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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.