Chinese Democracy is the Duke Nukem Forever of the music industry. It’s been over 10 years in the making and everyone has lost interest since seeing Axl Rose’s last performance. Then, Los Angeles based blogger Kevin Cogill leaks nine songs from the album which eventually leads his site to crash from high traffic shortly thereafter. No one is sure how he obtained access to the songs but the “band” was pissed and demanded the songs be taken down.

But, the damage had already been done. Users who obtained the tracks had made them available on file-sharing sites. Guns N’ Roses: owned.

Earlier this week Cogill posted a plea for legal help on his blog, writing that, “more and more each day, it looks like I may be indicted.”

Cogill was released after signing a $10,000 signature bond and is scheduled to appear at a preliminary hearing on September 17. Things are not looking good for Kevin as he faces a judicial system of a Chinese Democracy. And here I sat thinking this album would never see the light of day.

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Japanese mobile phone operator, NTT DoCoMo is experimenting with this mind boggling approach to mobile device control that’s sure to give anyone an eye headache worse than TV coming through your glasses. How does it work? Firstly, no hands are needed. Simply move your eyes up or down to raise volume, accordingly. To skip a track, look right twice. Currently, they only have this technology controlling a mobile music player by sensing the electric fields eyes make when they move. In the future, who knows what this form of control could be used for?

Listening to the latest and greatest Josh Groban hits? Turn that shit up. All it takes is looking up. Say there is a bird flying overhead and you just so happened to be listening to the loudest death metal, ever. You look up, the volume raises and you’re officially halfway to becoming Helen Keller. You’ll then be forced to listen to tunes with the Shake-Up headphones, which is more buzzing and vibrating than any Justice song you’ve ever heard.

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Radio stinks. It’s boring and pretentious and they never play enough 1970s progressive rock bands. In a desperate attempt to get more listeners in on radio, Coby Electronics’ HD Radio launched with promises of higher audio quality for no additional fee.

The two new HD Radio receivers in town include the portable HDR-700 Radio System and the HDR-650 (pictured above) Component HD Radio Receiver. The latter is intended to be integrated into already existing household component systems. So if you don’t have one, you’re up shits creek without a paddle. The HDR-700 is priced at $149, leaving the lower-end HDR 650 at a price tag of $99. With no subscription fees, could this be a reason to give up your satellite radio subscription? Probably not and y’know why? Not enough NPR.

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Forget about all of this Guitar Hero mess. What about a little fun for us real guitarists? iGTR from Wave connects your mp3 player to your guitar so you can jam out to your favorite tunes on your iPod (or a Zune, if you’re a dirty commie).

iGTR also packs in 9 guitar effects, including wah, tremolo and phaser effects for an authentic sounding jam session. iGTR even lets you slow down your tunes to practice your favorite guitar solo in super slow-motion. This is for the REAL guitar heroes. Get yours for $100 and don’t forget the 3 AAA batteries. – Andrew Dobrow

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Ahh, robotics. The feeling of being in complete control. This Beatmix Bumblebee Transformer is even willing to dance and sing for you, despite the humiliation it might cause. Beatmix “speaks” music while dancing to every rhythm.

The awesome thing about Beatmix, which you won’t get from any other dancing device, is its ability to sample back your tunes with cool effects added in from the Transformer movie. While these new mixes probably won’t make you a hot DJ, it does sound like a good time and should keep you busy for at least 10 minutes. Get your own for $19.95. — Andrew Dobrow

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Segatoys presents its fully functional Miniature Grand Piano. What Segatoys mean as fully functional, has nothing to do with being fully usable. Or usable at all. Each of its 80 keys are about 4 mm thick, so if your planning on cranking out some tunes, you’re going to either have to train a mouse to play, or create paper-thin extensions of your fingers.

Just like a real piano, the notes will come out when the keys are pressed, though through a speaker. The Miniature Grand Pianist keeps over 100 tunes in its memory, with the keys moving according to the recorded music. Each Grand Pianist is custom made with hand inspected materials, and offers high sound quality, rather than the scratchy recording sounds. Such a collectible won’t come cheap though. The Grand Pianist will sest you back $549. — Andrew Dobrow

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Before you run out and buy a FM transmitter for your iPod, consider this. This MP3-playing Watch comes with its own FM Transmitter. The watch has everything built in to have tunes blaring through your car stereo whenever you want them too. And although there has been other wirelessly transmitting MP3 watches, the difference with this one is that it actually looks cool.

The watch is available in storage choices of 512 MB, 1 GB, and 2 GB models for the price of 12,800 yen ($107.83), 16,800 yen ($141.53), and 19,800 yen ($166.81) respectively, and has a cool control interface via buttons on the watches side. They are compatible with both Microsoft Windows XP/Vista and Mac OS X. The FMP3 Watch is a nice substitution for a typical transmitter. Available now from Thanko. — Andrew Dobrow

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Summer might seem far away now, with temperatures well below the comfortable level, but these frigid months will pass quicker then you think. When the temperatures pull a 180 and become uncomfortably hot, you might want to just lie around the pool all day and soak. And if you don’t have a pool, at least in an iced bath tub. But what’s the fun of sitting by the pool if you don’t have your favorite tunes blaring through the speakers. Sure, you could connect your iPod to a stereo, but then every time you want to change the song you have to get off your tube, out of the refreshing water, to turn the song, while burning your feet on the hot concrete surface as a bonus. Atlantic offers a solution.

We don’t know if we would trust our iPod in a “waterproof” device unless that thing was guaranteed to be tighter then security at the Rose Bowl. Though the idea is a good one! The Atlantic Ego Waterproof Sound Case can be used in the shower, as well as swimming pools, Vietnam, baptisms, and rain forest. Pretty much anywhere that there is a substantial amount of moisture that would once be a deterrent in lugging around your iPod, is now able to be safely navigated and funkified with the sound of your favorite tunes. The Case is available now for a suggested retail price of $200 or 40000000000 bottle caps. — Andrew Dobrow

Floating iPod sound system [via TG Daily]