I am an avid PC gamer and when I play, I always use headphones. I use headphones because they don’t disturb the people in my home and it helps block out the noise in the environment that disturbs my play. Typically, when I play I use a set of Razer Barracuda headphones that provide very good surround sound audio quality.

Razer has introduced what may be my next set of headphones called the Megalodon 7.1 surround sound gaming headset. The headset uses Razer’s new Maelstrom Audio Engine to process positional audio cues 800% faster than comparable virtual surround sound systems according to Razer.

If you get a bunch of geeks and around a table who are really in the home theater and HDTV’s, at some point of debate over the pros and cons of plasma versus LCD TVs will take place. The plasma fans say their preferred technology is brighter and offers more contrast. The LCD brigade will say their preferred technology last longer.

The life span argument may finally be settled thanks to Panasonic. It announced that new plasma 1080p TVs have been added to its VIERA plasma line that can last for up to 100,000 viewing hours before the TV dims to half brightness. Panasonic’s 720p VIERA TVs are good for up to 60,000 hours.

It’s back-to-school time across much of the country, and many people are out buying the notebooks for the coming school year. I’m sure there are many students headed off to college for the first time, who would like to take a nice gaming notebook with them. The reality is that most decent gaming notebooks cost around $5000, more than most college students can afford.

Gateway announced that it has added a new, affordable gaming notebook to its FX series called the P-7811FX. The cost of a notebook is only $1399.99 at Best Buy, making it very price competitive with basic notebooks on the market. Despite the low price, Gateway packs it full of higher-end features that you wouldn’t expect to see at this price.

Every time I travel with my notebook computer, I always take a notebook mouse with me so I don’t have to rely on the track pad built-in. For the most part my mouse of choice typically comes from Logitech when it comes to notebooks. I have reviewed several great notebook mice from Logitech over the years. Today Logitech announced its latest notebook mouse called the V550 Nano cordless laser mouse.

The mouse has familiar Logitech features, like the tiny nano receiver that protrudes just 8 mm from the side of your notebook allowing you leave it installed at all times. The new mouse also features Logitech’s freewheeling scroll wheel that makes navigating long webpages or documents a breeze.

I commonly use both a Nikon D80 DSLR camera and a Sanyo Xacti HD camcorder that both record to SDHC media. If I wish to shoot images in RAW format on my Nikon camera, I have to have a big memory card. A smaller 2 or 4 GB storage card fills up very quickly. Thankfully, the storage capacity of SDHC cards is increasing all the time and Kingston’s latest has 32 GB of storage.

The Kingston 32 GB Elite Pro SDHC card can be used with digital cameras and HD camcorders that record to SDHC format. Kingston says that the card will hold more than 6000 10 megapixel still images and over eight hours of HD video, even when the video is recorded at high-quality 6 Mbps settings.

Whether you live in a big city and simply don’t have the space or inclination to own a car, or you’re simply looking for alternative transportation that doesn’t pollute the environment — walking or biking are probably high on your list of ways to get around. However, there’s always going to be some point when you don’t feel like walking and you don’t feel like pedaling a bike around. For these times, you need something like the new A2B Electric Bike by Ultra Motor.

I’ll say right off the bat that the bike is odd looking to my eyes. It uses mountain bike style suspension and upright riding position with an oversized seat for comfort. A small tray that sticks out from behind the bike, under the seat, and can be used for stowing computers or other items that are small. The bike has pedals that can be used if it runs out of battery power or to increase the cruise speed, but the pedals are not needed for normal operation.

Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of sports games on the PC or consoles. I have always leaned more towards games that had stuff that you can do in real life — like shooting zombies or racing cars at 250 miles an hour downtown with cops chasing you. Despite my gaming preferences EA’s Madden NFL is one of the biggest franchises of any type ever hit a game console.

Today marks the launch of EA’s Madden NFL 09, and this year’s version marks the 20-year anniversary of the Madden NFL franchise. EA says that the Madden NFL 09 assesses your skills and adjusts the gameplay to keep the experience fun and challenging as you get better. The constantly adjusting difficulty also means that the veteran players can play with the inexperienced without new players getting spanked too badly.

Lenovo has always been a brand most associated with business notebook and desktop computers. Lenovo did recently start selling notebook and desktop computers aimed at the consumer market in the US. Despite that, Lenovo is still mostly associated with business users and that market is what it is known for.

Lenovo is looking to capitalize on its business market with the new ThinkPad notebook called the W700. The W700 is a 17-inch widescreen mobile workstation aimed squarely at the business user needing lots of power in a somewhat portable form factor. Lenovo says that its W700 is the first notebook in the industry to deliver a built-in digitizer and color calibrator.

I am a big car fan and since I saw the first pics of the 2010 Chevy Camaro, I have wanted one badly. I really liked the previous generation Camaro and was sad to see it discontinued. I was happy to see the new Camaro design with its 60’s looks and now the car is almost here.

Motor Trend has a first look at the Camaro and says that both the V6 and V8 Camaro’s will be available from the launch, which is slated for early 2009. The V6 version will come in two trim levels — LS and LT. The V8 Camaro will be badged as an SS. Motor trend says all Camaro’s will look like the RS in the image here.

Over the years, I have seen some strange gadgets that are designed for the exceptionally wealthy geek. Things like cell phones that sell for $17,000 or gold plated iPods. These types of gadgets are meant for only one thing — to show how fabulously wealthy their owners are. Personally, if I were fabulously wealthy I would opt for exotic sports cars.

For the wealthy geek that wants a new iPhone 3G — but feels the need to be sure people understand he could have a much more expensive phone — might want to opt for the Noreve iPhone Diamond leather case. The diamond case retails for $14,990 and is available in 12 different colors.