Yeah, we realize that the first two words after "HP TouchSmart IQ504 PC" are "coming soon," but apparently the web design humanoid forgot to notice that little "Ships same day" note down there by the Purchase button. That's right kids, HP's latest all-in-one PC (you know, the TouchSmart 2) is all boxed up and ready to be shipped to your home or office. All's that left for you to do is scrounge up $1,249.99 and punch in those gory details e-tailers tend to ask for.

[Thanks, jmacman1]

So, we hear that Planet Earth is home to four billion phone lines. Now it can claim to house over one billion installed PCs -- what do those neighboring planets have on that, huh? According to research firm Gartner, the number of "installed PCs worldwide has surpassed 1 billion units," and it estimates that said figure is growing at around 12-percent annually. Should this trend continue, we'll be reporting on 2 billion sometime during 2014. It should be noted that this figure accounts for computers in use rather than units shipped, and while the current ratio remains slanted towards mature markets, Gartner expects emerging markets to (expectedly) account for a larger share as we climb to 2 billion. Unsurprisingly, the firm also suggests that around 180 million PCs will be replaced this year, with around 35 million of those hitting landfills "with little or no regard for their toxic content." Kind of puts a damper on things, wouldn't you say?

[Via Reuters, image courtesy of Wikimedia]

Hey Mac users, tired of looking longingly at that PC-lovin' ATI Radeon HD 3870? AMD has teased you long enough, and at long last, the Mac & PC Edition has arrived. This card is optimized for use within Apple's Mac Pro systems and includes 512MB of GDDR4 RAM, 320 stream processors, PCI Express 2.0 support and twin dual-link DVI ports for treating that pair of 30-inch Cinema HD displays like they ought to be treated. Check the read link for the full list of specifications, and get set to drop $129 when this one lands later this month.

[Via TUAW, thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Sorry Mario, but your Wii Wheel just got lapped, backed over and left in the dust. Heck, even the Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel looks toyish propped up next to this. Then again, neither of the previously mentioned accessories will put a $349.99 hole in your bank account, but did you really expect anything else from an officially licensed Porsche product? According to Fanatec, it took the firm seven years to acquire the license, and it required that the wheel be "the best out there." We can't judge the quality from here, but we can tell you it supports wireless USB technology and boasts a trio of force feedback motors, a 6+1 speed H-pattern gear shifter, cordless pedals, an automotive grade leather covering, a key-shaped 1GB flash drive for storing settings and compatibility with Sony's PlayStation 3 and PCs of (almost) all ages. Look at it this way: it's still probably cheaper than two tanks of premium.

Another day, another round of PCs exquisitely built from woods farmed halfway across the globe. On the docket today, however, are a number of particularly drool-worthy rigs from Universal Roaming. The Ryou collection consists of a half dozen models constructed from Japanese Judas trees and accented with lacquer, silver / gold powders and other culturally-inspired designs. Each diminutive unit houses a 1.66GHz Core 2 Duo T5500 CPU, up to 2GB of RAM, an 80GB HDD, dual-layer DVD burner, WiFi adapter, 3-in-1 multicard reader and Windows Vista, but there's no telling how much you'll be asked to lay down in exchange for such elegance.

Our latest micro-series, Screen grabs chronicles the uses (and occasional misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with a screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dt com.

Last night's Daily Show discussion on the nation's impending recession prompted John Hodgman (aka PC) to bust out his Uncle Rico-esque time machine to take a peek into our collective economic future. We're still trying to decide whether it's richer in irony that (not unlike Jon Stewart) Hodgman uses an iPhone, or that he pulled it out and used it upside down Charlie Sheen / Bionic Woman style. Video after the break.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: The Hodg-man emailed -- it wasn't intentional. Apparently he was worried about breaking the antique stock-ticker and was distracted. Although we'd like to think it's because he just used a real life time machine -- for reals. Either way, there you go.

Yeah, the NES PC is old hat, but if you just can't find the time to create one for yourself, why not pay some diligent soul for their hard work rather than living another month without one? Available via eBay, this finely crafted piece of art won't crank through any of the latest PC titles, but it comes with plenty of horsepower (and peripherals) to handle all the emulation you can stand. Granted, Americans will have to fork over additional coinage to have it shipped in from France, but flooring a room full of nerds at your forthcoming holiday bash will most certainly make it worthwhile. Check out the auction along with an in-action video at the read link below.

[Via Technabob]

Asus, currently on a crash-bang roller derby thanks to the massive success of the Eee, has stepped up its game in the desktop arena today with the announcement of the Nova P22. The sleek, white and orange box is in the size class of the Mac Mini, standing at just 2-inches in height, and features a 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo E6320 processor with a 1.06GHz front-side bus, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and what appears to be some sweet media center options. As of right now, the PC is only available in Taiwan, where you'll drop around $1,019 for bragging rights. We can only hope they bring something with this much style to the US, so the Mini vs. Nova P22 flamewar can begin in earnest. The ball is in your court, Asus.

[Via Electronista]

A group of Linux users have spoken out against Asus and their apparent non-compliance with certain aspects of the General Public License attached to Xandros Linux distro that comes with the Eee PC. This flustered controversy centers around Asus modifying a module of the Linux kernel without distributing the source code, something that breaks the rules of the license. Your average Eee PC owner isn't going to give a damn about such a trivial point, so end users can safely ignore this debate. As for whether Asus will step up and do what it should have done from day one, that'll depend on how loud the developers involved make their case. Type harder guys!

[Via Slashdot]

Lenovo, a company which appears to be inching out from under the thumb of parent IBM, today announced two new desktops christened with the ThinkStation moniker aimed at the enterprise market. On the more "conservative" side, the ThinkStation S10 offers either an Intel Core 2 or Core 2 Extreme processor, an NVIDIA graphics chipset, plus "multiple slots, bays and USB ports." Big brother ThinkStation D10 ups the ante on the CPU-side by adding an Intel Quad Core Xeon processor, which should warm your lab nicely. The systems are aimed at users engaged in "graphically and computationally-intensive" tasks, though the workstations also meet Energy Star 4.0 requirements, and contain more than 50-percent recycled plastics content. The new PCs will be available in January, with the S10 starting at $1,199, and the D10 at $1,739.

[Via Reuters]

Asus's Eee PC is clearly making a big splash, and now that units are starting to arrive in homes everywhere the inevitable unboxing photos are starting to arrive. We've already seen the guts of this little lappie, so now it's time to see some lucky punter open their own unit and splay the battery, mini-charger, and driver disks. Nothing particularly surprising here, but if you're waiting for your own unit to arrive or for stock to replenish, we know you won't be able to get enough of these pics.

Gateway is passing around an invite to New York's Digital Life attendees, promising the grand unveiling of... something. The invite is tagged with a cute little "Gateway One" logo, or maybe it's "One Gateway," and all signs are pointing towards a new all-in-one PC with decent aesthetics. Also, breakfast will be served, so you know we're all over it. The press conference will be at 9AM EDT on September 27th.

PC case modders will tear up anything in search of a bit of novelty, especially if it happens to reek of old school. Ancient telephones -- we hear they were called rotary phones, or something -- happen to fulfill the old school criteria, with one modder surrounding his PC in cracked wood, and hooking it up to an old phone. The phone now works with Skype and other VoIP solutions, with the owner presumably waiting in anticipation for all the calls to tell him how awesome / clever he is.

[Via MAKE]

It's that time of year again on Ask Engadget, when unfortunate, impressionable youths get kicked out of nurturing homes into the adult-beverage-soaked halls of higher learning institutions. Of course, the question of the hour is what kind of computer should you guilt your parents into purchasing for you, but Dave's making things particularly hard on himself:

"I'm a Uni student doing IT Security, and I'm looking to replace my now four year old Windows laptop, and am tossing up between getting another Windows PC or getting a MacBook, and just wanted some advice on how it would suit me. Essentially I do some C/C# programming, Web design, presentations, reports and the like, with assignments needing to be in PPT and DOC formats. Could I get some advice on how each one would fare for my purpose, and iWork and Office compare for University use? Any help would be much appreciated!"

It sounds like Dave's got some pretty specific needs, and our gut feeling is that he won't hear the end of it from his peers if he's running any software that isn't governed by an open source license, but what say you peoples? Oh, and don't forget to send your questions and moral conundrums to ask at engadget dawt com, or next week we're going to be featuring a heartfelt plea from Josh to help him decide his favorite color.

Following up on its Olympics-themed laptops, Lenovo has just announced a new series of desktops which will sport a tiny, barely visible Olympics logo in support of the upcoming Bejing games. The 3000-series J200 and J205 desktops both look the same on the outside (drab, gigantic, PC-ish), but pack ever-so-slight differences on the inside. The J200 is an Intel Celeron based model, with 512MB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive, and an integrated graphics chipset, while the J205 will feature an AMD CPU and... nope, that's all. The Olympic-lovers will be on sale in August for $399 and $449, respectively.