TOP TECHNOLOGY NEWS

I once bought a hand strap for my SLR. It was made by Hama, and it was one of the worst pieces of junk I have ever used. The Handy Dandy Hand Strap, on the other hand (ahem) looks to be about a thousand times better. And even if it isn’t, it sure looks good.

A hand strap is a great way to keep your camera secure when you’re carrying it — either from street thieves or just your own clumsy propensity to drop things.

Samsung announced the U.S. debut of its Galaxy S II smartphone, available on the Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile networks (though, conspicuously, not Verizon’s).

The smartphone has been available in Europe and Asia for a while now, where it has sold over five million units. It currently holds the title of best-selling smartphone in the world, surpassing its similarly hot predecessor.

The Galaxy S II has an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with autofocus, flash, and 1080p HD video recording. The phone also includes a front-facing 2-megapixel camera for easy and clear Skyping. The Galaxy will run the latest Gingerbread version of Android and the latest version of Samsung’s TouchWiz interface. Vlingo is providing the phones voice-activation software.

Sprint’s version of the phone — the Epic 4G Touch — will be first to go on sale beginning September 16 for $200. Other carriers have not yet announced pricing or release details.

If you’re looking for a textbook example of technology obstruction by the media industry, look no further than e-textbooks.

“About 90 percent of the time, the cheapest option is still to buy a used book and then resell that book,” says Jonathan Robinson, founder of FreeTextbooks.com, an online retailer of discount books. “That is really an obstacle for widespread adoption [of e-textbooks], because smarter consumers realize that and are not going to leap into the digital movement until the pricing evens out.”

That’s sad news for students headed back to college this fall.

You won’t find Princess Leia begging for help when you turn on Sega Toys’ new Star Wars-themed projector. You’ll have to settle instead for a brilliant rendition of our galaxy instead.

The R2-D2 Homestar Planetarium is the latest in Sega Toys’ line of astral projectors. But unlike other models, it’s the only model that identifies a fully operational Death Star. Condolences to members of the Rebel Alliance: Alderaan is no where to be found.

The unit stands at 8 inches tall, and the LED projector runs for up to three hours on four AAA batteries. The planetarium will be available for 6825 yen ($91) when it hits stores in Japan next month. Stateside astronomers and Star Wars geeks will be able to procure the projector from import sites like Japan Trend Shop, which is taking pre-orders. Pairs well with the Blu-Ray edition of the movies, also out in September.

Oh man! This is why offices where invented. Who cares about actual work when you can just race remote-controlled helicopters above the cubicles? Even better, you control the Helo TC with your phone.

The chopper, from iAccessory maker Griffin, has twin rotors on an aluminum frame and a black polycarbonate body.

If you pick the right one, a stylus can be pretty great for scrawling on your tablet’s screen. A pen is still way better than a finger for painting, drawing and writing, but even the skinniest stylus has a problem: it has a fat tip that hides the part of the screen you’re actually interested in.

Adonit, previously seen in these virtual pages with the swanky Writer iPad keyboard case, has come up with a possible answer.

Cellphone and tablet maker HTC has bought half of the headphone company Beats by Dre. HTC has purportedly paid $300 million for a 51% share of the company. New products integrating “Beats technology” will begin to appear this fall.

And apart from that, we know very little. The almost 500-word long press release rambles on with only a few nuggets of information hidden within the corporate mutterings.

HP needs to get its tablet in your hands, and the company is doing everything it can to make that happen.

HP has tried slashing the tablet’s prices. Over the weekend, the company discounted its new tablet by $100 when purchased through HP’s web store and other participating retailers, bringing the price of the TouchPad down to $400 and $500 for the 16GB and 32GB versions, respectively.

HP has tried rebates.

Vivitar’s latest addition to the groaning shelves of adequate cameras is the 690 HD, a small and very cheap waterproof camcorder.

At $60, you’re probably not expecting much in the way of features, and Vivitar doesn’t disappoint. That’s not to say the camera is bad — just stripped down to the bare basics. There’s no auto-focus, no HDMI-out and no optical zoom, but everything important is included.

Video is motion-JPEG in an AVI wrapper, recoded at 720 x 1280 and 25fps. It is recorded onto an SD card and powered by its own rechargeable lithium battery.

As part of the ongoing lawsuit between Samsung and Apple, the launch of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 has been delayed in Australia. A court injunction has been won by Apple which will prevent Samsung from selling the tablet “until [Samsung] wins court approval or the lawsuit is resolved,” according to a report by Bloomberg.

The lawsuit started in the US in April, and has Apple accusing Samsung of ripping of the iPhone and the iPad in look and feel.