Turned on the news lately? It’s obvious that threats and concerns of terrorism are running rampant. Sure, airliners and frequent fliers have a lot of measures to take for protection, but what about the average joe with a garage full of terroristic tools? Biometrics is the answer and Master Lock is here to help with the smartTOUCH garage door opener.

Instead of having the simple, and easily crackable keypad outside the garage, this device uses biometric fingerprint technology to recognize and grant individuals access. It can store up to 20 prints and even allow for time-limited and scheduled access. It is available online or at Home Depot for $130. Now if I could only keep those terrorists from stealing all of my left socks, the world would be a better place.

This wallet has a lot more going on than your wallet, no matter how many credit cards, receipts, and pictures of your family you have stuffed inside. The Emtrace PS100 is a 5mm-thick digital photo frame that can fit in your wallet and presumably withstand the crushing pressure of your buttocks when you sit on it.In addition to holding your family photos in a slicker way than in plastic windows, it looks like it can deliver weather forecasts as well. It’s a Linux-powered machine that has a 2.5-inch LCD, 320×240 16M colors, a rechargeable battery, 128MB of storage and 64MB of operational memory. Or at least it will if and when it ever gets made. It sure looks pretty though, doesn’t it?

We show you a lot of cool and wild bikes around here, but what would you do with your old bicycle if you got one? If you are the folks over at Bike Furniture Design from Michigan, you fashion some surprisingly attractive furnishings.

The designs aren’t just tires and recycled aluminum and steel bicycle frames, either — parts are cannibalized from anything, really, including cars and trains. The end result is reminiscent of the original shape, but with a cool new spin. Tires are curving armrests or mirror frames, multiple bike seats arranged against one another become bucket seats, and handle bars become legs.

All of the furniture at Bike Furniture Design is custom made, so pricing varies. If you’ve got a garage full of old conveyances and a house devoid of furnishings, I’m sure the team would be willing to help you out. Check out the gallery below for a few examples of bike furniture.

We already know you can’t save money even if your life depends on it, but how will you do when the lives of a virtual family are at stake? Said family lives inside Jinsei Ginko (translates into “Life Bank”) and starts off in relatively modest conditions. As you add money to the bank, their lives get better, eventually progressing through marriage and (hopefully) to a life of opulence and luxury. Since the product page isn’t in English we can’t tell what happens when you finally decide to take out your (i.e. their) life’s savings to buy a Wii. If the analogy holds, we’re assuming divorce and destitution.

Sitting down right now? There is a very likely chance you are, but take a gander at your buttocks. How does it look? I just looked at mine and it sure is gloomy. That is probably because it lacks the comfort that it knows it could receive from the Ayur chair.

The manufacturer claims that the chair provides perfect lumbar support and ergonomics, all while separating your butt cheeks, which supposedly provides more comfortable sitting. I’d be more worried about the carpet below with the cheek separator and convenient gap. The Ayur chair is available from Cassina for $500 and is well worth it — just look at all of the pictures, someone seems to think it’s worthy of an 8/10 rating.

Normally entering your username and password is a tedious affair, but that’s only because you’re not, er, doing it, with the Password Panties. Although they probably won’t keep determined thieves from penetrating this firewall, they do make pressing the enter button a lot more fun. You can put password protection on any kind of undergarments you like, and you also get to choose the, um, entry info. We suggest picking something that’s simple to remember. We bet a certain username starting with Mike will be popular.

The more we watch the rapid-fire development of OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) screens, the more obvious it gets: These super-thin panels are soon to be commonplace, and they’re far superior to any display technology that came before. Samsung today rolled out the largest OLED screen of its kind to date; at 31 inches and an astonishing 4.3mm thin, it’s a tenth the thickness of a conventional LCD TV.Not only are OLED screens thinner, but they have a higher contrast ratio, use less energy because they don’t require a backlight, last 35,000 hours, and new designs are even flexible to be rolled up. Some OLED panels are even embedded with solar arrays. This Samsung screen will be demonstrated at CES in Las Vegas next month, and Samsung says a 14-inch OLED display will be on the market sometime in 2008.

Radiators are ugly. Harps are pretty. If you want to make a radiator that’s pretty, make it look like a harp. That must have been the inspiration behind the Adagio radiator. (Either that or the person who designed it must really like harps.) And of course what good would a harp-looking radiator be without a remote control to help you use it? None. So let’s throw that in and we’re done. No, wait, that’s not enough. What else does it need? Oh, right, color changing LED lights. Because you want your gold plated, stainless steel harp to be pimped out with lights.

Philipe Starck has been at it for Fossil for some time now, with odd and unique watch designs. His latest, the Palindrom, is no different. The Palindrome watch has a small rectangle that acts as the hour hand with the Starck logo is the minute hand. The watch is available in three different colors for $125 for mens and $110 for the women’s variety.

It would probably be better if it said hour and minute instead of the rectangle and logo. As is, this watch gets exponentially harder to read depending on how early/late it is and how many drinks in you are.

With the holidays wrapping up, there is no doubt that more and more gadgets have invaded your life. With more gadgets comes more cords and chargers, and with more cords and chargers comes an even bigger of a rat’s nest under your desk or elsewhere. The Power Block looks to combat ugly wires with an oddly shaped block.

A standard sized power strip sits inside the power block. Plug in all of the chargers and cables then push the block to the wall, which will conceal the cables and the wall outlet feeding your gadget needs. At $165, you may be better off just stacking your dirty clothes on all of the chargers, but that has to be a fire hazard of some sort.