Jeremy Parish at 1UP.com couldn't wait for the U.S. version: He imported Nintendo's Opera 8.0 browser for the DS and DS Lite from Japan, which is the only place so far that it's available. So how did it go? Mostly, not all that well. I'm sure not going to bother ordering it now; we'll see how the U.S. version works, if it even arrives here.

Click to his story for details.

Turntables aren't just for playing your old vinyl records. The vehicle turntable from Hovair Systems is a rotating platform you can install in your driveway, so you'll have more than one way to take your car for a spin.

The turntable is intended to help getting your car out of spaces where backing up is difficult: You drive onto the turntable, let it do a 180, and peel off; no need to do a three-point turn or pull a U-turn. It's ideal for commercial vehicles backing out of dead end streets and for residential car owners who have limited driveway space or normally would have to back out into a busy main road.

The Hovair turntable can also be used in car showrooms to flaunt the latest models. Get more information at Hovair Systems' Web site.

To read about self-parking cars, click here.

To read about self-driving cars, click here.

We've all heard a lot about hybrid cars recently. The FHybrid is a hybrid scooter intended (eventually) to run on hydrogen. Dutch industrial design student Crijn Bouman has developed a working prototype of the FHybrid for his graduation project.

Intended for city use, the FHybrid will be the first front-wheel-driven, hydrogen-powered scooter. It uses a lithium-ion battery to power its electric motor. The battery recharges during braking to save energy, the way electric hybrid cars do.

The FHybrid runs cleanly and silently, emitting no fumes or noise. On test runs, it reached speeds of 65 km/h (about 40 mph) and will reportedly be able to travel around 200 km (about 124 miles) on a full tank of hydrogen, once the final model is completed. Bouman is working with TU Delft faculty to assemble all the necessary means to fully develop the hydrogen-powered scooter. For now, the prototype is battery powered, with the help of a special fuel-cell simulator that was specially designed for this project.

To read more about hybrid technology, click here.

Lockheed Martin has an agreement with the U.S. government to develop nano vehicles to use in combat. Last week the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded the company a $1.7-million, 10-month contract to design a remote-controlled nano air vehicle (NAV), which will be used to collect military intelligence on the urban battlefield.

The NAV will be about the size of a maple seed and have a chemical rocket enclosed in its one-bladed wing, which powers a sensor payload module for more than 1,100 yards. The 0.07-ounce module is interchangeable, depending on the mission. The NAV itself will be about 1.5 inches long with a maximum takeoff weight of 0.35 ounces. Its wing will also house telemetry, communications, navigation, imaging sensors, and battery power.

The designers envision soldiers launching the NAV in indoor or outdoor combat situations and viewing its flight path through its embedded camera. The NAV will fly like a one-blade helicopter, with its camera providing a stable view, and transmit images back to a hand-held display.

The contract will fund conceptual design and risk reduction using prototypes of the NAV's parts. Following a design review set for the summer of 2007, DARPA may fund an additional 18-month period during which Lockheed Martin will design and test a flying prototype.

LG had their annual line show in New York yesterday, in a very odd, and somewhat creepy venue: Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. I'm not sure what that's supposed to say about LG's products -- that they're replicas of famous faces? Somehow I don't think that's what they were trying to get across.

After being harangued by a Joan Rivers impersonator in the lobby, we were led upstairs to the main floor, where fake celebrities were seated at small tables amongst the latest and great LG products. Probably the biggest innovation for a PC-centric crowd is their new $899 internal Blu-Ray drive, which records at 4x (in other words, taking 22 minutes to record a disk.) It also reads and writes all the old-school DVD formats, including the Rs, RWs, RAMs and multi-layer. Sweet.

I desperately want the midnight blue, $1,500 clothes washer that steams your clothes and lets you monitor the cycle from a little remote pad (at right), and the refigerator that shows the weather on a built-in LCD screen isn't so bad, either.

New to LG's displays line are a 47-inch, 1080p HDTV LCD TV, a 60-inch plasma HDTV a 26-inch LCD HDTV with a low $1,049 list price, and a 19-inch LCD computer monitor with 4ms response time and a 2,000-1 contrast ratio. 

Since I'm not the big HDTV expert around here, I'm going to reprint a paragraph from the press release and hope that Rob Heron on DL.TV comments about it next week:

Featuring LG's fifth-generation VSB chipset for optimal digital TV broadcast receptions, this 47-inch LCD HDTV is equipped with ATSC/NTSC/QAM tuners and is CableCard compatible. Other convenience features include TV Guide On-Screen® electronic program guide, multiple HD inputs, including two HDMI inputs with HDCP, and a swivel stand. The unit is also VESA compatible for convenient installation. The 47LB1DA is planned for August introduction with a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $3,999.

Oh, they showed some phones too. You'll hear a lot more about the LG Chocolate mobile phone on Monday, I promise.

At the Motorola meeting in Chicago earlier this week, they threw a very interesting slide up on the wall. If you take it seriously (click for a bigger view), Motorola has a pretty dim view of some of their major competitors. For instance, in their view "S" needs to work on sound quality, "N" and "L"'s displays are clearly lacking, and "L" has a long way to go with their feature set.

Still, I think Moto's being a little mischevious here (they often are.) It would be easy to assume "S" is, say, Samsung, "N" is naturally Nokia and "L" looks like LG. But notice that "N" rules on thinness. Thinness has never been a strength of Nokia's. Could "N" be Samsung, maker of the thinnest phones in the world? Could "S", triumphing in feature set and perceived quality, be super-smartphone-makers Nokia? Or should there be three new letters up here - "F", "U" and "D?" Discuss.