Jason Chen, Author at Gizmodo

Harman Kardon HS300 Brings 5.1 Integrated Home Theater in a Box

We covered a bit of the Harman Kardon HS500 and HS300 back in March, but the latter has gone on sale now in the US. To recap, the HS300 has a built-in DVD player with HDMI, DVD-Audio, MP3, WMA, JPEG, AM/FM Tuner, USB ports for music and photo viewing, and 5.1 audio. https://gizmodo.com/harman-kardon-hs500-theater-sound-for-around-a-grand-242873 Compared with…

Tech News Jason Chen

The Idiot’s Cube

Rubik’s Cubes too hard to solve? Try out this Idiot’s Cube, and you’ll never feel inferior to Will Smith again. Plus, it’s a pretty inexpensive way to tell someone they’re too stupid to figure out a real puzzle. Just in time for Mother’s Day! Product Page [Cool Things]

Gadgets Jason Chen

Panasonic Makes Creepy Furry Snake Heaters

Panasonic demoed a “No-Constraints Carpet” concept recently, and for once we’re glad this thing is still a concept. It’s a carpet/rug that’s shaped like a furry snake in order to mimic the feel of a hot pet. The hot part? That comes from small heating elements buried inside. In essence, you’ve got a gigangic furry…

Biology Jason Chen

RAZRs Turn Purple For Mother’s Day

If your mother’s one of the few in the country who still wants a RAZR, this limited-edition Mother’s Day one makes a decent gift. Get it before Prince stockpiles them all. Product Page [Motorola via Mobile Tech Review]

Tech News Jason Chen

More on the Energizer Duo USB Charger

We covered the Energizer USB charger before, but we’ve got some new details on how it interacts with the software. https://gizmodo.com/old-fashioned-rechargeable-batteries-get-new-fashioned-251779 Energizer has two widgets, one for Macs and one for Windows, that let you monitor the charge as it’s happening—in real time. It’s like a mini-episode of 24 happening in your own machine, except…

Tech News Jason Chen

How to Be a Gizmodo Commenter in Thirty-Seven Easy Steps

1) Choose a post, click on it, and scroll to the bottom. 2) Click “New User? Here’s what to do”. 3) Fill in the comment, choose a username and password (the one you want to use for your eventual comment account), and hit submit. 4) Wait 24 hours. 5-37) Refresh the page to see if…

Tech News Jason Chen

Sprout Umbrella Design

Even though it doesn’t rain all that much here, we’re suckers for an awesome umbrella design. Whether it’s the lightsaber-grip umbrella,the lightsaber-shaft umbrella, or this Sprout umbrella, we’re all for umbrellas. https://gizmodo.com/lightsaber-umbrella-uses-the-force-to-stop-the-rain-250365 What’s special about this umbrella is the way it unlocks. You turn the knob to unlock the canopy, which then forces the knob…

Tech News Jason Chen

Ceratec’s Ambilight-ish Speakers Provide Ambiance

These CeraLight Xeno speakers from Ceratec may sound good, but their main draw is the way you can adjust their color or brightness just from your remote. Couple this with a Philips Ambilight—or maybe even your own homemade ghetto ambilight, and you’ve got yourself a party. A really nerdy party. https://gizmodo.com/make-your-own-ghetto-ambilight-239791 Product Page [Ceratec via…

Tech News Jason Chen

Flip Video Lowers Bar For YouTube Videos Even More

If you had a hard enough time wading through the millions of horrible home videos to get to the good ones on YouTube now, wait until old people start putting stuff up there. Pure Digital’s Flip Video camcorder is designed to be easy to use for non-techies, complete with built-in USB adapter and software to…

Tech News Jason Chen

WWDC07 Details: We’ll Be There

Apple just released some more official details on WWDC, including the time (10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a,m)., the date (June 11), and the topic (a feature-complete version of Leopard). Attendees and developers will get a beta to take home in order to test, and will ship—this is in their own words—this October. We’ll be there…

Tech News Jason Chen

Extend Zune’s Software For More Format Support

With an easy mod to your Zune software, you can hack the suite so it will recognize all kinds of different video and audio formats. Why would you want to do this? Because even though you can pre-convert, say, DivX to WMV for your Zune, the suite re-converts them again for optimization before syncing. With…

Tech News Jason Chen

Official: Dell to Ship Ubuntu-installed Computers

No press release yet, but wordfrom Fabian Rodriguez (a member of Ubuntu’s support staff) is that Dell’s going to offically support Ubuntu installations on their machines. And by support, we’re assuming they mean install and ship machines with Ubuntu as the main OS. Ubuntu, if you’re not familiar, is a very friendly and very easy…

Tech News Jason Chen

PlayStation EyeToy’s Improvements in Detail

If you’re at all interested in the PlayStation Eye, the EyeToy for the PS3 generation, take a gander at this interview with its father, Richard Marks. Along with releasing four—yes, four—albums since 2000, Richard’s added many new features to PlayStation’s camera. Among the issues seen as most important were light sensitivity, achieved by using a…

Tech News Jason Chen

CAUL the Helibot

Remote controlled things that fly around your office are all the rage these days, what with the WowWee Dragonfly and Micro Mosquito burning up the sales charts. This hot Caul Helibot is supposedly even better, since, you know, it’s a little man on a jetpack. How else can you explain how a room full of…

Tech News Jason Chen

Official: T-Mobile Offers WM6 Dash Upgrade May 4

If you haven’t grabbed the leaked Windows Mobile 6 upgrade already, keep your pants held up until May 4. We just got a tip from our T-Mobile source that the official release will be this Friday. https://gizmodo.com/official-final-t-mobile-dash-wm6-upgrade-leaked-256220 The caveats are that WM6 doesn’t have the “My E-Mail” client, and all your data on your phone…

Tech News Jason Chen

Rumor: TiVo Releasing Sub-$300 HD Recorder This Fall

There’s not much confirmation of this yet, but a source is telling us that TiVo is planning on releasing a Series 3-like HD recorder some time this fall. Whether this will have dual-tuners like the Series 3 is still unknown, but we’re sure it will be gimped in some way in order to maintain interest…

Tech News Jason Chen

Skype Your Mom For Free on Mama’s Day

Even if you’re not a fan of Skype, you’re free to make all the calls you want to any number in the world (save for premium and satellite phones) on Mother’s day. If you’re in the US or Canada, Skype’s giving you unlimited calling from 5am EST on May 13 to 4:49am EST on May…

Tech News Jason Chen

TiVo Desktop 2.4 Goes Final

Zatz over at Zatznotfunny is telling us that TiVo Desktop 2.4 has hit final, after being in public beta for about two months. Everything you liked from the beta is still there, including HD photos (which he never got to work), TiVoToGo transcoding for iPods and PSPs, plus encoding videos for playback onto your Series…

Tech News Jason Chen

Hotelchatter Rates the Best Hotels for Wi-Fi

If you’re going on vacation, we’d recommend you leave your laptop at home, but if you’re going on a business trip, you gotta get ‘er done. And an integral tool to getting ‘er done is Wi-Fi. Hotelchatter’s got a list of the hotels with the best Wi-Fi coverage. Among them are various Marriott properties, Andre…

Tech News Jason Chen

Cubic Pillow Has Holes for Sound, Phones

Talking with your girlfriend on the phone for hours on end is such a chore, but it can be less of one with this cubic pillow. Each of the six sides has a hole in the middle, so you can easily stick a phone receiver in there but still have the pleasure of lying down…

Gadgets Jason Chen

Jason Chen

Harman Kardon HS300 Brings 5.1 Integrated Home Theater in a Box

The Idiot’s Cube

Panasonic Makes Creepy Furry Snake Heaters

RAZRs Turn Purple For Mother’s Day

More on the Energizer Duo USB Charger

How to Be a Gizmodo Commenter in Thirty-Seven Easy Steps

Sprout Umbrella Design

Ceratec’s Ambilight-ish Speakers Provide Ambiance

Flip Video Lowers Bar For YouTube Videos Even More

WWDC07 Details: We’ll Be There

Extend Zune’s Software For More Format Support

Official: Dell to Ship Ubuntu-installed Computers

PlayStation EyeToy’s Improvements in Detail

CAUL the Helibot

Official: T-Mobile Offers WM6 Dash Upgrade May 4

Rumor: TiVo Releasing Sub-$300 HD Recorder This Fall

Skype Your Mom For Free on Mama’s Day

TiVo Desktop 2.4 Goes Final

Hotelchatter Rates the Best Hotels for Wi-Fi

Cubic Pillow Has Holes for Sound, Phones

Artemis 2 Crew Become First Humans to Travel Beyond Earth Orbit Since the 1970s

Artemis 2 Day 2: Follow the Mission With Our Live Updates 🔴

Labubus Might Be Labu-Bust After Pop Mart Posts Record Share Loss

Cursor’s New Tool Lets Users Delegate to a Team of Coding Agents

Nvidia Needs to Remind Itself What PC Gamers Actually Want

Iran Says It Hit Oracle Facilities in UAE

‘Invincible’ Season 4 Is Doing Right By Debbie

New Theory Says We’ve Been Overcomplicating the Big Bang

Marvel Might Have Finally Dealt With One of the Most Hated ‘Spider-Man’ Characters Around

China Is Trying to Grow New Forests in This Notorious Mega-Desert. It’s Working

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?