Over here at Gearlog headquarters, we've been intrigued by Jada's Guitar Hero Air Guitar Rocker since the company first busted it out back at CES. While the device officially launched back in February, its availability has been fairly limited--well, as limited as something that's widely available online can be.

If you've been waiting for the full nationwide rollout to get your hands on this guy, it looks like you're finally in luck. Guitar Hero Air Guitar Rocker is available today through all the major retail channels, including Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, and Toys R Us, for the heroic price of $29.99.

Jada also announced the release of forthcoming "Encore Packs for Air Guitar Rocker with new belt buckles and cartridges featuring "legendary heavy metal and '80s rock riff." The expansion packs will be available this summer, for $14.99 a piece.

When I wrote the top ten list of the geekiest sneakers, I knew there'd come a day when there'd be a Wi-Fi-enabled pair. Designer Stefan Dukaczewski developed a prototype based on Nike Dunk shoes, with an 802.11 detector under the flap on the left shoe and a discrete three-LED display system, according to Gizmodo. The prototype is cleverly named, "A Step in the Right Direction," or ASRD.

The idea is that as you're walking, the pressure sensor in the heel is activated, and the Wi-Fi detector is capable of finding a hotspot within 150 feet. Of course, you may be walking around all day until you find a connection, but at least you're getting the exercise, right?

No word yet on whether these wearable Wi-Fi detectors will be in a store near you.

Still holding out hope for one of those Dick Tracy-style two-way wrist communicators? Perhaps it's time to lower your standards a touch. Neutrano's new Photowatch eschews that whole video talk thing, in favor of some good, old-fashioned wrist-top digital photo album goodness.

The watch holds between 40 and 160 photos, depending on the model. It's rechargeable via USB, and should get about eight hours on a single charge--not a whole heck of a lot for a watch, but at least it's got a handy built-in time keeping method, being that it's a, you know, watch. The Photowatch is PC and Mac compatible, and according to Neutrano, transferring photos is a simple matter of a plugging and playing, no software required. The watch's "analog" style hand design overlays the photo of your choice, for handy time-telling capabilities. Says the company's president, Gary Rotman, of the device, "Traditionally, the wristwatch is one of the top 10 holiday gift items. Last Christmas, the digital photo frame was the number one selling consumer product in North America...The Photowatch is a perfect example of this unique and natural integration." Makes sense to us. For Mothers' Day, why not combine two things she already has into one thing she doesn't really need?

The Photowatch is available now from Brookstone, for a cool $100.

It's OK. Admit it, we've all been there. You're just about ready to consummate a relationship with that special someone when it occurs to you: You've got foot odor.You could attempt to keep your shoes on for the rest of the night and chalk it up to some manifestation of a Tobias Fünke-like never-nude syndrome, or you can invest in a pair of Dami Trading's Nano Silver Socks.

According to the company, the socks are designed with nano silver particles built in to, "fight bacteria using a slow ionization process." The resulting effect is both anti-bacterial and deodorizing.

And have no fear: "The nano silver material maintains a semi-permanent antibacterial shield despite repeated use and wash." It's hard to say precisely how long "semi-permanent" is, but by then your significant other will hopefully have already accepted you for who you are. Stinky feet and all.

The Nano Silver Socks will be on display to the public with a number of other wacky Korean gadgets at New York's Koreannovation show on May 14th and 15th.

"Current portable music players rely on headphones or earphones," states the release for the Soundwalk. Fair enough, but what exactly is the problem with that? Hearing damage, naturally. So, how do the fine people of the Soundwalk's manufacturers, the fittingly titled AZA Extremes, propose to solve this problem? By strapping a pair of speakers to your torso.

The Soundwalk comes in vest, jacket, or backpack designs. Speakers are built into the shoulder straps via one-inch lightweight speakers, assuring that you both help fight hearing loss and get a sweet walking soundtrack that all within earshot can enjoy--whether they want to or not. As a bonus, the EF series offers a built-in mic for public cell phone conversations.

The Soundwalk will be on display to the public with a number of other wacky Korean gadgets at New York's Koreannovation show on May 14th and 15th.

After spending my weekend roaming the halls of the Jacob Javits Convention Center for the 3rd annual New York Comic-Con, the idea of people wearing their geekdom on their sleeves--or, rather, capes--no longer seems all that odd. So perhaps I'm not the ideal person to point out why the concept of a superhero named WiiMan is somehow out of the ordinary.

WiiMan doesn't actually fight crime or fly. In fact, he doesn't actually seem to have any special powers, save for the slightly interesting ability to control Nintendo's ultra-popular console by flailing his limbs around a lot--surely an odd enough sight to make anyone rethink committing a crime while you're around.

The costume was created by a member of the Israel-based tech collective GarageGeeks. Evildoers beware: Don't make WiiMan open up a can of Super Smashbrothers Brawl on you.

American Apparel is no stranger to controversy, but this bit of news takes matters into a wonderfully bizarre new direction. The Los Angeles-based clothing manufacturer has announced plans to introduce RFID tags into every article of clothing that the company produces.

According to Engadget, the point is to have the clothes, ""tagged at the company's manufacturing facility in Los Angeles, received in its retail stores, stored in the stock rooms at the stores, and then placed onto the sales floor and ultimately sold at the point-of-sale."

So, at least theoretically, the tags don't stick with you, once the items leave the premises, but even with that comforting thought in mind, we're sure that more than a few American Apparel fans will be unhappy with this new game plan.

One of the major criticisms of virtual worlds is that, for more and more people, they are becoming surrogates for real-life interactions. Designer Marc Owens may have found a way around this conundrum, combining the fantasy awkwardness of virtual-world interactions with real-world settings. As a bonus, shocked and befuddled spectators have been tossed in too.

The 26-year-old Royal College of Art design student has created the Avatar Machine: It's a big, bulky costume and a head-mounted camera that feeds into VR goggles, allowing users to view their own movements in three-fourths overhead perspective.

Boing Boing has a story of "beta testing" of the device in Tokyo--one of the few place in the world where people might already be accustomed to such shenanigans.

It was only a matter of time before someone was bound to develop a sneaker with LEDs to light your way. (There are already LED slippers, like the BrightFeet Slippers.) Such a sneaker would really come in handy, since I always forget to grab a flashlight when walking the dog at night.

Known as the Pioneer, this conceptual shoe operates the built-in light for a full 12 hours while the wearer walks or runs, due to the tiny internal battery. The shoe will light a straight path at up to 4.9 feet ahead of the wearer. Not bad.

The shoe material is waterproof, and the sole is made of solid rubber to absorb shock.

[via Switched]

While the tech world was busy placing bets on the next-generation DVD war, we were missing the larger picture: the battle for our eyeballs. Honestly, sometimes it takes a poorly-produced daytime television commercial to remind us where our priorities are. Fortunately, sometimes said inspiration comes attached to a pair of high-fashion Euro-style frames.

Gizmodo, who have no doubt been spending a lot of time at home during the day, catching up on their stories, caught this little ad that will no doubt forever shape the way we look at stuff.

Anyone who's ever had the simultaneous pleasure and horror of reading "Lords of Chaos" knows that Norway can be a dangerous place; all those black-metal bands running around with giant Viking axes. Apparently there's been an infant-napping epidemic as well. That's why hospitals there will be equipping newborn babies with anti-theft alarms.

"The main reason is that we want to emphasize security," Erik Normann, head of the Akershus University Hospital near Oslo told the Associated Press. "There was a period in which Norway experienced several infant kidnappings and that is something we want to avoid."

Hospital attendants will attach a bracelet to infants' ankles that contains a small chip. Another chipped bracelet is attached to the wrist of the mother. When the two bracelets are separated by a large enough distance, an alarm sounds. If someone tries to remove the bracelet from the baby or remove the baby from the hospital, the ward's doors will automatically lock and the elevators shut down--perhaps not the safest move in a hospital, but they do things a little differently in Scandinavia.

We've already seen these sorts of chips rolled out for kids and Alzheimer patients.

The day my boyfriend asks me to marry him will be a happy one. Of course, I'm not looking for him to propose with a huge rock or anything, but this conceptual ring offers more than just looking fancy. The USB Swarovski Engagement Ring is designed to store your data, too! The crystal can be pulled off the ring to reveal the mini USB flash drive component, in case you want to carry with you digital photos of the two of you, or poems your lover has written in the past.

As much as I love USB gadgets, I think I'll stick to the more traditional-looking diamond rings, k honey?

There are two key scenes in the 1980 film Star Wars the Empire Strikes Back. No, not the one where Darth Vader tells Luke, "I am your father." One is the moment right before that, where Vader lops off Luke's hand with a lightsaber. The other occurs a good deal later, when Luke is outfitted with a life-like bionic wrist and hand. In the next film, there's little, if any, indication that Luke has a robot hand.

The scenes were all the more startling because of how different real prostheses were in the early 80s and, really, right up until the last five years. In that time, an appalling number of amputees have returned home from the War in Iraq and the prosthesis industry (with a helpful push from DARPA) has transformed from a sleepy hamlet with tiny pockets of innovation, to a bustling metropolis of realistic replacement limb possibilities.

Jada, you've made my Friday. I just received my very own Guitar Hero Air Guitar Rocker kit from the California-based toy company, and have been running up and down the halls, tormenting my coworkers with it, ever since.

We caught our first glimpse of the device at this year's CES, and were immediately taken with the goofy little toy. The kit comes in two pieces. There's a receiver/belt buckle and a miniature amp, both of which clip to your belt, allowing you to play the riffs from such rock masterpieces as Black Sabbath's "Iron Man," Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water," Motorhead's "Ace of Spades," Van Halen's cover of "You Really Got Me" (what, no "Eruption?"), and of course, that classic among classics, Boston's "More Than a Feeling," simply by strumming one of the two including guitar picks in front of the belt buckle.

Simply brilliant.

[More pics after the jump.]

Jen "The Weird Hunter" DeLeo is out of the office today, so I figured I'd fill in on the geek-gear front.

First , just in time for the dorkiest Valentine's Day of your adult life, ThinkGeek is offering the 8-Bit Dynamic Life Shirt. Available for $29.99, the shirt features a Legend of Zelda-esque heart meter that lights up on a scale of 1 to 3 hearts depending on how close you get to someone with the same aggressively nerdy fashion sense. These things don't just run on love, however--you've got to buy a transmitter back as well, which will be in stock on the site later today.

Once you've got that lady or gentleman in your geeky clutches, take them back to your place for a stroll on the Powerpad, underneath the warming glow Remake's Pac-man modular lighting system.

If they're still talking to you the next morning, it must be true love.