Most people are pretty happy just having an iPad, but if you have hoards of money to throw at needless accessories, the standard $500 ipad is just that: standard. So for those with enough money to kindle a bonfire and absolutely no taste whatsoever, companies have been pimping out America’s favorite tablet so that you can spend thousands, tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands dressing it up. Here are some accessories for the most balla of iPad owners.

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Used video game stores are a lot like used record stores. They function like some sort of communal, hipster  gathering place where dudes can hang out and make fun of whoever walks in—the same kind of placeholder segue setting you see in every Kevin Smith movie that takes place in New Jersey. They differ from used record stores, however, in that they’re not… shoot-yourself depressing.

There’s a low-key, hopeful hustle & bustle, like how an old-folks home might look like if everybody visited their grandmas a couple of times a week and took them back home to play polish horseshoes.

Used record stores now only exist to be a place in a ‘watch-how-they-fall-in-love’ montage in a romantic comedy. They’re quaint, dusty, cute, and useless to all but a few aging baby-boomers who like to get reminded of how they used to be able to do the no-pants diggity and not wake up with AIDS covering their balls. The fact is there are way more old gaming consoles out their than there are old record players, which means even used games as far back as Vanilla Ice still get picked off the shelves, sometimes.
So who, pray, might a person find at one of these charming establishments? A variation of five different kinds of people, mostly.

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The recent MyType study reveals iPad owners are six times more likely to be “wealthy, well-educated, power-hungry, over-achieving, sophisticated, unkind and non-altruistic 30-50 year olds,” according to MyType’s Tim Koelkebeck [via Wired].

In another (even less scientific) study conducted here at uCrave, we discovered these same iPad owners are six times more likely to be drawn to tacky, useless iPad accessories that appeal to their over-inflated sense of self.  When I showed the iCade (Think Geek’s April Fool’s Joke), to iPad owning friends – every one of them expressed interest in acquiring the iPad Arcade Cabinet.  Judging from some actual iPad accessories, the fictional iCade wasn’t such a far-fetched concept.

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To those without a sense of sound, navigating the world can be a great challenge at times.  While the world is a very visual place, hearing can be a sense we often take for granted.  As we explored 10 great technologies for the blind, we have dug up 10 amazing gadgets for the hearing impaired.  From sign language translators to tactile music to closed captioning glasses, these brilliant technologies enrich life for those without a natural sense of sound.

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Video games are often hailed as a cost-efficient hobby. Once you’ve paid a few hundred dollars to get the console, you can entertain yourself for days, weeks or months with one game alone. But those Modern Warfare 2 night vision goggles that just hit the news wire got us thinking: Not everyone’s a frugal gamer, and for these individuals, there’s a market of ridiculously costly accessories. Here are the most expensive ones we could find, cheapest first:

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Motion control gaming is the future! Or so we’re being told by Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony. The truth is, motion control, for as fancy and Minority Report-y as it is, is still in its infancy. There are a lot of bugs to work out and kinks that need to be smoothed. While the Nintendo Wii has been tearing up the console sales charts, the implementation of the hardware hasn’t been as revolutionary as its once mysterious codename alluded so many years ago. And while Microsoft’s off-puttingly named Kinect and Sony’s Wii-ish Move are hoping to offer us everything we’ve been hoping motion control would be, so far nothing has blown any minds.

This is probably due to the limitations that are inherent within motion control gaming, which is a bit strange seeing as motion control was supposed to free us of all the limitations of those dastardly controllers with their antiquated stiff, plastic buttons that our grandparents once used to dial phones and turn on blenders. If the big three console makers want to convince us that motion control gaming is the glorious future they are telling us we’re already living in, then they’re going to have to address some of its biggest drawbacks, most of which involve asking gamers to accept certain things that gamers – specifically, hardcore gamers –have historically been known to shy away from.

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After a year of preparation, the Federal Communications Commission presented its National Broadband Plan to Congress today. The $20-billion plan, rolled up into a 360-page document, aims at ending the broadband disparity that exists across the country and boosting the availablity and speeds of the U.S.’s br0adband network.

The plan’s goals include making broadband available to all U.S. residents, boosting broadband adoption from 65 percent to better than 90 percent, getting affordable, 100 Mbps broadband into 100 million homes by 2020, increasing the available spectrum for mobile broadband by 500 MHz within 10 years, and offering access of speeds of 1 Gbps in all American communities for hospitals and other institutions within 10 years.

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Originally announced back in E3 last summer, there hasn’t been too much new information on Sony’s motion-based controller lately. That all changed last night, when the company announced hoards of new details at the 2010 Games Developer Conference.

The new controller will get the simple-but-effective moniker PlayStation Move. The scheduled launch is for fall of this year. The controller will be available on its own, in a package with the PlayStation Eye camera and a game, or in a full console package. The Eye/Move/game package is anticipated to cost under $100. So far there’s no word of a pair of Moves package, so you may have to buy each one separately.

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Steve Jobs got into the meat of the hardware after demonstrating some of the functions of the iPad. We learned that the iPad features a 9.7-inch screen with full capacitive multitouch thanks to the “best multitouch sensors in the world”. It is has a 1 GHz Apple A4 running the show and will come in 16, 32 and 64 GB flavors. Battery life is rated at 10 hours and the device provides “over a month of standby”.

Physically, the iPad is just half an inch thick. It weighs a pound and a half.

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