Don’t fall into the trap, Overpriced HDMI cables are a load of crap.

While trying to avoid the beating of the poor horse that’s been beaten one too many times, I stumbled upon an article and felt the need to share it with you. It’s rather short for what it covers — HDMI cables and why you don’t need to spend more than $5-$15 on any cable — but does so in a very clear and precise way.

Check out HD Guru if you’re tired of listening to your poor, technologically retarded old man boast about his new $1500 TV and accompanying $200 3′ HDMI cable. Being the tech junkie you are, it’s the least you could do. The less grossly overpriced cable sold the better.

Upcoming Verizon iPhone to use higher clocked 1.2GHz processor? Probably not.

Verizon iPhone rumors are a dime a dozen. Since 2007, said rumors have proliferated the web in waves of interest and subsequent fall outs. The rumors initially draw a lot of fan fare. But soon after, the lack of any continuing information and actual tangible products silences the uprising. This latest time, however, the iPhone rumors are back, and pushing harder than ever. Specifically, the rumor of the day is that the surely upcoming CDMA iPhone 4 will get an upgrade over its GSM cousin — a 1.2 GHz processor and internal/hidden antenna.

Now, I’d love to believe that Apple would come out and announce the CDMA iPhone with a bang. A slightly tweaked antenna design and speedier processor could even cause some to drop their fresh AT&T iPhone 4′s and jump ship to Camp Red.

But I don’t think that’s going to happen…

ATI 6xxx cards coming this November, announcement in October?

The never ending evolution of electronics is both invigorating and maddening. We all know how good it feels to hold, caress, and flog the latest and greatest gadgets. At the same time, a few weeks later something bigger, better, and faster comes along, making you and your not so new gadget feel old and irrelevant. This November, ATI intends to do just that to 5xxx owners. That is, if reports from DigiTimes are correct. Supposedly, we’ll see a pretty drastic cut in 5xxx series hardware followed by an announcement of new 6xxx “Southern Island” GPU’s in October, with an official launch sometime in November.

At one point, ATI’s next gen hardware was up in the air as ATI originally planned on using a 32nm process for the silicon. But when ATI’s manufacturer of GPU hardware, TSMC, moved from 40nm directly to a 28nm process, ATI shuffled around plans and decided to stay put at 40nm for their next gen cards.

Speculation this is, fact it is not. The PC enthusiast in me, however, will cling to every ounce of optimism running through me. Hopefully the likely increase in processing power and stagnant downsizing operations won’t mean an “Nvidia effect” (read: lots of heat) spreading across the 6xxx series hardware. Time will tell soon enough.

TweetDeck for Android now available!

Today is the day Android social butterflies have been waiting for. TweetDeck is now available! A quick recap in case you forgot, TweetDeck offers integration with several social accounts including Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, and Google Buzz. The layout is simple, clean, yet intuitive, using columns to navigate between accounts and types of messages. So far, my favorite aspect is the unified inbox of sorts that put all of your status updates in a single view, ensuring you don’t have to waste time jumping from account to account. Overall, TweetDeck for Android looks slick and performs well. And all of this from a beta. Head over to TweetDeck’s site, sign in with your TweetDeck login, and follow the prompts to get the goodness on your Android phone. **Android 2.0+ required!

TweetDeck — Come and get it!

Bummer: Even the off-contract Dell Streak is SIM-locked to AT&T

At first, you see the title and say “Who cares?”. On contract devices are routinely SIM-locked in the U. S. of A. But therein likes the kicker — even the off-contract Dell Streak is going to be SIM-locked to Big Blue. It’s a tough pill to swallow for interested parties who were planning to drop the $549 needed to be free of AT&T’s shenanigans and toot their horn on another lesser GSM carrier.

But alas, AT&T (and Dell) won’t have any of that. Too bad. Though some may remember a T-Mobile version of the Streak went through the FCC a few months back. Perhaps non-AT&T users have some hope after all. We’ll see…

The mug for cookie dunkers: TACA Mug.

Oh hell. Another one of those not so gadgety posts infiltrating Gadgetsteria. Calm down. This one is pretty nifty. I’d imagine a fair amount of you out there like not only gadgets, but food. It’s kind of hard to not like eating…staying alive and all. But there are some pretty weird folks out there. Anywho, the TACA Cookie Mug has one unique design feature — a cutout that allows cookies to fit chips deep into the liquid of your choice. Designed by Entresuelo1a design studio, this genius in a cup is unfortunately not for sale at this time. But if it were real, I’d own a whole case.

Smart vending machines coming to the states. Touchscreens, finger print readers, and….food.

For far too long, I’ve sat through countless movies taking place in lands in the far east, amazed by their technology and captivated by their assortment of…vending machines. Yes. Those hulking boxes of consumer consumption are pretty sweet. In lands far far away that is. Here in the states, we still stair at decade-old, rickety, broken down, way past their prime units. In the year 2010 and beyond, we need something new. Fast..

Next Generation Vending and Food Service whom is based out of Massachusetts has developed just the thing for western markets to jump back into the vending machine game. Their latest creations make use of gigantic touchpanel LCD screens in replace of glass looking windows as well as finger print readers that tie your phalanges to credit card numbers. Generally speaking, misplacing your fingers doesn’t happen often, hence, you’ll never be without money. Even cooler, however, is that users can bring up all kinds of information about the food contained within including fairly deep nutritional information.

The northeast will be getting 60 of these to play with over the next couple of months, with other regions hopefully sometime soon thereafter. Suddenly, I’m excited to use a vending machine again. Am I weird?