There are pros and cons to everything in this life, technology included. The more power you have packed into a device, the clunkier it usually is. If it’s cheap, it’s probably buggy. With mini-tablets, portability costs you screen size, which means a group experience is out of the question. Having 10 people huddled around a five-inch tablet to watch a YouTube video is hardly ideal. NionCom, in… → Read More
There’s a new ereader in town, gals and pals. The iriver Story HD will soon be available at Target for $139.99. While by all accounts, it’s a fine piece of hardware — 7.3 ounces, first six-inch XGA e-ink screen, SD card slot, WiFi, six week battery life — it’s the Google Books integration that will likely spur sales. This might be the best anti-Kindle/Nook ereader on the market.
Ereaders need… → Read More
Some people call it “LUM-TEC’s best watch yet.” This is the LUM-TEC M26 limited edition watch. Out of the M collection it sports an automatic movement with a power reserve indicator and a solid tungsten carbide case. With a mirror finish and heavy weight – this is one hell of a watch. → Read More
The future of media is digital. That’s a fact. The trick now is getting older generations to give up the convenience and relatively low cost of physical media. The Philadelphia Media Network are blazing their own path, though. Watch out, America. Here comes the Android tablet newspaper.
The media company owns Philly’s two largest newspapers: The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily. The… → Read More
If you’ve been watching for the Nyko Zoom for Kinect, the space-shrinking lens system that allows you to use the Kinect in a smaller room, you only have a little over two months to go. The kit will ship on August 23 for $29.99. We covered the Zoom at E3 this year and you can see me try it out after the jump. → Read More
If you are the kind of person who needs to shoot a little wad of potato at someone moving in slow motion, this may be the gun for you. It uses a twist of tubing, a Zippo, and some water to create the ultimate in potato-attack technology. The full DIY appears on Instuctables, but this thing is pretty basic. → Read More
Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. and 4R Energy Corporation announced today that the two companies have developed and installed a new EV charging solution that combines renewable solar energy and high capacity lithium-ion batteries. The system was recently installed for testing at Nissan’s global headquarters in Yokohama, Japan.
The system uses the solar cells to collect the energy and a large lithium-ion… → Read More
Tong Yi Cha is giving away iPads 2 to various drinkers of their beverage – one tablet every week! And what do they do to advertise their contest? They hire some skinny EFL teacher to dress up in a turtleneck and jeans and pretend to be Steve Jobs as he flogs the merits of Tong Yi Cha and promises that folks will no longer have to be jealous of iPad 2 owners. → Read More
Although, arguably, the second Cars was sub-par, it’s nice to see how Skywalker Sound designed the sounds for the vrooming, racing Maters, Lightnings, and British spy cars in the movie. → Read More
A group of Star Wars fans in New York were organizing a marathon of all six movies at their local bar, but have canceled the event after receiving a cease and desist letter from Lucasfilm. The letter apparently declared the marathon in violation of copyright, and said they’d forbidden public screenings. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’ll be giving Lucasfilm any… → Read More
I can’t say the market for Windows tablets is blowing up right now, what with the iPad-Android war heating up and the enticing Windows 8 on the horizon, but there is a market and Dell would want a part of it. Their Peju tablet was leaked before but in very little detail, so this new info is welcome. → Read More
This is a nice little twist on the traditional heatsink design you find on CPUs around the world. While normally you’d have a thermally conductive surface, some heat pipes, and a fan driving air over stationary heatsink plates, this design from Sandia switches things up. No fan at all — or if you like, the heatsink is the fan. → Read More
Wood-burning stoves aren’t known for being particularly efficient, and their smoke not only contains high carbon emissions but causes health risks to those who inhale it. A portable design from BioLite aims to tackle this problem and turn the stove into a cell phone charger in the process.
The stove converts heat energy into electricity, powering a small fan to improve the wood’s combustion. → Read More
By now you’ve probably seen Mike’s post about the redesign coming next week and I wanted to talk a bit about where things are headed. CrunchGear, in short, is being subsumed into TechCrunch/Gadgets, a plan that has been long percolating at the HQ and something we, in a way, welcome. I started CrunchGear on August 10, 2006. Mike Arrington called me after I left Gizmodo and asked me to… → Read More
Woodworkers Woodchuck And Co want you to have this wooden ditch digger. It costs $40,000 on Etsy. I think it’s worth it. Constructed of cherry and walnut, this award-winning piece has over 4000 individual handcrafted parts and requiredover 3000 man-hours to complete, roughly a year and a half’s time. Our version of the 5230B is what we call a working model. The track moves, the cylinders… → Read More
If you’ve been wildly despondent at the death of the Polaroid, there is still hope. This DIY “instant camera” by Niklas Roy uses a simple digital camera and printer to take and print images. Here’s the bad part: the camera has no memory so it prints out the image in front of it line by line for a process that takes three minutes total. That means you have to sit perfectly… → Read More
Two Apple patents have just surfaced in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, both of which describe methods for stylus input on a capacitive touchscreen, as well as other surfaces.
Now, Apple hearts patenting things, whether the company actually has plans to act on them or not. Many of them end up untouched, and even forgotten, so there’s no telling if we’ll ever see a super cool new Apple… → Read More
The ASUS Eee Pad Slider, a tablet with sliding keyboard that was supposed to launch in August has been delayed until the Fall, according to the ASUS Facebook Page.
“Eee Pad Slider will be coming to the UK this Autumn” and ASUS will “confirm dates and pricing later in July.” → Read More
In my short years as an ‘aspiring’ watch photographer, few timepieces have truly evaded a good picture as the Chanel J12 Chromatic. The rich universe of hues that emit from Chanel’s new “chromatic” material are more or less impossible to capture in stills – as the colors mix and meld with the light so amazingly. It is a sin to evaluate this watch for yourself seeing it in still images alone. → Read More
If all goes according to rumored plan, OS X Lion should hit stores by July 14 alongside new hardware to run the new OS. I’ve played with the Gold Master over the weekend and I’m pleased to report it is stable and a unique version of OS X, more complete than other, iterative updates like Snow Leopard. I won’t bore you with all the new stuff under the hood but let’s look at a few of the cool new… → Read More
Did you catch the second episode of Covert Affairs last month? Yeah, I didn’t either. The iPhone 5 seemed to be featured in the episode, though — or rather a prop designer’s vision of the next iPhone. The video is after the jump, but the pic above clearly shows a (fake) iPhone with edge to edge glass. I like. → Read More
Today, after 133 launches spanning nearly three decades, the era of the Space Shuttle is set to close with one final launch. Atlantis is currently on the launchpad, fueled, loaded with her four man crew and ready to delivery supplies to the ISS. It’s a bittersweet day as an exciting time in the US’s space history comes to a close, but unfortunately due to budget constraints rather than replacement… → Read More
Panasonic is prepping an Android 2.2-powered e-book reader/tablet hybrid [JP] that’s specifically designed for the Japanese market. The device will offer e-books through a store set up by Rakuten, the country’s biggest e-commerce company, with the initial line-up including a total of at least 10,000 titles. → Read More
Smartphone cameras have drastically improved in quality in recent years, but they’re still not good enough for you? Then Toshiba’s announcement [PDF] of a new CMOS image sensor, specifically designed for cell phones and other mobile devices, from today should be good news for you. → Read More
Resident Evil (Biohazard in Japan) is 15 years old, can you believe it? To commemorate the series’ 15th anniversary, Capcom announced [JP] the so-called Resident Evil 15th Anniversary Box for the Japanese market today. → Read More
OS X Lion and (probably) updated Macbooks Air (Macbook Airs?) should arrive on July 14, according to 9to5′s spies. Apple is holding an “overnight” on July 13 where they will train employees on the new hardware and, as we all know, OS X Lion has hit gold master and should, as predicted, arrive on time. → Read More
After discontinuing the production of cassette Walkmans last year, Sony is now about to kill another one of their original inventions: the MiniDisc Walkman. And as Japanese business daily The Nikkei is reporting today, Sony plans to pull the plug on the production as early as this September – obviously because nobody is buying MiniDisc Walkmans anymore. → Read More
Once again, an example of how Steampunk can actually be pulled off. This one-off flash drive was created by a Russian guy, who modeled it in 3D, had the components cast or printed, and then assembled it himself (you can see the whole project here). The wheels spin and lock or unlock the drive, which slides out a la one of the rugged drives I reviewed a while back. Very cool. This man needs an Etsy… → Read More
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