Whether you travel for business or pleasure, you probably spend a good deal of time in the hotel room channel surfing. Little do you know, you’re probably catching a lot more than weather info or a movie.

While many think the hotel bedspread is a hotbed for germs, the remote control is one of the dirtiest items in any hotel room. In fact, Dr. Charles Gerba, professor of environmental microbiology at the University of Arizona, says the remote is worse than that comforter, the sink handles, and even the toilet.

Instead of changing the channel with your shoe, you could request the Clean Remote. This universal remote control is starting to pop up in hotels and motels throughout the country. Designed to resist germs and bacteria, this remote has been clinically tested to be 99 percent cleaner than most other remotes with the same usage. Basically, it has a nonporous flat surface, which is where most of the funk goes to hide and even incubate. Ew.

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Flying, X-ray vision, cool weapons, and awesome strength; when people think about superpowers, “high definition” isn’t usually on the list.

Now it looks like Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and others can add it to their list of incredible achievements. Roundtable Concepts just announced a new line of officially licensed Marvel Comic LCD and LED HDTVs.

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It’s easy to take movies on the go. How about 200 movies? Well, that’s not that easy — yet.

Paramount says they plan to stuff movies into the new Seagate FreeAgent Go 500GB hard drive for easy transport. Just don’t expect to get every Paramount movie ever made — or even all of your favorites. Instead, the device will come preloaded with options for 21 specific movies, as well as a free offer to get the recent Star Trek reboot.

Now the bad news: Star Trek will be a freebie, but you’ll have to pay for a license key to unlock the rest. Once they hook you with the magical powers and special effects of Star Trek, you can choose from other titles including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, GI Joe, Ghost, Jackass 2.5, and The Italian Job, among others. Pay between $9.99 to $14.99 per title, and each purchased movie will be licensed for use multiple devices.

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Do you have an ugly TV? I’m not talking about one that distorts Evangeline Lilly or makes Christina Hendricks look flat chested. If that sounds like your TV, you might have a Poltergeist issue. Instead, I mean those ones that look like a severe wire hazard, ones that could catch ablaze at a moment’s notice and take out three surrounding neighborhoods.

If that sounds like your hot mess, ZVOX may actually have a prize for you. The company just kicked off an “Ugly TV” contest.

In case you aren’t familiar with ZVOX, the company has made quite a name for itself creating single-wire products. Get it? So if you’ve got a nest that could be housing a family of squirrels, ZVOX wants to see it and possibly give you a ZVOX Z-Base 550 home theater system to solve your cable clutter problem.

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With a lot of the consumer electronics industry clamoring to release 3D TVs, Vuzix is quietly bringing the same experience straight to your cornea.

We’ve seen Vuzix video eyewear for years now. At first, it seemed a little goofy. After all, slap on a pair and you look like you’re headed to a Laser Tag tournament. Style issues aside, the individual experience is pretty cool.

Now, to jump on the 3D buzz, the company just announced that they are selling 3D DVD titles. Each one is mastered for use with Vuzix’s Video Eyewear and is also compatible with 3D TV sets — which no one has yet. Another thing they have in common? They are all equally bad.

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Every cable and satellite provider seems to offer its own digital video recorder line. Given that, it’s inevitable that we would have forgotten about our old buddy TiVo. Now they are fixing to remedy that, and possibly add an entirely new revenue stream for the company.

TiVo just announced the new TiVo Premiere, which takes the TiVo that we know and love and makes it better. First of all, it’s slimmer, so you should have no problem stuffing it into your already overcrowded A/V cabinet.

Aesthetics aside, the new high-def Series4 box does its usual time-shifting thing so you can have a mini Lost marathon on the weekends or watch Price is Right when you get home from work. However, it also adds in endless options for movies, TV and other entertainment from all over the web. That means you can watch movies or TV from Blockbuster, Amazon and Netflix one minute, check out the latest YouTube sensation next, and even tune into video podcasts.

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Ready to take your Entourage on the road? Of course, I’m not taking about a group of adoring hangers-on. HBO has just launched HBO Go, a new service allowing HBO shows, movies, miniseries and other content to be viewed from almost any web browser.

Sadly, HBOGo.com actually isn’t offering Entourage, but there are 600 hours of HBO’s other finest, including Band of Brothers, Big Love, True Blood, and even “oldies” like The Sopranos and Sex and the City. It also offers a lot of theatrical titles. At last peek, I saw Watchmen, Frost/Nixon, Tropic Thunder, and A Knight’s Tale were just a few of the many selections.

Here comes the bad news: You need to be an HBO subscriber to get the goods. Even worse, you need to be a subscriber with FiOS TV or Comcast. That means if you’re shelling out for HBO and have satellite, FiOS and Comcast subs are laughing at you. Maybe not; they could be too busy watching The Wire. Apparently, other providers will be added at some point, so keep checking the site for updates.

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I’m all for creative industries that endeavor to provide technologies to enrich our daily lives, but have got to admit that a $1500 swiss-army flashlight is a bit of a noodle scratcher for me, at least for domestic use. The MII Flashcam could certainly benefit law enforcement, but I’m hard-pressed to think of any other situation that demands a 4-digit glorified flashlight (maybe Ghost Hunters?).

Here’s the rundown: someone somewhere woke up one morning, rolled over to look at their MAG light sitting on the end table (who doesn’t keep one there, right?!), and thought “you know what this needs? A little bit of EVERYTHING. I’m going to throw in a camcorder, some night vision, water resistance and audio recording and THEN the world will know the perfect flashlight.” So with a dream (and I imagine a fair amount of duct tape), the MII Flashcam was born. And let’s be clear, it is a badass as flashlights go — the MII boasts a 85,000 Candlepower LED light with brightness control, night vision with 880 Nanometer Infrared Illumination for covert viewing, a hi-res Sony color video camera system with 1 GB of RAM and a little 1.5″ LCD monitor for viewing, plus another GB to store up to 60 minutes of audio, all of which can be easily downloaded to your computer for storage. So it’s a monster, a beast, a revolution in illumination — for $1500. Go get ‘em, big spender (and if you do, drop an email to let us know how it all worked out/what on earth you wound up stalking in the dark).

SanDisk hit the market this week with it’s latest release, the TakeTV™ Video Player, operating as a flash drive to take video directly from your computer to your TV without a ton of wires or equipment. It’s a quick and easy fix to the connectivity issues a lot of us have been operating under (my own rig is a complicated set up of wires from my PowerBook to the entertainment center’s receiver, which means anytime I want to watch a something I’ve downloaded the computer is basically off limits and tethered to the TV). So now you can toss the USB solution, forget about fuzzy wireless, and go straight from your laptop to your TV without a lot of complication.

Just plug the Take TV into your USB port, drag and drop your video files, then drop the unit into its portable AV dock and you’ve got a direct line to your video from any screen or entertainment system. The Take TV unit is about as small as a standard flash drive, and the dock and remote collapse easily for video on the go if you’re the traveling type. SanDisk is also launching its own video download system to pair with the device called Fanfare with both free (if you’re not bothered by ads) or pay service for content from CBS, Showtime, and the Weather Channel (????). This may explain why the Take TV isn’t compatible with iTunes downloads, so don’t be surprised when those files don’t work when you transfer them — there’s no love in the competitive portable video market.

The 4 GB Take TV is well priced at $99 for about five hours of video storage, or you can take a step up to the 8 GB model for $149. Both products are available for purchase directly from the SanDisk website.

There’s nothing quite like watching movies at home, free of chair-kicking patrons and $9 ticket fees (plus the popcorn is a fair sight cheaper/better), and now bringing your movies to full glorious frame at home is becoming more accessible. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times, you haven’t truly seen Jaws til you’ve seen it jumping off your living room wall. Epson gets it, and is doing their best to bring great in-home projection to bear.

The Epson EMP-TW680 HD Ready Projector is part of the company’s low-to-mid priced home cinema systems, sitting at the higher end of the spectrum with 3LCD technology for great picture quality. Featuring a native 16:9 resolution for movies, the image quality is one of the best in class with a contrast ratio of 10,000:1 and brightness and color modes for perfect projection in any light condition. The unit arrives ready to play with easy hookups to connect to DVD, TV, your cable box, gaming console, PC or digital camera — if it makes an image, the Epson can pick it up and throw it on your wall. Coupled with that surround sound system you spent an arm and a leg on, you’re now armed to completely rile your neighbors — the other night while walking the dogs I saw that a neighbor had set his up in the backyard and was broadcasting the football game on an enormous taut sheet anchored between trees. Oh, the places you and your movies/games/sports will go! The Epson is available over at ProjectorPoint (and a ton of other retailers) for £659.