It’s no news that everyone from retailers to movie studios and electronics manufacturers wants you to buy a Blu-ray DVD player. They hit early adopters with “be the first on your block” ad campaigns, and now that the format war is over they’re still offering the kind of incentives usually seen when a technology is new: Just recently, Amazon started offering buyers of select Blu-ray players an $80 add-on bundle that would get their movie collection jump-started. (The titles included are a mixed bag, pictured, but $10 per film is quite a price.) Some of the incentives are a bit more thoughtful than usual. Martin Scorsese lovers who already own the standard DVD version of Gangs of New York, for instance, can ease the pain of buying a second version for Blu-ray by mailing in a coupon for a $10 rebate (other titles are eligible as well). A better development — financially and practically — is the new trend of “digital copy” bundling. Some movie studios are bundling second discs with certain Blu-ray titles that contain a digital file users can install on iPods for mobile viewing. Fox’s Juno was a prominent early example, but other companies — like Warner Brothers, with 10,000 B.C. and Lionsgate with the latest Rambo flick — are getting into the game. Hopefully, it will soon become an industry standard to let buyers own portable digital versions of the DVD movies they buy.

Friday’s release of the “3G” version of Apple’s iPhone ($200) was a sensation, drawing a wave of eager customers that, despite lessons learned last year, actually dragged the activation procees to a halt for some folks. Still, the speedier, more fully featured phone arrived not a moment too soon, as other cell-phone manufacturers are desperate to ride Apple’s design coattails. This is nothing new, of course: Months before the first generation was released, there was already enough imitation going on for Apple to take legal action. Some trend followers beat the original iPhone onto the market while others appeared to vanish before they got beyond the design phase; still others were clumsy enough to get tech journalists snickering, and have stayed in China to date. Today, the big hit in the non-iPhone iPhone arena appears to be Samsung’s Instinct (which starts at around $500, but with “instant savings” and rebates, the price drops to $130) comfortable , a familiar-looking little candybar that leapfrogs the new iPhone’s GPS capabilities by boasting actual turn-by-turn directions. (The iPhone will simply find your location on a map; the rest is up to you.) Then there’s LG’s Voyager, around $200, which combines touchscreen input with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Nokia’s N800 ($300 online, but they’re out of stock on their website and at Amazon.com) takes a different design road, grafting its wide-format screen onto a case resembling a vintage electric shaver. None of these are cheap, and prices vary widely because of discounts and rebates, but the new HTC Touch Diamond (which the FCC just approved but is not yet on the U.S. market) and Samsung’s i900 (pictured), which also hasn’t hit the market yet, thoroughly compared here, buck trends by having a base cost, expected to be around $600, which is far higher than the iPhone’s slashed price. At least with those two, you wouldn’t be committed to using AT&T, as you are with Apple’s product. And what of that smartphone titan, the Blackberry? While their upcoming “Thunder 9500,” which will be tied to Verizon and is expected to hit store shelves in September, may eventually rock users’ worlds, gossip on the Internet (some of which is chronicled here) suggests it’s far from ready for prime time. However, if you want a sneak peek at it, tech blogger Boy Genius claims to have found the first picture of one and boasts about it on his blog.

My taste in furniture is a bit old school. More French Country meets shabby chic than contemporary-modern, which can seem cold and uninviting. Take this chair for example: made of 30,000 paper tissues for a “cloud-like atmosphere.” But I’m cozying up to furniture with a modern bent after looking at modernreproductions.com, which specializes in reproductions of the best of mid-20th century modern furniture. Their items, unlike the originals they mirror, are livable  and fairly affordable, like this comfy arm chair ($899). (Compare it to this pricier version at $3,529.) The chair is a version of one created in 1958 by Florence Knoll of the Bauhaus school of design. Swivel and turn in the miniature egg chair, a replica of Arne Jacobsen’s 1956 signature piece. Sit any way you want in the Ox-chair reproduction. The orginal was created in 1960 by Hans J. Wegner, a noted cabinet maker who became a member of London’s Royal Society of the Arts. Imagine cuddling on this iconic couch ($3,500), available in more than 40 soft, natural colors. It’s a replica of sculptor Isamu Noguchi’s original. Noguchi was the set designer for many of Martha Graham’s best known dances. Dreamily stretch out on this couch ($1,800) based on a 1929 Ludwig Mies van der Roh original. Take a look at this Frank Lloyd Wright table replica at $3,500, or let the teens “hang” in the acrylic and chrome-plated bubble chair ($1,500, pictured). The original was designed in 1963 by Eero Aarnio, who recently received Europe’s most prestigious award for industrial design, the ADI Compasso d’Oro Award, for his Trioli chair for toddlers.

The techheads at Wired recently declared we’re in the “Petabyte Age,” in which massive quantities of computer storage can fundamentally change scientific research. Astoundingly, for just a couple hundred dollars, you yourself can own a terabyte of storage — just one notch below (a thousandth, in other words) the earth-shattering petabyte. (Just in case you aren’t good with the numbers, the terabyte holds 1 trillion bytes, or 1,000 gigabytes.) For a mere $220, for instance, Maxtor’s OneTouch 4 Plus can be yours, resplendent in brushed metal case and boasting a quiet operation that belies the muscular operations within. Just for your edification regarding the heft of a terabyte, entries on Wikipedia say that all of Walmart’s data is stored on 500 terabytes of data, and YouTube holds more than 600 terabytes of video. The Maxtor is compatible with both Mac and PC, the OneTouch naturally comes with backup software that stores duplicate copies of everything on your computer without your having to worry about it; it also can encrypt all that data for you, lest prying eyes want to snoop through personal records. Less common is its ability to sync data between multiple computers, eliminating the frustration that sometimes arrives when you’re in the middle of a project and realize you left an important phone number on your laptop at home. But backups and data-syncs are like laundry and dishwashing: Happily, having a terabyte at your disposal means all the chores can be done by one little corner of the hard drive while vast swaths of disk space are available for the good stuff: 1 TB, after all, is enough room to store a thousand hours of digital video (depending how it’s compressed) or nearly two years of continuous music. By the time you’re tired of all those songs, you’ll probably be able to afford a petabyte, which would hold enough music for the next two millennia.

There’s a long history in the audio-visual industry of fetishizing the little bits of gear that make the high-priced electronic components work together. If you’re going to spend a few grand on a stereo receiver, after all, you might look like an easy mark for salesmen hawking $100 Monster HDMI cable and 24 carat gold wire connectors — you might even be talked into spending $465 on a string of speaker wire with a “slender profile and jewel-like finish.” Who cares if the benefits of these hyped products are often dubious, with plenty of tech-heads providing hands-on analysis in exposés like this one. Consumer annoyance with this trend seems to have come to a boil recently, as influential blogs like Boing Boing Gadgets note that the luxury cable trend is migrating from A/V gear to mundane objects found in any computer user’s drawer. In response to Denon’s introduction of a 1.5 meter Ethernet cable costing $500 (pictured), Amazon users have taken to the barricades, using the site’s customer feedback system to post what BB describes as “perhaps the best Amazon reviews page of all time.” Scrolling through the list, Rob Beschizza found triumphs of facetiousness like a one-star review by a man who claims to “regularly spend over $1,000 on cables to get the ultimate sound” and warns readers that, if readers ignore Denon’s directions and accidentally plug the cable in the wrong direction, “your music will play backwards.” Others feign geeky ecstasy, praising the cable while wishing they could plug it into their own bodies or boasting that it moved data along with such speed the electrons left black holes in their wake. The cables also solve global warming, we’re told, and deserve “eleventy million stars.” Even for people who ignore customer reviews as a rule, the thread is well worth a read — and might even contain a few tidbits of non-sarcastic information.

“Life is difficult,” wrote M. Scott Peck in The Road Less Traveled. Some days are more difficult than others. The effect of stress on health is well-documented so it’s imperative that you find a reliable method for slowing down and relaxing. My tactic: Indulgence Day – kind of like spa day at home with truffles. It starts with a long soak in the bathtub, the at-home equivalent of a self-nurturing spa experience. Before sliding into the tub, light a scented candle. Le Cherche Midi ($50), is fragrantly reminiscent of an ocean-side retreat with beach grass and sundried driftwood and summer herbs. The appropriately named Ganesh Remover of Obstacles ($19.50) is scented with chamomile and lavender. A must-have is the Spa Sister bath pillow - or any number of other great at-home spa products at eBubbles. The pillows start at $7.50 and come in several soothing colors, including lavender. Consider this caddy with a magnified mirror ($65) for plucking eyebrows. Check out this caddy made with sustainable bamboo ($46.50, pictured), which has a place for your wine glass and a “Calgon take me away” girly book. Go to this site for a recipe for a cucumber face mask you can whip up in your kitchen and apply cold, straight from the fridge. Or head over to Perricone MD Pharmaceuticals for a firming facial mask and serum that promises to minimize the appearance of wrinkles and rejuvenate tired, stressed skin ($120 for set). Draw warm water into the tub and add essential aromatic oils and bath salts, including Therepe scented bath Salts (8 oz of Thai lemongrass ,$3). Use a long-handled bath brush ($125) to remove dead skin cells and invigorate the entire body.  After a nice long soak, dry off and wrap yourself in this fluffy Sonoma lavender spa robe ($135), made of soft microfiber plush, or the Diva Darling in pink ($68) with a shawl collar and generous patch pockets. Don’t forget the truffles (eight piece Godiva signature pack $16.50). Put on some relaxing music you love and breathe. Just breathe.