How do you improve on a phone that's already been diamond-studded, layered in carbon fiber, and then dipped in gold? Why, you add more diamonds and some hints of gratuitous platinum, of course. Meet the Nokia Royal Edition, an 8800 that succeeds its predecessors in terms of pretentiousness -- but not necessarily in looks. It has 1160 wee diamonds around the edges and platinum plates on the fore and aft, all surrounding the same internals as those other, plebeian fashionphones. Only 50 of these will be sold at an undisclosed price that surely is equally excessive. [Thanks, Robin]

Back in August, my colleague Deidre Woollard reported on a court ruling that Saddam Hussein’s yacht Basra Breeze (formerly Ocean Breeze) belonged to the Iraqi government after a Cayman island firm partly owned by King Abdullah of Jordan claimed possession. Now the Iraqis have put the 269-ft. megayacht up for sale with a pricetag of $30 million, but the décor is so tacky and outdated it will require at least another $30 million to overhaul the ship, the London Times reports.

Launched in 1981, the ship features acres of marble and gold, Arabesque arches, dark wood carvings, “deep pile carpets in lurid colours and rugs woven with views of holy cities”, and gold faucets in the bathrooms. There’s also a bulletproof atrium with banquet seating for 200, two medical treatment centers and a mini operating theater, and a helipad. In Saddam’s time the ship had a crew of up to 35 on 24-hour call, but the dictator was so paranoid he barely ever left Iraq or spent any time onboard.

Gallery: Ocean Breeze

Popularity: 7% [?]

Bruce Willis is auctioning off some classic cars at the Bonhams auction being held at the The Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles on October 25. The sale, which also includes Steve McQueen memorabilia and a diamond-covered matchbox car, will auction off five "muscle" cars from the collection of Bruce Willis. The most expensive is a 1968 Shelby Mustang GT500 convertible which has been carefully restored and is estimated to sell for $150,000 - 175,000. Gallery: Bruce Willis Car Aucton

Android logo is so freaking cute! Ok that's my first half awake impression coming back from the T-Mobile store with the HTC G1 ~ And physically, its a really nice piece of hardware, clean sleek and understated (unlike *some* phones) ~ full pics on the next page of everything from the store displays and my #42 card to a proper unboxing, showing you all the bits. Being a commitment-phobe, i opted to start my own t-mobile family plan of one ~ family of blackberry curve and G1. Screen looks a bit prettier than the iphone, the bounce up screen action feels great, and i'm totally smitten by the way its nice matte finish feels in myhands... also that slight curvature... ahh the details. Ok so beyond the unboxing and close looks at the hardware, i'm only just starting to poke at all the UI details, maps/email/phone/camera/etc, so far it looks great, only a few random bugs encountered when playing with things like street view, but will see how it goes - so more to come on that, but i just wanted to get some pics up before i ran out to a meeting! For the super thorough UI breakdown, check out Boy Genus Report

Continuing my look at sports star homes lingering on the market, this week's WSJ Private Properties column also mentioned the home of Rasheed Wallace, a Detroit Pistons forward who played for eight years with the Portland Trail Blazers. Wallace bought his 1924 brick house in Portland, Oregon for around $3 million back in 2000. The Tudor-style home is on 2.16 acres that include a pool, sports court and guest house. The five-bedroom home has a red home theater, built-in saltwater fish tank, home office and more. The listing agent told the WSJ that Wallace and his wife Fatima spent more than $1 million on improvements. The couple briefly listed the house in 2006 for $5.5 million before relisting it last year, for $5.2 million and have now lowered the price to $4.895 million. Experience more lush living in luxury homes and mansions or see the stars living large with celebrity homes galleries at AOL Real Estate.

Gallery: Rasheed Wallace in Portland

Ion Audio has rapidly become one of my favorite gadget companies. First, they created the ION ITTUSB Turntable which allowed Baby boomers to take their vinyl LPs and rip them to digital mp3s. Then, Ion expanded that with the Tape 2 PC – which does the same thing for cassettes, a VHS version to capture old video home movies, and just about every other gadget in between. Now, they’re creating the next in that line with the SLIDES 2 PC, which allows photographers who have boxes of slides and negatives to digitize and archive generations of photographs and turn them into 5 megapixel digital stills. And do it at the simple touch of a button. With the ability to connect directly into a computer via USB, the Slides 2 PC uses a special rail which houses multiple 35mm slides or a strip of negatives which can be read, scanned and saved one at a time. It uses a four glass optical element and automatically compensate for exposure and color correction. And the cost is a very affordable $100. When you consider the memories lost by people in both New Orleans (during Hurricane Katrina) and Galveston (during Hurricane Ike) it becomes ever more important to take those stills and slides and get them into a format that can not only stand the test of time, but the elements as well. And the Slide 2 PC gives anyone the tools to ensure those Kodak moments stick around forever.

Among the other low-rate gear unveiled this evening by Audiovox comes the RCA RIR205, a tabletop internet radio that may have gotten away with that design in 1992. Instead, we have no option but to recommend this one only for rarely used spare bedrooms, though the built-in AM / FM tuner, WiFi radio streaming (complete with a Slacker song tagging feature) and the integrated support for WeatherBug forecasts are quite nice. Additionally, users can record up to 10 hours of music and other radio programming onto the unit's 512MB of inbuilt memory, and of course, you can set the alarm to wake you with online music or your favorite local sports talk host. Not too shabby for $149.99, but that exterior could use some work.

Yesterday we finally got our hands on the N10 non-netbook, and today we'll be taking a look at the rest of the N Series lineup. There's a little something for everybody here, from the mobility-minded N10 to the higher-end N50. The models include Express Gate, and we're looking forward to finding out if the Super Hybrid Engine power management is all it's cracked up to be. All N Series models also include the SmartLogon facial recognition system (for those of you who are too busy to type a password), but so far the N50 is the only ASUS offering with a built in "Air Ionizer." Check out each machine in detail after the break.[Thanks, Kunal] Continue reading ASUS N Series: at long last, a laptop with a built in 'Air Ionizer'

The Quantum Jacket handles double duty, both as a waterproof, breathable, wind-stopping winter shell and as the most convenient way to access all your gadgets on a brisk day. 28 purposeful pockets and compartments keep your essentials with you, while our wire management system lets you listen to your iPod without getting tangled. link

Sure, none of it makes any sense, but we can't shake the feeling that there's something a little weird going on here. We've received a number of tips that T-Systems -- a division of the same company that owns T-Mobile -- has got pics of some variation of a MacBook Pro that we've certainly never seen before. The appearance of a new model would fall right in line with those rumors we've been hearing, but this seems a little too easy. In fact, the specs of these devices appear unchanged from the current lineup of laptops. The likely explanation is that there's been a photo mix-up -- someone got their proper MBP pictures crossed with one of those "wishful thinking" renders. Then again, given Apple's recent propensity for leaked photos... maybe there's something more to this.