We knew this was coming. We saw all the signs: The rumors. The price drops on existing videocards. The tweaked versions of old standbys masquerading as “new” GPUs. But more than anything, it’s been too long since we’ve had something fresh to sink our teeth into. And as has been the case in each of the last several big product launches, AMD is serving the first course.

Say hello to the AMD Radeon HD 7970.

Recently, a correspondent with more attitude than common sense excoriated me for having no taste. He could be right, but I doubt it.

I had mentioned in passing that I have thousands of CDs in my music collection, enough to fill a 3-terabyte hard drive. This particular adversary’s argument was that because taste is the product of a thousand distastes, obviously I had none because I had failed to winnow my collection. It doesn’t take a lot of smarts to realize that this is an inaccurate application of Sturgeon’s Law.

Unless you've been intentionally cutting yourself off from mainstream movies and TV (and we wouldn't blame you if you had), you've probably become aware of the practice known as product placement--when companies pay money to have their product or brand featured in a movie or TV show. 

Used judiciously, product placement can be a way for filmmakers to get a little extra cash and flesh out the realism of their world. It makes more sense to see characters at a bar drinking real brands of beer, after all. Unfortunately, Hollywood isn’t known for its subtlety, and product placement can all too often be jarring and obvious.

And, of course, tech brands are no stranger to this kind of advertising. We’ve put together a gallery of 15 of the most shameless, hamfisted instances of tech product placement in movies and TV shows. Check them out, then hit the comments and let us know what we missed.