unexplained reason (probably to soak early adopters twice for the same product).  Late April is also when the rest of the world is going to get their iPads released, too. Maybe that’s got something to do with it.

Either way, now you know when you can get in line to get your hands on the next new revolutionary product from Apple.  Well, okay, not revolutionary, just next product from Cupertino.

You know, it could be easy to treat this video extolling the virtues of the Creative Technology keyboard as a joke, but at the end?  This guy gets really good.  Impressively good, in fact.  As it turns out, rock and roll is easy.  Well, not for me, because I can’t play anything, but for this keyboard salesman.

If you’d like to save a little electricity, then there’s really only one option.  You’ll have to build your computer yourself, from the ground up.  Any collection of stuff stuck in a tower by a normal company won’t be the most energy efficient (or best) parts you can find.  That’s just how the system works.  If you want a good machine, it’s all on you.  Fortunately, Bit-Tech has a great energy-efficiency square off.

If you went with the most power-efficient parts on the list, then you’d shave off 104 watts of power usage without sacrificing any computing power!  The parts are more expensive than the standard bits, and you have to put it together yourself, but if you’re looking to shave off a little bit off your monthly electricity bill, then it might be worth the investment over the long-term life of your computer.

Sadly for an AMD fan like myself, Intel seems to rule the power-saving roost.

Image: Full Size via MAKE.

If you thought going green was over, you were wrong.  Things will continue to get more and more environmentally conscious, and this trend is going to continue well into 2010 thanks to inventions like these, which serve to reduce, reuse, and recycle while not keeping you from being tuned in, turned on, and unplugged.  Some of them will be within your price range; others are out of you price range unless you’re looking for a new car.  Either way, they’re all pretty interesting.

The ones I think that have the most potential from a market standpoint is the nPower Personal Energy Generator.  Basically, it gathers kinetic energy from walking or running and converts it into power to charge phones, MP3 players, or whatever little gadget you might have handy.  Those will be huge next year, because it’s just gathering what is usually lost to the elements.

The gadget that will have the most use in the coming years is the Sony Vaio made from recycled materials.  That’s not going to be a selling point immediately (for most consumers), but as the cost of recycling materials goes down and recycling efforts themselves increase, it’s going to make recycled material more cost effective for the company and only encourage continued electronics recycling from Sony and others in the industry.  Once it starts to save money, everyone will want to do it.

Now that Apple has jumped into the tablet computing game, expect to see this device everywhere.  But what good is it?  Well, basically, it’s great if you wanted a giant iPod Touch or a less portable netbook.  I keep flashing back to the Macbook Wheel.  It’s not even as useful as the other tablet computers on the market (due to its lack of multitasking ability).

While it is very light (1.5 pounds) and has good battery life (10 hours), it’s also very expensive at $499 for a 16GB model, $599 for a 32GB edition, and $699 for a 64GB edition (not counting the optional 3G data plan from AT&T).  It has built-in 802.11n WiFi and 2.1 Bluetooth support, and it syncs wirelessly.  Unlike most netbooks, it only has a 1GB processor (rather than 1.66GB as is the netbook standard), but its 9.7 inch screen makes it definitely easier to read than an iPod Touch for text purposes and playing Apple’s app store games.  There’s still no Flash support, which means you’re stuck buying those mediocre games from Apple rather than playing the equivalent mediocre game free online.

So what’s the iPad good for?  Well… if you wanted something harder to carry around than a Kindle, then you’ve got your device.  If you wanted a giant iPod Touch, you’ve got your device.  If you wanted a slightly slower netbook that has a very long profile that makes it more prone to smudges, scratches, and breaking, you’ve got your device.  If you like pretending to finger paint, you’ve got your device.

Acer is a company with a lot of irons in the fire.  They already have a whole slew of netbooks, desktops, laptops, smart phones, televisions, and that sort of thing.  But they’re set to add to their list of products.  What’s next?  Try an e-reader, an app store, and the first Google Chrome OS-powered netbook, among other innovations!  Oh yeah, they’re also going to roll out a tablet, assuming Apple does the same.

I’m not intrigued by any of their offerings save the Google Chrome OS netbook.  That’s one I’m interested in trying, depending on A) the price point, B) the hardware specs, and C) the dual-booting capability with preinstalled Windows.  I want to dual boot, but I’m too lazy to do the work myself.  If Acer is willing to do it, then we might have ourselves a temptation.

The more I see netbooks in the wild, the more I really want an ultra-portable machine with a ton of battery life.  The temptation is almost unbearable.  Almost.

Happy 26th Anniversary to the Apple Macintosh.  Make sure you head over to Mental Floss and check out a great 1984-era video of Steve Jobs giddily demonstrating the Mac way back when it was revolutionary technology!  If you think Macs are overpriced now (and they are), just imagine how bad it was back then, when the first Macs went for just under $2500 brand new!  That’s $5000 in 2010 money!  The visual OS made it all worthwhile, though; no more having to learn DOS!

Of course, the linchpin of the Mac’s launch wasn’t buying up all the advertisements in Newsweek, or their free trial test-drive, or even that presentation above, it’s the infamous commercial 1984, directed by Ridley Scott.  It was actually only broadcast once in its initial run, but has gone on to become world famous and instantly recognizable.  Kind of like the Apple Computers apple logo (thanks to a little help from the Beatles).

One of the things that I really enjoy (and I might be the only one) is a look back at the past.  Specifically, past reports on future technology.  For example, take a gander at this great video of the Consumer Electronics Show, circa 1979, dug from the vaults of ABC News.  It’s mind-boggling for someone like myself, who won’t even be born until three years after this particular news report was filed.

The biggest thing for me was the fact that video cassettes cost a staggering $75 dollars compared to $15 for a laserdisc.  There’s no way that can be true; can it?  Was he talking about a rental VHS tape or something?  Can anyone familiar with antique technology explain this for me?

Surely the more space-age technology had to be the more expensive one.  I know VHS was expensive to master and produce (not to mention ship and store), but that big of a price difference in 1979 is just astounding.  Maybe they made laserdiscs on old vinyl record presses or something.  Was the prohibitive cost of the players the reason why the cheaper laserdiscs never took off?