PC World’s Gadget Freak column is coming to an end after a five year run. And in his farewell post, Gadget Freak columnist Dan Tynan calls out the five best gadgets he’s encountered over the course of writing the column:

The best gadgets have certain qualities in common. They solve difficult problems simply and elegantly. They’re constantly ahead of the curve, adding new features before you realize you need them. And most important, they put you in control of your own digital destiny–so that you can make the decisions about what you want to do and how you want to do it.

Dan’s top five gadgets are: Apple iPod and iPhone, TiVo, iRobot Roomba, Sonos Sound System, and Nintendo Wii.

Seems like a respectable list to me. I would probably have few different choices, but each person has their own needs. TiVo would certainly be on my list as well, and probably my iPod.

As with the Slingbox PRO-HD two weeks ago, since I work for Sling Media now it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to review it, but the SlingCatcher officially shipped yesterday. Instead of reviewing it, here’s a roundup of coverage I’ve seen:

Sling Community - Blog
Sling Community - Review
Sling Community - Review: SlingPlayer for TV
Sling Community - Review: MyMedia
Sling Community - Review: SlingProjector
ZatzNotFunny
Engadget
EngadgetHD
Gizmodo
CNET - Crave
CED Magazine
Obsessable
SlashGear
NewsFactor Network
HD Update
SFGate
Wired
Register Hardware
TG Daily
Stuff.tv
TechWhack
Electronista
Silicon Alley Insider
Electronic House
Pocket-lint
PC World
BLORGE
BroadcastNewsroom
Sci-Tech Today
Gearlog
TrustedReviews
Coolest Gadgets

Both the Slingbox PRO-HD and SlingCatcher MSRP at USD$299.99, but the best deals I’ve seen on both are from PROVANTAGE - currently Slingbox PRO-HD for $241.70 and SlingCatcher for $240.47.

In an article on RIM’s new ‘Blackberry Lifestyle’ focus, PC World seems to have revealed what the ‘Future Collaboration’ with TiVo will entail. It comes at the end of the article:

Finally: the home television aspect of the “four converged screens” example.

“The trickiest part of the four screens is the sync between home video content and the mobile,” Balsillie said. “I believe the key enabler here is TiVo.”

RIM announced a new partnership with TiVo at CTIA, and the companies plan to release an application that will enable users to users to access television content via mobile device.

“(BlackBerrys) now work with TiVo desktop software that allows you to put (TV) shows on your BlackBerry, so that you can literally have your shows as a cache.”

It sounds like it is simply TiVoToGo supporting the Blackberry for video transfers. Which is what most of the speculation has been.

It is no secret that I’ve been a Blu-ray supporter since before it was called Blu-ray, before there was any format war. And one of the reasons for that is that it is has always been the technology with a lot of growth potential. While HD DVD was pushing DVD technology to its limits, Blu-ray laid the foundations for future expansion.

We’ve already seen prototypes of 100GB and 200GB evolutions of Blu-ray. Now Pioneer has pushed Blu-ray technology to 400GB! Both PC World and TechRadar UK reported on the development. Best of all, it is reportedly backward compatible with today’s Blu-ray hardware. In theory that means existing drives could handle the higher capacity media with a firmware update.

Pioneer has achieved this capacity by stacking sixteen 25GB layers, compared to the two 25GB layers on a standard Blu-ray disc. They’ve done this by solving the interference issue which results from stacking an increasing number of data layers on top of each other. But they’ve managed to do so using the same optical specifications of the objective lens, maintaining Blu-ray compatibility.

Expanded capacity like this would likely first be used in data applications, for backup, etc. While some unusually long films might be able to use more than 50GB for HD home video, 50GB is enough for most videos up to 1080p. But there are already newer video standards appearing, such as 3D video or 4k video, which is 4096×1716. That’s the resolution used for digital cinema projection in movie theaters, and it is nearly 3.5x the resolution of ‘Full HD’ 1080p home video. When you go to higher resolutions and/or add data to support 3D displays, then you need higher capacity media.

Backwards compatibility could be useful as such discs could use the ‘top’ two layers just like a standard Blu-ray disc that would work in any existing player. While the remaining layers could be used for newer standards like 4k or 3D, and work in newer players that support those technologies.