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This evening, we took a trip to downtown Manhattan to witness Archos unveil several new updates to Archos TV+ and its 605 Wi-Fi and 705 Wi-Fi portable media players that will give entertainment seekers new ways to acquire and move content-as well as navigate roads.

TVportation is a $49.99 plug-in (available in May) that transforms the Archos TV+ into a streaming media server that will allow users to watch their live, home TV on 3G or Wi-Fi-connected devices (smart phones Archos 605 Wi-Fi, 705 Wi-Fi, notebooks). In the demo, the connection was slow and more than a little choppy, which the Archos reps blamed on the multitude of wireless signals beaming through the room.

Archos’ new partnership with Paramount Digital Entertainment will allow users to download flicks like Cloverfield and Shooter to their Macs or PCs, or directly to one of the company’s PMPs. Paramount’s offerings will appear in a separate area within Archos’ store, but not within the Archos Content Portal; an odd choice, as who searches for movies by studio?

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Good news for some HD-DVD player owners out there. The Wall Street Journal claims that anyone who bought an HD-DVD player from Wal-Mart on or after November 1, 2007 can return the player for “a refund or a gift card.” Apparently you don’t even need to have the original box that the player came in, just walk into the store by April 30th with your kicking-and-screaming HD-DVD player, and hand it off to the store clerk that had the gumption to sell it to you in the first place.

The article also reports that Best Buy will give customers a $50 gift card to anyone who bought an Xbox 360 HD-DVD player unit bought before February 23, 2008. You can use that to buy the HD-DVD of Scary Movie 3 or add to your still-budding LaserDisc collection. The cards will be given out until May 1st to anyone “who bought warranties or who are part of [Wal-Mart’s] ‘Reward Zone’ program.”

Looks like the big-box retailers are cutting the early adopters some slack this time around. Too bad there aren’t any offers available to those that have HD-DVD built into their laptops. Toshiba, Gateway, how about some reimbursements?

You gotta love the TiVo. The magical box that jump started the DVR revolution is getting even better thanks to a deal with YouTube, which will bring millions upon millions of video clips to TiVo Series 3 boxes (including TiVo HD).

TiVo broadband subscribers can expect YouTube to make an appearance later this year, and in a nice move, users will be able to log into their accounts through their boxes to view their favorite video channels and playlists. While I’m not too sure how the already low-end video quality of most YouTube clips will look on a big screen, the prospect of LOLcats on a television tickles me more than a little.

I got in the office this morning and the first thing that was on my mind was the official death of HD-DVD. We knew HD-DVD was on life support, but last night marked the end of life for the high-definition format.

Looking at the loads of laptops from Acer, Gateway, Toshiba, and HP we have reviewed in our offices with HD-DVD drives I could only think of all those individuals who recently shelled out an extra $500 - $800 bucks for a notebook with a soon-to-be-outdated drive. Sure the notebooks will play back high quality video, but will their owners be stuck watching old Mission Impossibles and James Bond flicks.

So what are the notebook manufacturers doing about it? Will they refund the money?

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A recent report done by British retailer Comet revealed that 47 percent of British men would rather have a 50-inch TV than have sex for 6 months.

There’s no word if these men were in their prime or if they were elderly and taking prescription Levitra, but the survey also revealed that 1/3 of women would do the same thing, Reuters reports.

How many of you would give up sex for a gadget? Would it have to be a 50-inch TV or could it be as simple as a new laptop?

Stay tuned for our May issue where we interview a host of people who’d prefer to play with their gadgets than have sex.