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DVICE ARCHIVE FOR August 2007
Portability was the name of the game this week, with new portable devices from companies such as Samsung, Bose, Sanyo, and Sony dominating the headlines. Meanwhile, in Shift, we looked at the death of the CRT monitor, and why...
POSTED Friday, August 31, 2007
Nothing spoils a nice, legal BitTorrent downloading session like leechers. People turn off their uploads and just download, killing the entire point of BitTorrent and slowing the speeds for everyone else. The whole point of BitTorrent is to share...
POSTED Friday, August 31, 2007
Have you ever been to the mall and seen a kid magically rolling around on their shoes? The Energy Harvesting Derive takes that concept, throws in a little green, some tech knowhow and a desire to emulate the effects...
POSTED Friday, August 31, 2007
If the traditional (or not so traditional) cuckoo clocks are a bit too dull for your liking, you may want to take a look at this diddy. Artist Michael Sans stuffed and crucified a cuckoo, which died from natural...
POSTED Friday, August 31, 2007
Do you have $15,000 kicking around that you aren't planning on using as a down payment on a home or for your kid's college education? Great! Klipsch wants that cash. In return, they'll give you a pair of Palladium Floorstander...
POSTED Friday, August 31, 2007
We told you about the new Xbox 360 Messenger add-on way back in April, but Microsoft has just now decided to let us know the pricing and release date. It'll hit stores next week for the price of $30....
POSTED Friday, August 31, 2007
Ever since Princess Leia uttered her famous words, years of research and development have gone into constructing a true holographic display. The research papers are filtering out of SIGGRAPH 2007, and a team from USC, Fakespace Labs and Sony...
POSTED Friday, August 31, 2007
Here's a bachelor pad's dream: a coffee table that doubles as a gaming rig. The high-gloss top of the Surface Tension table adds a taste of arcade chic to a living room, housing a monitor beneath the glass tabletop...
POSTED Friday, August 31, 2007
Hard to believe, I know, but Sony's still making MP3 players. As crazy unpopular as they are (Sony doesn't rank any higher than 39th on Amazon's MP3-player best-seller list), the electronics giant continues to underwhelm us with more of...
POSTED Friday, August 31, 2007
Solar Water Disinfection, or SODIS is a simple sun-based system for water disinfection that's designed to help prevent waterborne diseases in developing countries. But SODIS is a slow process — it can take up to 48 hours for UVA...
POSTED Friday, August 31, 2007
Remember in Back to the Future II how Doc Brown overcame the plutonium problem by installing a "Mr. Fusion" in the DeLorean? Well, that might have seemed like a joke of some kind, or at least wishful thinking, but...
POSTED Friday, August 31, 2007
A moment of silence, please, in mourning for cathode-ray tube televisions. Certainly, LCDs and plasmas have many marked advantages over the elderly CRT. But those old screens are still better than flat panels in several ways, and they still...
POSTED Thursday, August 30, 2007
Klipsch just rolled out its IMAGE earphones, calling them the smallest and lightest in-ear earphones in the world. They are so tiny you can slip them in your ears and they disappear, with only two thin black wires showing....
POSTED Thursday, August 30, 2007
So even though you've got the pool table right where you want it, a fountain dispenser for all of those soda floats and your iPod full of tunes from the '40s, one thing keeps throwing your parlor off —...
POSTED Thursday, August 30, 2007
The new Airwash washing machine puts a whole new spin on washing your clothes. Or should I say it takes any spinning out of it… and water, for that matter. Yes, it's a completely water-free washing machine, using only...
POSTED Thursday, August 30, 2007
This Sunday night, people in Japan will be treated to a fireworks display of the likes the world has never seen before. What makes these fireworks different than those we see here in the States on the 4th of July?...
POSTED Thursday, August 30, 2007
HDMI is the new standard for connecting HD devices to each other, delivering both picture and audio in one convenient cable. The only problem is that, since HD signals are so large and full of detail, the signal can...
POSTED Thursday, August 30, 2007
It's back-to-school season, and Crayola's Audio Ruler is just another example of how today's school supplies are more sophisticated — if not more useful — than the ones you had as a child. This "ruler" is really a marker: you...
POSTED Thursday, August 30, 2007
High-def camcorders continue to get smaller and smaller. While we were blown away pretty recently by Canon's new hard-disk HD camcorder offering, this new HD cam from Sanyo is even smaller. The Xacti DMX-HD1000 is now the world's smallest...
POSTED Thursday, August 30, 2007
Robots tend to fill jobs humans find monotonous or revolting, this weird alien-looking anteater-thing has a humanitarian mission: "Probo" is designed to provide entertainment and support for sick children. The makers of Probo, the ANTY Foundation, have even caught...
POSTED Thursday, August 30, 2007
Those wacky MIT kids are at it again! This time MIT Media Lab researcher Tad Hirsh has created intelligent coconuts. Just how smart can a coconut be? These coconuts include audio sensors and will be hung in San Jose, California,...
POSTED Thursday, August 30, 2007
Bad news, waiters and waitresses: Your days are numbered. You're about to become obsolete, replaced by technology that can do your job more efficiently and without requiring tips. A new restaurant in Nuremberg, Germany, has replaced its waitstaff with...
POSTED Thursday, August 30, 2007
While we spend a great deal of time drooling over expensive toys, you've gotta head back to ground level at some point. While things may not be quite as shiny down here, there are other pleasures — like being...
POSTED Wednesday, August 29, 2007
This Spirit of St. Louis travel suitcase timepiece takes the term "travel alarm clock" literally. Paying homage to transatlantic traveler Charles Lindbergh's historic flight from New York to Paris in 1927, this clock aims for vintage realism inside and...
POSTED Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Bose kindly sent us its latest toy — a portable version of the company's generously promoted SoundDock iPod speaker. The SoundDock has generally garnered good reviews, and Bose says it set out to keep the sound quality about the...
POSTED Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Stoves take up a lot of space, and if you're like me, and you don't cook all too often and live in a relatively small apartment, you probably wonder if you could do without. But what about those times...
POSTED Wednesday, August 29, 2007
The worst part about long car trips is not being entertained every single second. I mean, if you get sick of listening to music on your iPod or playing video games on your PSP or DS Lite, what are...
POSTED Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Japan-based Yamaha has always been at the forefront of digital music, and its latest instrument maintains that tradition. The company has unveiled a device developed by artist and video-game creator Toshio Iwai called the Tenori-On. The gadget is a...
POSTED Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Do you hate progress? Do you still own a black-and-white TV? Do you refuse to buy a new gadget in the first decade of its lifespan? Chances are, you don't have a cell phone. But you probably see the...
POSTED Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does what ever a spider can. And in the next few years you might be able to pull off some of those crazy wall-crawling stunts, too. Professor Nicola Pugno thinks nanotubes built into gloves and shoes could...
POSTED Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Sony unveiled a whole slew of new Bravia HDTVs today, including a monster 70-inch flagship that'll cost you nearly $35,000. For that money, you get RGB LED backlighting for the deepest blacks possible and 120-Hz motionflow for crisp action...
POSTED Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Don't confuse this ring for your average cheap knockoff; it includes a pepper spray cartridge capable of doing some significant damage. The pepper spray is 400 times stronger than the average jalapeno. The Stunning ring also includes a safety lock...
POSTED Wednesday, August 29, 2007
What's the one thing you could change about your MP3 player if you could? Right, exactly — that annoying headphone cord that gets tangled up, breaks easily, and generally weighs down your ears. Well, Samsung thinks its fixed the...
POSTED Wednesday, August 29, 2007
While the Zen Garden Sink is a pretty neat idea, what with the water from your sink running off to feed a plant before going down the drain, and it looks really great, there are a few problems that...
POSTED Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Just as cell phones are becoming ever more powerful übergadgets, and flat TV screens get larger even as their prices drop, so, too, do the gadgets of the upper crust further distance themselves from the trinkets of the masses....
POSTED Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Take a look at Brix, a modular concept for a cell phone that lets you use one of the screens as a phone/media viewer, or piece together multiple units for an even larger screen. It's a lot like the...
POSTED Tuesday, August 28, 2007
While most people simply use Google to search the Internet for anything and everything online, the company has yet to reach people in the real world — with, say, some kind of gadget. That's all about to change, one...
POSTED Tuesday, August 28, 2007
from Monster Cable's website Today Monster Cable announced the world's only speed-rated HDMI cables. They come in five flavors, ranging from Standard to Ultimate. The Standard cables are rated to handle today's HD signals while the high-end Ultimate cables (M1000...
POSTED Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Why settle for speakers that pump sound out in just one or two directions when you can have sound emanating from your speaker in 360 beautiful degrees? That's what the conceptual Quasar speaker asks, and it asks it in...
POSTED Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Generally speaking, aesthetics aren't the first priority for people designing and building supercomputers. They've got more important things to worry about, like getting the components together, getting everything working properly, and keeping it all cool enough so it doesn't...
POSTED Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Sure, regular desk chairs will keep you upright and poised to be productive at your computer, but they just aren't great for relaxing. And yes, you might say "well, I'm not supposed to relax at my desk, I'm supposed...
POSTED Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Sure, Apple's new iMacs are slick and all, but they aren't the only, or best, game in town when it comes to all-in-one computers. Sony's new Vaio LT19U does almost everything the iMac does, as well as a few...
POSTED Tuesday, August 28, 2007
You really like it to be quiet at the movie theater, but you don't have one of these handy remotes. How are you going to fight back? Well, there is a gadget out there that literally blocks cell phone...
POSTED Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Strangely, the Morse Code Watch from Tokyoflash may be the site's easiest watch for deciphering the time. As the name suggests, the watch will beep out the current time in Morse Code through an external speaker. This may be easy...
POSTED Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Are you into beer? I mean are you really, really into beer? If so, you might get a little excited looking at this homemade all-in-one brewery. Created by Popular Science photographer John Carnett, this stainless-steel masterpiece has everything you...
POSTED Tuesday, August 28, 2007
If you've ever felt the urge to try your hand at illegal street painting but worry about getting caught, you might want to look out for these ads for Marc Ecko's fashion company. As long as you have a...
POSTED Monday, August 27, 2007
We like to see houses built in odd locations, and this one's a perfect example. Borrowing ideas from lollipops and billboards, a group of Polish architects designed this dwelling that sits atop a mast, giving you a two-story house...
POSTED Monday, August 27, 2007
Like every adult over the age of 15, we type more quickly than we text. In fact, receiving texts from friends can make us a feel testy— it costs us $.10 to reply, and it's not even healthy. So...
POSTED Monday, August 27, 2007
Fingerprint scanners are already becoming almost commonplace in laptops, and fingerprint-scanning doorknobs are just as easy to come by. It was only a matter of time before the fad moved on to automobiles, another item that's just begging for...
POSTED Monday, August 27, 2007
South Korea, like Japan, is basically a place in which we can see what our future will be like. Their relatively small sizes allow for newer technologies to be implemented faster, so stuff that's there now will hit our...
POSTED Monday, August 27, 2007
Movies about the future are slowly becoming a reality one new technology at a time. Take, for example, laser guns. A staple of sci fi movies for years, they've never quite come to fruition — until now. A California...
POSTED Monday, August 27, 2007
What better way to teach kids about the benefits of wind energy than from a toy car that's powered solely by the wind? The Loopwing Wind Power Generator do-it-yourself kit from Tamiya takes mere minutes to assemble, and it's...
POSTED Monday, August 27, 2007
Touchscreens are so hot right now thanks to the iPhone, but they haven't been perfected yet. No, there are plenty of places that touchscreens can and will go that the current generation of models couldn't even dream about. One of...
POSTED Monday, August 27, 2007
Nothing freaks out new visitors to Tokyo like running into one of the country's thousands of over-100 elderly making their way through the teeming human traffic, hunched over in a painful stoop. We're not sure if it's the uniquely...
POSTED Monday, August 27, 2007
I clearly remember a certain ominous, all-powerful presence that lorded over my early years — or mother, if you prefer — who would deny any request outright for motorized buggies. Instead I was stuck with a barbaric, Flintstones-like plastic...
POSTED Monday, August 27, 2007
No, this isn't the latest iPod knockoff to come straight from the streets of China; it's actually a rather large (and shiny) hearing aid (with wireless remote). Many people who are hard of hearing try to hide their disability...
POSTED Sunday, August 26, 2007
Way back in January, we guessed that Google's next mapping project might include the universe. We were right: this week Google introduced its latest version of Google Earth. In the new download, users can click a "switch to sky,"...
POSTED Sunday, August 26, 2007
We're big fans of people creating livable homes in the places you'd least expect, which is why we love this old water tower converted into a modern residence in the Netherlands. It doesn't look like the coziest of homes...
POSTED Saturday, August 25, 2007
OK, it's not like it was cybernetic-arm week or anything, but we found it a little wild that we caught wind of two cool-looking bionic limbs this week. But there was definitely more of a focus on outer space...
POSTED Friday, August 24, 2007
As the specter of peak oil and energy depletion looms here on earth, eyes turn to the moon with hopes of mining helium-3 (He3), a gas that's plentiful on the lunar surface but extremely rare back here on terra...
POSTED Friday, August 24, 2007
Your wrist is your TV screen: That's the promise of Epoq's multimedia wristwatch. We haven't personally tried it out, but if you're watching video on such a tiny screen, chances are it's not going to be great. Good thing...
POSTED Friday, August 24, 2007
Festo unveiled a really interesting piece of technology at this year's Hannover Fair. Airic's Arm uses fluidic-muscle technology that replaces gears and servos with elastic tubes filled with air or liquid. The tubes are meant to mimic the muscle...
POSTED Friday, August 24, 2007
There are two important things to consider when looking to purchase new computer speakers: The first, and most obvious, is how they sound. The second is how they look, as you'll have to look at them all day as they...
POSTED Friday, August 24, 2007
There are few things worse than deleting something only to realize a few minutes later that you really, really needed it. But once it's gone, for the most part, it's gone, and it's not coming back. This Tempo concept...
POSTED Friday, August 24, 2007
Using a laptop as a desktop computer is becoming more and more common, with laptops dropping down to prices comparable to desktops and offering the convenience of portability. The problem is, working at a laptop sitting at a desk...
POSTED Friday, August 24, 2007
If you want to share your randomized music with the world, you can always find a set of speakers to plug your iPod shuffle into. But then, that's not all too spontaneous, is it? What if you want to...
POSTED Friday, August 24, 2007
Mila Kalnitskaya and Micha Maslennikov are two artists who are known together as Mi-Mi Moscow. They've created an assortment of harnesses with propellers and wings for frogs for a series of photographs called Frogs Can Fly, where real frogs...
POSTED Friday, August 24, 2007
We're definitely no stranger to the concept of steampunk around these parts, and this latest steampunk creation is a non-operational lightsaber. This is the work of Jon C. Acosta, who seems to be both a steampunk geek and a...
POSTED Friday, August 24, 2007
In research that has far-reaching ramifications into my favorite field of study — video games — a couple of scientists have figured out how to trigger out-of-body experiences in subjects. Yes, you could be made to feel like you...
POSTED Friday, August 24, 2007
Getting people drugged is a good way to get them to calm down and stop being violent. Unfortunately for police and members of the military, it's not all that easy to administer drugs from afar to unwilling subjects. That...
POSTED Friday, August 24, 2007
Last year, my colleague Adam Frucci took the position in his weekly column that video games are art. And in the last several months the debate has heated up with differing points of view. Film critic Roger Ebert weighed...
POSTED Thursday, August 23, 2007
Although the universe works in a different way from mere clockwork, it can be visually represented using an intricate series of gears, and here's an example of that concept by watchmaker Richard Mille. To be unveiled next month in...
POSTED Thursday, August 23, 2007
Some pictures of a squat iPod hit the Web last week, and a few sites picked them up as a rumor. Nothing new, right? But then Apple went ahead and had their legal team ask Gizmodo to take them...
POSTED Thursday, August 23, 2007
Let's say it's getting late and little Billy isn't home from school yet. Don't bother calling around to track him down, just have a satellite tell you where he is. Wait, what? Yep, clothing company Trutex is thinking about...
POSTED Thursday, August 23, 2007
RUB is a trendy Manhattan-based barbecue joint. But its owner had a more ambitious vision — he wanted to combine BBQ and biking. So the restaurant commissioned this "mobile barbecue pit." It's an Easy Rider-style motorcycle with a smoker...
POSTED Thursday, August 23, 2007
High-definition video is already pretty damned realistic, but Mitsubishi is looking to make it even more realistic. How, you ask? By making it 3D, of course. And we aren't talking holograms or anything here, unfortunately. No, it's actually looking...
POSTED Thursday, August 23, 2007
Panasonic, together with a British design firm, has come up with a cameraphone accessory that's designed to make it super-simple to upload photos to a social-networking site like MySpace. The idea is you would slip your cell phone into...
POSTED Thursday, August 23, 2007
The PlayStation 3 just got a lot more attractive — at least it did if you live in Europe. Sony Europe just unveiled the PlayTV, a TV tuner for the PS3 that turns your gaming console into a full-fledged...
POSTED Thursday, August 23, 2007
Summer may be dwindling down, but that doesn't mean the fun and festivities on the lake or ocean aren't over. And where there's fun, there's usually drinking and drunken shenanigans, with stuff inadvertently going overboard. The Key Buoy is a...
POSTED Thursday, August 23, 2007
Storage options for devices such as cell phones, digital cameras, and portable media players are changing. While it used to be that you could buy a small SD card for a bit of storage, deferring to spinning hard disks when...
POSTED Thursday, August 23, 2007
Do you drop your camera a lot? In water? Maybe you often take it into thunderstorms? Dust storms? Ice storms? Iraq? Olympus has the camera for you, danger man. The Stylus 790 SW point-and-shoot is said to be resistant...
POSTED Thursday, August 23, 2007
Seems like every week Japan comes out with a newer, cooler robot. They've got 'bots as receptionists and 'bots to clean apartment buildings — all we've done so far is slap a gun on one and send it to...
POSTED Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Although at first glance it looks like a cross between a stealth aircraft and a shoe sizer, this Microsoft Sidewinder gaming mouse is supposed to give top-flight players an extra edge over their unfortunate foes. Like many other mice,...
POSTED Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Google Earth is already one of the coolest time-wasters available online, allowing you to zoom around the earth and take a look at basically every patch of land on our great planet. It's a lot of fun, and it...
POSTED Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Do you have a green thumb yet are constantly tethered to a computer? Do you yearn for the sweet, oxygen-providing presence of a plant in your florescent-tinged cubicle? I feel your pain. Well, you don't need to work in a...
POSTED Wednesday, August 22, 2007
iRobot, makers of the popular Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners, has just announced the newest member of their helpful robot family: the Roomba 500. This latest and greatest version of their flagship product adds a bunch of features that should...
POSTED Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Last week the heat index in Japan hit a record high of 106°F and over 60 people in country died as a result of the unprecedented heat wave. In response to the problem Kiribai Chemical Co. has a created an...
POSTED Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Sharp has just unveiled a set of "experimental" LCD TVs that are a mere 20 millimeters (¾ inch) thick. Those are some seriously thin TVs. Due to their extreme figure, these things probably cost way more than could reasonably...
POSTED Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Once the joy and excitement of your steampunk computer wears off, you'll probably want to expand some of its capabilities for all those steampunk images you've been downloading. Those crafty Canadians have come up with an external hard drive...
POSTED Wednesday, August 22, 2007
With the summer heat upon us, Russian cops want to show that they know how to have fun in the sun. Special Materials out of St. Petersburg has proposed an "electro-hydrodynamical" weapon as a nonlethal alternative to current methods, which...
POSTED Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Working outside always seems like it'd be a good idea to me, what with having a laptop and all, but once you get out there you realize that the outside just wasn't designed to be an office. The sun...
POSTED Wednesday, August 22, 2007
I hate to be that go-green hippie of the day, but if you have to drive, why not do it efficiently? Having good tire pressure boosts gas efficiency, but getting out and manually checking your tires is just a...
POSTED Tuesday, August 21, 2007
SCI FI Tech's title of World's Sexiest Electric Car may be in jeopardy when the first prototype Lightning GT rolls off the assembly line later this year. The most remarkable characteristic of this upcoming vehicle? It's the first electric...
POSTED Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Good news for wealthy, impractical Back to the Future fans: the DeLorean is making a comeback. With manufacturing beginning at the end of this year, the DeLorean should be for sale in the first quarter of next year for...
POSTED Tuesday, August 21, 2007
No, this isn't some death-ray device designed to keep your neighbor's dog off your lawn, but rather an amplifier for your music. The Fatman iTube Mothership comprises three parts: the Controlroom preamplifier, which supports three line inputs and one...
POSTED Tuesday, August 21, 2007
There's nothing more annoying than not getting decent cell reception in your own home. Missing calls, dropping calls, and having to go stand in a random corner to get that extra bar are all infuriating things to do, and...
POSTED Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Back in college, my roommate once put down our cordless phone right on the stove. It was one of those electric stoves, and it was only on simmer, but it was still hot enough to leave a semi-melted ring...
POSTED Tuesday, August 21, 2007
There are plenty of bionic hands out there at this point, but how many of them are powered by rockets? Not many. The Vanderbilt arm, however, breaks the trend of arms that aren't powered by mini rockets. Finally! The...
POSTED Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Japan is a country full of crazy ideas, but their plan for the world's tallest building makes every single one of their insane USB devices look downright reasonable in comparison. It's a 13,123-foot-tall superstructure. To give you an idea...
POSTED Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Want a bigger, better, faster bike? The HyperBike claims to be all of those things and more. Curtis DeForest wanted a bike that could keep up with traffic. He was inspired by the angled wheels on the wheelchairs used...
POSTED Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Playing a CD is usually a pretty standard affair. Pop open a lid, place the CD on its tray, and go sit down to enjoy your music. Japanese design group Hers Design evidently didn't think it should be that simple....
POSTED Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Sony's new Cybershot digital cameras have a feature that you probably won't find on any other models: a smile detector. Yes, there's software built in that can tell when your subjects are smiling and will take the photo at...
POSTED Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Japan's a country known for looking towards the future, which is probably why it seems like it's kind of in the future already. In fact, they've already started work on a "replacement" for the Internet, something they hope to have...
POSTED Monday, August 20, 2007
The milk bottle in your refrigerator has a clear expiration date, but it's a couple of weeks from now. The important question is, when did you first open it? And what about that half-eaten bowl of tuna fish —...
POSTED Monday, August 20, 2007
With iPod theft running rampant, many people are afraid to pull their expensive music players out to change tracks when in crowded areas. You can't really blame them; if there's anyone to blame, it's Apple for not putting in...
POSTED Monday, August 20, 2007
Some golfers want to go green with solar-powered golf carts, but this Golf Launchpad lets you hit the greens without even leaving your house. The $450 input device works with either the PC or Sony's PlayStation 2 and has...
POSTED Monday, August 20, 2007
Earlier this year we gave you a preview of the Fujitsu hand scanner called the PalmSecure, but at the time the device was a just another creepy/cool gadget bound for the clearance bin of some Akihabara recycler. Now news...
POSTED Monday, August 20, 2007
Canon has just announced its new flagship prosumer DSLR camera: a 10.1-megapixel behemoth known as the 40D. It has a 3-inch LCD display, can shoot 6.5 frames per second, and has the EOS Integrated Cleaning System that vibrates dust...
POSTED Monday, August 20, 2007
IOGEAR, renowned maker of underwhelming PC gear like switches and adapters, makes a half-decent grab for attention with its Digital Scribe pen. It has a straightforward mission — to take your handwritten notes into the digital domain without having...
POSTED Monday, August 20, 2007
Mergers of technology and furniture are often ill-conceived, but installing a subwoofer in a chair can be a great idea if it's done right. Bass frequencies below 20 Hz can only be felt, not heard, and you need a...
POSTED Monday, August 20, 2007
Kids these days are always trying to one-up their elders. Take these young whippersnappers from Wayland High School, John D. O'Bryant School of Math and Science, and Cambridge Rindge and Latin School for example. Working with four students from...
POSTED Monday, August 20, 2007
Samsung's new phone is called the UFO, and it looks to be just as sleek and slick as an alien craft. Beyond the smoky gray case and thin sliding body, it's got some of the more impressive insides we've...
POSTED Monday, August 20, 2007
Helio introduced another phone this week that's designed to woo customers away from networks with more familiar names. The Helio Fin's quick gimmick description is that it's the thinnest flip phone available in the United States. The phone is...
POSTED Sunday, August 19, 2007
There's nothing more frustrating when you're working on the move, whether you're walking or driving, than hunting for a Wi-Fi hotspot. And just finding one isn't going to cut it — is it a closed personal one, or a...
POSTED Saturday, August 18, 2007
I'm not shy to bring up my childhood fascination with plastering glow-in-the-dark star stickers all over my room. Other kids had nightlights; my room looked irradiated. Someone like-minded must have made these PlanetaRoom floating planets, as when I saw...
POSTED Saturday, August 18, 2007
There was some, well, interesting medical news this week. First we saw a printer that could make 3D bones meant to be inserted into people during surgery, then we saw the not un-creepy surgically implanted bra. In hardware news,...
POSTED Friday, August 17, 2007
For those who keep your sensitive data on a USB flash drive, and constantly fear the info will fall into the wrong hands, you might think about putting a padlock on your data-storage device. Corsair's Flash Padlock features a...
POSTED Friday, August 17, 2007
There's power to be found everywhere, from our footsteps to tornadoes. The trick is just figuring out how to harness it. Some German scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute have figured out a way to run electronics off of our...
POSTED Friday, August 17, 2007
Tell the neighbors you got this Radio-Controlled Pterosaur on a trip in your time machine, and if you fly the bird by them quickly enough they may not notice it's made of foam. Its radio-control console can steer this...
POSTED Friday, August 17, 2007
The Bang & Olufsen Serene is one of the most overpriced phones out there, with a jaw-dropping price tag of $1,300. They probably haven't sold all too many at that price, but that isn't going to stop them from releasing...
POSTED Friday, August 17, 2007
If you've got a pile of remotes sitting on your coffee table, you could get a universal remote and control everything with one device. But that's expensive, and then you'd have to program it, which takes time and effort....
POSTED Friday, August 17, 2007
You might think that a concrete lampshade would be a stupid idea, and if you were talking about regular concrete, you'd be right. But this LitraCube Semi-Transparent Concrete Lamp uses Litracon (light transmitting concrete), which is normal concrete with...
POSTED Friday, August 17, 2007
These days, laptops come in three flavors: ultra-thin, average all around, and ultra-powerful. Hitting either extreme, whether you're looking for maximum portability or performance, will typically hit your wallet pretty hard as well. Electronics purveyor Asus is looking to...
POSTED Friday, August 17, 2007
Gaming PCs are notoriously expensive, sacrificing reasonable prices for the most top-of-the-line components available. Laptops have never really been good as gaming PCs due to their lack of expandability and the high price of their components to begin with....
POSTED Friday, August 17, 2007
It happens all too often. You turn your back, and bam! Your iPod is gone. It's been pinched. Jacked. Stolen. In fact, well over 50 million iPods have been taken illegally. One tragic murder has been attributed to a...
POSTED Thursday, August 16, 2007
While Sony's Cybershot line has until now consisted solely of digital cameras, the new K770 adds another device: a phone. The branding shows just how camera-centric the new Sony Ericsson phone is, with its generous 3.2-megapixel camera built in. The...
POSTED Thursday, August 16, 2007
Let's face it, cigarettes are a crude nicotine-delivery system. They add dozens of toxic substances to the smoke, when all those smokers wanted was just a dose of their favorite drug. Now there are much safer ways than old-fashioned...
POSTED Thursday, August 16, 2007
Apparently, nonlethal weapons are all the rage these days. Mace? That's yesterday's news. Why spray an attacker in the face when you can fire five projectiles full of insanely hot PAVA powder? Because that's just what the IM-5 launcher...
POSTED Thursday, August 16, 2007
Logitech has just announced a really slick-looking iPod "speaker system," otherwise known as a fancy iPod dock. It's called the Pure-Fi Dream Bedroom Music System for iPod, and it has sweet new motion-sensing technology inside, bringing it to a...
POSTED Thursday, August 16, 2007
Boomboxes just aren't as cool as they used to be. Sure, maybe 25 years ago it was new and exciting to be able to play your music anywhere for anyone, but we're living in the age of the iPod,...
POSTED Thursday, August 16, 2007
Forget about Transformers that don't transform. For that matter, forget about convertible sofabeds: though they're useful for the occasional guest, when they're unfolded they always look unkempt. And they take up so much floor space! We want a DOC...
POSTED Thursday, August 16, 2007
Israeli doctors have invented a new kind of breast augmentation: the internal bra. While the laser bra, which you can get in Los Angeles (naturally), is little more than a nip, tug, and tuck, the Israeli procedure, called Cup&Up...
POSTED Thursday, August 16, 2007
Does anyone buy receivers anymore? More to the point, does anyone buy $1,000+ receivers anymore? Onkyo sure thinks to, now selling a whole mess o' high-end A/V command centers, ranging in price from $900 to $2,100. And what does...
POSTED Thursday, August 16, 2007
On the Tokyo train system, one of the most common sights you'll be treated to is that of young Japanese women simultaneously texting on their cell phones while checking their compact mirrors to make sure every "genki" hair is...
POSTED Thursday, August 16, 2007
For those of you out there who like to be distracted from television by your television, Philips is here for you. The company is upgrading its Ambilight line of TVs, which "enhance" your viewing experience by throwing light around...
POSTED Thursday, August 16, 2007
Seven years ago I walked into the local computer store and on a whim bought the Franklin Rocket eReader to keep me company. Over the next three years I used that e-reader almost every day until the thing crapped...
POSTED Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Having a powerful computer is all nice and dandy, but if you want your PC to last, you have to keep that sucker cooled. Using fans to pump up airflow inside a computer case is the standard method, though water...
POSTED Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Portable music players with headphones are all the rage these days, so it's no wonder people are losing their hearing at younger and younger ages. I blame rock music! It's the tool of the devil, I tells ya. But...
POSTED Wednesday, August 15, 2007
There's been a lot of talk about ray guns and we've even seen a whimsical-looking classic model, but now Optima Technology Group says its MEDUSA Mobile Energy Device might someday be able to actually do some serious damage. It's...
POSTED Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Sirius, the satellite radio provider that wants oh-so-badly to merge with XM, is releasing an update to its portable Stiletto player, the aptly named Stiletto 2. What do you get with this new version? Well, you'll obviously be able...
POSTED Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Sure, walls aren't exactly the first things that pop into your head when you think of objects that are getting lots of technological innovations. But hey, nobody asked you what you thought the next cool object was, did they?...
POSTED Wednesday, August 15, 2007
First your mom told you not to stare at the sun, now she's going to remind you not to stare too long at this hypnotic building. Planned for Portland, Oregon, this storage facility is designed to house all the...
POSTED Wednesday, August 15, 2007
According to a trivia question from a game whose name escapes me, humans take an average of seven minutes to fall asleep after they've hit the pillow. That means if you have a nightlight, it's not really being used...
POSTED Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Helio dropped a bomb on us today, following up on their awesome Ocean double-slider with a new, super-thin flip phone dubbed the Fin. The slick, magnesium-cased phone features a 3-megapixel digital camera, GPS, 3G Web access, and 100 MB...
POSTED Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Stupid potato chips! They're so very delicious, yet also so very unhealthy. The problem lies in how they're deep fried in oil, giving them a delicious flavor while also covering them in unhealthy grease. If only there was a...
POSTED Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Based on a concept first invented by Robert Sterling in 1816, this is a working engine that uses the warmth of a cup of coffee as its fuel. The fascinating twist is, this little Sterling engine is made entirely...
POSTED Tuesday, August 14, 2007
If you don't mind, I'm going to just talk to the dudes in the room for a moment. Hey guys. You know what really sucks? Splashback. You know what I'm talking about. No one likes leaving the bathroom with...
POSTED Tuesday, August 14, 2007
I find bars to be a lousy experience in general: expensive drinks, big crowds, a limited selection, and a human being to tip. But wait — here comes technology to the rescue! The MyFountain XL by Digital Beverages is...
POSTED Tuesday, August 14, 2007
The iPhone's influence is more than apparent on Samsung's latest MP3 player. From the sleek touchscreen to the icon-based menu to its overall size, the Yepp YP-P3 is definitely an imitator, not an innovator. But that's OK — the...
POSTED Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Fujitsu's new LifeBook T2010 is a lightweight notebook that wants to be more than just a notebook. Just look at that contortionist screen! It can flip itself around and fold back on the keyboard, turning the light notebook into...
POSTED Tuesday, August 14, 2007
This Bike Vending Machine is an ingenious design meant to facilitate bike rentals in urban environments. Customers could pay a small fee to get a bike from one of the machines and then they'd be able to ride it...
POSTED Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Some researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a small, flexible battery that has great potential for future consumer electronics. How does it work?The battery uses paper infused with an electrolyte and carbon nanotubes that are embedded in the...
POSTED Tuesday, August 14, 2007
The days of recharging your laptop may be numbered if Samsung's fuel-cell notebook catches on. The Direct Methanol Fuel Cell laptop supposedly carries enough fuel in that chamber beneath the monitor to keep it running for a month. If...
POSTED Tuesday, August 14, 2007
If your office hasn't wised up to the minimalist chairs inspired by the Aeron, there are other ways you can keep you tushie cool in these steamy days of summer. USB cooling gadgets aside, the Self-Cooling Seat Cushion is...
POSTED Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Ever since the advent of 3D printing, researchers have been trying to figure out how to replicate organs and bones for use in surgeries. Printed organs are still many years away, but researchers in Japan have already begun testing 3D-printed...
POSTED Monday, August 13, 2007
You never know what crazy items those smugglers who call themselves "friends" might try to sneak into your house. If, whenever you host a party, you spend all night eyeing every purse, backpack, or gift bag wondering what could possibly...
POSTED Monday, August 13, 2007
Retro is cool. Just look at clothes, music, and basically every other style out there. It's all cyclical, so what was once cool and then became uncool will inevitably become cool again. With that in mind, this Lasonic Ghetto...
POSTED Monday, August 13, 2007
There are plain old keyboards and then there are fancy, overly useful keyboard. The problem is, both varieties just look so boring. If you really want to add some spice to your desktop, you've got to add more than...
POSTED Monday, August 13, 2007
Bob Basset is a Ukrainian leather craftsman who's obsessed with dragons. Think that this laser-cleaner backpack would make you look macho? It can't stand up against Basset's leather dragon backpack. Though it would be intimidating on the right guy, you'd...
POSTED Monday, August 13, 2007
From the Unique Speakers department come these Audiorama speakers from Grundig. Basically, the speakers are big orbs that come in either black or white and can be either suspended from the ceiling or supported on poles. Due to their...
POSTED Monday, August 13, 2007
Ever since the iPhone was released, legions of hackers and tinkerers have been racing to see who could unlock and modify the much-hyped device first. Well, it looks like someone might have gotten the somewhat-coveted prize, as the ability...
POSTED Monday, August 13, 2007
Hey you got your chair in my suitcase? No, you got your suitcase in my chair! It's two, two, two treats in one for the weary traveler in this suitcase that magically transforms into a chair. With airline delays...
POSTED Monday, August 13, 2007
There's something very pleasing about the looks of the Boynq Alibi. Looking somewhat like an alien peeking out of the top of a vase, the Alibi is a combination of speaker and webcam. The speaker part uses the next generation...
POSTED Monday, August 13, 2007
As a kid who used to have glow-in-the-dark star stickers plastered all over my walls and ceiling — as well as large and gaudy planet stickers, too — I can immediately see the appeal of this Rainbow Stone. While...
POSTED Sunday, August 12, 2007
Who is Fake Steve Jobs, and why does every tech article this week seem to mention him? If you go to the Fake Steve Jobs website, it doesn't look alike anything special: Just a very simply designed Google-hosted blog,...
POSTED Sunday, August 12, 2007
The Palm Foleo, the poorly received new half-laptop that the fate of the company is resting on, just had some more details revealed about it, and boy are they exciting. You're looking at a 416-MHz Intel/Marvell PXA27x, a Marathon...
POSTED Saturday, August 11, 2007
If you enjoy reading but find the task of holding a book up so you can look at it to be just too much work, there's finally a solution for you. Yes, the Levo Book Holder is designed just...
POSTED Saturday, August 11, 2007
Look out, Al Gore. Planet-saving technology entered our orbit a few times this week, and we're not talking about some rocket with Bruce Willis on board. Most fascinating (and innovative) was this Lunar Street Light concept, where lampposts would...
POSTED Friday, August 10, 2007
After the lights go out for good, what will you do for music? Here's the answer: a media player equipped with a hand crank, created by Trevor Baylis, the same guy who invented the wind-up radio back in the...
POSTED Friday, August 10, 2007
Getting a nice panoramic photo, especially a 360-degree panorama, can be tough. You have to try to eyeball it, holding the camera steady while you spin around, and then you need to have the skills to adequately stitch the...
POSTED Friday, August 10, 2007
Economy fliers may finally have our chance to snooze on an Airbus. Lufthansa, the German airline, recently ran an online questionnaire asking passengers if they'd welcome a chance to stretch out in a horizontal bunk on the Airbus A380....
POSTED Friday, August 10, 2007
Your RAZR is pretty out of date at this point. While it might have been the hottest gadget around a few years ago, now it's about as common as Nike sneakers. You need something new, something that'll let people...
POSTED Friday, August 10, 2007
We though the color-changing Synesthesia Table was pretty cool, but the concept left us wondering: What exactly determined which color the table would change to? That issue's been solved in the my-gosh-this-is-actually-real Fuwa Pica furniture from Japan. Sensors in...
POSTED Friday, August 10, 2007
The skies just got a little more friendly. That's because Virgin America just took off on its inaugural flight yesterday, sending some lucky people between San Francisco and Los Angeles on the most high-tech airplane around. Virgin America offers...
POSTED Friday, August 10, 2007
Growing up, I used to live out in the middle of nowhere. At night, during the full moon, a kid could run all over the place without needing a flashlight thanks to our nearest celestial neighbor reflecting the sun's...
POSTED Friday, August 10, 2007
Most salad spinners' only function is to spin-dry lettuce. But making salad involves so much more work than that — you have to wash the lettuce, dress it, and toss it as well. Why don't we have one machine...
POSTED Friday, August 10, 2007
Sec, the human-Dalek hybrid from Doctor Who (which, uh, happens to run Fridays at 8 on SCI FI) seems a pretty niche choice for a mask considering the slimy guy appeared in only a couple of episodes. Nonetheless, next to...
POSTED Friday, August 10, 2007
While hoverboards might still be a few years off, there are still some pretty high-tech advancements that are being made to skateboards that we won't have to wait 'til 2015 to try out. The Boom Borda is a skateboard with...
POSTED Friday, August 10, 2007
When it comes to the quality of audio and video, there are those who claim they can see and hear angels dancing on the heads of pins when higher-priced cables are used. Instead of balletic angels, others more skeptical...
POSTED Thursday, August 9, 2007
Glass buildings let in sunlight and heat. The problem is especially severe during Spain's hot, hot, hot summers. So aircraft engineers at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid have found a way to use the windows themselves as cooling devices —...
POSTED Thursday, August 9, 2007
If you missed buying a piece of the Concorde supersonic jetliner when it was auctioned off a few months ago and still want to get your hands on a piece of history, here's your chance to pick up a...
POSTED Thursday, August 9, 2007
The MP3 player market is getting so competitive these days, what with companies like Apple and Creative dominating the scene, that to have any hope of surviving your product has to really stand out. This fresh concept by designer...
POSTED Thursday, August 9, 2007
Here we have yet another insanely stupid USB device from the sunny shores of Japan. This time, it's a USB necktie with a built-in fan in the knot. Oh, how very stylish! Did I say stylish? I meant horrible....
POSTED Thursday, August 9, 2007
The Sonance Architectural Series Speakers strike a perfect balance between speakers that are designed to be invisible and speakers that are designed to be a centerpiece in your living room. If you want people to know you have speakers but...
POSTED Thursday, August 9, 2007
The first thing you notice about Toshiba's third generation of HD DVD players is how thin they are. At just 2.4 inches tall, they're about half of what the first-gen players were 15 months ago, a welcome change for...
POSTED Thursday, August 9, 2007
Allergies, to put it bluntly, suck. Nothing ruins a perfectly good day like having itchy eyes and a runny nose. You might not be able to fight allergies when you're out having a picnic, but that doesn't mean you can't...
POSTED Thursday, August 9, 2007
With modern design dictating that everything in your home must hang on a wall and have a silver finish, it's refreshing to encounter the Bubble chimney, a fireplace that looks current without emulating a plasma TV. Hanging from the ceiling...
POSTED Thursday, August 9, 2007
It's been long enough since the Hindenburg disaster for people to get comfortable with the idea of traveling around in gigantic blimps, apparently. And in the time since that famous fiery crash, blimp technology has made some pretty sizable...
POSTED Thursday, August 9, 2007
We've heard of gadgets that can clean your laser, but until today we'd never heard of lasers that can clean your gadgets. We assume that laser cleaning works by burning off dirt layers, though laser cleaner companies tend to...
POSTED Thursday, August 9, 2007
Do you like your photos big? And I don't mean 8x10 big, or poster-size big, or even billboard big. I'm talking three-storeys-high big — the size of the image captured on Monday by the world's biggest camera, which, by...
POSTED Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Think cyborgs are purely science fiction? If the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) has anything to say about it, they'll be reality by the end of the decade. The APL has given itself until 2009 to create a prosthetic hand...
POSTED Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Back in the old days, only the top pro photographers carried around a Rolleiflex 2.8F, the paparazzi-favorite twin-lens reflex camera that was originally created in Germany in 1929. Now Rollei has turned that classic design into a tiny palm-sized...
POSTED Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Cities are filled with people who are concerned about making the space they live in more interesting, and it looks like Hamburg is no different. Its Landmark design series represents a line of city fixtures that are pleasing to...
POSTED Wednesday, August 8, 2007
The Advantage by HTC is either the biggest smartphone in the world or the smallest laptop, depending on your point of view. Called the perfect device for three days on the road (who comes up with these statements?), the...
POSTED Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Rollerman, Rollerman, does what ever a Rollerman can. Beneath that gear is Frenchman Jean-Yves Blondeau, who likes to deck himself out in an outfit that makes him look like a Transformer that forgot to remove the human occupant before...
POSTED Wednesday, August 8, 2007
If you always wished you could own a gadget inspired by the design of Logan's Run or The Last Starfighter, you're in for a treat. Nokia's Prism cell phone has all the triangular geometric shapes you could possibly want...
POSTED Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Hey, man, what's your sleep number? It's not a weird question when you're talking about Select Comfort's customizable beds — those ones where you can adjust the firmness of the mattress from a rating of 0 (ultrasoft) to 100 (majorly...
POSTED Wednesday, August 8, 2007
In a world full of bad ideas, the steering wheel desk stands out to me as a particularly horrible one. It's a flat surface that straps onto your steering wheel, providing a place to put your laptop or notepad....
POSTED Wednesday, August 8, 2007
One glance at Roboboa and we knew we'd finally found what we've been looking for: a 41-function robot snake that's an alarm clock, disco light, bizarre companion and a whole lot more. Consisting of four motorized segments, this robotic...
POSTED Tuesday, August 7, 2007
In addition to those fancy new iMacs, Apple also announced a big update to their iLife suite of software applications. iLife contains stuff like iPhoto, iDVD, GarageBand, and iMovie. Basically, it's Apple's multimedia software. So what's new in iLife?...
POSTED Tuesday, August 7, 2007
I don't know about you, but it's been a while since I actually gave my morning routine any thought. The brush, toothpaste, mouthwash, and floss have all been where they always have for years, and using them is next...
POSTED Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Apple just announced new versions of its all-in-one iMac computer. Featuring a new design with brushed aluminum and glass, it's certainly a slicker upgrade to the older models. Like the MacBooks, the new iMacs have an iSight camera built...
POSTED Tuesday, August 7, 2007
When it comes to computer peripherals you keep at home, printers just take up too much space for how often you use them. I print something maybe once every few weeks, yet a printer takes up a huge chunk...
POSTED Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Traveling in other countries is a great experience, but if you don't speak the local language, you end up feeling like you stick out like a sore thumb. You try to order some gelato and you end up insulting some...
POSTED Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Once you've found the platonic toaster, is it worth writing about any other? Though we don't think we'll ever love a breakfast appliance more than the toaster printer, Matt Gossington's Six Part Toaster design has its own special charm....
POSTED Tuesday, August 7, 2007
This sexy, sexy concept design is meant for people who like to rock out in the shower in the morning. You know who you are. It's a combo showerhead/MP3 player that just looks awesome. The speaker is mounted on...
POSTED Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Bad news, bad guys: the US Dept of Homeland security has developed a flashlight that'll ma