Excessive but Awesome Home Appliances

Purchasing a new big screen television or stove is a fine way to make your home seem new again without having to tackle a major renovation project. But while these basic purchases add a little extra luster to your home, they aren’t all that out of the ordinary.

More interesting are those gadgets that make you feel like they’ve arrived from some strange future, the ones that make you shake your head and say “Why would anyone need that?” And then, on second thought, you admit to yourself, “I absolutely need that.”

To help you with your next home hardware purchases, we’ve rounded up some of the most over-the-top home gadgets that you don’t really need, but you’re certainly going to want.

Neato XV-11—Your Roomba sucks. And I don’t mean that as some kind of lame pun. But you know what’s even better? A robo-vacuum with lasers! Enter the Neato XV-11 $400), the world’s first laser-guided Roomba-alternative. Why would a vacuum need an onboard laser-guidance system, you ask? While the Roomba whirls around your house like a blind animal, often re-cleaning the same spots over and over again, the Neato scans the room and charts a smarter and quicker path to spotlessness.

Dyson Air Multiplier—For years we’ve suffered through the tyranny of traditional fan designs, with their difficult-to-clean, dust-encrusted blades. But now from Dyson — the maker of those revolutionary vacuums — comes the world’s first bladeless fan. The Dyson Air Multiplier ($300-$450) draws and channels air in a method similar to a jet engine, giving you a more powerful, smoother breeze. Sure it’s a steep price to pay for a fan, but that’s what it takes to leave the propellers behind and enter the jet age.

Conmoto Travelmate Fireplace—For thousands of years man has struggled to master and contain the power of fire. Now we can say that the task has been completed and the ultimate goal reached: A gas fireplace outfitted in a sleek transparent suitcase. The Conmoto Travelmate Portable Fireplace ($3,200) means that you’ll never again be left longing for a warming fire in your cramped studio apartment or while on the road.

HumanTouch HT-9500 Massage Chair—Ask any tech junkie and they’ll tell you, there’s nothing quite as relaxing as curling up in a favorite chair with their beloved touchscreen media device. Well HumanTouch has figured out a way to top the quiet comfort of a day spent cradling a tablet in a comfy chair. The HumanTouch HT-9500 massage chair ($5,200) is an iPad- and iPhone-enabled pleasure vessel. Linking with your device, the chair allows you to program and control a relaxation routine of your own making. You can also download routines designed by athletes and physicians for a post-scrimmage rubdown or one to send yourself into a pre-bedtime trance.

Magimix Vision Toaster—Toast should be one of the easiest things to make, but I’m an impatient person, constantly popping it up to check on its progress. Added to that, I have never found a toaster that reliably browns a slice of bread the same way two days in a row. With the Magimix Vision Toaster ($249), the world’s first see-through toaster, you can monitor your bread’s progress second by second, ensuring your morning is never again ruined by a burnt breakfast.

LG Thinq appliances—We’ve been promised “smart homes” for years, but the technology has long been hobbled by “dumb” appliances. LG hopes to change all that with their Thinq line of appliances. Featuring a built in wi-fi network, a Thinq appliance will let you monitor food expiration dates from your iPhone, or download new energy-saving wash cycles for your washing machine.

Troy-Bilt Pack Horse—Why break your back hauling mulch and rocks the old fashioned way when you can put a gas-powered wheelbarrow behind the job? Capable of moving up to 500 pounds, the Troy-Bilt Pack Horse ($1,300) is like having your own backyard mule, without all those the messy droppings to clean up.

Robomow lawnmowers—The Robomow line of automatic mowers will mow your lawn while you sit on the porch sipping lemonade. Sure you could get a push mower for a tenth of the cost, but can you really put a price on idle summer afternoons? Apparently you can: $1,200-$2,000.

Cost of 1,000 Federal Committees Leaves Taxpayers With Skyrocketing Bill

For decades, this has been Washington's go-to response for tackling an array of policy challenges big and small, national and local. But that response has added up.

The federal government hosts a network of 1,000 advisory panels that consisted of more than 74,000 members last year, and they are becoming increasingly expensive -- statistics kept by the federal government show the cost of running these committees has nearly doubled over the past decade.

Though the staggering number of committees has remained fairly constant during that time, the bill they rack up every year has grown rapidly, from $215 million in fiscal year 2000 to $386 million last fiscal year. The collective budget is projected to top $400 million for the 2011 budget year.

It's unclear why the price tag is rising so much at a time when inflation is not, though the bulk of the increase can be found in the cost of paying federal staff who work for these committees. That has some government watchdogs and lawmakers paying attention, and questioning whether Washington really needs tens of thousands of committee members advising the public on everything from pesticides to actuarial examinations.

"Some serve a legitimate purpose, but most of them are just bogus ways for some official to appoint who knows who," Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told FoxNews.com. "It's a way to punt a tough question."

Plus, he said, "It's very costly."

Chaffetz plans to introduce legislation next month aimed at requiring the executive branch to reduce the number of advisory committees. He said his "gut" instinct is to get rid of them all, but he suggested a review process might have to be implemented.

"I want to make sure we're not getting rid of a committee to oversee nuclear codes," he said.

According to government statistics, there were 74,346 committee members last year, up from about 52,000 a decade ago. Some work on these committees on a volunteer basis; for those who don't, the cost of paying them topped $47 million last year. Separate from that, the largest single cost -- at $180 million, up from $100 million a decade ago -- comes from funding the staff who do the grunt work. Another big factor is travel and related expenses, which amounted to $72 million last year.

As with most expenses outside of Medicare, Social Security and defense spending, these costs are small potatoes when compared with the federal budget shortfall now consistently north of $1 trillion.

But sometimes what they produce is difficult to gauge. A 2010 report showed just 8 percent of committee recommendations had been or will be fully implemented. About a fifth of all committees deal with reviewing grant applications; most committees, though, report "trust in government" as one of their most vital services. Only 35 committees reported tackling any kind of cost-savings for the government.

Best Tech of 2011? 4 Must-Have Gadgets

There were 2,700 exhibitors, over 20,000 gadgets, spread across nearly 2 million square feet of the Las Vegas Convention Center, all previewing the gadgets to be unveiled over the year to come. I walked the halls looking at all the new tecnology until my feet nearly fell off. Here are the highlights that stuck with me -- things that I'm definitely adding to my shopping list.

Motorola’s Xoom Tablet

It was voted Best of CES and for good reason. The Motorola Xoom is the tablet most likely to give Apple's iPad a run for its money. It won’t hit the market until March, but the Xoom will be the first tablet running Google’s Honeycomb operating system -- the forthcoming version of the Android OS that's made explicitly for tablet-style devices.

Android fans are salivating over the Xoom's specs, too: it runs on Verizon’s lightning-fast 4G LTE network, has 32GB of storage, two cameras, HD video capture, an SD card slot

and a 1GHz processor, plus it’s upgradable from 3G to 4G, meaning you can use it on 3G now and then on 4G when the faster network becomes available in your area.

Samsung 8000 LED TV

It’s hard to get impressed by televisions these days -- until you see Samsung’s 8000 Series LED TV, that is. The screen is stunning, and the bezel around the viewing area has been reduced to almost nothing, just 1.5 inches. It's like smooth, seamless glass.

I’ve always been impressed with Samsung’s picture quality, but this TV takes the cake. Plus it’s packed with clever features that make sense for the living room, including Skype and 3D. The 8000 Series will be available in 46-, 55-, and 65-inch sizes.

Celestron SkyProdigy 130

After just receiving my new Orion telescope for Christmas, I was a little depressed when I laid eyes on this new beauty. The Celestron SkyProdigy 130 takes the guesswork out of stargazing by autocalibrating the view finder.

It uses an onboard camera to detect where the viewer is facing, and it takes just three minutes to find the star or planet you’re looking for. Sure, this technology has been around for eons, but only Donald Trump could afford earlier versions. Not anymore: the Celestron SkyProdigy 130 is just $700.

Technology Facebook Will Disclose Financials or Go Public by April 2012, Report Says

Facebook will begin disclosing financial information or stage an initial public offering by April 2012, according to a new 100-page private-placement memo now being distributed to potential investors in the company.

The popular social-networking company said in the document that it intends to breach a critical 500-shareholder limit this year. Crossing the limit triggers a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that requires that companies file financial information -- even if their shares don't trade publicly.

Facebook's intentions have been under heavy debate since the company launched a private share offering through Goldman Sachs Group this week. Some investors have wondered whether the arrangement with Goldman was designed to avoid such disclosures. The document makes clear that isn't the case, and that Facebook will likely be a publicly traded company in 2012.

A Facebook spokesman declined to comment. Goldman Sachs declined to comment.

Companies have 120 days after crossing this year-end 500-shareholder

threshold to register as a reporting company.

TECH SHOW: AMD Launches New Chips In Latest Salvo Vs Intel

LAS VEGAS -(Dow Jones)- Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD: 8.89, 0.00, 0.00%) unveiled on Wednesday new chips that are expected to reduce production cost and boost performance, the latest salvo in its competition with rival Intel Corp. (INTC: 20.93, 0.00, 0.00%).The Sunnyvale, Calif., chip designer's next-generation line of chips, dubbed "Fusion," pairs a traditional computer microprocessor and a graphics processor on the same piece of silicon. The combination is expected to lower production costs, improve performance and lower power consumption compared to the current practice of using two separate chips with specialized tasks.

"The importance of graphics has become more and more clear to our customers," AMD Chief Executive Dirk Meyer said at an event at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. "The near-term performance of Fusion is to bring a better visual experience to notebooks."AMD tipped its hand in a press release Tuesday that said Fusion would be displayed at the trade show.

Fusion is AMD's latest step in its competition with giant Intel, which is expected to release a similar chip later Wednesday at CES. AMD has long lagged Intel in the microprocessor market because its chips have been seen as comparatively weak and inefficient.

AMD said desktop, laptop and netbook computers featuring its new processors are already available and that it expects manufacturers, such as Dell Inc. (DELL: 13.89, 0.00, 0.00%) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ: 44.21, 0.00, 0.00%), to announce plans to sell notebook computers using the technology for between $300 and $500. Tablet computers with the new chips are expected to be available in coming months.

AMD largely missed out on the last hot portable product line--netbook computers--and the company expects its new Fusion chips will help it expand in that market. While AMD has said it isn't targeting the fast-growing tablet-computer market, the company has said some personal-computer makers likely will use its semiconductors for such portable devices.

Already, Acer Inc. (ACEIY) has unveiled plans to use an AMD Fusion chip in a Microsoft Corp. (MSFT: 28.01, 0.00, 0.00%) Windows-based convertible tablet computer expected to hit the market in January.

AMD's Meyer also said he doesn't feel pressure to enter the smartphone market, where he said at least seven chip makers--including Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM: 52.03, 0.00, 0.00%), Broadcomm Corp. (BRCM: 43.84, 0.00, 0.00%) and Intel--are competing fiercely to capture market share. Earlier in the day, Qualcomm said it had agreed to buy Wi-Fi chip maker Atheros Communications Inc. (ATHR: 44.63, 0.00, 0.00%) for $3.1 billion in a bid to grab a larger chunk of the mobile market.

"While there are a lot of units there, the revenue [from smartphones] is smaller," Meyer said.

AMD and other semiconductor makers have been benefiting from a sharp rise in demand following the depths seen in the recession, but many chip makers, including AMD and Intel, have warned of weaker consumer demand for PCs in developed markets. Still, AMD in October posted a 16% rise in third-quarter revenue as the weak consumer demand didn't take as large a toll as feared. The company will reports its fourth-quarter results later this month.

In early afternoon trading Wednesday, AMD shares, down 12% over the past 12 months, were up 1.1% at $8.86.

A R Rahman turns 45

AR Rahman, who won Oscar awards for his popular compositions in Danny’s Oscar winning film ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ in 2009, has scored for this movie as well.

An excited Rahman tweeted to his fans: “I'm very excited about 127 hours releasing in the UK today and what makes it even more special is that we scored the music here..in London :).”

The success of the movie and the positive reactions from his fans towards his latest compositions will surely be the best gift he can expect on Thursday.

The film ‘127 Hours’ centres on the story of mountain climber Aron Ralston whose right arm remained stuck under a boulder in Utah for more than five days in 2003.

Besides this film, Rahman is also ready with the world premiere of his latest music video as he tweeted to his fans world wide: “Guys, watch out for the world premiere of my new music video...coming soon....”

The talented Indian music composer from South started his fairy tale run in film industry with ‘Roja’ and since then he has produced multiple heart warming numbers till now.

His latest tracks from the movie ‘127 Hours’ has already attracted the attention of the listeners and this is very much evident from the fact that they have already gained nominations in the ‘Best Original Score’ category at the Golden Globe.

Earlier, the ‘Mozart of Madras’ as Rahman is popularly called, had bagged his first Golden Globe award in the same category for ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ in 2009.