One of the most important ways the Internet has affected daily life is the way we shop—especially for consumer electronics. I rarely buy anything in a store without first seeing if I can get a better deal online, and BensBargains.com, one of hundreds of sites serving announcements of big rebate offers, coupon codes and close-out deals is usually a first stop. This week, the Ben behind Ben’s Bargains launched dealspl.us, an interesting interpretation of the deal-site model cross-bred with the community-powered nature of sites like digg.com. All the deals on the new site are user-submitted, and the hottest ones surface to the top of the page after receiving votes of approval from other users. Check it out, because if you’ve never felt the unique endorphin rush of saving hundreds on gadgetry over the regular store-browsing schmuck, you’re really missing out. —John Mahoney

Link - dealspl.us

In the evolution of ride-over-anything mountain bikes, the ever-vulnerable rear derailleur—that gangly parallelogram that shifts the chain up and down the rear cogs when it’s not clogged with mud or bent by rocks—has been a glaring technical handicap. So GT (gtbicycles.com) got rid of it. With its $5,000 IT-1, GT moves gear-changing duties to an unsullied haven inside the bike frame, by way of an eight-speed internal transmission.

Since the dawn of wireless, the roving Google junkie has faced two options: a bulky wireless laptop or a Web-page-cropping PDA. This fall, however, Nokia (nokia.com) will introduce a palm-size Internet gadget that surfs Web pages in full, albeit scaled-down, glory, anywhere. Measuring three by six inches, the 770 connects to the Internet via Wi-Fi or a Bluetooth cellphone. Think of it as a $350 replacement for that second PC.

Pint-size cars are the practical option in European cities, whose streets seem to be designed for wheelbarrows, but they come up short on safety. Keenly aware of this dilemma, Milan-based automotive designer Pininfarina has reconsidered subcompact safety from the inside out with its Nido concept car. Named after the Italian word for “nest,” Nido refers to the unique design for protecting passengers of this diminutive two-seater (it’s 2.5 feet shorter than a Mini Cooper).

The music industry is taking the first small, yet irrevocable, step toward changing how you listen to and share digital music. After years of teeth-gnashing and spitting in the wind, all the major record labels have finally gotten serious about their digital music initiatives, namely by entering into agreements to sell the best stuff from their top artists, including new releases, on the Internet. In fact, the services may be up and running by early fall.

I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm not a photographer. I don't even particularly like taking pictures. But as an editor covering digital cameras, I've dutifully learned about the new image sensor technologies as they've arrived, noted the debut of more and more film-camera-type features, and monitored the narrowing gap in quality between the digital and film-based worlds. All the while secretly thanking God that all you really had to know about buying a digital camera was its resolution–how many pixels on its sensor.