Gadgets

NIO 2|4 Digital Audio USB Interface Lets You Mix Your Tunes, Add Sound Effects

Bands on a budget might like this small, yet very capable, digital audio box from Novation that adds sound effects and connects to your PC via USB. The NIO 2|4 measures just 1.8 x 5.7 x 5.9 inches, but packs in four input sockets, four phono outs, two monitor headphone jacks and more than 10…

Fake Fur Coat Goes LED Insane

Some people light up the room naturally. Others of us need help. And adding 400 LEDs to what is pretty much the epitome of pimpwear already is the perfect fashion storm to make you the star of this year’s office festivities. When first activated, the lights alter colors in sync. But over time, this synchronization…

Solar-Powered Fairy Lights Make Your Christmas Cheap and Green

We’ve seen solar-powered LED ski suits and interactive solar-powered roof tiles and now you can add that Christmassy touch to your garden with these solar-powered fairy lights.They feature 50 bright white LEDs, and charge automatically during the day to give you around nine hours of light at night. They will set you back $29.95, which…

Stanford Professor Conjures Up 10x Life on Traditional Li-Ion Batteries

Thanks to nanotechnology, an assistant professor at Stanford University has come up with a breakthrough in the longevity of Lithium-Ion batteries. As well as being able to power your laptop for up to 20 hours—10 times more than current levels—Yi Cui thinks that his design could also work on iPods and other handheld devices that…

Liquid Image Camera-Mask Lets You Shoot Video, Take Pics Underwater

Although only waterproof to 15 feet, and therefore not exactly serious underwater snapper gear, this Liquid Image digital camera-mask is not a bad idea for kids or snorkelers as it lets you take hands-free images of the Big Blue. Full details will be released at CES next month, but we’ve got a bit more info…

Obscure Company Launches WM 6, GSM/CDMA Smartphone…in the US…for Gamblers

Interestingly enough, Hop-On, a company once known for making disposable cellphones, has introduced a Windows Mobile 6 smartphone dubbed the HOP2001 that is AT&T and Verizon ready. The phone features dual-mode GSM or CDMA, a 320×240 touchscreen, a 3-Megapixel camera with 10x zoom, Bluetooth 2.0, Wi-Fi, 256 MB Flash ROM and 128 MB SRAM, microSD…

Unborn Babies on Our iPod Creep Us the Hells Out

This is just weird, even for the giddy parents-to-be types who like to run around showing off copies of their ultrasound at work. A hospital in England is one (two?)-upping old-school 2D ultrasounds with 4D scans of your in utero spawn. The scanner (which is apparently not so new itself, per the comments) produces a…

Forget the $2500 Latitude XT, Get a Touchscreen Asus Eee PC for $465

Half the reason we like the Eee PC is that mods to it just keep getting further out there. The latest, and greatest, is a touchscreen. Jkkmobile’s 4G is loaded up with Windows XP, but not the tablet version, so it’s admittedly more of an interesting way to browse the web and play around with…

Flying Saucer Surge Protector Keeps All Plugs Separate

There have been many solutions to the problem of fat AC adapters clogging up your surge protectors (like this), but this ezSpace UFO flying saucer protector from ezGear looks like it can actually be filled with all AC adapters without colliding. The secret is that it’s pretty huge and shaped like an flipped-over bowl, but…

Intel Delays 45nm Quad-Core CPUs to Give AMD a Breather

Rather than continue hammering on AMD while they’re down, Intel is apparently taking AMD’s troubles as a little break of their own, delaying the launch of three 45nm quad-core Core 2 processors (Yorkfields) until Feb. or March, depending on AMD’s release schedule for its upcoming tri-core and Phenom processors. This kind of reminds us of…

Samsung F700 (U940) Touchscreen Phone FCC Approved

The Samsung F700, or U940, has just been FCC-approved, meaning that it’s going to make its way to Verizon really really soon. We don’t have full specs yet, but it seems that the 5-megapixel camera has been cut down to 2-megapixels, but the 150MB of internal memory and microSD slot remains. It doesn’t look like…

Dell Year-End Report Card: B

Following an utterly abysmal 2006—exploding battery, anyone?—Dell‘s 2007 was more of a mixed bag. Its products were sharper than ever: gorgeous new notebooks, formidable gaming desktops and great values in large monitors (often found on sale). But at the same time, production issues and lingering organizational problems brought the company down from its comfortable perch…

Lightning Round: Pharos Drive GPS 250

The Gadget: The Drive GPS 250 from Pharos offers text-to-speech functionality, a SiRFStarIII GPS receiver, a 4.3″ touchscreen display, 32-bit CPU, NAVTEQ map and automatic night view-switching. Not bad when compared to other mid-range devices released by more mainstream companies. The Price: $299 The Verdict: The bottom line is that the Pharos Drive GPS 250…

Turbo Toaster Prototype Jet Engines Make Your Toast

Want to make bread into toast in under a minute? This Turbo Toaster prototype by Oliver Newberry of London can do just that, provided you’re okay with the noise that two huge jet engine-like fans blowing hot air onto the toast will make. The inspiration for this invention? The fact that his beans became cold…

Unlocked Open Source Anti-DRM Logo

While we’re not sure logos are the solutions to all the world’s problems (you’ve seen that video of a Microsoft-designed iPod box), we kinda like the idea of an anti-DRM logo to make it easy for consumers to quickly pick up on content that’ll give ’em more bang for their buck, since they’re not restricted…

Creative Wi-Fi inPerson Video Phone Looks Promising

There’s little to no official detail available on this Creative Wi-Fi Video phone, called the inPerson, but the FCC has both pictures and the manual available for just anyone to peep through. The specs look beefy: VGA video at 2Mbps, “excellent low light performance,” a wide-angle lens, dual microphones, Wi-Fi, rechargeable battery, h.264 video, SIP…

Wal-Mart Year-End Report Card: C

Oh, Wal-Mart. You are so easy to hate. What with your union-busting, mom-and-pop-killing, big box awfulness, who wouldn’t hate you? It would be all to easy for me to come in here and just give you an F and everyone would agree with me and we could all walk hand-in-hand into the sunset, hating Wal-Mart.…

Madrid’s ‘Air Tree’ Creates Its Own Energy, Oxygen

In Madrid, Spain, a unique, hulking structure is currently being built. An “Air Tree,” it’s designed to both affect the surrounding environment and act as a social center. It’s loaded up with solar panels that create electricity that’s sold to the local electric company. It’s completely self-sufficient, powering itself and using the money it makes…

Crazy Person to Attempt a Backflip in a Truck

Doing backflips is a mainstay of the extreme sports scene, with people who ride skis, snowboards, dirt bikes and snowmobiles all able to pull off a flip with a big enough jump. But what about a truck? Sounds insane, doesn’t it? That’s because it is, it’s completely insane. That’s not gonna stop Rhys Millen from…

Buffalo has just announced that it is releasing a 100GB version of their credit card-sized USB2 solid state portable drive. Cost is 107,000 in Japan ($950.) . https://gizmodo.com/buffalo-56gb-solid-state-portable-drive-281217