TOP TECHNOLOGY NEWS

These amazing R2-D2-themed cans are clearly the headphones you’re looking for. Fashioned in the currently popular (and always comfortable) padded-earpiece-and-headband style, the two ear-cups are tiny replicas of R2-D2’s dome. It’s like your head was a double-sided X-Wing fighter and somebody stuffed a pair of R2s into your ear-holes.

I’d list the specs here, but as we now know, gadget specs are bullshit, and these headphones are almost identical to any others you’d get for the asking price of $50 (or 37 euros).

Peel is a very clever universal remote for your iPhone, combining hardware and software to both clear the mess off your coffee-table and recommend shows.

It works like this. The app, free from the App Store, provides a customized TV guide based on your favorite shows (you need to tell the app which shows you like). Pull up the main screen and you can flip through the night’s time slots and see only shows that you’ll like and that are available to you. And if you really like something, you can tweet it or share on Facebook direct from the app.

In London, it’s hard to find a restaurant without a gimmick. And Inamo has probably the biggest gimmick of all. If you’re a hungry, tech-loving nerd, that is.

The restaurant, which just launched a new venue on London’s, tries to do away with almost all waiterly duties, apart from actually carrying plates around.

Rumors are buzzing about an impending Windows Phone 7 software update that will bring Microsoft’s new mobile OS up to speed with the iPhone.

While we like Windows Phone 7, it seems highly unlikely that it will catch up to the iPhone quite that fast.

Tech blog WP Central quotes Chris Walsh, who worked on an early jailbreak-like hack for Windows Phone 7 called Chevron WP7, claiming that in January 2011, Windows Phone 7 will get a “massive” software update that’s worthy of being called Windows Phone 8.

As we get ready for the traditional orgy of consumption that is the Christmas season, our thoughts turn to gifts and, specifically, novelties so unusual and useless that our giftee cannot possibly have one already. Thanko’s Keyboard Quiet Cover completely owns this category.

It’s a thick fabric bag into which you slide your noisy keyboard, thus dulling the rat-a-tat sounds of the clackety mechanical keys. Your hands enter through a gap in the front, and there is a plastic window so you can see what you’re pressing.

And that window is the giveaway. Almost nobody uses a noisy leaf-sprung keyboard anymore, and those that do most certainly know how to touch-type, obviating the need for a plastic window.

Using a regular ol’ office keyboard to play games on a PC is like using an office-chair to race in the Tour de France: it’ll get the job done, but it’s not pretty. What the dedicated MMORPGer really needs is the Nostromo from Razer, and co-designed by Belkin.

Slide your hand into its cockpit and you’l find it cosseted by the ergonomic wrist-rest as your thumb falls perfectly over the eight-way directional pad and your fingers will hover poised over the 16 programmable (and backlit) keys.

It has taken more than seven years, but at last Apple has brought The Beatles to the iTunes Store. If you are one of the rare people who is both a huge fan of the group, but somehow doesn’t actually own the music, you can buy the entire back catalog at once for $150.

Ever since Apple started selling music downloads back in April 2003, there has been speculation as to when — if — The Beatles would be available on the store. The negotiations surely weren’t helped by legal troubles triggered by Apple Computer when it got into the music business and trod on the toes of The Beatles’ Apple Corp.

We love a good concept design, but there’s a thin line between inventing something useful and veering off into a crazy fantasy-land of what-ifs. This admittedly cool file-transfer tool is firmly in the second category, and clearly the designers took not a second of their time to figure out how it might actually work.

The device is the iDrop, a stylus which you use like a pipette. Touch the end to text, an image or even an app on your tablet’s screen and then press the end of the pen to “suck” the information into the pen.

I promise I’ll stop writing about iPad keyboard cases soon, but today’s second installment comes from ThinkGeek, in the form of a luxurious leather folio case, packed with little chiclets to help you type.

Unlike the ZAGGmate profiled earlier today, the ThinkGeek case is designed to continuously swaddle the iPad, not to be removed. It holds the tablet by its edges, covering the bezel with a leather rectangle whilst still allowing access to all the buttons and ports.

But that’s not why you’re here. The keyboard part of the case is hidden under a flap which doubles as a wrist-rest when unfolded, and the connection is, as ever, via Bluetooth (li-ion battery life 90-hours ).

What have the Romans ever done for us? Well, it turns out that back somewhere between A.D 201 to 300, a clever Roman, probably named MacGyvericus, invented the multitool. And not just some weird, old-fashioned multitool, either. MacGyvericus’ tool is startlingly similar to the modern Swiss Army Knife, now part of the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England.

Like the common Swiss tool, the Roman version has a lot of foldaway implements stowed inside: a knife, spike, pick, fork and a spatula.