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Sling Media just started shipping the Slingbox Pro-HD, and DVICE has its gadget-loving hands all over it. We've been fans of Slingboxes since the beginning, relishing their ability to stream home video sources like cable or satellite TV (even...
POSTED Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Archos, known for its multi-talented portable video players, has just busted out a new one: the Archos 5 Internet Media Tablet. The shiny player can be equipped with attachments that turn it into a digital video recorder, TV set,...
POSTED Friday, September 26, 2008
It's impossible not to compare the first Google Android phone, the HTC-made G1 unveiled this morning by T-Mobile, to the iPhone. Like all iPhone clones, the Samsung Instinct, the LG Voyager, and varying HTC Touch models, the G1 includes...
POSTED Tuesday, September 23, 2008
You may recall SRS Labs, maker of sound-processing software. No? Well, SRS Labs makes sound-processing software, which is supposed to beef up your audio. Their processing is built into a lot of devices — from TVs to sound cards...
POSTED Thursday, September 18, 2008
Folks, it's finally here. As the bad boys from Prison Break, the hotties of 90210, and all those ultra-violent cyborgs on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles are testament to, the new TV season has begun. What better time to...
POSTED Monday, September 15, 2008
Call me a pack rat, but in the 20 years between 1984 and 2004, I probably filled about 200 VHS tapes with stuff. No, not really important stuff like weddings or graduations, but just things I recorded off the...
POSTED Sunday, September 14, 2008
The iPhone 3G 2.1 firmware has now hit the streets, and we've snagged the 237.8MB download. That's a fat bolus of software, even bigger than the monstrous 225MB of the iPhone 2.0 firmware. Here's Apple's list of fixes in the...
POSTED Friday, September 12, 2008
NBC blasted out of the gate with the debut of its NFL Live webcast last night, offering multiple camera views and interactive features that gave viewers more options for football watching than ever. We tested the Adobe Flash-based interface...
POSTED Friday, September 5, 2008
Dell aims its attractive Studio Hybrid to students and PC newbies, but we had a better idea for the minuscule PC — let’s take it into our home theater and see what it could do. It has the makings...
POSTED Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Imagine talking to your computer and having it transcribe everything you say without even touching the keyboard. That's the promise of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 ($99.99 for the Standard Edition, up to $1,599 for specialized medical and legal editions), the...
POSTED Friday, August 22, 2008
Technology is touching all parts of our lives, our nether parts being no exception. These days there are toilet seats that clean you up like a car wash, and we have one right here from Kohler that we’ve been...
POSTED Tuesday, August 19, 2008
So, sleep. Select Comfort likes to think it’s cornered the market on it. While other bedding companies sell mattresses and linens, the company markets itself as a vendor of improved sleep. The flagship behind this master plan is the...
POSTED Sunday, July 27, 2008
Dr. Dre isn't just a world-class hip hop artist and producer — he’s a perfectionist. That must be why these Dr. Dre Beats headphones took seven years for him and overpriced-cable maker Monster to design. These $349 cans were...
POSTED Friday, July 25, 2008
After waiting in line for what seemed like an eternity, we finally got home with our shiny new iPhones 3G. Meanwhile, we had time to peruse all the other rah-rah, hand-picked reviewers fawning all over Apple’s new baby, and...
POSTED Monday, July 14, 2008
Too few car buyers choose a practical and safe ride over one that's sexy. That's understandable, but it's also going to change the day gas hits $5 a gallon, when we'll be standing in line to buy cars like...
POSTED Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Security cameras? Who needs ’em? That was my opinion until a neighbor’s home was invaded. One morning, a suburban housewife a few feet from our Midwest Test Facility walked into her kitchen only to find a strange man standing...
POSTED Monday, June 2, 2008
Looks like our parent company NBC has brushed aside iTunes for its online iPhone viewing, and gone directly to the people. If you navigate to NBC.com on your iPhone’s Safari browser, you can now watch full episodes of 30...
POSTED Thursday, May 8, 2008
We got our hands on LG's Vu cellphone from AT&T today. It's a sexy number that emulates the iPhone on a number of scores, most notably its touchscreen. The Vu even complements it with some very appreciated tactile feedback...
POSTED Thursday, May 1, 2008
Over the past few weeks, we've been testing out a pair of Camileon Heels — high-heeled shoes that easily transform from wobbly 3.25-inch stilettos to practical pumps with 1.5-inch heels. We've seen high-tech shoes before, but rarely have they...
POSTED Tuesday, April 29, 2008
The Garmin Forerunner line of GPS-enabled watches just took a giant leap in techno-goodness. If you’re a runner or walker, you're going to like the way this new Forerunner 405 ($300) measures and records your speed, distance, elevation and...
POSTED Thursday, April 24, 2008
If you’re one of those high-end PC users who sprung for Windows Vista Ultimate hoping that the promised Ultimate Extras would someday amount to something, you might have to keep waiting after today. Microsoft released a precious few updates...
POSTED Wednesday, April 23, 2008
The Smartparts SP8PRT is a two-headed beast. It displays photos like any other digital picture frame and prints them up, too. Does it deliver on its bi-polar promises? We were got our hands on the $280 digital photo frame,...
POSTED Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Looking to record your favorite HD shows to a digital video recorder (HD DVR)? You’re not alone. As of December, 2007, 20% of U.S. households had a DVR, up from 12% at the beginning of the year. Your choices...
POSTED Wednesday, March 26, 2008
The New York Auto Show was this weekend, and we've got cars on the brain. Good timing for Audi to let us try out the company's 2009 SUV (Audi's second), the Q7. Not that it's the first or even...
POSTED Tuesday, March 25, 2008
OK, we know you guys are psyched that the new season of Battlestar Galactica is starting up soon (April 4, in fact). So are we. In fact, today DVICE, SCIFI.COM and MAKE magazine are kicking off a big contest...
POSTED Friday, March 21, 2008
Are you one of the lucky 6.7 million Americans who got a GPS personal navigation device at the end of last year? A whopping 47% of those units were made by Garmin, the U.S. market leader (TomTom is in...
POSTED Tuesday, March 18, 2008
After reviewing several dozen iPod speaker systems over the last two years, I’ve discovered that, despite the incredible variety available, very few of them are worth your hard-earned cheese. Once in a long while, though, I hear a system...
POSTED Tuesday, March 18, 2008
The sudden popularity of digital photo frames has turned them into love-it-or-hate-it devices. The dichotomy goes like this: Tech-savvy folks tend to dislike them (sometimes intensely), while most others are fascinated by the technology, if statistics are to be...
POSTED Thursday, March 13, 2008
There’s a quiet revolution happening right under your fingertips. Breaking free of the bonds of wires and short-range wireless Wi-Fi networks are EV-DO (Evolution Data Only) modems, letting you use your laptop virtually anywhere there’s cell phone service. The...
POSTED Monday, March 3, 2008
Sony ships its MDR-NC500D headphones on March 21, touted as groundbreaking technology. The company sent us a pair just before we hopped on a plane to the annual Sony Open House in Las Vegas, inviting us to take a...
POSTED Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Time Warner just launched a test of its new HBO on Broadband service, only available so far to residents of Wisconsin who are subscribers of Time Warner Cable, HBO and Road Runner broadband. It so happens that some of...
POSTED Thursday, January 31, 2008
I have, on two occasions in the past, gone to Staples or the nearest local pharmacy to purchase a $10 replacement "universal" remote control. These remotes aren't pretty. They take a bit of finagling to set up. But they...
POSTED Friday, January 25, 2008
The Apple iPhone is 202 days old, and that means we've had plenty of time to really live with it. Tuesday's firmware update added some welcome new features, but the coveted iPhone still isn't perfect. If you're thinking maybe...
POSTED Thursday, January 17, 2008
Christmas may be over, but the Superbowl is just around the corner — a great time to get yourself a tasty new HDTV. One of those flat-panel LCD models on the shelves of you local big box would sure...
POSTED Friday, January 4, 2008
Host Vanessa Rae takes Suki, her dog, and Pleo, a robotic dinosaur-like companion, out for a whirlwind tour of Manhattan.
POSTED Thursday, December 27, 2007
As little as a year ago, only the hardiest contrarians mocked the iPod. Then Apple released a questionable new generation. Buyers of the Classic give it just three and a half stars on Amazon, complaining you could grow old...
POSTED Wednesday, December 19, 2007
We could scarcely believe it ourselves, but Batter Blaster is a real product, and the company that makes it was kind enough to send us a sample can for testing. The good news is that it works. If you spray Batter Blaster batter onto a hot greased pan, you will get pancakes. The first bite of pancake was surprisingly delicious.
POSTED Friday, December 14, 2007
Plasma TVs used to cost a fortune. Then, after a while, only the big ones cost a fortune. And now we've finally reached the point where only the crazy-big ones cost a fortune — even reasonably big ones like...
POSTED Wednesday, December 5, 2007
It doesn't matter if the Amazon Kindle e-book reader is the first e-book reader that makes sense. It's not a question of whether the unique un-backlit monochrome screen technology works, if the Sprint-powered wireless online bookstore and download of...
POSTED Friday, November 30, 2007
German zeppelins killed hundreds of English in World War I bombing raids, so it's rather sporting of Bowers & Wilkins to model an iPod dock after the infamous flying object. B&W, of course, is best known for its world-beating...
POSTED Wednesday, October 3, 2007
If you go on a road trip into the wilds that lie out past suburbia, you'll soon notice that once you get beyond the reach of cable TV, satellite reception is the only game out of town. In some...
POSTED Wednesday, September 26, 2007
When news of the new iPod Nano first leaked out onto the tech blogs last month, I was, like many, underwhelmed. Perhaps unconsciously tapping to our hard-wired aversion to obesity, I agreed that the squat design looked like crap compared...
POSTED Monday, September 24, 2007
Is Dr. Amar Bose the secret illegitimate father of Steve Jobs? Regardless, he's certainly the last of the great first-generation audio pioneers. Though audiophile publications make acid comments about the price/performance ratio of his speaker lines, he is nonetheless...
POSTED Tuesday, September 4, 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
Last week, I told you I'd let you know if waiting 13 hours in line for an iPhone was worth it. Yes. Oui. Affirmative. Si. Uh huh. Yup. Ja. You betcha by golly. D'UH! Is wicked cool still an...
POSTED Sunday, July 8, 2007
I'm a Windows user who loves skinny laptops. My Lenovo-IBM ThinkPad X60 is the Apple of my eye and only willpower keeps me from adding the teeniest Vaio and maybe one of those cheap Asuteks just for the hell...
POSTED Wednesday, June 27, 2007
My head is spinning with all the new GPS products hitting the market. GPS systems have been very popular all over the world and now they're catching on in the U.S.A. Why? In other countries, (Asia, Europe) the way...
POSTED Wednesday, June 20, 2007
There's a hell of a lot to be said for ease of use. The iPod, e-mail, and Facebook all owe a good chunk of their immense popularity to simple and intuitive interfaces. But Albert Einstein himself imposed a limit...
POSTED Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Driving, walking or running, the Mio DigiWalker H610 GPS is truly a handheld personal navigation and entertainment device that's committed to getting you there, wherever "there" is. Extremely portable, this small-form GPS weighs just 3.9 ounces. And therein lies...
POSTED Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Well, here we are folks: at the beginning of the end of the DVD era. Yep, sorry — I know it seems like yesterday that you just replaced your VHS copy of the Star Wars trilogy with the DVD...
POSTED Friday, April 13, 2007
It's a funny thing, 1080p. As TV-resolution specs go, it's pretty damn popular — 1080p has gotten so much hype over the last year, I swear it must be represented by Lizzie Grubman. I mean, it's great if your...
POSTED Thursday, April 12, 2007
Real small — that's a good way to describe the Toshiba TDP-FF1, the company's "ultra-portable" mobile projector. Take it on the road to give presentations and then party with it back in your hotel room. Play some video games,...
POSTED Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Let's not deceive ourselves. Apple TV isn't the first device to do what Apple TV does, not by a long shot. It suffers many shortcomings. But for reasons that become self-evident the moment the familiar Apple logo appears on...
POSTED Tuesday, April 10, 2007
We do reviews! It's Review Week here at SCI FI Tech, which means we'll be bringing you hands-on write-ups of gadgets both big and small every day. Adam Frucci kicks off the week by getting connected with Helio's new...
POSTED Monday, April 9, 2007
Bose calls these things "in-ear headphones." Maybe "earbuds" isn't a fancy enough term when the world's most aggressively marketed audio brand expands its portable audio line into iPod-accessory territory. As the only mega-market audio manufacturer still ruled with an...
POSTED Wednesday, March 21, 2007
For a long time, the notion of a "gaming laptop" was a contradiction in terms. After all, everyone knew that notebooks had to compromise on features and performance to achieve maximum portability, right? And even with advances in chips...
POSTED Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Just the other week my cousin turned 11 and, feeling obligated, I decided to go to his party. My companion: Nikon's D40 digital SLR (DSLR) camera, ready to capture the festivities in captured 6.1-megapixel moments. Slinging the Nikon over...
POSTED Thursday, February 22, 2007
Now that Bluetooth earpieces are getting more popular, they're becoming as much of a fashion statement as the cell phones they pair with. After all, if your sleek mobile's hidden in your pocket, wirelessly streaming calls to a headset,...
POSTED Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Why should you buy a Zune? Because Bill Gates is strapped for cash. No, actually because Microsoft, to sustain its World Domination, must never allow the enemy to get too strong, in any market, including handheld media players. After...
POSTED Wednesday, February 7, 2007
If the airport security guy opens your carry-on and says, "What is this?" Just reply, "This is Polk Audio's miDock Portfolio. Go ahead, open the soft carry case. The speakers open on a hinge, see? The iPod goes onto...
POSTED Thursday, December 28, 2006
Thanks to unimpeded capitalism, there are so many music players available that deciding which one to buy might make your head 'splode. In fact, only two players really count — iPod and Zune. Everything else is just marketplace clutter....
POSTED Wednesday, December 20, 2006
The small field of high-end table radios has an impressive new entry: Polk Audio's I-Sonic. It's the company's first offering into the category, and Polk has upped the ante, offering more features out of the box than most, if...
POSTED Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Dell recently set the bar a little bit higher for top-of-the-line machines — the rigs for people who don't care how much their computer costs as long as it's better than everyone else's. Loaded up with Intel Core 2...
POSTED Tuesday, November 28, 2006
It's been said that the journey is as important as the actual destination, and this is very true… except when you're lost, running late, or far from home. Sure, you could go and ask for directions, but that seems...
POSTED Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The Slingbox is one of those gadgets that you never knew existed, but once you learn about you've just gotta get. A "place-shifting" device, the diminutive box simply hooks up to your TV and lets you watch it from...
POSTED Friday, November 17, 2006
Night minutes. Weekend minutes. Data minutes. Mobile-to-mobile minutes. Roaming charges. Rounding off to the next minute. Service charges, usage charges, government fees, taxes. C'mon Verizcingusprintmobile — aren't there more ways to squeeze blood money out of my cell-phone usage?...
POSTED Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Playing music on a PC is like using a Swiss army knife to carve a steak. Nonetheless, millions do it, so the need for decent multimedia speakers is as real as that pain in your wrist. Logitech steps up...
POSTED Tuesday, November 7, 2006
The first time you ever try to plug a bulky AC adapter into a conventional power strip, it hits you: this is not the right tool for this job. Some hefty adapters will cover up as many as three...
POSTED Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Except among the golden-eared, pride of ownership in a music player rarely extends to the part that vibrates and makes noise. Earbuds are a necessary evil, tolerated only because the player would be useless without them. Anyone interested in...
POSTED Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Headphone cables can be a hassle, getting tangled up in your pocket or caught on the treadmill when you're at the gym. Bluetooth wireless technology promises to rid our lives of unsightly and annoying wires forever, and Koss wasted...
POSTED Tuesday, October 3, 2006
I hate running. On the rare occasion that I feel motivated to actually go to the gym, the time I spend on the treadmill to stay in shape always seems to drag. But the Nike + iPod Sport Kit...
POSTED Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Photo by Michael Trei I've always found building stuff to be incredibly satisfying. Whether it's a something I've hauled home from Ikea, or just a ham and swiss on rye, there's always just a little sense of achievement that makes...
POSTED Tuesday, August 15, 2006
The Sleeptracker watch makes a lot of lofty promises. It claims that by wearing it, you'll wake up refreshed and ready to take on the day every single morning. By tracking your sleeping patterns, it purports to be able...
POSTED Tuesday, August 8, 2006
"Hi, I'm a Mac." "And I'm a PC." "I appeal to a small but ferociously loyal chunk of the personal-computer market, and I'm typically used by folks in publishing and graphic design." "I, on the other hand, am used...
POSTED Friday, August 4, 2006
Even though the iPod is the undisputed champion of portable music right now, it's had the unfortunate side effect of getting people to listen to the same damn few hundred songs over and over and over again. Sure, there's...
POSTED Monday, July 24, 2006
With the increasing popularity of Internet video on Web sites like YouTube, MySpace, and Google Video, more and more people want an easy way to put their homemade videos online. Unfortunately, camcorders are generally expensive, bulky, and full of...
POSTED Wednesday, May 3, 2006
"A fish, a barrel, and a smoking gun" — that was the slogan of the late, lamented suck.com. The fish: mobiBLU's B153 (formerly the DAH-1900) music player. The barrel: The manufacturer's claim of 153 hours of playback per charge....
POSTED Wednesday, April 5, 2006
With millions rediscovering portable music thanks to the iPod, those same millions are discovering something else: the earbuds that come with their players suck. MP3-player earbuds are typically fragile with weak, tinny sound — overpowered by even light background...
POSTED Thursday, March 16, 2006
Is the rack about to go the way of the thumbscrew and the iron maiden? Er, the A/V equipment rack, that is. For gear-heads, the question is no longer "what's the signal-to-noise ratio on this big black box," but...
POSTED Tuesday, March 7, 2006
An MP3 player with true high-end audio chops has quietly crept onto the scene. JVC credits the sonic sophistication of its XA-HD500 Alneo player ($249 list) to a couple of circuits named K2 and C.C. Convertor. Yeah, those names sounded...
POSTED Friday, February 24, 2006
After spending two weeks with the Cingular 2125 smartphone, I feel like an overbearing father — the sweaty, balding little-league pop with a beer-belly screaming "Hustle!" or "Dammit, keep your eye on the ball!" I can't help but see the...
POSTED Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Fans of multiplayer action games on the PC know that a fast trigger finger and quick response will help determine the last man standing, and while everyone's been trying to build a better mouse, little has been done to...
POSTED Monday, February 13, 2006
In the next few months, nearly a dozen companies will be unveiling Bluetooth stereo headphones with built-in microphones. These wireless wonders will allow cable-less enjoyment of your portable music player and cell phone. Bluetooth headsets make perfect sense in a...
POSTED Friday, February 10, 2006
Ashamedly, I watch American Idol. Not always, but often enough, and one thing I've learned, I can judge sound. Simon lambastes a dreamy-eyed singer and I hear the Brit's pain. Randy says, "Dude, you can really blow." I heard them...
POSTED Tuesday, February 7, 2006
I bought the JBL Encounter speakers on a whim a few weeks ago from Best Buy during one of their killer holiday deals. I wasn't really in the market for speakers shaped like alien heads, but they got good...
POSTED Monday, January 30, 2006
As most digital photographers know, flash memory is something you can never have too much of. Prices have dropped over the years, so I've amassed quite a collection of CompactFlash cards ranging in size from 8 MB to 1 GB....
POSTED Friday, January 27, 2006
The sun is a big, fat ball of plasma whose radiant light is a source of energy ripe for the taking. All you need is a solar cell to convert it into electricity, and you're living off the grid. Enter...
POSTED Wednesday, January 25, 2006
If you think about it, having a camera in your cellphone would be virtually useless if it wasn't a communications device. I mean, who would want to snap pics from a phone if you had to connect it to...
POSTED Wednesday, January 25, 2006
If imitation were actually the sincerest form of flattery, patent attorneys would be as lonely as convicted sex offenders. This in mind, Motorola can't be too happy with the Samsung A900 ($199.99 with a two-year contract). Designed for Sprint's...
POSTED Wednesday, January 25, 2006
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Editor: Peter Pachal
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