Alienware's newest 17-inch barely portable notebook, the M17, looks a whole lot like their M17x beastie, but instead of rocking Nvidia SLI, it's Alienware's first ever ATI CrossFireX notebook, with dual Radeon HD 3870 graphics cards. ATI's big point when I talked the new mobile CrossFireX with them is that they support DirectX 10.1 and Nvidia doesn't, though how much that matters is slightly controversial, to say the least.

Either way, they're monster cards that do nasty things to vectors and numbers, and you can back them up with an equally ridiculous Intel Core 2 Quad and the usual hardcore notebook specs, like 4GB of DDR3-1066 RAM. The M17 starts at $1399, though obviously not with that $1200 Core 2 Quad upgrade. [Alienware]

Early voting rocks. Almost as much as Election Day voting, which you'll be doing tomorrow. For now, read all the awesome articles you missed this weekend because you were too busy answering all those robocalls:
• Western Digital is going to try their hand at video streaming with the WD TV HD Media Player.
• Apple Halloween costumes? Sure! It's never to late to feed the fanboys!

• BSODomize your friends with random BSOD screens. Just don't overdo it.
• Speaking of fanboys... it's been explained by scientists. Doesn't make it any more cool though.
• Who knew old hard drive parts could make a pretty cool clock?

• The Tide at Omaha Beach is lovingly recreated in this handy water birthing tub.
• Some guy built a miniature fighter jet on his own. 'nuff said
• Signs of the Apocalypse: Poor people love the iPhone more than rich people.
• Circuit City, we hardly knew thee. And now you are closing 155 stores. Best Buy's across the land will be lonely.
• Did you spot the ISS trash falling from orbit Sunday? Whatever you do, don't touch anything!

Now get your red or blue butt to the Gizmodo homepage and read all about the latest and greatest gadget news.

As anyone who's worked in an office would know, Herman Miller's Aeron is the chair to have at your desk for both comfort and status. As a guy who's worked at his share of Silicon Valley startups the net boom and bust, I've only had the privilege of stealing Aerons from coworkers when they weren't looking; never actually being actually senior enough to sit on one full time. Things are different now, my fellow prisoners, with Herman Miller's latest creation, the Embody. Its $1600 body was designed by Bill Stumpf, who was also responsible for—among other projects—its famous predecessor, the Aeron. It's no surprise that the Embody feels very good.

First a quick rundown on design. The Embody is made from non-toxic and sustainable materials (42% recycled content), which makes the entire thing 95% recyclable. It's an extremely beautiful chair when viewed as a whole, but if you zoom in to look at each individual edge, joint and connector, it gets even more amazing. Check out the gallery above to see what we mean.

The are seven different knobs, buttons and levers you use to adjust your sitting position to fit your body. or The seat is also made up of four layers.

...the bottom is a series of plastic bands providing suspension, the second is a sheet of coils for support, the third is a system hexagonal rings that shift with your weight and the final layer is a mesh that allows air circulation to keep the sitter cool.

The most important part, though, is the backrest. Herman Miller claims that "a matrix of pixels creates dynamic seat-and-back surfaces that automatically conform to your every movement and distribute your weight evenly." They claim that this will reduce stress, help circulation, lower your heart rate, improve your posture and pretty much make you a better worker. Does it work?

It's hard to say conclusively, or scientifically without a doctor actually hooking up electrodes and taking blood samples before and after using the seat. But it is the most comfortable chair we've ever sat in. You can adjust the amount of recline, the tension of the recline, your seat depth, your back curvature, your armrest positioning and how high the seat is. But you can do this on many other chairs. What makes this one special—and more comfortable—is that the backrest has individual supports. Think of a Simmons mattresses with individual coils; this adjusts and supports whatever contortions you're putting your spine through in your daily routine of reading Gizmodo.

The Embody is also really, really heavy. Granted, my muscles have long atrophied to the point of uselessness, but this has got to be one of the most heavy chairs I've ever lifted up a flight of stairs. It's also very sturdy. You never feel like you're going to break the chair, no matter how far back you lean. And, if you turn the tension up high enough, you'll never accidentally feel that horrible falling sensation you get from reclining back too fast. Extremely embarrassing during meetings.

The only question left is whether or not you should spend $1,600 of your own money on this. Unless you're like us and you work at home in front of your computer for 12+ hours a day, probably not. But if you can convince your boss to buy this for you, DO IT. Tell him you'll get more work done because you'll actually not hate sitting at your desk. But you know the real reason why you want it: because you don't want to be a hunchback by the time you're 50. [Thought Pile via Herman Miller]

Notes: The Steelcase Think and Humanscale Freedom have been worthy competitors to Herman Miller chairs in the past, so they might be very good comparison chairs for you to try out before deciding which one to purchase for your office. The Embody is newer, of course, so it might have taken the best of both chair designs and incorporated it here.

This iBook G4 lamp was the gift from a girlfriend to a very lucky birthday boy. Essentially just an old iBook case stuffed with fluorescent lighting tubes, the simple mod recreates the glorious Pulp Fiction briefcase effect: Those who witness the full glowing beauty of the lamp must wonder if today is the day of Apple's Rapture. Patience, my friends. Our victory will come soon enough. And some of you with awesome lamp-making girlfriends need no expedite the process. [Flickr via Unplggd]

In a move that's like product convergence from the other direction, Ematic's taken a normal low-end MP3 player and...um...bolted in a digital camera. It's got a 2-megapixel sensor, 2.4-inch color screen and can even record video. There's 4GB of internal memory, which you can share with MP3s, video files and your own recordings, and it's got a microSD slot for expansion. And if all that seems bizarrely much for a small gadget like that, you'll love it's price: $60. [ShinyShiny]

RED CEO Jim Jannard is either an incredible visionary or prone to serial exaggeration. Just yesterday, he deigned to visit the RED forums, promising that "[RED is] doing things we never thought possible... When we do post, it will be very obvious why we needed a bit more time to 'spill the beans'." As a teaser, he decided to spill two of those beans early, in the form of vague, zoomed-in renders of RED's new HIV-curing, hunger-ending, climate-stabilizing

Motorola's ZN5 cameraphone's just hit T-mobile today, and we're impressed: the 5-megapixel cam phone is going for as little as $99. That's on a 2-year contract, but it's still pretty impressive given that the phone's quad-band, with Wi-Fi, stereo Bluetooth, FM radio and a "proper" xenon flash unit built in. Is this another hint that Motorola may be able to claw its way out of the miry pit? Only time will tell. [BGR]

Roku's lovely $99 Netflix Streaming box, equipped with HDMI and optical outputs from day one, is getting Netflix HD streaming support by "the end of the year," according to the company. With the software update users can expect access to Netflix's entire HD library, an HD-specific, upsampled interface and "another major new feature" (Hulu?) that we'll have to just wait "a bit longer" to find out about.

Dramatic teasing aside, this update isn't all good news. Whether because of the Roku box's limited horsepower or a desire to cater to a wider range of broadband speeds, Roku's version of Netflix HD will be one of a "substantially lower bitrate," which doesn't sound great when considered against the Xbox's higher quality, good-but-not-great HD streaming performance. I'll hold judgment until we can test it for ourselves — a good decoder or postprocessing filter could do wonders for a sludgy picture. Or not. [Roku Forum via Hacking Netflix]

We love Brando here at the Giz, with its wonderful array of strangely useful, odd and downright weird gizmos. And though Brian didn't quite manage to meet up with its owner recently to discuss all things gadgety, Brando's still got some good news in this economically woeful time: from now until December 31, there's no shipping fee from its online store. So if your significant other is in the running for a USB-powered, aromatherapy, LED-lit, Hello Kitty'd massaging cellphone charger as a Christmas gift, you know where to shop. [Brando]

Fresh off a pretty huge round of layoffs, their Detroit office closure and a flurry of rumors about their solvency, Tesla Motors has been promised $40m in financing. Considering the fact that Elon Musk, mildly successful space invader and the owner of the company, had admitted just a few weeks ago that the company only had about $9m in bank, this new investment probably means the difference between customers getting their cars on time and Tesla, well, dissolving. So, Tesla, you've got your money — can we have our sedan, please? [NYT]