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iRex pitches 8-inch screen as ideal for periodicals
The iRex DR800SG, which will be available at Best Buy and on the iRex website in a few weeks, has an 8.1-inch screen, which iRex says makes it ideal for reading newspapers and magazines, with graphics.
Cutting Edge: Gadget is netbook and e-reader
Smartphones and netbooks may be the best things that ever happened to multimedia junkies, who can now watch movies and play games wherever they like.
Motorola shows the way for Android phones
Nothing says, “I’m a 21st century loser,’’ like admitting you’ve fallen in love with an Android.
New box offers a branded experience
I’d rather listen to endless ads for oil changes and hair restoration than to Bob Oakes begging for money four times a year. But if you are mad for Morning Edition, the new “NPR Radio’’ from Livio Radio will guarantee that your houseguests know where your heart and treasure lay.
From Hawaii, a colorful, yet sound, guardian
You might have read my raves about the Zoom digital microphones and recorders from Samson, which record impeccable sound in and out of the home office and studio.
OLEDs shrink the projector, and the headset
A German research institute with ties to Boston is bringing the space and energy savings and the brilliant color of OLED to augmented reality applications and boardroom projectors.
Finally, a new Wii game that's fit for kids
It says something about the genius of Wii that folks are still hooked on some of the earliest games for the console system. My girls, 3-year-old Oona and 6-year-old Maeve, like swinging the Wii remote as an imaginary baseball bat or bowling ball on Wii Sports.
Emo’s ribbon of sound licks laptop audio woes
Waltham-based Emo Labs Inc. (www.emolabs.com/) says it has overcome the horrible sound that is a byproduct of having tiny cellphones and skinny laptops.
Video eyewear gets a bit less embarrassing
Vuzix Corp. is refining its personal 2D and 3D video eyewear, ever so slowly, into something regular folks might consider wearing on the T. More importantly, the new eyewear represents a step toward a more seamless kind of augmented reality environment ...
A model guide to going deeper in yoga practice
If your gym’s yoga classes are packed, or if you hope to cultivate a daily practice at home, Yoga for Wii might be your best ticket to Nirvana this coming winter.
Hercules cam does some heavy pixel-lifting
A new HD webcam, the Hercules Dualpix HD720p (www.hercules.com) spares no details from your videoconferencing partners and YouTube viewers. In fact, it delivers a picture rivaling the one you have to pay your cable company extra to get.
Options abound for the dorm room-bound
Dorm dwellers: Are you itching to share your passion for Pan Sonic and Parliament with the rest of your floor?
OLED? Make way for ILED displays
Prototype Marketers dream of the day when they can tack moving pictures onto cereal boxes and wheat-paste ads inside bus shelters and the alleys between big city bars and nightclubs.
Microsoft’s Zune is apt to ease the iPhone envy
A young hipster should be able to keep his chin up around campus this fall even if he is not sporting an iPhone or an iPod Touch.
Glimpsing the future of mobile phones
Change usually comes slowly to mobile phones. LG seems ready to embark on a little risk-taking, however.
'Locast' videos broaden the tourist experience
A new service developed at MIT will beam video “narrowcasts’’ at tourists this fall, based upon their precise locations and individual tastes.
Meditation pro designs a mind strengthener
The app, Meditate ($1.99), is a meditation timer, designed by Amber Star, founder of the popular Zencast (www.zencast.org) audio program.
iPhone app adds tweets, audio to camera view
The app, TwittARound, peppers your iPhone’s camera view with the icons of Twitter users who may be tweeting nearby, and whose tweets are somehow connected to your current location.
Clip-on sensor monitors infants in trouble
The Snuza Halo is among the latest gadgets that use sensors to monitor a baby’s crib for signs of trouble. The Halo is unusual: rather than clipping the device to a crib or mattress, you attach it to the baby’s diaper.
‘N’ marks the spot for sharing data wirelessly
The NFC Forum has released a logo, called N-Mark, that will signal the presence of an RFID tag embedded in a movie poster or print ad, or a wireless payment device.
IPhone game turns ordinary into fantastic
When what you see with your own eyes isn’t interesting enough, there’s always augmented reality. Hidden Park brings animated creatures to your iPhone.
Always-on forecasts for lovers of the outdoors
It’s good to see Cambridge-based Ambient Devices is back to designing good-looking equipment, after a brief run of bland gadgets that allow you to glimpse fast-changing weather forecasts and sports scores.
May the force be with you, for just $130
This "Star Wars"-themed game reads your brainwaves and wirelessly triggers a fan to blow a ball toward the top of a clear chamber.
Students devise a mariner's lifesaver
Students at Rockport High School are using a Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam grant to make a device that shoots an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon up to 60 feet away from a boat in trouble, before it capsizes and traps the beacon beneath the vessel, where it might fail to work.
Megabucks projector promises magic
I can't imagine who might be in the market for a $10,000 projector these days. But I am thinking "loaded bachelor" or "man cave dweller."
Keeping an eye on a loved one in need
The Vue Personal Video Network captures the action around the house, wherever you fear that folks - young or old - might get into trouble.
Doctor-patient e-link may have downsides
We will soon be able to torment our primary care doctors (presuming they read their messages) with devices that relay every one of our moans and groans to their e-mail inboxes.
Tinny sound mars iPod WiFi setup
My friend Jane lives in one of those Milton homes that, while pretty enough from the outside, also manages to surprise you with its 100-year-old finish carpentry, giant fireplaces, and high ceilings.
A head-up display for wayward travelers
It takes a certain amount of nerd courage to don the massive headset recently assembled by a group of UMass seniors.
Moto offers near next-generation multitouch tablet
Moto Development Group has a new multitouch tablet that combines the best of the iPhone with the Microsoft Surface - or so they say.
The beginning of the end for credit cards?
Nokia unveiled a phone that makes wireless payments using data stored on its SIM card.
Satellites beat ID chips for recovering lost pets
Global positioning system The more I read the Boston Police Department's tweets and Adam Gaffin's Universal Hub (both are part of the fire hose of RSS feeds I receive), the more I fear that Boston is edging toward apocalypse.
Nothing warm about this bulb
Even if Edison's original bulbs costs a few dollars more to operate than a fluorescent, there are a lot of reasons to switch back.
MIT students' system puts card data on your phone
Prototypes As I've suggested in this column and elsewhere, I sometimes worry that crooks might be intercepting my wireless transmissions. (I once explained, in a Wired News article, that tin foil hats really do block radio signals.)
LG Versa's a clever device, but it's hardly sleek
I don't have much patience these days for phones that drive you into lengthy contracts and force you to use a carrier's own data plans. But I must admit the LG Versa (about $200 from Verizon Wireless, after rebate, and with a two-year contract) is a clever device, with a fine three-inch haptic (or "vibrotactile") touchscreen.
'Free' Internet TV service promises more
As if our TV viewing habits aren't expensive enough, ZillionTV, will soon offer on-demand content to TVs, via broadband Internet connections.
The gum's gone, but Topps cards add a Web connection
Baseball cards have broken into the third dimension. With the help of a webcam, Topps' 2009 Series 1 baseball cards spring to life in your hand.
Weather, news, and other widgets on HDTV
Yahoo's TV Widgets, Javascript, and XML mini-apps that glean headlines and stock figures from your home's Internet connection are coming to Samsung sets this month.
Tinny sound mars iPod WiFi setup
An iPod system from Eos Wireless offers a different approach to home stereo, one that requires no chopping, splicing, or splitting of cables. It will set you back only a couple of hundred bucks.
Android likes E-Ink
A new hardware mashup, a marriage of E-Ink and Google's Android operating system, suggests that iPhones and Android phones might one day double as e-books, or Kindle 3 owners will be making mobile phone calls on their little digital slates.
A bring-your-own bike lane, created by lasers
Industrial designers at Altitude have found a new way to keep drivers and cyclists apart. The idea: a bring-your-own bike lane, fashioned by lasers pointed at the asphalt beside your bike that extend up to 10 feet behind you.
Two new devices brighten the picture
organic light-emitting diodes OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes) have made a few appearances in recent years, mostly in nerdy watches and one or two touch-screen phones.
A Valentine's Day gift that's worth fighting for
If you're in love with a geek, or plan to make a Hail Mary pass at one this Valentine's Day, the Wind Valentine Edition PC might be a gift worth fighting for.
From Japan: luxury gadgets for geeks, despite the recession
A warning to my fellow gadget hounds: If you hope to keep a roof over your heads during Great Depression 2.0, you might want to forget I ever told you about Tokyoflash (www.tokyoflash.com).
Digital Paper: a few years late, and not so flexible
The first cheap, flexible, full-color device for reading e-ink, originally expected in 2007, is now a stiff grayscale board that will be available in 2010.
Tools for the serious enthusiast
podcasting If you're serious about podcasting, take a good look at Samson's USB microphones. I have one of the company's USB studio microphones hovering from a boom over my desk, which I use for Skype-to-Skype Internet radio interviews. The sound quality has been so good you'd think interviewer and interviewee were in the same studio.
Smile, that pen may be recording your actions
spy gear If you don't like having your picture taken on the street, at least Boston's orb-shaped Big Brother cameras (think John Carpenter's "They Live") are easy enough to dodge. Just remember to grab your baseball cap as you head out the door.
Samson's Go Mic is ultra-portable, but lacks own storage
Samson, already a maker of high-quality, low-cost USB microphones, recently added the ultra-portable Go Mic to its lineup.
Sharp images, not looks, in 'cinema' headset
Manufacturers of personal viewing headsets are hitting a wall: They can make their gear only so small before they sacrifice picture quality. (One admitted as much to me earlier this year.) And then there is the hardware you need to connect your headset to the PCs and other toys around the house.
Taking your photos to the next level
If you have the itch to take frame-worthy pictures of the Blue Hills' bare trees or of piles of seaweed along Cape Cod's shorelines, you'll need more than that 5-megapixel PowerShot knocking around in your pocketbook.
LG's new phone incites some excitement
mobile phones Readers of this column might already know I'm a sucker for the looks of LG's products. Their straight lines and brushed metal finishes and cheery electronic noises get me every time.