The mercury has already started to drop across most of the North American continent and you may be dreading another winter of getting into your cold car every morning to go to work.

If you opted to save $10,000 or more for a cheaper car that doesn’t have heated seats, then you might consider just $50 for this gem – a heated cushion that by itself might be worth the price alone. But this product from Wagan is also a massaging cushion with 5 motors and a remote control too.

It works via either AC or DC adapters and can of course be used in the home as well.

Buy now!
Price: $49.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

No, not a release of the much blogged about Chrome OS, but a webcast given by a VP of Product Management, Sundar Pichai. He starts off by talking about Chrome, the browser, then gets into Chrome OS itself.

Perhaps the biggest news of all is that the Chrome OS has been open sourced. Kudos again Google. Just one little detail, the open source version is called Chromium OS.

If you don’t know what Chrome OS is, then take a look at this entertaining video which explains what it is, and more importantly why.

There are numerous portable battery backup solutions out there that come in various sizes, shapes and function. iTech makes one that falls into the ‘green’ category. How? By being rechargeable via solar energy. The SolarCharger 906 is a compact iPhone-sized (approx 4″ x 2.5″ x 0.6″) solar panel that holds 1,260mAh of power.

You can either charge up the 906 via a USB cable but of course, its star power (pardon the pun) is to be recharged via the sun’s rays. The 906 comes with a clear plastic cradle that is very securely connected and suction cups that you can use to attach it to your car’s windscreen. There’s also a car-kit.

The SolarCharger 906 has 4 blue LED lights on it that shows the degree to which it is charged up. Unfortunately, it takes over 20 hours to get fully charged up via sunlight, but iTech claims that it can keep a full charge for up to a year. So far, we’ve found that it does keep a charge for a week.

It also comes with 10 different power adapter tips including ones for LG, Nokia, Nintendo, Samsung, and Sony phones, Sony PSP and a few different USB tips (supports iPhone, iPods, Motorola and Blackberrys).

You can simultaneously charge a device while the 906 is charging via sunlight. Theoretically, you can keep the 906 running indefinitely if it gets enough sunshine.

We really liked iTech’s SolarCharger 906, but have to say that it is ideal for those folks that have their cars outside for a significant amount of time daily and use their portable devices enough to warrant an emergency backup. People that don’t fit this description may not get their money’s worth from the SolarCharger, although the 1 time you absolutely need your phone recharged, you may think just that!

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch is reporting that a Google Phone is imminent, possibly in early 2010. However, it may be a data-only VoIP ‘phone’ but what would be cool is if Google issues Google Voice phone numbers to those phones.

About the only bad piece of news here is that it may end up initially only on AT&T with other GSM carriers being maybes.

The hardware would in all likelihood be produced by some other hardware vendor but only have Google branding.

Here’s another water-related product from FINIS, a 3.1Gb MP3 player that can be submerged in water, so you can use it for swimming. The SwiMP3 player works like the Audio Bone Headphones and transmits the sound to your cheekbones by vibration. Sound strange, but it works surprisingly well.

The SwiMP3 plays MP3 and WMA files and has basic controls embedded in one of the sides.

Buy now!
Price: $121.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Back in the mid-90s, I really thought that AOL (America Online) couldn’t keep competing against the tidalwave of new ISPs that were offering Internet connectivity for much less, not to mention without the horrible bandwidth-sucking AOL application in an age of dial-up modems. I was quite wrong. Relatively few knew about those ‘other’ ISPs and AOL thrived.

In what may retrospectively be seen as hubris, AOL merged with media giant Time Warner and the company was even know for a few years as AOL Time Warner.

The merger was a mess. The 2 companies never really merged and benefited from any potential symbiotic relationships. AOL later became a subsidiary, and now they’re being thrown off altogether.

Will AOL survive by itself? I don’t see it. I imagine they’ll need to get absorbed by another ISP or tech company in order to carry on.

Worried about your laptop getting stolen when you nature calls and you’re at a Starbucks working? LAlarm (laptop alarm) semi-solves that problem by equipping your laptop with a auto-style alarm – loud and annoying!

If you have the LAlarm software installed, you simply plug your computer into a power outlet or plug in a flash drive and lock the computer. If the flash drive is disconnected, or the laptop is unplugged from the power, then the theft alarm goes off. A nice feature is that the theft alarm is audible and loud regardless of the mute status or volume level in Windows.

LAlarm has 2 other useful features – an auto-destroy folder and an e-mail-on-theft function. LAlarm will delete any data in the auto-destroy folder upon theft detection. The e-mail on theft function will send you sensitive files before wiping them.

LAlarm also has a number of additional alarms to help you be more productive: battery life, disk health, your health (time of use), mobile phone alerts and more.

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer
Price: Free for personal use; $50 for a business license
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

Livio and Pandora have partnered to bring you the Livio Radio which features easy-to-setup access to Pandora as well as over 11,000 other Internet radio stations.

Once you pay for the box, you won’t have to pay for anything else except of course for your home’s Internet connection. You will not be restricted to the 40 hour cap on free Pandora either.

The most Pandora-specific feature is the thumbs-up, thumbs-down buttons on the box itself.

The Livio Radio uses Wi-Fi (or Ethernet cable) to connect to your home network and has a cool retro-look to it.

Buy now!
More info from the manufacturer
Price: $199.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)

TrickleStar is a tech company that makes a line of products geared to save you money with your energy usage. We reviewed 2 of their products that go hand in hand. The main product is the PC TrickleSaver. It basically works by monitoring your computer (via USB cable) to see if it’s on. If it’s not, then it kills the power to any devices you have plugged into the TrickleSaver. You can look at the TrickleSaver as a different take on similar power conservation products like the Smart Strip.

If you have numerous devices about your office and/or main computer that you never think about shutting down when not in use, then the TrickleSaver can save you some money, by automatically cutting the power to them. However, before you rush out and buy one, you should consider whether or not this makes sense for you.

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First there were the rumors, but now Dell has confirmed that they are getting into the cell phone handset market and yes, the Mini 3 as it will be called, will run Android.

They’re starting off in China and Brazil, but hopefully will release a handset stateside soon.