President Eisenhower, in his famous farewell speech in 1961, warned against the the acquisition of unwarranted influence by the ” military industrial complex .” If he had given those remarks some sixty years later, he might have worked academia into the phrase — especially if he knew about the snakes ! Certainly one of the more viscerally unnerving wargadgets we’ve encountered over the last few years, the creepy-crawly automatons of the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute are a big hit at the U.S.

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Carnegie Mellon’s robot snakes converge into creepy hand-like wargadget

A great idea can change the world — and a bad idea? All too often, that becomes a crapgadget . Do you really need a pair of speakers for your MP3 player shaped like stuffed bears

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Crapgadget: you never thought you’d need this (and you were right) edition

Well ladies and gentlemen, it’s that time again — the Engadget Show is back in a big way next Wednesday, August 4th at 8pm ! This time around, we’ll have the inimitable Peter Molyneaux , one of the world’s most forward-thinking game designers and creator of “Black & White” and the “Fable” franchise.

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The Engadget Show returns next Wednesday, August 4th with game designer Peter Molyneaux, Windows Phone 7, and much more!

You didn’t seriously think the Mac Mini would be spared , did you? The maniacal customizers over at Colorware have added Apple’s latest bit of desktop furniture to their stable of “have it your way” electronics, with a $250 price tag for the paintjob by itself and a $1,000 levy if you want them to procure the hardware as well. Hey, we know that’s expensive, but somebody’s got to be buying all these crazy-hued gadgets for the company to keep going, right?

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Mac Mini suffers chromatic maltreatment at hands of Colorware

This one’s been kicking around the interwebs for a few weeks now, but it has managed to grow into something of a beast during that period. Frankly, we couldn’t think of less fitting way to send the glorious Nexus One out than to completely deface it and ruin what Google has worked so hard to perfect. But regardless of what we think, that’s exactly what has happened here.

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Tweaker ports Samsung’s TouchWIz UI onto non-rooted Nexus One for reasons unknown

Speech recognition is being used in a range of gadgets - but does it actually work?

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Tech that really understands you

RIM and Nokia aren’t the only ones saying “WTF Steve!?” after last Friday’s press conference attempted to draw the competition into the Antennagate saga. Samsung has issued its own choice reaction about supposed problems with the Omnia 2 , though this one is somewhat less sternly worded than the others: The antenna is located at the bottom of the Omnia 2 phone, while iPhone’s antenna is on the lower left side of the device. Our design keeps the distance between a hand and an antenna.

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Samsung joins the crowd, rejects Apple’s Omnia 2 antenna claims

Brother (the printer /sewing machine company, not my brother Frank), has developed vibration -powered batteries that promise to stay charged simply by shaking them. Shake Weight battery chargers

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The Future: Vibration Powered Batteries

If you carry your sheet music in a laptop, AirTurn’s got a USB dongle for that, but if you’ve migrated your musical cues to an certain slate, never fear, Bluetooth is on the way. The AirTurn BT-105 will bring the company’s page turning technology to iPad , using a transmitter that attaches to standard professional footswitches, allowing you to turn full pages and half pages of sheet music while keeping hands firmly affixed to your instrument . Though there’s no word on price, we imagine it’ll cost close to the existing 2.4GHz version, which runs from $40 for a dongle to $100 for a package with two Boss pedals, and when it surfaces in Q4 of this year, we’re hoping it will extend bicycling input to all the other wild and crazy apps you dream up

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AirTurn’s BT-105 footpedal is a real page turner (video)

Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he’ll explore where our industry is and where it’s going — on both micro and macro levels — with the unique wit and insight only he can provide

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Entelligence: Five gadgets that could have and should have done better