Cowon iAudio 9 and iAudio E2 media players make the scene stateside

Cowon-heads of the world, you are in for a treat today. It looks like not one but two of the company's snack-sized media players are finally hitting the big time. First off, the iAudio 9 PMP is due to hit the states within a week. Available in 8GB and 16GB denominations, for some reason the domestic version will be available only in black. Aside from supporting the usual compliment of media files (MP3, FLAC, Ogg, WAV, APE, WME, XviD, and WMV videos) this guy sports composite video out. Get your hands on the 8GB version for $129, or go wild with 16GB for $169. If video isn't your bag, the enigmatic iAudio E2 (all 2.5-inches of it) is also available. Sporting a bevy of EQ presets, 4GB of storage and a not entirely terrible 11.5 hours of battery life, this is the keychain you've always wanted -- but never wanted to pay $65 for. Additional glamor shots after the break.

One Force Tracker iPhone app Only for the Military

There are a lot of apps you can find over at the iTunes app store but this is one app you are not going to find. Unless you are in the military, the One Force Tracker app for the iPhone is only available from the Raytheon website and is made for soldiers who can make use of a constantly updating app detailed with friendly and enemy positions.

The gist of the app is to help enhance the military through the use of an iPhone app although it seems weird to find a soldier going off to war with an iPhone in tow. I don’t think their captains or commanders would even allow them to bring one on the training field or better yet, actual warfare.

Panasonic GF1 preview

Our hands-on preview of the GF1 - the third model in Panasonic's Micro Four Thirds 'G' system. The GF1 squeezes much the same functionality as the G1/GH1 into a body that's roughly the same size as the Olympus E-P1. We've had an early production sample for a few weeks now; just enough time to produce an in-depth preview and an extensive samples gallery (including plenty of shots taken with the new 20mm F1.7 pancake lens). Enjoy.

Microsoft Street Side

Microsoft’s Street Side does for interactive street level photographs what Google Maps did for regular maps.

You can interactively drive around the city using the keyboard and see street level photographs (left, window, front view, and right window), plus a satellite overview. This is a more effective and easier to use presentation than Amazon’s Block View .

It’s really pretty cool, though limited to Seattle and San Francisco for now.

Virgin Galactic Plans Passenger Space Travel

Richard Branson founded Virgin Atlantic Airways. Now he has joined with aviation designer Burt Rutan to form a new space travel company, Virgin Galactic. Five years ago, Mister Rutan's SpaceShipOne became the first private craft to reach space.

The spacecraft made three suborbital flights. You can see SpaceShipOne at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington. Mister Rutan is now partners with Mister Branson to create a spacecraft for passengers.

Enterprise is the first of five planned SpaceShipTwo planes. The eighteen-meter long craft is designed tocarry two pilots and six passengers. Testing of SpaceShipTwo is expected to begin next year. The company hopes to begin sending passengers into space by two thousand eleven. Mister Branson says he plans to bring his son and daughter and his parents with him on the first flight.

The spacecraft will launch from Spaceport America in New Mexico. Mister Branson expects his company will be able to take one thousand people into space within the first year of operation. To date, only about five hundred people have traveled into space.

Passengers will pay two hundred thousand dollars to ride to outer space and back for two and a half hours. The flight includes about five minutes of weightlessness. Passengers will be required to have three days of training before the flights. About three hundred people have already paid money for the space flights.

Virgin Galactic expects to spend more than four hundred million dollars for five commercial spaceships and launch vehicles. But Richard Branson is not the only one working to make space flight available to the public. Several other people are also building their own rockets. They include Amazon.com Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, computer game programmer John Carmack and rocketeer Jeff Greason. Yet Virgin Galactic is expected to be the first to operate its spacecraft.

Apple announces the best selling iTunes Music, Apps, Shows, Movi…

iTunes is a giant, selling billions of songs, movies, television shows, and just about everything digital. Fighting for rank is damned important if you are a creator or publisher of any digital media. Sell more, make more. Simple.

Apple has taken it upon themselves to release a list of the top apps, music, podcasts and other things. If you would like to see the whole list, click here to launch it in iTunes.

The top app list is divided into “best of” and “top seller” categories for two types of apps: general applications, and games. Apple seems to think that there is a big enough difference between them to have it fair to separate them.

So, who won? Well, instead of just listing, we will show you are a screenshot of each of the top four from each of the four categories. Enjoy, and happy downloading.

Bear Grills - "Man vs. Wild"

Man vs. Wild, the television show that proved to be something less than the life-or-death struggle it was portrayed to be, returned to the Discovery channel last night with a disclaimer:

He and the crew receive support when they are in potentially life-threatening situations, as required by health and safety regulations.

The shows have also added fresh voice-overs by star Bear Grylls to avoid misleading the viewer into thinking he was staying alive and enduring harsh environments with only a knife, a flint and maybe some water, as he claimed in the beginning of each episode.

Hollywood Reporter played couch potato during a four-hour mini-marathon last night as Mr. Grylls revealed that he didn’t actually catch that rabbit in the Scottish highlands, rappel down that Mexican canyon without safety gear, sleep in a jungle in Ecuador or build a complex shelter in a tree in Florida’s Everglades without any help whatsoever.