A Look at the Mysterious 'Black Box'

Any time a plane goes down, the black box recorder, once again, becomes a mythical machine whispered about in the back alleys of news broadcasts. So Wired assembled a technological rundown on the device. More »

Gear4 BlackBox Micro is Micro Black Box Speaker For MP3 Gear

Last time we talked about Blackbox gizmos from Gear4 it was a largeish Bluetooth speaker, but this new one is different. It's wired, USB-powered and designed to be a portable companion for an MP3 player. You may think size sacrifices bass power, but apparently it's got an "SFX gel" base, meaning it uses any flat surface you stick it to to amplify sound volume and bass. It's got a normal driver too, takes line-in, and can be powered with a power-brick. Gear4's site doesn't reveal exactly how small it is, but it's out August in the UK for $40. [Gear4 and Pocket-Lint]

Black Box Case Mod Scoffs at Server Crashes

While most of us wonder why planes aren't built of the crash-proof "black box" flight recorder material, one modder has requisitioned a black box of his own to use as a PC case. While the package itself is quite large (and disappointingly red), the interior is so cramped that only a Mini-ITX motherboard could fit inside, running Slackware Linux on a 800MHz Via C3. But have you ever seen the inside of a black box before? More »

Telepresence Frame: A Black Box for Life Support Patients

Someone finally found a good use for a digital picture frame. The Telepresence Frame by Revital Cohen displays a live-feed of a patient's vital stats for his or her entire family to see. Cohen, an artist studying the increasing relationship between humans and machines, shows through the frame that a patient on life support is made up of more than flesh and bones, and has become one with the gadgets surrounding them. That's nice and all, but what happens when the life support ends is downright freaky. More »

Drive Recorder Is Honda's Car Black Box

Honda's Drive Recorder will detect impacts and save information for the 12 seconds before and 8 seconds afterwards, aircraft black-box-style: forward-view imagery, along with sound and data on speed and deceleration rates all get stored on an SD card in its main unit, ready to be uploaded to a PC. More »

Clarion DriveEye Records Your Next Car Accident

The cops won't be the only ones with those wild car wreck videos any more, because now you can clamp this Clarion DriveEye recorder onto your car's windshield and record some really rad video as soon as you get into your next accident. But wait, who would buy this? Someone who's planning to have an accident later today? More »

KangaRoom Power Strip Organizer Hides Your Shame

The area under our desk is a prime fire zone seeing since the wires and power strips are all tied in the biggest knot this side of Gordium. That's fine hidden under a desk, but awful in the living room or somewhere that actual people can see. Voila, the Black Box Cord organizer from KangaRooM. It's a plastic heat resistant acrylic box with sliding doors and five ventilation strips that goes over your power strip, both neatly arranging your plugs and suspending stuff like AC bricks and small routers so they don't get tangled up. More »

BenQ-Siemens Black Box Concept Phone

Unlike previously mentioned, BenQ is still making phones in Asia, just no longer in the German market. This is one of the concept phones being worked on—the Black Box. No keypads, no buttons, just a big ass touchscreen. From the initial pictures it looks like the interface changes on the fly. I'm digging the black minimalist design overall. It will probably never see the light of day as an actual product, but it is still cool to look at, nonetheless. – Travis Hudson More »