Grant Morrison book signing at Meltdown in LA

It is time to weave wonder and leave mouths agape in the wake of impenetrable accents and extraordinary ideas! It is time for YOU to return to MELTDOWN, because the Scottish swami Grant Morrison is returning to grace us with his presence and give us mere cave dwellers our first bouts of intellectual fire!

Are you going to allow the microphone to be dominated with the weeping milk-tears of egg-handed fools who will simply rehash old discussions of the Talmud of Mr. Tawky Tawny or shall we look towards a brighter day to come and inquire after new scripts, songs, fashions and fabulations?

If you consider yourself a worthwhile nerd, a good geek, a fascinating fan of freak fiction, then do us a favor and start formulating your questions now so that we can extract as much information about our favorite characters and series, old and new, and even if for a moment transcend our mortal coil to a dream world of comical capes and quizzical chimpanzees.

Come complete the circle and revel in the impossible.

CLIVE BARKER will hold a brief conversation with GRANT MORRISON before the signing. Copies of Mr. Morrison’s latest literary luncheons, Final Crisis HC + Batman and Robin #1, will be on sale. That same day is the release of Batman and Robin # 2. Buy one (or 3) of these 3 books and get into the event in the Meltdown Gallery.

Sadly, no outside items will be allowed due to time constrain on the talent. But don’t despair! Refreshments and music will also be provided.

Google adds Persian translation, Facebook adds Persian version

I guess folks over at Google and Facebook have been reading my Twitter messages and my blog — or more likely, simply sped up processes that were already in motion.

Google announced about 90 minutes ago that it had added Persian to Google Translate, while Facebook is about to launch its Persian-language version of the social networking software.

In my brief test, it seems like the “alpha” moniker is quite valid. While Google Translate was able to handle the Persian phrase: سلام، اسم من سیروس است

and accurately translate it as:

Hello, my name is Cyrus.

May I Smash Open Your New iPhone, Please? [Voices]

Later this week, Kyle Wiens will travel to an undisclosed European country, stand in line for hours to buy Apple’s new iPhone, and then find a comfortable, well-lighted place to take the phone apart. Wiens, the co-founder of a site called iFixIt, does this sort of thing for a living.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Researchers Conclude Piracy Not Stifling Content Creation [Voices]

File-sharing, to the (very large) extent that it involves copyright infringement, has affected the music business. But, as a pair of academic researchers happily point out in a working paper they’ve posted online, copyright law was never meant to protect the music business in the first place—instead, it is intended to foster creative production in the arts, which happen to include music.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Alice and Kev [Voices]

This is Kev and his daughter Alice. They’re living on a couple of park benches, surviving on free meals from work and school, and the occasional bucket of ice cream from a neighbour’s fridge.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Court Stiffs Veterans Caught in Privacy Breach [Voices]

Veterans suffering anxiety and paranoia following the theft of a government hard drive containing the medical histories and Social Security numbers of 198,000 of their brethren cannot recover financial damages, a federal appeals court says.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in largely dismissing a class-action, picture-61 ruled Wednesday that the veterans could recoup at least $1,000 under the Privacy Act if they could show financial damages, not mental anguish.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Is Steven Chu Too Much of a Techno-Geek? [Voices]

A week ago, StatOilHydro, Norway’s majority state-owned energy company, debuted the world’s first floating offshore wind turbine. The advantage of a floating turbine — as opposed to one firmly anchored in the seabed — is that it can be located in much deeper waters than standard offshore windmills.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

SOS1.tel: The One .tel Domain That May Save Your Life This Holiday Season

Mobile 2.0 Europe: Video Interview With GetJar CEO Ilja Laurs

I’m here at the Mobile 2.0 Europe conference in sunny Barcelona and today had a great conversation with GetJar founder and CEO Ilja Laurs which I recorded and uploaded to our YouTube channel. GetJar, in case you don’t know, is a platform and device-agnostic central marketplace for mobile applications which Laurs bills as the world’s largest independent, open application store. The company is backed by $6 million in venture capital from Accel Partners and flirts with running a cash-flow positive operation.

GetJar hosts over 45,000 applications, supports a community of more than 200,000 mobile app developers and sees over 36 million downloads of applications a month, with some of the top developers seeing downloads numbers ranging up to 20 million per unique app. Besides this enormous distribution scale, the two main other reasons mobile developers would decide to put their apps up in the GetJar marketplace, Laurs tells me, is that the company offers a range of services like stats, analytics, a beta testing environment and tools for distribution as well as a set of tools that enables developers to monetize their apps more efficiently. GetJar is currently testing a pilot program for in-application advertising together with some developers, and aims to release this solution publicly in the near future.

Asked which platform he would choose to create apps for if he were an independent mobile app developer with limited resources, Laurs remains diplomatic and says a lot depends on the business model, target audience, type of application and what kind of developer you are.

I was also curious about the effect the rise of all the different application stores from handset vendors and mobile operating system makers has had on GetJar as a destination site that pre-dates all these platforms by a margin. Laurs tells me the introduction of Apple’s App Store had an overall positive effect on the GetJar network, doubling its growth in a very short time, because it raised awareness about centralized application marketplaces in general and validated the mobile app development industry to a certain degree. Long term, he admits that there are negatives to the app store hype too, obviously the most important one being the increased competition.

Check out the video if you’re curious in finding out which devices Laurs uses and what his personal favorite mobile application is.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

US woman to pay 1.92 mln dlrs in music piracy case (AFP)

AFP - A US jury has ordered a 32-year-old woman to pay nearly two million dollars in damages for illegally downloading 24 songs over the Internet in a high-profile digital piracy case.

German Parliament Enacts Internet Censorship Law

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

V-Day Founder Eve Ensler: The Full D7 Session [D7 Highlights]

As founder of a global movement to end violence against women and girls, Eve Ensler has long been focused on human rights issues across the world.

Onstage in an interview at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference, she shed much-needed light on the dire situation in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where some of the worst atrocities are now being committed on the population in a terrible civil war.

Ensler’s aim is to end the use of rape as a weapon of war there, which is, in part, a consequence of the region’s coltan trade. Coltan, or columbite tantalite, is a mineral essential to the manufacture of a wide array of consumer electronics, such as mobile phones and laptops.

It is well worth hearing about exactly how some of our everyday gadgets come to us at a terrible price.

Here is the video of the full D7 session:

Liberty Media Chairman John Malone: The Full D7 Session [D7 Highlights]

As many already know, John Malone has been a cable legend since he first ran Tele-Communications Inc. back in the early 1970s.

Besides being there at the founding of many channels, the Liberty Media (LCAPA) chairman’s influence put most of them on the map and his forceful business skills willed cable into becoming a key consumer medium for entertainment and news.

Malone talked about that experience onstage at the seventh D: All Thing Digital conference and how it mirrors what is going on now as more content is being distributed on the Internet. And, more importantly, he discussed how it might or might not be paid for.

You should listen, because Malone is a genuine media pioneer who could teach Web players a thing or two.

Here’s the full D7 video of the session:

African cranes have new homes in Wis.

BB Video: Omega Recoil, Mad Electro-Makers Who Craft Giant Tesla coils

(Download / YouTube) Boing Boing Video today peeks inside the electrified world of Omega Recoil, a group of engineers and "makers" who craft giant Tesla Coils, and stage humorous and thrilling performances with those large electrical devices. What's a Tesla Coil? From the Tesla Society website:

[It] is one of Nikola Tesla's most famous inventions -- essentially a high-frequency air-core transformer. It takes the output from a 120vAC to several kilovolt transformer & driver circuit and steps it up to an extremely high voltage. Voltages can get to be well above 1,000,000 volts and are discharged in the form of electrical arcs. Tesla himself got arcs up to 100,000,000 volts (...) [They] are unique in the fact that they create extremely powerful electrical fields. Large coils have been known to wirelessly light up florescent lights up to 50 feet away, and because of the fact that it is an electric field that goes directly into the light and doesn't use the electrodes, even burned-out florescent lights will glow.

For viewers in San Francisco -- Omega Recoil members will be giving a talk at the 7th anniversary Dorkbot event, which features other cool "maker mutants" we've featured on Boing Boing Video before, like Jon Sarriugarte and the Boiler Bar folks. Organizer Karen Marcelo says,

...and to think this all started because i was bored seven years ago and decided to call Douglas and start the SF one in Marc Powell's garage! Pesco was a speaker at the first one! We had Brian Normanly talk about how to 'liberate' electricity from PG&E. I dont think anyone has the guts to do that now! :) Here's that first event from 2002.

Sponsor shout-out

As Events Unfold In Iran, Facebook And Google Translate Quickly Add Persian Versions

In response to the events surrounding the Iranian election last week, Google and Facebook have both added the Persian language Farsi to their capabilities. The Persian version of Facebook will be available starting tonight. The Facebook blog post announcing the new version is here.

Facebook says the Persian version was already being developed but it decided to unveil it because of the sudden increase in activity with the Iranian elections and protests. Facebook adds the disclaimer that the translation is still in rough form.

If your browser is set to Farsi, you should automatically see the Persian version of Facebook. Facebook says that more than 400 Persian speakers submitted thousands of individual translations of the site.

Google has also added Persion (Farsi) to Google Translate, making it easy to translate any text from Farsi into English and from English into Farsi. Google, like Facebook, says that the launch of the Persian translation was primarily due to the events taking place in Iran. And like Facebook, Google warns that the translation isn’t perfect. Google also invites people to click on the “contribute a better translation” link if they find a poor translation.

It’s unclear what will happen with Facebook in Iran, under the current situation. FriendFeed was blocked and Twitter seems to be one of the main forms of social communication online in Iran.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Fight Against China's Web Filtering Software Grows (PC World)

Gear gallery: The iPhone 3GS, GPS Grandmaster and Split Personality Samsung Phone

The iPhone 3GS combines two sets of advances. The first group is available only to purchasers of the new hardware. The rest of the features are part of Apple's iPhone 3.0 software upgrade, which is offered free to those with earlier iPhones. (iPod Touch users can get the new software for $10.)

I'll talk about the hardware-based features first. As promised, Apple has indeed ramped up the speed with which the new phone performs tasks like launching apps, loading web pages, and displaying graphics. Apple claims speed boosts of up to two times of what the 3G delivers, and in some benchmarks cites even better performance. I haven't done scientific measurements, but you don't need a stopwatch to notice the new phone is zippier than its predecessor. I appreciated getting box scores faster and videos playing sooner in the MLB.com At Bat application, and it was clear that web pages loaded faster. In the case of a game like Tiger Woods Golf, the boost is significant enough to make me more likely to play when I don't have much time.

Photos were a weak spot in previous iPhones — they weighed in at a measly 2 megapixels — but the iPhone 3GS has a 3-megapixel, autofocusing camera that's more sensitive and allows you to choose an object to focus on by tapping on it. (No zoom, though. Bummer.) Better yet, the camera also records quite creditable video. After you shoot your clip, there's a dead-simple function for instant editing, after which you can send your masterpiece to YouTube or Mobile Me with a single tap.

WIRED Faster. More storage. Better camera, with video recording capability. Search encompasses more data, not just one app at a time. Voice navigation. Feature-rich iPhone 3.0 software is free to current iPhone users.

TIRED Multitasking still limited. No tethering or MMS support yet for AT&T users. Recent iPhone 3G customers must pay a fortune to upgrade.

$300 (32-GB version, with 2-year contract), apple.com

Read our full iPhone 3GS review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.:

TomTom's Go Live 740 is a new breed of web-ready GPS in which web access seems like a well-integrated enhancement, not a useless afterthought.

At almost half a pound it sits comfortably in hand, and its colorful 4.3-inch 320 × 240 touch screen is both bright and responsive to repeated pokes. And with its 2GB of memory, microSD port, and integrated Bluetooth we were able to smoothly navigate between a number of tasks, such as listening to music and using the integrated speaker for hands-free calls while paired with a cell phone.

WIRED Svelte, smooth-to-touch design and construction. Decent signal acquisition times (average of four minutes on a cold start). Sports both Bluetooth audio and file exchange capabilities. Intuitive, touch-based interface and menu tree. Allows instant messaging with other TomTom users. Comes with car charger, dash mount, USB cradle charger. It feels ... sexy.

TIRED Navigational interface displays waaay too much information at one time (speed, distance, current time, arrival time, current street, next turn, distance to turn, etc.). Sketchy voice recognition doesn't cut it. Web-enabled services are only free for the first 90 days ($10/mo. afterwards). Speaker would occasionally sound garbled, mispronounce common street names.

$370, TomTom.com

Read our full TomTom Go Live 740 review

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.:

The coolest trick the Alias 2 can pull off is changing from a number pad to a text keyboard as you flip it open. It's a cool trick and makes the Alias 2 somewhat like the Optimus Maximus of phones. This keyboard beats a touchscreen any day of the week; the little mounds offer tactile feedback not found in any iDevice.

In stark contrast to the phone's E Ink deftness other parts of the Alias 2 are decidedly girlish and silly. An included theme for the phone evokes a she-teen boudoir that counts colorful Trapper-Keepers, potted plants and a rainbow peeking in the window among its touches. Access the menu, and the room comes alive, with menu items as knick-knacks, recent calls as a dorm message board and utilities in a toolbox on the floor. Fortunately, you can change this, if you dig around in settings long enough. The preinstalled ringtones are laughable, ranging from cheesy period pieces, to earsplitting high-range electronica, to faux hip-hop distilled somewhere in Seoul's equivalent of 8 Mile. Anyone with a shred of self-respect would be wise to immediately hop on the internet and download a decent Black Sabbath riff for a ringtone.

WIRED E Ink keyboard morphs button layouts when switching from phone to messaging device. Voice quality is high. Battery life is nearly six hours. Reasonably priced.

TIRED The Dear Diary feel of the interface is at odds with anyone over 13. My Room Menu theme is embarrassing. Lack of dedicated buttons leave you hunting and pecking for even the most common tasks.

$130 (with a two year contract), samsung.com

Read our full Samsung Alias 2 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.:

Size seems to matter to the folks at Amazon. While the Kindle 2 has a 6-inch (measured diagonally) e-ink screen — roughly the area of a mass-market paperback book — the DX's 9.7-inch screen resembles a page from a typical hardback. Put another way, the DX flaunts 2.5 times more display space. More text on a page means more lines and, if you prefer, a bigger font, without having to turn the page as often. What does that mean for you? It's easier to read using the DX.

By elegantly super-sizing the Kindle — and ramping up its ability to read files — Amazon has improved the best all-around e-reader available. But the hefty price tag doesn't fit Jeff Bezo's stated philosophy of getting the best value for his customers.

WIRED Big-screen device that's even more readable than the original Kindle. PDF support is a welcome addition.

TIRED High cost of admission. Pivot mode has hair trigger. Southpaws will find the reader cumbersome.

$490, amazon.com

Read our full Amazon.com Kindle DX review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Shaped like a small bar of shower soap, the dense, ebony Pre matches many (if not all) of the features of its chief competitor, the iPhone. But in one key aspect, the Pre does the iPhone one better. While a lot of the Pre's features — a bright 3.1-inch touchscreen manipulated by taps, swipes and pinches; apps sold by third parties in an open online bazaar; integration of e-mail, contacts and calendar — are now standard in 3G smartphones, Palm also lets users keep multiple applications running simultaneously.

Its long-term prospects, though, hinge on whether or not all those third-party apps will show up, whether Sprint can satisfy users, and whether Apple has something up its sleeve that counters the Palm's gambits. Also, of course, the Pre has to prove stable and reliable. (Our test unit occasionally suffered opening-day jitters, including a crash that was fixed only by taking out the removable battery.)

WIRED Great look and superb feel. Well-conceived OS with multitasking and instant notification. Physical keyboard. Utilizes iTunes to load and refresh content.

TIRED Multitasking puts a big suck on the battery. Sprint exclusivity will be annoying to Palm-philes on a contract with AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile. Keyboard is puny. If Apple blocks the handset's access to iTunes, Pre users are hosed.

$200 (with two year contract), palm.com

Read our full Palm Pre review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Demonstrating that it's serious about making a run at the top-end offerings from Canon and Nikon, the K-7 bows with a spankin' new 14.6 megapixel, 28.1mm (diagonal) CMOS image sensor and an updated Prime II processor. This enables HD-video capture, built-in high dynamic range shooting, a 77-segment metering system, pre- and post-production filtering and distortion correction, all in a form factor more than 10 percent smaller (and actually easier to handle) than its predecessor, the K20D.

By and large, it's a super quick focusing compact image-maker — once you learn how the menu system works. But it's just a step or two behind Nikon and Canon in ease of use. In spite of that, Pentax has nearly hit a home run with the K-7. It's svelte, sturdy, fairly easy to operate, has a great range of available lenses and a feature set that's unmatched at this price. Think of it as a solid double off the wall, with an RBI.

WIRED Speedy 5.2 frames per second. Super-sturdy construction. Lots of pro features at a prosumer price. Improved battery life and 100 percent field-of-view viewfinder. Faster, more robust processor. Live View with contrast focus and face detection. Shoots 5.2 frames-per-second with shutter speed up to 1/8000. The 77-segment metering system and 11-point AF system are quick and spot on. Internal mechanical shake reduction.

TIRED User interface needs to be simpler and more unified.

$1,300 (body only), pentax.com

Read our full Pentax K-7 DSLR review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The A600's 21.5-inch screen (1920 x 1080 pixels) is big and dazzlingly bright — so much so that Lenovo includes an automatic screen-dimming system designed to prevent eyestrain. Inside its bowels, this 25-pounder offers substantial specs: 2.13-GHz Core 2 Duo, 4 GB of RAM, and a terabyte hard drive. The ATI Radeon HD 3650 graphics card may be getting a little long in the tooth, but it's powerful enough to make the A600 more than acceptable to play all but the very latest gaming titles.

That's a lot of stuff for the price — $1,150 — and stripped-down versions of the IdeaCentre run considerably less. If you don't need the power but dig the design and screen size, the budget rendition might be an even better bet.

WIRED Very small footprint. Single-cable design is a blessing for technophobes. Swivel base makes adjustments to viewing angle easy. Six USB ports and 802.11n Wi-Fi, plus FireWire, SD and coaxial connectors.

TIRED Keyboard and mouse frequently fall asleep; difficult to awaken. Remote control overly complex and rather homely. Included games feel like an engineer on Quaaludes designed them.

$1,150 (as tested), lenovo.com

Read our full Lenovo IdeaCentre A600 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Its glossy black finish and polished Darth Vader design makes Samsung's newest Blu-ray box, the BD-P4600, stand out from every other player on the market. Well, it actually doesn't stand anywhere at all -- it comes with the metal brackets to mount it on a wall or plant it on a desktop pedestal. And like Lord Vader, this model packs some serious force with its built-in streaming for Pandora music and Netflix.

For $100 less, you could pick up Samsung's BD-P3600 a player that has all the same features as this model but comes in a non-wall-mountable chassis. But really, would you want to watch The Empire Strikes Back on a Blu-ray player that didn't look like it was made in a dark corner of Coruscant?

WIRED High-end, spacey designed Blu-ray player is loaded with features include ability to wall mount, loads Blu-ray discs exceptional fast and offers exceptional playback.

TIRED Complicated initial setup for its feature set. Cramped underside port-connection compartment. Competitively over priced for what it delivers.

$500, samsung.com

Read our full Samsung BD-P4600 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Let's cut to the chase and hit you with the sell: The MSI X340 is a MacBook Air at half the price. Interested? Read on.

For starters, the X340 (aka the X Slim) is considerably better muscled than your typical netbook, featuring a glossy 13.4-inch (1366 x 768 pixels) screen, 320-GB hard drive and 2 GB of RAM. Like Apple's ultralight, it's incredibly thin — about 0.8 inches at its thickest — and it actually weighs slightly less than the Air, just 2.9 pounds.

Before you start salivating over the prospects of a half-price Air, note that Apple's laptop does trump the X340 in a few significant ways. The Air includes Nvidia graphics, while the X340 is stuck with Intel's integrated chipset.

The screens are night and day: The Air is renowned for having one of the brightest LCDs available, while the X340 is merely average in this department.

WIRED Gorgeous design; slap an Apple sticker over the MSI logo and no one will ever know. Performance bests most netbooks, though it's hardly top-notch. Surprisingly good graphics and responsiveness. Includes the usual goodies: 1.3-MP webcam, Bluetooth, 802.11n.

TIRED Flaky touchpad. Disappointing battery life.

$900 (as tested), us.msi.com

Read our full MSI X340 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The first day we took the car for a spin we kept the front-mounted 5.9-liter 470 BHP vehicle on a strict diet of city driving: no freeways, no tightly coiled back roads. Trudging through heavy traffic almost felt sadistic — kind of like taking a thoroughbred racehorse and giving it polio. But after exiting the city limits and tearing down a stretch of asphalt connecting San Francisco with Napa Valley, the DB9 snapped up, greedily devouring 90-degree curves with just a hint of oversteer.

WIRED Fast like a sports car, more refined than a quart of 40-weight. Gorgeous; induces whiplash in head-turning bystanders. Zippy acceleration for a GT — you can't front on a 4.6-second zero-to-60 time ... unless you're armed with a Ferrari or a Bentley.

TIRED Hood-release switch located in impossibly hard to find/reach nook (as if an Aston owner would ever do that). iPod access tres difficult to set up. Chugs gas like an ASU freshman rips beer-bong hits. Back seat harder to get into than MIT.

$209,000 as tested, astonmartin.com

Read our full Aston Martin DB9 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

If you don't mind looking like an extra in a 1-800-Dentist commercial and have no reservations about looking like a crazy person yammering to yourself, the Plantronics Voyager Pro may be the perfect Bluetooth headset for you.

This headset is big, bulky and (surprise, surprise) silly looking. The 3-inch boom extending out toward your mouth is the main culprit of these crimes against style. But despite being tacky, the Voyager Pro delivers strong performance. It's easy to use, withstands drops, bumps and haphazardly tossed laptops, has decent battery life and pairs effortlessly with a range of smartphones, including the iPhone.

WIRED Easy to use. Super sound quality. Stays attached to your ear. You will look like a telephone operator from the '50s.

TIRED You will look like a telephone operator from the '50s.

$100, plantronics.com

Read our full Plantronics Voyager Pro Bluetooth Headset review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

After a few grim years ceded to the iMac, PC-based all-in-one desktops are making an LL Cool J-esque comeback. Their next move: Make the switch from semi-luxe gear designed for highly aesthetic environments to the megacheap world that the netbook has built.

Specs look exceedingly promising at first: 250 GB of hard drive space, 2 GB of RAM, integrated Wi-Fi, DVD burner, an SD card slot and a very bright 19-inch touchscreen display. If nothing else, it's one of the best-looking touchscreens (non-capacitive; a stylus works better than your finger) we've seen at this screen size.

But the Achilles' heel of the Wind Top is its baffling choice of an Atom 330 processor to power these guts. Although the dual-core 330 is known as the "fast" version of the Atom (it draws 8 watts instead of the 2.5 watts used by the netbook standard Atom N270 and has double the L2 cache), it's still woefully inadequate for a computer this ambitious.

WIRED Amazingly affordable and loaded to the gills. Touchscreen makes this a perfect kiddie computer. Slim profile lets it fit just about anywhere. Cuter than a box of puppies.

TIRED Performance problems dog the user at every turn. Flashing blue hard-drive activity light is front and center, terribly distracting and impossible to cover up. Bundled keyboard and mouse are beyond cheap. Webcam aim can't be adjusted.

$590 (as tested), us.msi.com

Read our full MSI Wind Top AE1900 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The new Chrome Soyuz is an ambitious (if slightly crazed) reimagining of the urban commuter backpack. It's a weird hybrid of a river-rafting drybag and laptop case, all contained within a stylish wedge of black and red nylon.

It sits comfortably behind your back, letting you weave through traffic on your fixie without fear of snagging on the projecting mirrors of double-parked delivery trucks. It can ride between your knees on a crowded train. And it tucks neatly below an airplane seat, leaving just enough space on either side to squeeze in your feet so you can stretch your legs.

WIRED Wedge design keeps load balanced, trim and compact. Expandable waterproof compartment shrinks down to nothing when empty. Heavy-duty 1,000-denier cordura nylon withstands abuse. Main compartments are completely waterproof. Heavy-duty metal strap locks make adjustment easy. Glorious enameled metal "Chrome" logo.

TIRED Narrow openings + deep compartments = where the hell did my keys go? Not quite big enough to contain a six-pack (unless you put the bottles in one by one). Padding traps heat, steaming your back on long rides. No hip belt. Pricier than a metric ton of pig iron.

$180, chromebags.com

Read our full Chrome Soyuz Backpack review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The pristine fidelity these headphones deliver is the result of a dual-armature layout, which bathes your tympanic membranes in accurate audio reproduction. The earpiece's dual drivers have the added benefit of propping up the typically flaccid base that seems to plague many other in-ear monitors.

The only major downside is that great sound comes at a considerable price — $230 to be precise. For most people, that's likely to be as much (or more) than you spent on your MP3 player. But as my neglected Audio Technicas can attest, in this case, you undoubtedly get what you pay for.

WIRED Exquisite sound reproduction in an insanely small package. Handy in-flight attenuator saves you from Captain Blowhard's eardrum-exploding announcements. Fuller, richer base and wider frequency response than previous UEs.

TIRED Spendiferous. Cable noise will distract joggers or anyone planning to use the headphones while exercising. Despite its redesign, the pocket case is still too small to fit all the accouterments.

$230, ultimateears.com

Read our full Ultimate Ears 700 Noise-Isolating Earphones review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Digeo's Moxi HD DVR sports a slick, Emmy-winning (seriously) user interface and all the commercial-skipping accouterments of competitors like TiVo. It even ditches a monthly bill in favor of flat pricing and grants access to online video and music.

The Moxi's stunning high-def UI is full of slick transitions and responsive performance. Unfortunately, sleek visuals don't conquer all. Basics like surfing through the program guide (or accessing a previously recorded show) took a lot of hunting and pecking through a menu tree. Finding pre-recorded shows and getting them to play took searching, highlighting, selecting Play, confirming that you selected Play, and then finally watching.

WIRED No monthly bills. Sleek high-def interface has nifty animations and transitions. Hard drive expandable to 1 TB for power recorders. Dual tuners let you watch one show while recording another. Offers a whopping 1.5-hour buffer time per HD channel.

TIRED Hefty entry fee. Online video chops not quite up to snuff. No dedicated Guide button on the remote?! Unnecessarily complicated menus. Programming schedules are displayed in cramped vertical list instead of friendly grid.

$800, moxi.com

Read our full Digeo Moxi HD DVR review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

We're a little dismayed by the E71x. The device is almost identical to the E71: same 3.2-megapixel camera, same .04-inch profile, same vibrant 320 x 240 QVGA display, same business apps and multimedia functionality. The operating system is slightly tweaked so there are some differences in transmissions and page loading. But as a whole, the phone is relatively unchanged.

These are the key differences: a new $100 price tag (good), a black paint job (badass) and the omission of our favorite feature from the original E71 (ugly). We're talking about the two separate, customizable home screens, something we absolutely loved about the O.G. E71. One screen was designed for business, the other for personal use. It was a great function: You could literally edit spreadsheets from 9 to 5 on one screen, then toggle over to the other and watch a couple of episodes of 30 Rock on the media player.

WIRED Windows interface means you don't have to learn a new menu convention to browse your old files. Dumping the data of only one (or all) of your multiple PCs takes less than five mouse clicks. You can set up a password in the toolbar.

TIRED Dock and multi-PC backup capability only provided with 500-GB version. Full hard-drive recovery requires booting from a CD. Windows-only means it fails to bridge the gap in inter-OSial households.

$100 with 2-year contract, att.com

Read our full Nokia E71x Smartphone review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The Replica comes with bare-bones software and strikes a good balance between peace of mind and individual-user control.

After the hard drive is plugged in, the Replica starts mirroring your computer's content. The startup process is short, taking only a couple of minutes, though the actual backup is a time-gobbling endeavor. (It took us about four hours to transfer 130 GB of data). A blue light on the top of the Replica's case blinks continuously while data is being transferred. It's also stealthy for a hard drive, emitting only a quiet whir when working at full speed.

WIRED Windows interface means you don't have to learn a new menu convention to browse your old files. Dumping the data of only one (or all) of your multiple PCs takes less than five mouse clicks. You can set up a password in the toolbar.

TIRED Dock and multi-PC backup capability only provided with 500-GB version. Full hard-drive recovery requires booting from a CD. Windows-only means it fails to bridge the gap in inter-OSial households.

$200, seagate.com

Read our full Seagate Replica 500GB review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Panasonic's new HDC-TM300 shoots in "Full HD," marketing speak for 1080p — aka 1080 x 1920 resolution with progressive-scan video. Translation? Stunning Blu-ray-level video that should more than lives up to the most critical expectations of prosumers and video enthusiasts.

The highlight of this shooter is the high-def footage. Not only does the phenomenal zoom reel in distant objects, but thanks to the triple sensors and quality lens, it nails far-off details perfectly. The architectural features of distant buildings we shot in downtown San Francisco showed up like we were standing on the window ledge -- not in a park three blocks away.

WIREDReproduces colors like a Crayola factory. Closeups pop with sharp, clear details. Nice performance in low light. Einstein-smart automatic shooting features are like having your own DP built into the camera. 32-GB onboard memory is expandable via SDHC slot. Great zoom tackles action better than Jason Statham.

TIRED Fast pans in bright daylight turns up more artifacts than a Mayan ruin. May require second mortgage.

$1,300, Panasonic.com

Read our full Panasonic HDC-TM300 HD Camcorder review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

In the aftermath (heh heh) of the bass-heavy Beats by Dre Studio headphones, Monster decided to pack the Doctor's finicky sound quality specs into two tiny earbuds. Naturally, audiophiles (including myself) were skeptical. Sure the Beats suffered from shoddy construction and fell apart after a few months of ownership, but they also provided some of the best bass we've ever heard in a set of cans.

Sure enough, the bass response from these things is rich and full. The lowest frequencies rumble with a force akin to the thud of a decent subwoofer. Keep in mind these are not miniaturized 12-inch Kickers designed to blow your eardrums out. But for a device that is essentially a tiny speaker with no auxiliary power, they're superb — especially when compared to the white earcruds doled out by Apple with every iDevice.

WIRED Excellent all-around frequency definition and particularly impressive bass response. Monster’s durable, ingenious anti-tangle cable means jumbled cords are a distant unpleasant memory.

TIRED The bright red cable is slightly ostentatious. Peak bass only hits at earwax shattering volumes.

$150, beatsbydre.com

Read our full Monster Beats By Dre Tour High-Resolution In-Ear Headphones review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The UE-11 Pros are packed with four, count 'em, four drivers: There's a double dose of bass, one for the midrange and one chiming the highs. If you're looking for the most precise, separated sound possible, then this is the earphone for you. Throughout the play list I heard clarity and detail in the music I'd never heard before. This rang especially true with classical tunes — it literally feels like sitting in a symphony hall and having every instrument speak directly to you. To get that kind of superior fidelity you'll certainly have to pay the piper. But you'll really love the music while Rome — or your bank account — burns.

WIRED Most clear, separated and detailed sound.

TIRED Try convincing your spouse you need a $1,150 set of headphones.

$1,150, ultimateears.com

Read our full UE-11 Pro review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The slate-gray, high-impact polymer body houses three LEDs capable of blasting out a peak 270 lumens for 15 minutes, or a more useful and long-lasting 90 lumens for 60 minutes. Both settings have an emergency low-power 25-lumen mode (equivalent in brightness to most common household D-cell flashlights) for an additional 60 minutes.

WIRED High-power pro flashlight pumps out awesome illumination and recharges ridiculously fast. Flashlight will outlive you. Seriously brilliant, blinding — a boon for flashlight junkies.

TIRED Pricy front-end investment. Comes with a 12-volt car charger.

$170, 511tactical.com

Read our full 5.11 Tactical Light review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

In our tests, we threw all things digital at this 68-pound slab. And while it does not perform as superbly as its higher-price brethren from Sony, Samsung and Sharp, it still shows off a completely acceptable high-def image and above-average sound.

So where has Westinghouse cut corners? Oh, let's see. How about the borderline embarrassing 1000:1 contrast ratio? In a well-lit room, the screen looks more washed out than a warehouse full of Maytags. And even though the set offers the 120-Hz spec, fast motion still looks a bit blurred.

WIRED High resolution and decent sound at incredible rock-bottom price. Convenience features integrated into menu. Quality remote not found in higher-priced TVs.

TIRED Displays some pixelated speckled noise in darker and mid-hue images. Analog-station reproduction is downright blurry. No worries though — analog TV has flatlined.

$700, Westinghouse.com

Read our full Westinghouse TX-42F450S review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

It's not quite a netbook, not quite an ultralight PC. Whatever it is, Samsung's NC20 is a dazzling feat of engineering: an extremely usable 12-inch laptop with epic battery life, impressive specs and a downright mystifyingly affordable price tag.

But the NC20 doesn't make depressing tradeoffs to achieve those scores. Battery life is three hours, 40 minutes (22 percent longer than the S10) and weight is just 3.3 pounds, comparable to the Asus Eee PC 1000H. All that and you get a 12.1-inch LCD, too, instead of the usual 10.2-inch netbook display.

WIRED Everything a netbook should be: Offers the best performance available from a computer this portable and inexpensive. Very usable keyboard. Good quality audio. Includes three USB ports, 1.3-megapixel webcam, and SD card slot.

TIRED LCD could be a touch brighter and quality sharper. Chassis design is a bit boring.

$550, samsung.com

Read our full Samsung NC 20 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Pure Digital's Flip has proven that it's possible to build a super-small flash memory camcorder and offer it up for fewer than two hundred bucks. But there are tradeoffs with going small and cheap, like optics and battery life. Canon takes a completely different tack with its newest solid-state cam, the Vixia HF S10, which delivers some fantastically brilliant moving pictures, but at a stiff cost.

Out in the field, auto focus and auto exposure were both very impressive in a wide range of situations, from the intense brightness of the beach to shady and contrasty venues. Every camera suffers indoors, thanks to low light, and everyone complains about it, but the S10 did a credible job with low-light shots and it's clearly better than previous cams of this ilk.

WIRED Improved audio quality. Big, bright lens. Speedy processor. Lots of creative control options. More intuitive menus than previous generation Canon camcorders.

TIRED Loose lens cover noisier than cutlery caught in a garbage disposal. Still images come off looking a bit overexposed.

$1,300, canon.com

Read our full Canon Vixia HF S10 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Dry your eyes, plasma junkies. The untimely demise of Pioneer's Kuro line doesn't mean you'll have to forgo those deliciously deep blacks and theater-perfect colors for long. In fact, even as the last of the Pioneer Kuro Elites make its way into a few lucky U.S. homes, a new lineup of HDTV sets are already poised to seize the plasma king's vacant throne.

Key to this plasma's visual appeal is its integrated THX mode. In addition to blessing various audio components, the home-theater ninjas at THX began bestowing plasma and LCD certification a few years back. Each set is subjected to approximately 400 individual tests, ranging from evaluations in signal processing to luminosity. Basically, the idea behind G10's THX mode is to recreate the precise color gamut filmmakers use during the in-studio post-production process.

WIRED Mind-boggling blacks with tons of detail. THX mode is a godsend for movie buffs. Integrated SD card slots transform your plasma into a giant digital photo frame. Amazing color saturation.

TIRED THX mode is bit dim for brightly lit rooms. Ethernet connectivity is nice for VieraCast, but Wi-Fi would've been better. Three HDMI ports (two in the back, one on the side) don't cut it. More power-hungry than LCD TVs. Where's the PiP?

$1,300, panasonic.com

Read our full Panasonic TC-P42G10 Viera G10 Series Plasma review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The PogoPlug is a device, which looks like a supersized AC adapter, plugs into almost any external hard drive (even a USB stick) and then pumps that content onto the web, giving you access anywhere in the world you can get an internet signal — including your iPhone.

But the PogoPlug isn't without the occasional snafu and annoyances. Only image files are available for preview. PDF, Word documents or even HTML files have to be downloaded before viewing. Worse yet, when we unhooked the device, it caused our PC to crash twice in a row. We're still not entirely sure if this was due to a glitch in the PogoPlug or in Windows.

WIRED Easy to use. Simple setup. Great utility: I must be able to access my collection of LOLcat photos from anywhere. The iPhone app is solid software.

TIRED No wireless mode ... yet. Poor security — it's a wise idea to keep those tax returns or bank documents off the PogoPlug. Computer crashes are deeply flummoxing. The iPhone is currently the only mobile device that supports remote access.

$100, pogoplug.com

Read our full Cloud Engines PogoPlug review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

NatureMill's Pro edition is an indoor composter we can pretty much dig. Using minimal electricity, a small motor turns a heavy-duty mixing bar, heats the mixing chamber (no sunlight needed) and powers an air pump that works with a carbon air filter to help reduce smell (each filter lasts four to five years).

Just add starter dirt, drop in some sawdust pellets to combat odors and dump your food scraps in. NatureMill recommends that you cut organic material into 4-inch bits before plopping it in. We didn't, but aside from the motor making some gnarly noises, it didn't seem to affect compost production. NatureMill's Pro version also features some automatic activation. We were able to leave ours sitting for weeks without pushing the button even once; it mixed and heated itself just fine.

WIRED Stainless steel mixing bar made short work of uncut banana peels. Relatively small and exceptionally lightweight = easy to stash and transport. Foot pedal eliminates lid touching. Mighty Morphin' Power Saver: only draws 5 kwh a month (roughly 50 cents on an average electric bill). Not as much of an eyesore as it could be and it's available in a range of colors (including, you guess it, green).

TIRED Little to no stench — until top opens (that's hard to remedy, and burger/fish/salad remnants smell worse than a dead wildebeest doused in Eau D'Bile). Polypropylene housing is light, but may not last forever. Disposable carbon filters reduce smell, but also cut down on the green factor. Regular maintenance (scraping the mix chamber walls) isn't fun.

$400, naturemill.com

Read our full Nature Mill Indoor Composter — Pro Edition review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

You can get away with a lot if you're beautiful. Such is the case with the new Porsche Design P'9522 phone. In some ways, it's a wonderful and capable cellphone, but in most others, it's dumber than the gorgeous block of aluminum it was machined from.

Someone forgot to include e-mail — an absence that had us trying to mar the Porsche phone's scratchproof screen with claws of rage. Unfortunately, that screen is tough, so the P'9522 will be lauded and drooled over — despite our many gripes with it.

WIRED Gorgeous. Touchscreen interface is easy to understand, if limited and frustrating. Preloaded ringtones include the roaring engines of the 911 GT3 and Turbo. Its 5-megapixel camera has autofocus and captures clean, vivid images. LED flash doubles as a flashlight. Unlocking the phone with its fingerprint scanner is very MI5.

TIRED Fingerprint scanner is also very POS: Who thought it would be a good idea to use fingerprints to access a device you're likely holding in one hand while juggling multiple other tasks? Preloaded ringtones include bad German techno. Touchscreen is deeply frustrating. Seriously — no e-mail?

$800, porschedesign.com

Read our full Porsche Design P'9522 Phone review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Weighing just 140 grams, the handset offers some of the best optics we've ever found crammed into a cell phone: sharp, noiseless pics (3,264 × 2,448 pixels) and decent image stabilizer punctuate video capture that puts full-figured handicams from 2008 to shame. You can even shoot VGA at 30 fps or QVGA at a whopping 120 fps (yes, 120!), including slow motion footage in 1/4 and 1/8 speeds.

Amazing, sure, but not a picture perfect phone. The i8510 functions almost exactly like a standard point-and-shoot, except for the zoom button, which is placed inexplicably, and awkwardly at the bottom of the device.

WIRED Beaucoup codecs, including — wait for it — DivX! 2.8-inch screen excellent for playback. Intuitive photo/video editing suite. Equally intuitive navigation. Automatic lens cover. MicroSD slot good for 16 GB (enough for aspiring Scorseses to go epic). All the usual smartphone suspects: 3G, Wi-Fi, USB, Bluetooth, accelerometer, GPS. Decent earbuds with ample cord. 3.5mm audio jack. Most excellent: TV-out capability.

TIRED Side-mounted headphone jack makes phone harder to pocket. Optical control pad is a tad sensitive (between us and you — we don't want to hurt its feelings). Most bogus: Metal shell retains enough scratches to fill a DJ Shadow album. A little on the clunky side. Most bogus: Flash needs to be brighter.

$500, samsung.com

Read our full Samsung i8510 INNOV8 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

As the successor to Logitech's G11 and G15, this huge hunk of plastic comes with gaming hardwired in its DNA. Like its relatives, it has a blocky aesthetic that harkens to the days of the Model M. There are, however, a handful of very modern flourishes that make this latest G-board a distinctly modern marvel.

In the end, the G19's main drawback is the same one that has plagued fancy keyboards since the days of yore: It's freaking huge. That swiveling LCD? It actually requires a tiny onboard Linux computer to run, which in turn requires its own power source. Should you choose to make use of the two self-powered USB ports, you'll potentially have more wires shooting out of this thing than your computer.

WIRED More customizable than a box of Legos. Two self-powered USB ports. Dedicated D-pad and menu keys let you control LCD directly from the keyboard. Convenient cable management lanes carved into bottom of unit lessens clutter … slightly. Choose-your-own-color adventure with adjustable backlighting. Keys are pleasantly clicky and responsive.

TIRED Limited desktop space? This is not your keyboard. Price tag to match gargantuan footprint. Requires power brick to run. After its novelty wears off, built-in LCD becomes more of a distraction than a useful tool.

$200, Logitech.com

Read our full Logitech G19 Keyboard review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Want to catch the last episode of Battlestar Galactica while hanging out in the local java joint? Going to download a season of The Simpsons for viewing on the plane? Giving an impromptu screening of your vacation photos at a friend's house? The Mini 10 is your machine.

But there are infuriating shortcomings to the Mini 10. The trackpad is one of the worst we've seen. Dell's decision to integrate the buttons underneath the pad itself makes using it both unpredictable and challenging. When you click on a button, the cursor may hit the target, wiggle off a centimeter or two, or teleport off into a remote corner of your screen. While it got easier to use after a week of practice, our advice is to invest in a cheap travel mouse.

WIRED Bright, responsive screen. Integrated 1.3-megapixel webcam. Not gunked up with crapware. HDMI-out port shows charming, if unwarranted, optimism about the netbook's video capabilities. Light weight: Just 2.6 pounds.

TIRED Infuriating trackpad with integrated buttons hidden underneath. Excessively glossy screen produces distracting glare. Windows XP is starting to look pretty tired. What, no solid-state option? Despite the HDMI port, the netbook can't deliver HD video without fits and starts.

$470 (as tested), dell.com

Read our full Dell Mini 10 Netbook review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The new 370Z upgrades come in the form of a sexy body with a hood, hatch and doors of lightweight aluminum and a chassis significantly stiffer to reduce performance-robbing flex. To make up for the beefier chassis, Nissan's engineers pared more than 225 pounds from the rest of the car — even the audio system lost 3.5 pounds — and the result is a car that weighs 88 pounds less than the previous 350Z.

Every model gets the same 332-horsepower V6, an engine that makes this Z the quickest yet with a zero-to-60 time of 4.6 seconds. That kind of performance, however, is contingent on your skills as a driver. If you don't posses Lewis Hamilton levels of talent don't fret. The Z's abundant power and excellent handling will let you think you do.

WIRED Insanely easy to drive, insanely quickly. You'll run out of nerve before you run out of grip. Rev-matching transmission makes heel-toe shifting more obsolete than a gramophone.

TIRED Rev-matching transmission makes heel-toe shifting more obsolete than a vinyl record. Tympani-like tire roar, piccolo-like exhaust note. Hummer-sized blind spots make lane changes a gun-it-and-go-for-it leap of faith. Fake brushed-aluminum interior bits don't fool anyone.

$33,970 (as tested), nissanusa.com

Read our full Nissan 2009 370Z review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Using the BookReader is simple: Just plunk a novel on the platen, punch a button and you're relaxing to the dulcet sounds of Jill, a computerized voice with a voracious appetite for literature. All the menus read themselves off when you mouse over them, and they have keyboard shortcuts, which is useful if you have reduced vision. Jill is pretty good at recognizing words. We tried out several books, including one heavy with medical jargon, and she held her own with just a few exceptions.

Useful as it is, we could not help noticing that the BookReader seems to be slightly undercooked. A few of the buttons don't really do anything, and you can't customize the dictionary to alter Jill's interpretation of commonly used, but horribly flubbed words, acronyms or numbers. The unit seems to be terribly overpriced as well. Plustek wants $600 for the BookReader, despite the fact that the OpticBook only costs $250 — and has its own text-to-speech function.

WIRED Reads books to you at the push of a button. Platen glass goes right to the edge to accommodate books without strain. Turns text into MP3s for portability. Includes several accessibility features to help the visually impaired.

TIRED The included software lacks polish and seems rushed. Squat, ugly looks make it seem at home in a cubicle farm. The reader voice may not screw up often, but when it does, it's a doozy. High price nears gouging territory.

$600, plustek.com

Read our full Plustek BookReader V100 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Apple's newest Shuffle (almost 50 percent smaller than previous Shuffles) could easily be mistaken for a stick of Trident, features no buttons, and pimps voice-identification technology. But even given its apparent readily consumable stature, there are a few features on the Shuffle that are a bit tough to swallow.

The biggest gripe on the 4-GB Shuffle we tested is definitely the control set. First off, it's completely counterintuitive; Apple says you can easily use it without looking. We still don't have the hang of it after a few days of testing. What's worse, if you have a decent set of earbuds (say, a pair of Shures or Ultimate Ears) you're totally hosed — you'll have to endure the 'buds that come with the Shuffle or pick up specially made third-party headphones. Our recommendation? Pick up a new Shuffle only if you're prepared to deal with proprietary headphones and ambiguous controls.

WIRED Thumb-drive size. Can double as a tie clip. Battery life lasts for 12 freaking hours. Short USB sync cord is sexy. Yes, we'll admit, it's another beautifully designed piece of hardware from Apple. Battery bonked out after 11 constant hours of blasting Thunderstruck on loop.

TIRED Proprietary headphones required. Control set awkward to use, hard to get used to. So small, it nearly gets lost in the packaging it comes in.

$80, apple.com

Read our full Apple iPod Shuffle 3rd Gen review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Rather than foam, gel or compressed-air cushioning, the soles on Newtons have a series of "actuator lugs" just below the ball of the foot. The lugs are designed to help encourage you to land on your forefoot, to protect that part of the foot, and (best yet) to propel you forward. When you land, the lugs push into hollow chambers in the midsole. This cushions your landing, and helps make it comfy to land midsole or forefoot rather than on the heel as you might be accustomed. As your foot moves forward, these lugs then essentially lever out, and as you lift your foot, they return the energy by pushing up and out in the same direction as your stride. Newton claims this makes them more efficient than traditional foam or gel soles that simply absorb energy but don't return it.

WIRED So cozy they're like a Snuggie for your feet. Actuator lugs get you off your heels better than a La-Z-Boy. Lightweight at 10.2 ounces. Designed for all stride types. Stomps cold weather like global warming, and keeps out the drizzle for shizzle.

TIRED Not waterproof. Worse on single-track trails than a skateboard. $175??? OMG, for that much money I could just pay somebody to run for me.

$175, newtonrunning.com

Read our full Newton All Weather Trainer review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The Firebird features a hybrid design — using 2.5-inch hard drives (two 320-GB models) and dual graphics cards originally designed for laptops — but powers it all with a desktop CPU and desktop-sized DIMMs. As with a laptop, wireless is built in, but the power supply is not: To save on wattage, HP breaks out the (enormous) power adapter instead of integrating it into the box.

As cool as the Firebird is on the whole, it isn't without some foibles. The inclusion of an ExpressCard slot is on the baffling-to-useless side, and the external power supply (it's huge) is more annoying to deal with than it sounds. But our biggest gripe is that the Firebird's streamlined shell means it includes no front-mounted ports at all, not even a single USB slot for your thumb drive. Seriously HP, even the Mac Pro finds room for that.

WIRED Amazingly quiet and conscientious in its power consumption. Outstanding design; belongs on top of the desk, not beneath it. Solid all-around performance at a fair price.

TIRED No front USB port. Curvy design means you can't put anything on top of the case. Functionally locked down, with no real upgrade path.

$2,100 (as tested), hp.com

Read our full HP Firebird 803 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

I shouldn't love this truck. I should hate it. I purposely do not own a car, and this all-black behemoth represents everything I hate about SUV culture: conspicuous consumption, insensitivity to our rapidly shrinking world and crowded cities, middle finger raised at global warming.

You could slap a cold fusion generator under Big Poppa Cadillac's hood and the first two issues would still apply, but I was kind of wrong about that last one. Have you ever seen Godzilla vs. Megalon? Where Godzilla fights on behalf of the people of Japan against a giant rhinoceros/cockroach? Sure, Tokyo's favorite monster still smashes a bunch of buildings and steps on some people, but he's trying to be good. Same goes for this Hybrid Chromedaddy.

WIRED Decent pickup for a motorized bomb shelter. Combined ABS and regenerative braking system do a terrific job of hauling the beast down from speed. Trick motorized step makes it easy for shorties to climb into your rolling condo.

TIRED Thing has a car phone. No, not Bluetooth, but an actual phone built into infotainment system. (It's actually just Onstar, but there was no other option for hands-free calling.) What is this, 1989? Cadillac — God love 'em — uses the fact that this is a hybrid as an excuse to bling up the truck even more: Hybrid badges are plastered on every hard surface, on the sides of the door, even the windshield. —Joe Brown

$74,085 (as tested), Cadillac.com

Read our full Cadillac Escalade Hybrid review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The Kindle 2 is zippier, with pages turning 20 percent faster (yes, you can tell the difference). It has more memory (2 gigabytes, enough for storing more than 1,500 books onboard). And it flaunts a more powerful built-in battery: Amazon claims that the Kindle lasts four to five days with the wireless on (we got 4.5 days in our first test) and up to two weeks with it off. After a week of limited wireless, my meter is around 50 percent. Amazon also says that after 500 charges, it will hold 80 percent of its original juice. That means that most users won't have to replace the battery (a $60 procedure) for about a decade or so.

Looking over the horizon, it's clear that Amazon's biggest competitor in selling digital books will be Google, whose recent agreement with publishers and authors will make it the virtually exclusive seller for millions of books in copyright but not in print. But right now at least, the Google and Amazon formats aren't compatible: I was unsuccessful in getting a PDF of a public-domain book downloaded from Google to appear in readable form on my Kindle.

WIRED The best e-reading system on the market. Welcome improvements to aesthetics, more functional industrial design, better graphics and longer battery life. Sleeker than the original: One-third of an inch thick and 10 ounces.

TIRED Quite expensive. Book content shackled with DRM. Interface is improved, sure, but it could be even better.

$360, amazon.com

Read our full Amazon.com Kindle 2 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The iWOW adapter from SRS Labs promises to coax more "immersive" sound from your iPod, and it actually delivers — provided you're listening to the right kind of music. Setup is easy: Snap on the slick little 1-inch extension, plug in some spendy headphones, press a button, and you do indeed get a fuller sound with more depth — especially if you enjoy songs like Sting's "Fragile," a track hand-picked by SRS to highlight the effect.

But when iWOW was applied to songs that were heavy on low-end thump or had multilayered sound (Exhibit A: Beck's "Cold Brains") the iWOW performed more like iMeh. At top volume, bass beats splintered, while at lower volumes tracks sounded muddled and crowded. SRS claims the device "dynamically locates and restores audio detail" and creates a more natural sound. We're not buying it — most of the audio we threw at the iWOW was punctuated with a subtle hiss and fuzzy bass.

WIRED Relatively small adapter. Snaps easily onto your iPod and lends some oomph to certain tunes.

TIRED The effect is nearly lost when using ear buds, the device won't work with older generation iPods, and music that already has a fair share of bass sounds muffled.

$70, srslabs.com

Read our full SRS Labs iWOW Adapter for iPod review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Leaps ahead of other cam phones, the Memoir's not limited to the 8 megapixels it captures. In shooting mode, the touchscreen has shutterbug controls — zoom, brightness, timer and flash — that float around the image. And just hitting the shutter will take you into camera mode. The Memoir includes a 1-GB microSD to augment the phone's 100 MB of storage (and it's an easy-access slot, rather than hidden under the battery).

But for all its convenience, the Memoir simply isn't a competitor for even the lowliest of dedicated cameras. First off, it's pokey: slow to focus, slow to snap and very touchy when it comes to movement. And though it touts a 16x digital zoom, it has no optical-zooming option.

WIRED Cool touchscreen and accelerometer helps you shoot or view pictures. Compact, pocket-friendly shape, even for hipsters in painted-on jeans.

TIRED Vampiric light sensitivity makes for washed-out shots. Slow to focus, shoot and recover. E-mail functions are even slower. The screen is hard to see in sunlight. Lens cover doesn't close all the time, so the lens can get dusty.

$300 (with 2-year contract), t-mobile.com

Read our full Samsung Memoir.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

From the outside, the 1000HE doesn't look much different from other netbooks. But it's the machine's heart — the brand new 1.66-GHz Atom N280 processor — that makes it faster, stronger, smarter than its opponents.

Intel claims the silicon slab boosts computing power across the board, especially HD video playback — something that has been woefully horrid in past machines using Atom processors. It's not lying. This is the fastest netbook we've tested (by about 7 percent) in our benchmarks. And HD video playback was noticeably smoother and devoid of chop.

WIRED The first netbook to feature the new Atom N280 chip. MMC and SD media reader slots. Attractive, pearly finish. Decent 1.3-megapixel webcam.

TIRED At 3.1 pounds, it's one of the heaviest puppies in the netbook litter. Lame keyboard.

$400 as tested, asus.com

Read our full Asus Eee PC 1000HE review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The R50 is remarkably easy to set up and use. As you program each component into the remote using the setup wizard, you test a few controls to make sure it has the right code. The remote instantly recognized all our components, and it took us about 10 minutes to get the AV rig up and running. As part of the setup, you name each component, which then appears as an icon on the screen: in my case, a Sony HDTV, Yamaha amp/receiver, Squeezebox, Oppo DVD player and Soundmatters speaker.

WIRED Cool, reddish backlight perfect for nighttime navigation. No computer or web connection needed for operation. No charging cradle required.

TIRED No user manual means gizmo novices might get lost in setup. $150 price point isn't super pricey, but then it's not the cheapest universal remote out there.

$150, universalremote.com

Read our full Universal Remote Digital R50 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Like other watches in the 25-year-old G-Shock line, the MTG-1500 is forged with Mr. T levels of toughness: It can easily survive being banged clumsily against tabletops or whacked against a surfboard in a wipeout. And it's water-resistant to 200 meters. But unlike most other G-Shock watches, which are primarily plastic, the MTG-1500's body and band are stainless steel, with a few tasteful black plastic accents.

We half expected to find the MTG-1500 lacking in minor features. Surprisingly, it didn't. It's got a stopwatch mode, dual time-zone support, five different alarms and a countdown timer. Free abundant sunlight or bright artificial light recharges the battery as you wear the watch. Once fully charged, the battery should be able to power the watch for 6 months without additional light.

WIRED Handsome, two-toned steel-and-black styling doesn't blare "nerd," "Swatch-wearing poser" or "too lazy to take off my gym watch." Self-syncs with superaccurate official time stations. Gives you an excuse to say "solar" and "atomic" in the same sentence.

TIRED Digital display too small and can be obscured by watch hands. LED provides uneven illumination in the dark. $500 can buy a timepiece that's much fancier, albeit not atomic.

$500, casio.com

Read our full Casio G-Shock MTG-1500 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The skinny on this countertop unit is pretty straightforward: It's the touch-based kitchen computer that won't put you out of house and home. Don't go rushing out to cash in that 401(k), though — despite a recession-friendly price, the Eee Top still feels a little light in the loafers.

The glossy white, semi-opaque keyboard and mouse look stylish out of the box, but after extended handling their light, plastic-y build became annoying. The slim chassis sat solid on our countertop, while the bright, 15.6-inch screen and the integrated speaker bar make up the majority of the Top's sleek profile. Rounding out the device are six USB ports, memory card reader, 1.3-MP web cam and integrated Wi-Fi. We were pretty bummed at the lack of an optical drive, though.

WIRED An all-in-one for the Top Ramen set. Quick, responsive touch interface. Compact design has integrated storage for both keyboard and stylus. Integrated 802.11n and gigabit ethernet ensure throughput thrashings. One-touch shutoff button for hiding porn er, convenience. Runs whisper-quiet.

TIRED Underpowered for heavy web video. A wired keyboard and mouse — on an all-in-one?!? Heats up after extended poke/prod sessions. Anemic 160-GB hard drive. Even a cheapy, noisy optical drive would've been nice. No battery means no mobile computing.

$600 (as tested), asus.com

Read our full Asus ET1602 Eee Top review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

This camera is about the size and shape of a pack of chewing gum, and weighs just 0.68 ounces. It records videos at 352 x 288 pixels, encoding them in the 3-GP format used by many cellphones (the videos can be played on your computer using most media-player software, including QuickTime and RealPlayer).

But the MovieStick is oozing with design flaws. The pinhole-sized lens is located on the long side of the device, rather than the short end, limiting your ability to go truly undercover. Add to that a confusing series of lights that supposedly indicate when the cam is charging, turned on or recording, and you end up with more than one inadvertent video of the floor.

WIRED The smallest video camera we've seen yet. Simple to set up and use. Makes you look like a double agent.

TIRED Location of camera lens makes it hard to go covert. No internal storage or memory card included. Recorded video is shakier and blurrier than outtakes from The Blair Witch Project.

$120, swannsecurity.com

Read our full Swann Micro-VideoCam Recorder review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Kodak’s Theatre HD's raison d'être is straightforward: to shuttle the contents of your PC directly to your television using ethernet or Wi-Fi. Pictures, videos, podcasts, music or any other digital content that may be living on your hard drive (as long as it's not squelched by some DRM straightjacket) can be whisked away by this tiny little box to your television with little to no fuss.

What really sets the Theatre HD Player apart from the rest of the field is how immaculately it performs its tasks. Once you've downloaded Kodak's EasyShare display software, everything is pretty much taken care of. Have a hard drive filled with extra content? No problem. Simply hook it up to one of the player's USB ports and you're ready to go.

WIRED Intuitive UI coupled with a handy RF remote makes setup and playback of multimedia a Zen-like experience. Wealth of connectivity options: component, HDMI, optical or RCA audio, dual USB ports. Transforms crappy YouTube video into semi-watchable content.

TIRED Requires Kodak EasyShare software to get the streaming party started. No Mac compatibility (for now). Pricey, especially for a device without a hard drive. Needs more internet content.

$300, Kodak

Read our full Kodak Theatre HD Player review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Skidding in at 53 pounds (on the lighter side for this category), Ohm's mountain bike-inspired geometry and its nine-level power-assist and regeneration system make it a smart, nimble and efficient two-wheeler.

On pavement and trail the BionX power plant, mounted on the rear hub, employs a unique sensor technology that is constantly adjusting the level of assistance it gives you based on the terrain. Encountering some mushy road? More power is delivered to the gears. Gliding down paved asphalt? The juice is dialed back. And if your thighs are flushed with lactic acid on a sheer hill, a flick of the trusty thumb throttle cracks the whip and the motor totally takes over, no pedaling required. But for all this innovation and comfort, you will, however, have to part with a spouse-enraging $3,450. Is it worth it? Well, it is a ton of fun.

WIRED Excellent Shimano parts mix with disc brakes and RockShox suspension fork. Lockable battery compartment hides space for mobile phone, wallet, media player and your other little stuff. Regeneration mode gives extra on-bike battery life. Comfortable suspension seat post. Four- to six-hour charge time.

TIRED Throttle position needs to be improved for optimal bike handling. Price steeper than any hill the bike can handle.

$3450, Ohm Cycles

Read our full Ohm Cycles XS700 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

For about $300 more than the average netbook, the UC7807u offers a scintillating array of grownup specs. Intel 2.0-GHz Core 2 Duo CPU? Check. 250-GB hard drive? Yep. 3 GB of memory, a glossy 13.3-inch display, a slot-loading optical drive and ports galore (three USB and an HDMI)? You betcha! Best of all, with its fetching brushed aluminum chassis, no one will mistake this for a budget notebook.

Unfortunately, the UC7807u also has all the telltale signs of some obvious corner cutting. Forget about gaming. Due to Intel's torpid integrated GMA 4500MHD graphics card, even moderately intensive titles won't run properly. But our main beef with the UC7807u is the feeble 6-cell battery which clocked in at a disappointing 3 hours, 25 minutes — a full hour shorter than most other notebooks in this category.

WIRED Recession-worthy price. Built like a tank. Slick, touch-sensitive volume and multimedia controls.

TIRED Tips the scales for a notebook in this category. Battery drains faster than an ATM at a strip club. Epic fail on the tiny circular touchpad. It's cramped and serves no discernable purpose. Onboard speakers spit out tinny, distorted sound. HDMI, but no Blu-ray?

$800 as tested, Gateway

Read our full Gateway UC7807u review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

It's no wonder this watch ran away with my heart; for the competitive runner or multisport athlete seeking a personal best in 2009, the Polar RS800CX is the required training device. Because of incredibly robust desktop software, tracking of obscure performance metrics, and a wide variety of add-on sensors, the RS800CX can help you measure, analyze and improve nearly every aspect of your training program.

WIRED Offers better heart-rate monitoring than your average hospital. Incredibly customizable from in-watch display, to software interface, to training programs. GPS and barometric altimeter combined with location tracking mean you'll never wonder where you wandered. Extensible pods make watch more sport-versatile than Lance Armstrong.

TIRED Even beer goggles won't pretty up this ugly watch face. May need to hire a coach anyway — just to teach you how to use the PC-only desktop software.

$500, Polar

Read our full Polar RS800CX MULTI review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The pocket rocket we've been packing in our pants recently (full name: Optoma DLP EP-PK-101 Pico Pocket Projector) is one of the first mini projectors to hit the market. It's also one of the best, even though a number of flaws spill from the tiny device.

Styled like a '40s-era Zippo, the piano-black portable feels more natural in the hand than a lot of cellphones. But it's not size that matters to us, it's the video components! The projector is comprised of a combo-rig LED lamp and a DLP chip (courtesy of Texas Instruments) that sets the resolution at 480 x 320 pixels with a range output of 9 lumens. Yes, we know this is low compared to full-bodied projectors like Benq's gargantuan MP512 ST 2500-lumen projector but for something this small, it's remarkable.

WIRED Perfect projector for parties. Rectangular lens creates wide image that keeps the image from stretching. Fine picture quality, 8-96 inches. Startup time > 4 seconds. Dead-sexy hardware.

TIRED Lithium-ion batteries die after 2 hours' use; how are we supposed to watch our Battlestar marathon? Battery recharge time 4 frakkin' hours. Suck-tastic speaker. Unless you have a video-out adapter, you can't project Office docs from your PC. Projector gets hot enough to fry bacon after running 30 minutes.

$400, Optoma

Read our full Optoma EP-PK-101 Pico Pocket Projector review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Are you the schlemiel who's always dropping his cellphone or camera at parties? Or maybe you're the schlemazel who always gets the drink spilled on him? Either way, if you're looking for a camera to fit a clumsy or accident-prone lifestyle, the shockproof, waterproof, and cold-resistant Stylus 1050 SW can take the beating from fumbles, faceplants or full-speed crashes, and still keep clicking.

About the size and shape as a pack of smokes, the 1050 is equipped with an accelerometer letting you tinker with settings by tapping on the top and the sides. This lets you do useful stuff like turn the flash on and off with a gloved mitt or preview pictures with one hand while you fend off a tiger shark with the other.

WIRED Shockproof to 5 feet and waterproof 10 means you can bang it on the edge of the pool as you fall in with no harm done. Tap feature lets you change settings without futzing with buttons, and the camera can handle alpine frigidity with aplomb. Comes with a microSD adapter for greater media versatility.

TIRED Lens cover slides more easily than Ricky Henderson. The battery is easily inserted backwards, making you think it's dead or the camera is malfunctioning. Weak zoom and poor macro ability; this camera could use a bifocal upgrade.

$300, Olympus

Read our full Olympus Stylus 1050 SW review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Touted as the thinnest and lightest BlackBerry yet, the Curve 8900 has some much-needed upgrades over its predecessor, but also some disappointments.

Wi-Fi is hot and easy to set up, the camera got a bump to 3.2 megapixels, the 16 GB MicroSD storage can hold up to 20 hours of video, and the high-res screen is fantastic in any light. On the other hand, callers were hard to hear, documents were difficult to create, and RIM's revamped proprietary browser is good for surfing the Internet but isn't as smart about automatically resizing webpages as the browsers on competing smartphones.

WIRED Slick, sexy design mashes the best of the Bold and Curve 8830. Brilliant, high-resolution screen is one of the best we've seen on a RIM device. Full HTML-rendering on websites. 3.2-megapixel camera is even better when paired with video-recording capabilities; 3.5mm headphone jack means no clumsy adapters. Near 5-hour battery life is most impressive.

TIRED 3G is MIA. Despite the powerful 512-Mhz processor, the software still lags. New website and software don't perform as well as they should. Phone quality was mixed and loud speakers fail to compensate for somewhat distorted music playback.

$200 with a two year contract, RIM

Read our full RIM BlackBerry Curve 8900 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

This handset (which arrives in some of the most gorgeous packaging I've ever seen a consumer electronic encased in) is almost laughably banal in its actual construction. A silver slider with wide-spaced keys, it posses a passing resemblance to the Nokia 5200, albeit with a larger (2.2-inch) screen. But, once you switch it on and start using it, things begin to get interesting.

The operating system orbits around Facebook synchronization. Basically you take the phone online, pair it with your Facebook account, and all of your various Facebook applications become active on the mobile. Your Facebook address book syncs up with the phone's address book. Events from your Facebook calendar become part of the phone's calendar. Take a picture with the 3.2-megapixel camera, and you can automatically upload those shots to a Facebook album.

WIRED Brightly hued, easy to use, easy-to-sync OS pairs perfectly with your Facebook account. Skype integration is thoughtful. Thoughtfully spaced keys make texting, entering URLs rather pleasant. Camera takes photos that are sharp enough to be a profile picture. Extremely cheap for an unlocked device.

TIRED Humdrum hardware punctuates novel OS. Not offered in the United States ... yet. Battery life is clinically depressing when surfing the web, using Skype.

$112 (estimated), Three

Read our full INQ1 Facebook Phone review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

HP has been tinkering with touch tech for a couple of years. But they have yet to nail the bull's eye with a machine that mixes mature hardware with a haptic interface that feels like more than just a half-assed effort. So, we were cautiously optimistic with the TouchSmart tx2z. The good news? As HP's first multitouch convertible tablet, it's got a lot of potential.

Converting from notebook to tablet proved painless, thanks to a solid hinge and the included pen. After swinging the 1280 x 800 screen around (and folding it back), we found two goodies. First, using the pen automatically disables the touchscreen (to prevent palm-related havoc), and second, HP included an active digitizer for handwritten input. This made reckless activities like e-mailing while strolling around the block surprisingly easy. Even jotting down quick notes using a finger (instead of the pen) gave us minimal hassle.

WIRED Fully baked as both a touch and tablet device. Travels well with its compact and stylish chassis. Includes quick keys for rotating screen orientation. Mini media remote and pen conveniently hide away in chassis. Altec Lansing speakers strike decent balance between volume and clarity. Extra goodies aplenty: biometric security, webcam, dual headphone jacks, 802.11n compatibility and 5-in-1 card reader.

TIRED Bloated OS hinders performance of otherwise decent specs. Occasionally laggy switches between notebook and tablet mode. No multitouch love for the trackpad. Terrible viewing angles and weak visibility in direct sunlight. Fan sounds like a leaf-blower at a My Bloody Valentine show.

$1550 (as tested), HP

Read our full HP TouchSmart tx2z review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Nero's LiquidTV TiVo PC looks like a TiVo and acts like a TiVo, but, brother, it ain't no TiVo.

Actually, the package makes your PC act like a TiVo by adding a USB TV tuner and the same TiVo software that drives the set-tops. You also get a for-reals TiVo remote and an IR receiver so you can command content from the couch.

Ironically, that's where you're gonna get pissed. The remote can't launch the software, so you'll have to physically walk over and mouse it open. The remote can be programmed to turn your TV on and off, but it can't put your PC in standby mode or wake it up again. If you do that manually, the IR receiver fails to wake up with the rest of the system.

WIRED Includes a one-year TiVo subscription, and after that it's a cheaper-than-set-top $99 per year. The software can auto-convert recordings to iPod or Sony PSP format. Integrates with any TiVo boxes you already have. Extra storage is just an external hard drive away.

TIRED The remote lacks necessary PC controls. Not measurably better than Windows Media Center — which, incidentally, is free. The tuner supports ClearQAM, but the software doesn't, so forget digital channels unless you hook up the antenna.

$125, Tivo

Read our full Nero LiquidTV TiVo PC review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

How Science Fiction Writers Can Help, or Hurt, Homeland Security

A couple of years ago, the Department of Homeland Security hired a bunch of science fiction writers to come in for a day and think of ways terrorists could attack America. If our inability to prevent 9/11 marked a failure of imagination, as some said at the time, then who better than science fiction writers to inject a little imagination into counterterrorism planning?

I discounted the exercise at the time, calling it "embarrassing." I never thought that 9/11 was a failure of imagination. I thought, and still think, that 9/11 was primarily a confluence of three things: the dual failure of centralized coordination and local control within the FBI, and some lucky breaks on the part of the attackers. More imagination leads to more movie-plot threats -- which contributes to overall fear and overestimation of the risks. And that doesn't help keep us safe at all.

Recently, I read a paper by Magne Jørgensen that provides some insight into why this is so. Titled More Risk Analysis Can Lead to Increased Over-Optimism and Over-Confidence, the paper isn't about terrorism at all. It's about software projects.

Most software development project plans are overly optimistic, and most planners are overconfident about their overoptimistic plans. Jørgensen studied how risk analysis affected this. He conducted four separate experiments on software engineers, and concluded (though there are lots of caveats in the paper, and more research needs to be done) that performing more risk analysis can make engineers more overoptimistic instead of more realistic.

Potential explanations all come from behavioral economics: cognitive biases that affect how we think and make decisions. (I've written about some of these biases and how they affect security decisions, and there's a great book on the topic as well.)

First, there's a control bias. We tend to underestimate risks in situations where we are in control, and overestimate risks in situations when we are not in control. Driving versus flying is a common example. This bias becomes stronger with familiarity, involvement and a desire to experience control, all of which increase with increased risk analysis. So the more risk analysis, the greater the control bias, and the greater the underestimation of risk.

The second explanation is the availability heuristic. Basically, we judge the importance or likelihood of something happening by the ease of bringing instances of that thing to mind. So we tend to overestimate the probability of a rare risk that is seen in a news headline, because it is so easy to imagine. Likewise, we underestimate the probability of things occurring that don't happen to be in the news. A corollary of this phenomenon is that, if we're asked to think about a series of things, we overestimate the probability of the last thing thought about because it's more easily remembered.

According to Jørgensen's reasoning, people tend to do software risk analysis by thinking of the severe risks first, and then the more manageable risks. So the more risk analysis that's done, the less severe the last risk imagined, and thus the greater the underestimation of the total risk.

The third explanation is similar: the peak end rule. When thinking about a total experience, people tend to place too much weight on the last part of the experience. In one experiment, people had to hold their hands under cold water for one minute. Then, they had to hold their hands under cold water for one minute again, then keep their hands in the water for an additional 30 seconds while the temperature was gradually raised. When asked about it afterwards, most people preferred the second option to the first, even though the second had more total discomfort. (An intrusive medical device was redesigned along these lines, resulting in a longer period of discomfort but a relatively comfortable final few seconds. People liked it a lot better.) This means, like the second explanation, that the least severe last risk imagined gets greater weight than it deserves.

Fascinating stuff. But the biases produce the reverse effect when it comes to movie-plot threats. The more you think about far-fetched terrorism possibilities, the more outlandish and scary they become, and the less control you think you have. This causes us to overestimate the risks.

Think about this in the context of terrorism. If you're asked to come up with threats, you'll think of the significant ones first. If you're pushed to find more, if you hire science-fiction writers to dream them up, you'll quickly get into the low-probability movie plot threats. But since they're the last ones generated, they're more available. (They're also more vivid -- science fiction writers are good at that -- which also leads us to overestimate their probability.) They also suggest we're even less in control of the situation than we believed. Spending too much time imagining disaster scenarios leads people to overestimate the risks of disaster.

I'm sure there's also an anchoring effect in operation. This is another cognitive bias, where people's numerical estimates of things are affected by numbers they've most recently thought about, even random ones. People who are given a list of three risks will think the total number of risks are lower than people who are given a list of 12 risks. So if the science fiction writers come up with 137 risks, people will believe that the number of risks is higher than they otherwise would -- even if they recognize the 137 number is absurd.

Jørgensen does not believe risk analysis is useless in software projects, and I don't believe scenario brainstorming is useless in counterterrorism. Both can lead to new insights and, as a result, a more intelligent analysis of both specific risks and general risk. But an over-reliance on either can be detrimental.

Last month, at the 2009 Homeland Security Science & Technology Stakeholders Conference in Washington D.C., science fiction writers helped the attendees think differently about security. This seems like a far better use of their talents than imagining some of the zillions of ways terrorists can attack America.

---

Bruce Schneier is chief security technology officer of BT, and author of Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World.

Gear gallery: The iPhone 3GS, GPS Grandmaster and Split Personality Samsung Phone

The iPhone 3GS combines two sets of advances. The first group is available only to purchasers of the new hardware. The rest of the features are part of Apple's iPhone 3.0 software upgrade, which is offered free to those with earlier iPhones. (iPod Touch users can get the new software for $10.)

I'll talk about the hardware-based features first. As promised, Apple has indeed ramped up the speed with which the new phone performs tasks like launching apps, loading web pages, and displaying graphics. Apple claims speed boosts of up to two times of what the 3G delivers, and in some benchmarks cites even better performance. I haven't done scientific measurements, but you don't need a stopwatch to notice the new phone is zippier than its predecessor. I appreciated getting box scores faster and videos playing sooner in the MLB.com At Bat application, and it was clear that web pages loaded faster. In the case of a game like Tiger Woods Golf, the boost is significant enough to make me more likely to play when I don't have much time.

Photos were a weak spot in previous iPhones — they weighed in at a measly 2 megapixels — but the iPhone 3GS has a 3-megapixel, autofocusing camera that's more sensitive and allows you to choose an object to focus on by tapping on it. (No zoom, though. Bummer.) Better yet, the camera also records quite creditable video. After you shoot your clip, there's a dead-simple function for instant editing, after which you can send your masterpiece to YouTube or Mobile Me with a single tap.

WIRED Faster. More storage. Better camera, with video recording capability. Search encompasses more data, not just one app at a time. Voice navigation. Feature-rich iPhone 3.0 software is free to current iPhone users.

TIRED Multitasking still limited. No tethering or MMS support yet for AT&T users. Recent iPhone 3G customers must pay a fortune to upgrade.

$300 (32-GB version, with 2-year contract), apple.com

Read our full iPhone 3GS review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.:

TomTom's Go Live 740 is a new breed of web-ready GPS in which web access seems like a well-integrated enhancement, not a useless afterthought.

At almost half a pound it sits comfortably in hand, and its colorful 4.3-inch 320 × 240 touch screen is both bright and responsive to repeated pokes. And with its 2GB of memory, microSD port, and integrated Bluetooth we were able to smoothly navigate between a number of tasks, such as listening to music and using the integrated speaker for hands-free calls while paired with a cell phone.

WIRED Svelte, smooth-to-touch design and construction. Decent signal acquisition times (average of four minutes on a cold start). Sports both Bluetooth audio and file exchange capabilities. Intuitive, touch-based interface and menu tree. Allows instant messaging with other TomTom users. Comes with car charger, dash mount, USB cradle charger. It feels ... sexy.

TIRED Navigational interface displays waaay too much information at one time (speed, distance, current time, arrival time, current street, next turn, distance to turn, etc.). Sketchy voice recognition doesn't cut it. Web-enabled services are only free for the first 90 days ($10/mo. afterwards). Speaker would occasionally sound garbled, mispronounce common street names.

$370, TomTom.com

Read our full TomTom Go Live 740 review

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.:

The coolest trick the Alias 2 can pull off is changing from a number pad to a text keyboard as you flip it open. It's a cool trick and makes the Alias 2 somewhat like the Optimus Maximus of phones. This keyboard beats a touchscreen any day of the week; the little mounds offer tactile feedback not found in any iDevice.

In stark contrast to the phone's E Ink deftness other parts of the Alias 2 are decidedly girlish and silly. An included theme for the phone evokes a she-teen boudoir that counts colorful Trapper-Keepers, potted plants and a rainbow peeking in the window among its touches. Access the menu, and the room comes alive, with menu items as knick-knacks, recent calls as a dorm message board and utilities in a toolbox on the floor. Fortunately, you can change this, if you dig around in settings long enough. The preinstalled ringtones are laughable, ranging from cheesy period pieces, to earsplitting high-range electronica, to faux hip-hop distilled somewhere in Seoul's equivalent of 8 Mile. Anyone with a shred of self-respect would be wise to immediately hop on the internet and download a decent Black Sabbath riff for a ringtone.

WIRED E Ink keyboard morphs button layouts when switching from phone to messaging device. Voice quality is high. Battery life is nearly six hours. Reasonably priced.

TIRED The Dear Diary feel of the interface is at odds with anyone over 13. My Room Menu theme is embarrassing. Lack of dedicated buttons leave you hunting and pecking for even the most common tasks.

$130 (with a two year contract), samsung.com

Read our full Samsung Alias 2 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.:

Size seems to matter to the folks at Amazon. While the Kindle 2 has a 6-inch (measured diagonally) e-ink screen — roughly the area of a mass-market paperback book — the DX's 9.7-inch screen resembles a page from a typical hardback. Put another way, the DX flaunts 2.5 times more display space. More text on a page means more lines and, if you prefer, a bigger font, without having to turn the page as often. What does that mean for you? It's easier to read using the DX.

By elegantly super-sizing the Kindle — and ramping up its ability to read files — Amazon has improved the best all-around e-reader available. But the hefty price tag doesn't fit Jeff Bezo's stated philosophy of getting the best value for his customers.

WIRED Big-screen device that's even more readable than the original Kindle. PDF support is a welcome addition.

TIRED High cost of admission. Pivot mode has hair trigger. Southpaws will find the reader cumbersome.

$490, amazon.com

Read our full Amazon.com Kindle DX review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Shaped like a small bar of shower soap, the dense, ebony Pre matches many (if not all) of the features of its chief competitor, the iPhone. But in one key aspect, the Pre does the iPhone one better. While a lot of the Pre's features — a bright 3.1-inch touchscreen manipulated by taps, swipes and pinches; apps sold by third parties in an open online bazaar; integration of e-mail, contacts and calendar — are now standard in 3G smartphones, Palm also lets users keep multiple applications running simultaneously.

Its long-term prospects, though, hinge on whether or not all those third-party apps will show up, whether Sprint can satisfy users, and whether Apple has something up its sleeve that counters the Palm's gambits. Also, of course, the Pre has to prove stable and reliable. (Our test unit occasionally suffered opening-day jitters, including a crash that was fixed only by taking out the removable battery.)

WIRED Great look and superb feel. Well-conceived OS with multitasking and instant notification. Physical keyboard. Utilizes iTunes to load and refresh content.

TIRED Multitasking puts a big suck on the battery. Sprint exclusivity will be annoying to Palm-philes on a contract with AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile. Keyboard is puny. If Apple blocks the handset's access to iTunes, Pre users are hosed.

$200 (with two year contract), palm.com

Read our full Palm Pre review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Demonstrating that it's serious about making a run at the top-end offerings from Canon and Nikon, the K-7 bows with a spankin' new 14.6 megapixel, 28.1mm (diagonal) CMOS image sensor and an updated Prime II processor. This enables HD-video capture, built-in high dynamic range shooting, a 77-segment metering system, pre- and post-production filtering and distortion correction, all in a form factor more than 10 percent smaller (and actually easier to handle) than its predecessor, the K20D.

By and large, it's a super quick focusing compact image-maker — once you learn how the menu system works. But it's just a step or two behind Nikon and Canon in ease of use. In spite of that, Pentax has nearly hit a home run with the K-7. It's svelte, sturdy, fairly easy to operate, has a great range of available lenses and a feature set that's unmatched at this price. Think of it as a solid double off the wall, with an RBI.

WIRED Speedy 5.2 frames per second. Super-sturdy construction. Lots of pro features at a prosumer price. Improved battery life and 100 percent field-of-view viewfinder. Faster, more robust processor. Live View with contrast focus and face detection. Shoots 5.2 frames-per-second with shutter speed up to 1/8000. The 77-segment metering system and 11-point AF system are quick and spot on. Internal mechanical shake reduction.

TIRED User interface needs to be simpler and more unified.

$1,300 (body only), pentax.com

Read our full Pentax K-7 DSLR review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The A600's 21.5-inch screen (1920 x 1080 pixels) is big and dazzlingly bright — so much so that Lenovo includes an automatic screen-dimming system designed to prevent eyestrain. Inside its bowels, this 25-pounder offers substantial specs: 2.13-GHz Core 2 Duo, 4 GB of RAM, and a terabyte hard drive. The ATI Radeon HD 3650 graphics card may be getting a little long in the tooth, but it's powerful enough to make the A600 more than acceptable to play all but the very latest gaming titles.

That's a lot of stuff for the price — $1,150 — and stripped-down versions of the IdeaCentre run considerably less. If you don't need the power but dig the design and screen size, the budget rendition might be an even better bet.

WIRED Very small footprint. Single-cable design is a blessing for technophobes. Swivel base makes adjustments to viewing angle easy. Six USB ports and 802.11n Wi-Fi, plus FireWire, SD and coaxial connectors.

TIRED Keyboard and mouse frequently fall asleep; difficult to awaken. Remote control overly complex and rather homely. Included games feel like an engineer on Quaaludes designed them.

$1,150 (as tested), lenovo.com

Read our full Lenovo IdeaCentre A600 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Its glossy black finish and polished Darth Vader design makes Samsung's newest Blu-ray box, the BD-P4600, stand out from every other player on the market. Well, it actually doesn't stand anywhere at all -- it comes with the metal brackets to mount it on a wall or plant it on a desktop pedestal. And like Lord Vader, this model packs some serious force with its built-in streaming for Pandora music and Netflix.

For $100 less, you could pick up Samsung's BD-P3600 a player that has all the same features as this model but comes in a non-wall-mountable chassis. But really, would you want to watch The Empire Strikes Back on a Blu-ray player that didn't look like it was made in a dark corner of Coruscant?

WIRED High-end, spacey designed Blu-ray player is loaded with features include ability to wall mount, loads Blu-ray discs exceptional fast and offers exceptional playback.

TIRED Complicated initial setup for its feature set. Cramped underside port-connection compartment. Competitively over priced for what it delivers.

$500, samsung.com

Read our full Samsung BD-P4600 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Let's cut to the chase and hit you with the sell: The MSI X340 is a MacBook Air at half the price. Interested? Read on.

For starters, the X340 (aka the X Slim) is considerably better muscled than your typical netbook, featuring a glossy 13.4-inch (1366 x 768 pixels) screen, 320-GB hard drive and 2 GB of RAM. Like Apple's ultralight, it's incredibly thin — about 0.8 inches at its thickest — and it actually weighs slightly less than the Air, just 2.9 pounds.

Before you start salivating over the prospects of a half-price Air, note that Apple's laptop does trump the X340 in a few significant ways. The Air includes Nvidia graphics, while the X340 is stuck with Intel's integrated chipset.

The screens are night and day: The Air is renowned for having one of the brightest LCDs available, while the X340 is merely average in this department.

WIRED Gorgeous design; slap an Apple sticker over the MSI logo and no one will ever know. Performance bests most netbooks, though it's hardly top-notch. Surprisingly good graphics and responsiveness. Includes the usual goodies: 1.3-MP webcam, Bluetooth, 802.11n.

TIRED Flaky touchpad. Disappointing battery life.

$900 (as tested), us.msi.com

Read our full MSI X340 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The first day we took the car for a spin we kept the front-mounted 5.9-liter 470 BHP vehicle on a strict diet of city driving: no freeways, no tightly coiled back roads. Trudging through heavy traffic almost felt sadistic — kind of like taking a thoroughbred racehorse and giving it polio. But after exiting the city limits and tearing down a stretch of asphalt connecting San Francisco with Napa Valley, the DB9 snapped up, greedily devouring 90-degree curves with just a hint of oversteer.

WIRED Fast like a sports car, more refined than a quart of 40-weight. Gorgeous; induces whiplash in head-turning bystanders. Zippy acceleration for a GT — you can't front on a 4.6-second zero-to-60 time ... unless you're armed with a Ferrari or a Bentley.

TIRED Hood-release switch located in impossibly hard to find/reach nook (as if an Aston owner would ever do that). iPod access tres difficult to set up. Chugs gas like an ASU freshman rips beer-bong hits. Back seat harder to get into than MIT.

$209,000 as tested, astonmartin.com

Read our full Aston Martin DB9 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

If you don't mind looking like an extra in a 1-800-Dentist commercial and have no reservations about looking like a crazy person yammering to yourself, the Plantronics Voyager Pro may be the perfect Bluetooth headset for you.

This headset is big, bulky and (surprise, surprise) silly looking. The 3-inch boom extending out toward your mouth is the main culprit of these crimes against style. But despite being tacky, the Voyager Pro delivers strong performance. It's easy to use, withstands drops, bumps and haphazardly tossed laptops, has decent battery life and pairs effortlessly with a range of smartphones, including the iPhone.

WIRED Easy to use. Super sound quality. Stays attached to your ear. You will look like a telephone operator from the '50s.

TIRED You will look like a telephone operator from the '50s.

$100, plantronics.com

Read our full Plantronics Voyager Pro Bluetooth Headset review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

After a few grim years ceded to the iMac, PC-based all-in-one desktops are making an LL Cool J-esque comeback. Their next move: Make the switch from semi-luxe gear designed for highly aesthetic environments to the megacheap world that the netbook has built.

Specs look exceedingly promising at first: 250 GB of hard drive space, 2 GB of RAM, integrated Wi-Fi, DVD burner, an SD card slot and a very bright 19-inch touchscreen display. If nothing else, it's one of the best-looking touchscreens (non-capacitive; a stylus works better than your finger) we've seen at this screen size.

But the Achilles' heel of the Wind Top is its baffling choice of an Atom 330 processor to power these guts. Although the dual-core 330 is known as the "fast" version of the Atom (it draws 8 watts instead of the 2.5 watts used by the netbook standard Atom N270 and has double the L2 cache), it's still woefully inadequate for a computer this ambitious.

WIRED Amazingly affordable and loaded to the gills. Touchscreen makes this a perfect kiddie computer. Slim profile lets it fit just about anywhere. Cuter than a box of puppies.

TIRED Performance problems dog the user at every turn. Flashing blue hard-drive activity light is front and center, terribly distracting and impossible to cover up. Bundled keyboard and mouse are beyond cheap. Webcam aim can't be adjusted.

$590 (as tested), us.msi.com

Read our full MSI Wind Top AE1900 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The new Chrome Soyuz is an ambitious (if slightly crazed) reimagining of the urban commuter backpack. It's a weird hybrid of a river-rafting drybag and laptop case, all contained within a stylish wedge of black and red nylon.

It sits comfortably behind your back, letting you weave through traffic on your fixie without fear of snagging on the projecting mirrors of double-parked delivery trucks. It can ride between your knees on a crowded train. And it tucks neatly below an airplane seat, leaving just enough space on either side to squeeze in your feet so you can stretch your legs.

WIRED Wedge design keeps load balanced, trim and compact. Expandable waterproof compartment shrinks down to nothing when empty. Heavy-duty 1,000-denier cordura nylon withstands abuse. Main compartments are completely waterproof. Heavy-duty metal strap locks make adjustment easy. Glorious enameled metal "Chrome" logo.

TIRED Narrow openings + deep compartments = where the hell did my keys go? Not quite big enough to contain a six-pack (unless you put the bottles in one by one). Padding traps heat, steaming your back on long rides. No hip belt. Pricier than a metric ton of pig iron.

$180, chromebags.com

Read our full Chrome Soyuz Backpack review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The pristine fidelity these headphones deliver is the result of a dual-armature layout, which bathes your tympanic membranes in accurate audio reproduction. The earpiece's dual drivers have the added benefit of propping up the typically flaccid base that seems to plague many other in-ear monitors.

The only major downside is that great sound comes at a considerable price — $230 to be precise. For most people, that's likely to be as much (or more) than you spent on your MP3 player. But as my neglected Audio Technicas can attest, in this case, you undoubtedly get what you pay for.

WIRED Exquisite sound reproduction in an insanely small package. Handy in-flight attenuator saves you from Captain Blowhard's eardrum-exploding announcements. Fuller, richer base and wider frequency response than previous UEs.

TIRED Spendiferous. Cable noise will distract joggers or anyone planning to use the headphones while exercising. Despite its redesign, the pocket case is still too small to fit all the accouterments.

$230, ultimateears.com

Read our full Ultimate Ears 700 Noise-Isolating Earphones review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Digeo's Moxi HD DVR sports a slick, Emmy-winning (seriously) user interface and all the commercial-skipping accouterments of competitors like TiVo. It even ditches a monthly bill in favor of flat pricing and grants access to online video and music.

The Moxi's stunning high-def UI is full of slick transitions and responsive performance. Unfortunately, sleek visuals don't conquer all. Basics like surfing through the program guide (or accessing a previously recorded show) took a lot of hunting and pecking through a menu tree. Finding pre-recorded shows and getting them to play took searching, highlighting, selecting Play, confirming that you selected Play, and then finally watching.

WIRED No monthly bills. Sleek high-def interface has nifty animations and transitions. Hard drive expandable to 1 TB for power recorders. Dual tuners let you watch one show while recording another. Offers a whopping 1.5-hour buffer time per HD channel.

TIRED Hefty entry fee. Online video chops not quite up to snuff. No dedicated Guide button on the remote?! Unnecessarily complicated menus. Programming schedules are displayed in cramped vertical list instead of friendly grid.

$800, moxi.com

Read our full Digeo Moxi HD DVR review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

We're a little dismayed by the E71x. The device is almost identical to the E71: same 3.2-megapixel camera, same .04-inch profile, same vibrant 320 x 240 QVGA display, same business apps and multimedia functionality. The operating system is slightly tweaked so there are some differences in transmissions and page loading. But as a whole, the phone is relatively unchanged.

These are the key differences: a new $100 price tag (good), a black paint job (badass) and the omission of our favorite feature from the original E71 (ugly). We're talking about the two separate, customizable home screens, something we absolutely loved about the O.G. E71. One screen was designed for business, the other for personal use. It was a great function: You could literally edit spreadsheets from 9 to 5 on one screen, then toggle over to the other and watch a couple of episodes of 30 Rock on the media player.

WIRED Windows interface means you don't have to learn a new menu convention to browse your old files. Dumping the data of only one (or all) of your multiple PCs takes less than five mouse clicks. You can set up a password in the toolbar.

TIRED Dock and multi-PC backup capability only provided with 500-GB version. Full hard-drive recovery requires booting from a CD. Windows-only means it fails to bridge the gap in inter-OSial households.

$100 with 2-year contract, att.com

Read our full Nokia E71x Smartphone review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The Replica comes with bare-bones software and strikes a good balance between peace of mind and individual-user control.

After the hard drive is plugged in, the Replica starts mirroring your computer's content. The startup process is short, taking only a couple of minutes, though the actual backup is a time-gobbling endeavor. (It took us about four hours to transfer 130 GB of data). A blue light on the top of the Replica's case blinks continuously while data is being transferred. It's also stealthy for a hard drive, emitting only a quiet whir when working at full speed.

WIRED Windows interface means you don't have to learn a new menu convention to browse your old files. Dumping the data of only one (or all) of your multiple PCs takes less than five mouse clicks. You can set up a password in the toolbar.

TIRED Dock and multi-PC backup capability only provided with 500-GB version. Full hard-drive recovery requires booting from a CD. Windows-only means it fails to bridge the gap in inter-OSial households.

$200, seagate.com

Read our full Seagate Replica 500GB review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Panasonic's new HDC-TM300 shoots in "Full HD," marketing speak for 1080p — aka 1080 x 1920 resolution with progressive-scan video. Translation? Stunning Blu-ray-level video that should more than lives up to the most critical expectations of prosumers and video enthusiasts.

The highlight of this shooter is the high-def footage. Not only does the phenomenal zoom reel in distant objects, but thanks to the triple sensors and quality lens, it nails far-off details perfectly. The architectural features of distant buildings we shot in downtown San Francisco showed up like we were standing on the window ledge -- not in a park three blocks away.

WIREDReproduces colors like a Crayola factory. Closeups pop with sharp, clear details. Nice performance in low light. Einstein-smart automatic shooting features are like having your own DP built into the camera. 32-GB onboard memory is expandable via SDHC slot. Great zoom tackles action better than Jason Statham.

TIRED Fast pans in bright daylight turns up more artifacts than a Mayan ruin. May require second mortgage.

$1,300, Panasonic.com

Read our full Panasonic HDC-TM300 HD Camcorder review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

In the aftermath (heh heh) of the bass-heavy Beats by Dre Studio headphones, Monster decided to pack the Doctor's finicky sound quality specs into two tiny earbuds. Naturally, audiophiles (including myself) were skeptical. Sure the Beats suffered from shoddy construction and fell apart after a few months of ownership, but they also provided some of the best bass we've ever heard in a set of cans.

Sure enough, the bass response from these things is rich and full. The lowest frequencies rumble with a force akin to the thud of a decent subwoofer. Keep in mind these are not miniaturized 12-inch Kickers designed to blow your eardrums out. But for a device that is essentially a tiny speaker with no auxiliary power, they're superb — especially when compared to the white earcruds doled out by Apple with every iDevice.

WIRED Excellent all-around frequency definition and particularly impressive bass response. Monster’s durable, ingenious anti-tangle cable means jumbled cords are a distant unpleasant memory.

TIRED The bright red cable is slightly ostentatious. Peak bass only hits at earwax shattering volumes.

$150, beatsbydre.com

Read our full Monster Beats By Dre Tour High-Resolution In-Ear Headphones review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The UE-11 Pros are packed with four, count 'em, four drivers: There's a double dose of bass, one for the midrange and one chiming the highs. If you're looking for the most precise, separated sound possible, then this is the earphone for you. Throughout the play list I heard clarity and detail in the music I'd never heard before. This rang especially true with classical tunes — it literally feels like sitting in a symphony hall and having every instrument speak directly to you. To get that kind of superior fidelity you'll certainly have to pay the piper. But you'll really love the music while Rome — or your bank account — burns.

WIRED Most clear, separated and detailed sound.

TIRED Try convincing your spouse you need a $1,150 set of headphones.

$1,150, ultimateears.com

Read our full UE-11 Pro review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The slate-gray, high-impact polymer body houses three LEDs capable of blasting out a peak 270 lumens for 15 minutes, or a more useful and long-lasting 90 lumens for 60 minutes. Both settings have an emergency low-power 25-lumen mode (equivalent in brightness to most common household D-cell flashlights) for an additional 60 minutes.

WIRED High-power pro flashlight pumps out awesome illumination and recharges ridiculously fast. Flashlight will outlive you. Seriously brilliant, blinding — a boon for flashlight junkies.

TIRED Pricy front-end investment. Comes with a 12-volt car charger.

$170, 511tactical.com

Read our full 5.11 Tactical Light review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

In our tests, we threw all things digital at this 68-pound slab. And while it does not perform as superbly as its higher-price brethren from Sony, Samsung and Sharp, it still shows off a completely acceptable high-def image and above-average sound.

So where has Westinghouse cut corners? Oh, let's see. How about the borderline embarrassing 1000:1 contrast ratio? In a well-lit room, the screen looks more washed out than a warehouse full of Maytags. And even though the set offers the 120-Hz spec, fast motion still looks a bit blurred.

WIRED High resolution and decent sound at incredible rock-bottom price. Convenience features integrated into menu. Quality remote not found in higher-priced TVs.

TIRED Displays some pixelated speckled noise in darker and mid-hue images. Analog-station reproduction is downright blurry. No worries though — analog TV has flatlined.

$700, Westinghouse.com

Read our full Westinghouse TX-42F450S review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

It's not quite a netbook, not quite an ultralight PC. Whatever it is, Samsung's NC20 is a dazzling feat of engineering: an extremely usable 12-inch laptop with epic battery life, impressive specs and a downright mystifyingly affordable price tag.

But the NC20 doesn't make depressing tradeoffs to achieve those scores. Battery life is three hours, 40 minutes (22 percent longer than the S10) and weight is just 3.3 pounds, comparable to the Asus Eee PC 1000H. All that and you get a 12.1-inch LCD, too, instead of the usual 10.2-inch netbook display.

WIRED Everything a netbook should be: Offers the best performance available from a computer this portable and inexpensive. Very usable keyboard. Good quality audio. Includes three USB ports, 1.3-megapixel webcam, and SD card slot.

TIRED LCD could be a touch brighter and quality sharper. Chassis design is a bit boring.

$550, samsung.com

Read our full Samsung NC 20 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Pure Digital's Flip has proven that it's possible to build a super-small flash memory camcorder and offer it up for fewer than two hundred bucks. But there are tradeoffs with going small and cheap, like optics and battery life. Canon takes a completely different tack with its newest solid-state cam, the Vixia HF S10, which delivers some fantastically brilliant moving pictures, but at a stiff cost.

Out in the field, auto focus and auto exposure were both very impressive in a wide range of situations, from the intense brightness of the beach to shady and contrasty venues. Every camera suffers indoors, thanks to low light, and everyone complains about it, but the S10 did a credible job with low-light shots and it's clearly better than previous cams of this ilk.

WIRED Improved audio quality. Big, bright lens. Speedy processor. Lots of creative control options. More intuitive menus than previous generation Canon camcorders.

TIRED Loose lens cover noisier than cutlery caught in a garbage disposal. Still images come off looking a bit overexposed.

$1,300, canon.com

Read our full Canon Vixia HF S10 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Dry your eyes, plasma junkies. The untimely demise of Pioneer's Kuro line doesn't mean you'll have to forgo those deliciously deep blacks and theater-perfect colors for long. In fact, even as the last of the Pioneer Kuro Elites make its way into a few lucky U.S. homes, a new lineup of HDTV sets are already poised to seize the plasma king's vacant throne.

Key to this plasma's visual appeal is its integrated THX mode. In addition to blessing various audio components, the home-theater ninjas at THX began bestowing plasma and LCD certification a few years back. Each set is subjected to approximately 400 individual tests, ranging from evaluations in signal processing to luminosity. Basically, the idea behind G10's THX mode is to recreate the precise color gamut filmmakers use during the in-studio post-production process.

WIRED Mind-boggling blacks with tons of detail. THX mode is a godsend for movie buffs. Integrated SD card slots transform your plasma into a giant digital photo frame. Amazing color saturation.

TIRED THX mode is bit dim for brightly lit rooms. Ethernet connectivity is nice for VieraCast, but Wi-Fi would've been better. Three HDMI ports (two in the back, one on the side) don't cut it. More power-hungry than LCD TVs. Where's the PiP?

$1,300, panasonic.com

Read our full Panasonic TC-P42G10 Viera G10 Series Plasma review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The PogoPlug is a device, which looks like a supersized AC adapter, plugs into almost any external hard drive (even a USB stick) and then pumps that content onto the web, giving you access anywhere in the world you can get an internet signal — including your iPhone.

But the PogoPlug isn't without the occasional snafu and annoyances. Only image files are available for preview. PDF, Word documents or even HTML files have to be downloaded before viewing. Worse yet, when we unhooked the device, it caused our PC to crash twice in a row. We're still not entirely sure if this was due to a glitch in the PogoPlug or in Windows.

WIRED Easy to use. Simple setup. Great utility: I must be able to access my collection of LOLcat photos from anywhere. The iPhone app is solid software.

TIRED No wireless mode ... yet. Poor security — it's a wise idea to keep those tax returns or bank documents off the PogoPlug. Computer crashes are deeply flummoxing. The iPhone is currently the only mobile device that supports remote access.

$100, pogoplug.com

Read our full Cloud Engines PogoPlug review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

NatureMill's Pro edition is an indoor composter we can pretty much dig. Using minimal electricity, a small motor turns a heavy-duty mixing bar, heats the mixing chamber (no sunlight needed) and powers an air pump that works with a carbon air filter to help reduce smell (each filter lasts four to five years).

Just add starter dirt, drop in some sawdust pellets to combat odors and dump your food scraps in. NatureMill recommends that you cut organic material into 4-inch bits before plopping it in. We didn't, but aside from the motor making some gnarly noises, it didn't seem to affect compost production. NatureMill's Pro version also features some automatic activation. We were able to leave ours sitting for weeks without pushing the button even once; it mixed and heated itself just fine.

WIRED Stainless steel mixing bar made short work of uncut banana peels. Relatively small and exceptionally lightweight = easy to stash and transport. Foot pedal eliminates lid touching. Mighty Morphin' Power Saver: only draws 5 kwh a month (roughly 50 cents on an average electric bill). Not as much of an eyesore as it could be and it's available in a range of colors (including, you guess it, green).

TIRED Little to no stench — until top opens (that's hard to remedy, and burger/fish/salad remnants smell worse than a dead wildebeest doused in Eau D'Bile). Polypropylene housing is light, but may not last forever. Disposable carbon filters reduce smell, but also cut down on the green factor. Regular maintenance (scraping the mix chamber walls) isn't fun.

$400, naturemill.com

Read our full Nature Mill Indoor Composter — Pro Edition review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

You can get away with a lot if you're beautiful. Such is the case with the new Porsche Design P'9522 phone. In some ways, it's a wonderful and capable cellphone, but in most others, it's dumber than the gorgeous block of aluminum it was machined from.

Someone forgot to include e-mail — an absence that had us trying to mar the Porsche phone's scratchproof screen with claws of rage. Unfortunately, that screen is tough, so the P'9522 will be lauded and drooled over — despite our many gripes with it.

WIRED Gorgeous. Touchscreen interface is easy to understand, if limited and frustrating. Preloaded ringtones include the roaring engines of the 911 GT3 and Turbo. Its 5-megapixel camera has autofocus and captures clean, vivid images. LED flash doubles as a flashlight. Unlocking the phone with its fingerprint scanner is very MI5.

TIRED Fingerprint scanner is also very POS: Who thought it would be a good idea to use fingerprints to access a device you're likely holding in one hand while juggling multiple other tasks? Preloaded ringtones include bad German techno. Touchscreen is deeply frustrating. Seriously — no e-mail?

$800, porschedesign.com

Read our full Porsche Design P'9522 Phone review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Weighing just 140 grams, the handset offers some of the best optics we've ever found crammed into a cell phone: sharp, noiseless pics (3,264 × 2,448 pixels) and decent image stabilizer punctuate video capture that puts full-figured handicams from 2008 to shame. You can even shoot VGA at 30 fps or QVGA at a whopping 120 fps (yes, 120!), including slow motion footage in 1/4 and 1/8 speeds.

Amazing, sure, but not a picture perfect phone. The i8510 functions almost exactly like a standard point-and-shoot, except for the zoom button, which is placed inexplicably, and awkwardly at the bottom of the device.

WIRED Beaucoup codecs, including — wait for it — DivX! 2.8-inch screen excellent for playback. Intuitive photo/video editing suite. Equally intuitive navigation. Automatic lens cover. MicroSD slot good for 16 GB (enough for aspiring Scorseses to go epic). All the usual smartphone suspects: 3G, Wi-Fi, USB, Bluetooth, accelerometer, GPS. Decent earbuds with ample cord. 3.5mm audio jack. Most excellent: TV-out capability.

TIRED Side-mounted headphone jack makes phone harder to pocket. Optical control pad is a tad sensitive (between us and you — we don't want to hurt its feelings). Most bogus: Metal shell retains enough scratches to fill a DJ Shadow album. A little on the clunky side. Most bogus: Flash needs to be brighter.

$500, samsung.com

Read our full Samsung i8510 INNOV8 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

As the successor to Logitech's G11 and G15, this huge hunk of plastic comes with gaming hardwired in its DNA. Like its relatives, it has a blocky aesthetic that harkens to the days of the Model M. There are, however, a handful of very modern flourishes that make this latest G-board a distinctly modern marvel.

In the end, the G19's main drawback is the same one that has plagued fancy keyboards since the days of yore: It's freaking huge. That swiveling LCD? It actually requires a tiny onboard Linux computer to run, which in turn requires its own power source. Should you choose to make use of the two self-powered USB ports, you'll potentially have more wires shooting out of this thing than your computer.

WIRED More customizable than a box of Legos. Two self-powered USB ports. Dedicated D-pad and menu keys let you control LCD directly from the keyboard. Convenient cable management lanes carved into bottom of unit lessens clutter … slightly. Choose-your-own-color adventure with adjustable backlighting. Keys are pleasantly clicky and responsive.

TIRED Limited desktop space? This is not your keyboard. Price tag to match gargantuan footprint. Requires power brick to run. After its novelty wears off, built-in LCD becomes more of a distraction than a useful tool.

$200, Logitech.com

Read our full Logitech G19 Keyboard review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Want to catch the last episode of Battlestar Galactica while hanging out in the local java joint? Going to download a season of The Simpsons for viewing on the plane? Giving an impromptu screening of your vacation photos at a friend's house? The Mini 10 is your machine.

But there are infuriating shortcomings to the Mini 10. The trackpad is one of the worst we've seen. Dell's decision to integrate the buttons underneath the pad itself makes using it both unpredictable and challenging. When you click on a button, the cursor may hit the target, wiggle off a centimeter or two, or teleport off into a remote corner of your screen. While it got easier to use after a week of practice, our advice is to invest in a cheap travel mouse.

WIRED Bright, responsive screen. Integrated 1.3-megapixel webcam. Not gunked up with crapware. HDMI-out port shows charming, if unwarranted, optimism about the netbook's video capabilities. Light weight: Just 2.6 pounds.

TIRED Infuriating trackpad with integrated buttons hidden underneath. Excessively glossy screen produces distracting glare. Windows XP is starting to look pretty tired. What, no solid-state option? Despite the HDMI port, the netbook can't deliver HD video without fits and starts.

$470 (as tested), dell.com

Read our full Dell Mini 10 Netbook review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The new 370Z upgrades come in the form of a sexy body with a hood, hatch and doors of lightweight aluminum and a chassis significantly stiffer to reduce performance-robbing flex. To make up for the beefier chassis, Nissan's engineers pared more than 225 pounds from the rest of the car — even the audio system lost 3.5 pounds — and the result is a car that weighs 88 pounds less than the previous 350Z.

Every model gets the same 332-horsepower V6, an engine that makes this Z the quickest yet with a zero-to-60 time of 4.6 seconds. That kind of performance, however, is contingent on your skills as a driver. If you don't posses Lewis Hamilton levels of talent don't fret. The Z's abundant power and excellent handling will let you think you do.

WIRED Insanely easy to drive, insanely quickly. You'll run out of nerve before you run out of grip. Rev-matching transmission makes heel-toe shifting more obsolete than a gramophone.

TIRED Rev-matching transmission makes heel-toe shifting more obsolete than a vinyl record. Tympani-like tire roar, piccolo-like exhaust note. Hummer-sized blind spots make lane changes a gun-it-and-go-for-it leap of faith. Fake brushed-aluminum interior bits don't fool anyone.

$33,970 (as tested), nissanusa.com

Read our full Nissan 2009 370Z review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Using the BookReader is simple: Just plunk a novel on the platen, punch a button and you're relaxing to the dulcet sounds of Jill, a computerized voice with a voracious appetite for literature. All the menus read themselves off when you mouse over them, and they have keyboard shortcuts, which is useful if you have reduced vision. Jill is pretty good at recognizing words. We tried out several books, including one heavy with medical jargon, and she held her own with just a few exceptions.

Useful as it is, we could not help noticing that the BookReader seems to be slightly undercooked. A few of the buttons don't really do anything, and you can't customize the dictionary to alter Jill's interpretation of commonly used, but horribly flubbed words, acronyms or numbers. The unit seems to be terribly overpriced as well. Plustek wants $600 for the BookReader, despite the fact that the OpticBook only costs $250 — and has its own text-to-speech function.

WIRED Reads books to you at the push of a button. Platen glass goes right to the edge to accommodate books without strain. Turns text into MP3s for portability. Includes several accessibility features to help the visually impaired.

TIRED The included software lacks polish and seems rushed. Squat, ugly looks make it seem at home in a cubicle farm. The reader voice may not screw up often, but when it does, it's a doozy. High price nears gouging territory.

$600, plustek.com

Read our full Plustek BookReader V100 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Apple's newest Shuffle (almost 50 percent smaller than previous Shuffles) could easily be mistaken for a stick of Trident, features no buttons, and pimps voice-identification technology. But even given its apparent readily consumable stature, there are a few features on the Shuffle that are a bit tough to swallow.

The biggest gripe on the 4-GB Shuffle we tested is definitely the control set. First off, it's completely counterintuitive; Apple says you can easily use it without looking. We still don't have the hang of it after a few days of testing. What's worse, if you have a decent set of earbuds (say, a pair of Shures or Ultimate Ears) you're totally hosed — you'll have to endure the 'buds that come with the Shuffle or pick up specially made third-party headphones. Our recommendation? Pick up a new Shuffle only if you're prepared to deal with proprietary headphones and ambiguous controls.

WIRED Thumb-drive size. Can double as a tie clip. Battery life lasts for 12 freaking hours. Short USB sync cord is sexy. Yes, we'll admit, it's another beautifully designed piece of hardware from Apple. Battery bonked out after 11 constant hours of blasting Thunderstruck on loop.

TIRED Proprietary headphones required. Control set awkward to use, hard to get used to. So small, it nearly gets lost in the packaging it comes in.

$80, apple.com

Read our full Apple iPod Shuffle 3rd Gen review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Rather than foam, gel or compressed-air cushioning, the soles on Newtons have a series of "actuator lugs" just below the ball of the foot. The lugs are designed to help encourage you to land on your forefoot, to protect that part of the foot, and (best yet) to propel you forward. When you land, the lugs push into hollow chambers in the midsole. This cushions your landing, and helps make it comfy to land midsole or forefoot rather than on the heel as you might be accustomed. As your foot moves forward, these lugs then essentially lever out, and as you lift your foot, they return the energy by pushing up and out in the same direction as your stride. Newton claims this makes them more efficient than traditional foam or gel soles that simply absorb energy but don't return it.

WIRED So cozy they're like a Snuggie for your feet. Actuator lugs get you off your heels better than a La-Z-Boy. Lightweight at 10.2 ounces. Designed for all stride types. Stomps cold weather like global warming, and keeps out the drizzle for shizzle.

TIRED Not waterproof. Worse on single-track trails than a skateboard. $175??? OMG, for that much money I could just pay somebody to run for me.

$175, newtonrunning.com

Read our full Newton All Weather Trainer review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The Firebird features a hybrid design — using 2.5-inch hard drives (two 320-GB models) and dual graphics cards originally designed for laptops — but powers it all with a desktop CPU and desktop-sized DIMMs. As with a laptop, wireless is built in, but the power supply is not: To save on wattage, HP breaks out the (enormous) power adapter instead of integrating it into the box.

As cool as the Firebird is on the whole, it isn't without some foibles. The inclusion of an ExpressCard slot is on the baffling-to-useless side, and the external power supply (it's huge) is more annoying to deal with than it sounds. But our biggest gripe is that the Firebird's streamlined shell means it includes no front-mounted ports at all, not even a single USB slot for your thumb drive. Seriously HP, even the Mac Pro finds room for that.

WIRED Amazingly quiet and conscientious in its power consumption. Outstanding design; belongs on top of the desk, not beneath it. Solid all-around performance at a fair price.

TIRED No front USB port. Curvy design means you can't put anything on top of the case. Functionally locked down, with no real upgrade path.

$2,100 (as tested), hp.com

Read our full HP Firebird 803 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

I shouldn't love this truck. I should hate it. I purposely do not own a car, and this all-black behemoth represents everything I hate about SUV culture: conspicuous consumption, insensitivity to our rapidly shrinking world and crowded cities, middle finger raised at global warming.

You could slap a cold fusion generator under Big Poppa Cadillac's hood and the first two issues would still apply, but I was kind of wrong about that last one. Have you ever seen Godzilla vs. Megalon? Where Godzilla fights on behalf of the people of Japan against a giant rhinoceros/cockroach? Sure, Tokyo's favorite monster still smashes a bunch of buildings and steps on some people, but he's trying to be good. Same goes for this Hybrid Chromedaddy.

WIRED Decent pickup for a motorized bomb shelter. Combined ABS and regenerative braking system do a terrific job of hauling the beast down from speed. Trick motorized step makes it easy for shorties to climb into your rolling condo.

TIRED Thing has a car phone. No, not Bluetooth, but an actual phone built into infotainment system. (It's actually just Onstar, but there was no other option for hands-free calling.) What is this, 1989? Cadillac — God love 'em — uses the fact that this is a hybrid as an excuse to bling up the truck even more: Hybrid badges are plastered on every hard surface, on the sides of the door, even the windshield. —Joe Brown

$74,085 (as tested), Cadillac.com

Read our full Cadillac Escalade Hybrid review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The Kindle 2 is zippier, with pages turning 20 percent faster (yes, you can tell the difference). It has more memory (2 gigabytes, enough for storing more than 1,500 books onboard). And it flaunts a more powerful built-in battery: Amazon claims that the Kindle lasts four to five days with the wireless on (we got 4.5 days in our first test) and up to two weeks with it off. After a week of limited wireless, my meter is around 50 percent. Amazon also says that after 500 charges, it will hold 80 percent of its original juice. That means that most users won't have to replace the battery (a $60 procedure) for about a decade or so.

Looking over the horizon, it's clear that Amazon's biggest competitor in selling digital books will be Google, whose recent agreement with publishers and authors will make it the virtually exclusive seller for millions of books in copyright but not in print. But right now at least, the Google and Amazon formats aren't compatible: I was unsuccessful in getting a PDF of a public-domain book downloaded from Google to appear in readable form on my Kindle.

WIRED The best e-reading system on the market. Welcome improvements to aesthetics, more functional industrial design, better graphics and longer battery life. Sleeker than the original: One-third of an inch thick and 10 ounces.

TIRED Quite expensive. Book content shackled with DRM. Interface is improved, sure, but it could be even better.

$360, amazon.com

Read our full Amazon.com Kindle 2 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The iWOW adapter from SRS Labs promises to coax more "immersive" sound from your iPod, and it actually delivers — provided you're listening to the right kind of music. Setup is easy: Snap on the slick little 1-inch extension, plug in some spendy headphones, press a button, and you do indeed get a fuller sound with more depth — especially if you enjoy songs like Sting's "Fragile," a track hand-picked by SRS to highlight the effect.

But when iWOW was applied to songs that were heavy on low-end thump or had multilayered sound (Exhibit A: Beck's "Cold Brains") the iWOW performed more like iMeh. At top volume, bass beats splintered, while at lower volumes tracks sounded muddled and crowded. SRS claims the device "dynamically locates and restores audio detail" and creates a more natural sound. We're not buying it — most of the audio we threw at the iWOW was punctuated with a subtle hiss and fuzzy bass.

WIRED Relatively small adapter. Snaps easily onto your iPod and lends some oomph to certain tunes.

TIRED The effect is nearly lost when using ear buds, the device won't work with older generation iPods, and music that already has a fair share of bass sounds muffled.

$70, srslabs.com

Read our full SRS Labs iWOW Adapter for iPod review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Leaps ahead of other cam phones, the Memoir's not limited to the 8 megapixels it captures. In shooting mode, the touchscreen has shutterbug controls — zoom, brightness, timer and flash — that float around the image. And just hitting the shutter will take you into camera mode. The Memoir includes a 1-GB microSD to augment the phone's 100 MB of storage (and it's an easy-access slot, rather than hidden under the battery).

But for all its convenience, the Memoir simply isn't a competitor for even the lowliest of dedicated cameras. First off, it's pokey: slow to focus, slow to snap and very touchy when it comes to movement. And though it touts a 16x digital zoom, it has no optical-zooming option.

WIRED Cool touchscreen and accelerometer helps you shoot or view pictures. Compact, pocket-friendly shape, even for hipsters in painted-on jeans.

TIRED Vampiric light sensitivity makes for washed-out shots. Slow to focus, shoot and recover. E-mail functions are even slower. The screen is hard to see in sunlight. Lens cover doesn't close all the time, so the lens can get dusty.

$300 (with 2-year contract), t-mobile.com

Read our full Samsung Memoir.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

From the outside, the 1000HE doesn't look much different from other netbooks. But it's the machine's heart — the brand new 1.66-GHz Atom N280 processor — that makes it faster, stronger, smarter than its opponents.

Intel claims the silicon slab boosts computing power across the board, especially HD video playback — something that has been woefully horrid in past machines using Atom processors. It's not lying. This is the fastest netbook we've tested (by about 7 percent) in our benchmarks. And HD video playback was noticeably smoother and devoid of chop.

WIRED The first netbook to feature the new Atom N280 chip. MMC and SD media reader slots. Attractive, pearly finish. Decent 1.3-megapixel webcam.

TIRED At 3.1 pounds, it's one of the heaviest puppies in the netbook litter. Lame keyboard.

$400 as tested, asus.com

Read our full Asus Eee PC 1000HE review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The R50 is remarkably easy to set up and use. As you program each component into the remote using the setup wizard, you test a few controls to make sure it has the right code. The remote instantly recognized all our components, and it took us about 10 minutes to get the AV rig up and running. As part of the setup, you name each component, which then appears as an icon on the screen: in my case, a Sony HDTV, Yamaha amp/receiver, Squeezebox, Oppo DVD player and Soundmatters speaker.

WIRED Cool, reddish backlight perfect for nighttime navigation. No computer or web connection needed for operation. No charging cradle required.

TIRED No user manual means gizmo novices might get lost in setup. $150 price point isn't super pricey, but then it's not the cheapest universal remote out there.

$150, universalremote.com

Read our full Universal Remote Digital R50 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Like other watches in the 25-year-old G-Shock line, the MTG-1500 is forged with Mr. T levels of toughness: It can easily survive being banged clumsily against tabletops or whacked against a surfboard in a wipeout. And it's water-resistant to 200 meters. But unlike most other G-Shock watches, which are primarily plastic, the MTG-1500's body and band are stainless steel, with a few tasteful black plastic accents.

We half expected to find the MTG-1500 lacking in minor features. Surprisingly, it didn't. It's got a stopwatch mode, dual time-zone support, five different alarms and a countdown timer. Free abundant sunlight or bright artificial light recharges the battery as you wear the watch. Once fully charged, the battery should be able to power the watch for 6 months without additional light.

WIRED Handsome, two-toned steel-and-black styling doesn't blare "nerd," "Swatch-wearing poser" or "too lazy to take off my gym watch." Self-syncs with superaccurate official time stations. Gives you an excuse to say "solar" and "atomic" in the same sentence.

TIRED Digital display too small and can be obscured by watch hands. LED provides uneven illumination in the dark. $500 can buy a timepiece that's much fancier, albeit not atomic.

$500, casio.com

Read our full Casio G-Shock MTG-1500 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The skinny on this countertop unit is pretty straightforward: It's the touch-based kitchen computer that won't put you out of house and home. Don't go rushing out to cash in that 401(k), though — despite a recession-friendly price, the Eee Top still feels a little light in the loafers.

The glossy white, semi-opaque keyboard and mouse look stylish out of the box, but after extended handling their light, plastic-y build became annoying. The slim chassis sat solid on our countertop, while the bright, 15.6-inch screen and the integrated speaker bar make up the majority of the Top's sleek profile. Rounding out the device are six USB ports, memory card reader, 1.3-MP web cam and integrated Wi-Fi. We were pretty bummed at the lack of an optical drive, though.

WIRED An all-in-one for the Top Ramen set. Quick, responsive touch interface. Compact design has integrated storage for both keyboard and stylus. Integrated 802.11n and gigabit ethernet ensure throughput thrashings. One-touch shutoff button for hiding porn er, convenience. Runs whisper-quiet.

TIRED Underpowered for heavy web video. A wired keyboard and mouse — on an all-in-one?!? Heats up after extended poke/prod sessions. Anemic 160-GB hard drive. Even a cheapy, noisy optical drive would've been nice. No battery means no mobile computing.

$600 (as tested), asus.com

Read our full Asus ET1602 Eee Top review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

This camera is about the size and shape of a pack of chewing gum, and weighs just 0.68 ounces. It records videos at 352 x 288 pixels, encoding them in the 3-GP format used by many cellphones (the videos can be played on your computer using most media-player software, including QuickTime and RealPlayer).

But the MovieStick is oozing with design flaws. The pinhole-sized lens is located on the long side of the device, rather than the short end, limiting your ability to go truly undercover. Add to that a confusing series of lights that supposedly indicate when the cam is charging, turned on or recording, and you end up with more than one inadvertent video of the floor.

WIRED The smallest video camera we've seen yet. Simple to set up and use. Makes you look like a double agent.

TIRED Location of camera lens makes it hard to go covert. No internal storage or memory card included. Recorded video is shakier and blurrier than outtakes from The Blair Witch Project.

$120, swannsecurity.com

Read our full Swann Micro-VideoCam Recorder review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Kodak’s Theatre HD's raison d'être is straightforward: to shuttle the contents of your PC directly to your television using ethernet or Wi-Fi. Pictures, videos, podcasts, music or any other digital content that may be living on your hard drive (as long as it's not squelched by some DRM straightjacket) can be whisked away by this tiny little box to your television with little to no fuss.

What really sets the Theatre HD Player apart from the rest of the field is how immaculately it performs its tasks. Once you've downloaded Kodak's EasyShare display software, everything is pretty much taken care of. Have a hard drive filled with extra content? No problem. Simply hook it up to one of the player's USB ports and you're ready to go.

WIRED Intuitive UI coupled with a handy RF remote makes setup and playback of multimedia a Zen-like experience. Wealth of connectivity options: component, HDMI, optical or RCA audio, dual USB ports. Transforms crappy YouTube video into semi-watchable content.

TIRED Requires Kodak EasyShare software to get the streaming party started. No Mac compatibility (for now). Pricey, especially for a device without a hard drive. Needs more internet content.

$300, Kodak

Read our full Kodak Theatre HD Player review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Skidding in at 53 pounds (on the lighter side for this category), Ohm's mountain bike-inspired geometry and its nine-level power-assist and regeneration system make it a smart, nimble and efficient two-wheeler.

On pavement and trail the BionX power plant, mounted on the rear hub, employs a unique sensor technology that is constantly adjusting the level of assistance it gives you based on the terrain. Encountering some mushy road? More power is delivered to the gears. Gliding down paved asphalt? The juice is dialed back. And if your thighs are flushed with lactic acid on a sheer hill, a flick of the trusty thumb throttle cracks the whip and the motor totally takes over, no pedaling required. But for all this innovation and comfort, you will, however, have to part with a spouse-enraging $3,450. Is it worth it? Well, it is a ton of fun.

WIRED Excellent Shimano parts mix with disc brakes and RockShox suspension fork. Lockable battery compartment hides space for mobile phone, wallet, media player and your other little stuff. Regeneration mode gives extra on-bike battery life. Comfortable suspension seat post. Four- to six-hour charge time.

TIRED Throttle position needs to be improved for optimal bike handling. Price steeper than any hill the bike can handle.

$3450, Ohm Cycles

Read our full Ohm Cycles XS700 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

For about $300 more than the average netbook, the UC7807u offers a scintillating array of grownup specs. Intel 2.0-GHz Core 2 Duo CPU? Check. 250-GB hard drive? Yep. 3 GB of memory, a glossy 13.3-inch display, a slot-loading optical drive and ports galore (three USB and an HDMI)? You betcha! Best of all, with its fetching brushed aluminum chassis, no one will mistake this for a budget notebook.

Unfortunately, the UC7807u also has all the telltale signs of some obvious corner cutting. Forget about gaming. Due to Intel's torpid integrated GMA 4500MHD graphics card, even moderately intensive titles won't run properly. But our main beef with the UC7807u is the feeble 6-cell battery which clocked in at a disappointing 3 hours, 25 minutes — a full hour shorter than most other notebooks in this category.

WIRED Recession-worthy price. Built like a tank. Slick, touch-sensitive volume and multimedia controls.

TIRED Tips the scales for a notebook in this category. Battery drains faster than an ATM at a strip club. Epic fail on the tiny circular touchpad. It's cramped and serves no discernable purpose. Onboard speakers spit out tinny, distorted sound. HDMI, but no Blu-ray?

$800 as tested, Gateway

Read our full Gateway UC7807u review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

It's no wonder this watch ran away with my heart; for the competitive runner or multisport athlete seeking a personal best in 2009, the Polar RS800CX is the required training device. Because of incredibly robust desktop software, tracking of obscure performance metrics, and a wide variety of add-on sensors, the RS800CX can help you measure, analyze and improve nearly every aspect of your training program.

WIRED Offers better heart-rate monitoring than your average hospital. Incredibly customizable from in-watch display, to software interface, to training programs. GPS and barometric altimeter combined with location tracking mean you'll never wonder where you wandered. Extensible pods make watch more sport-versatile than Lance Armstrong.

TIRED Even beer goggles won't pretty up this ugly watch face. May need to hire a coach anyway — just to teach you how to use the PC-only desktop software.

$500, Polar

Read our full Polar RS800CX MULTI review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

The pocket rocket we've been packing in our pants recently (full name: Optoma DLP EP-PK-101 Pico Pocket Projector) is one of the first mini projectors to hit the market. It's also one of the best, even though a number of flaws spill from the tiny device.

Styled like a '40s-era Zippo, the piano-black portable feels more natural in the hand than a lot of cellphones. But it's not size that matters to us, it's the video components! The projector is comprised of a combo-rig LED lamp and a DLP chip (courtesy of Texas Instruments) that sets the resolution at 480 x 320 pixels with a range output of 9 lumens. Yes, we know this is low compared to full-bodied projectors like Benq's gargantuan MP512 ST 2500-lumen projector but for something this small, it's remarkable.

WIRED Perfect projector for parties. Rectangular lens creates wide image that keeps the image from stretching. Fine picture quality, 8-96 inches. Startup time > 4 seconds. Dead-sexy hardware.

TIRED Lithium-ion batteries die after 2 hours' use; how are we supposed to watch our Battlestar marathon? Battery recharge time 4 frakkin' hours. Suck-tastic speaker. Unless you have a video-out adapter, you can't project Office docs from your PC. Projector gets hot enough to fry bacon after running 30 minutes.

$400, Optoma

Read our full Optoma EP-PK-101 Pico Pocket Projector review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Are you the schlemiel who's always dropping his cellphone or camera at parties? Or maybe you're the schlemazel who always gets the drink spilled on him? Either way, if you're looking for a camera to fit a clumsy or accident-prone lifestyle, the shockproof, waterproof, and cold-resistant Stylus 1050 SW can take the beating from fumbles, faceplants or full-speed crashes, and still keep clicking.

About the size and shape as a pack of smokes, the 1050 is equipped with an accelerometer letting you tinker with settings by tapping on the top and the sides. This lets you do useful stuff like turn the flash on and off with a gloved mitt or preview pictures with one hand while you fend off a tiger shark with the other.

WIRED Shockproof to 5 feet and waterproof 10 means you can bang it on the edge of the pool as you fall in with no harm done. Tap feature lets you change settings without futzing with buttons, and the camera can handle alpine frigidity with aplomb. Comes with a microSD adapter for greater media versatility.

TIRED Lens cover slides more easily than Ricky Henderson. The battery is easily inserted backwards, making you think it's dead or the camera is malfunctioning. Weak zoom and poor macro ability; this camera could use a bifocal upgrade.

$300, Olympus

Read our full Olympus Stylus 1050 SW review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Touted as the thinnest and lightest BlackBerry yet, the Curve 8900 has some much-needed upgrades over its predecessor, but also some disappointments.

Wi-Fi is hot and easy to set up, the camera got a bump to 3.2 megapixels, the 16 GB MicroSD storage can hold up to 20 hours of video, and the high-res screen is fantastic in any light. On the other hand, callers were hard to hear, documents were difficult to create, and RIM's revamped proprietary browser is good for surfing the Internet but isn't as smart about automatically resizing webpages as the browsers on competing smartphones.

WIRED Slick, sexy design mashes the best of the Bold and Curve 8830. Brilliant, high-resolution screen is one of the best we've seen on a RIM device. Full HTML-rendering on websites. 3.2-megapixel camera is even better when paired with video-recording capabilities; 3.5mm headphone jack means no clumsy adapters. Near 5-hour battery life is most impressive.

TIRED 3G is MIA. Despite the powerful 512-Mhz processor, the software still lags. New website and software don't perform as well as they should. Phone quality was mixed and loud speakers fail to compensate for somewhat distorted music playback.

$200 with a two year contract, RIM

Read our full RIM BlackBerry Curve 8900 review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

This handset (which arrives in some of the most gorgeous packaging I've ever seen a consumer electronic encased in) is almost laughably banal in its actual construction. A silver slider with wide-spaced keys, it posses a passing resemblance to the Nokia 5200, albeit with a larger (2.2-inch) screen. But, once you switch it on and start using it, things begin to get interesting.

The operating system orbits around Facebook synchronization. Basically you take the phone online, pair it with your Facebook account, and all of your various Facebook applications become active on the mobile. Your Facebook address book syncs up with the phone's address book. Events from your Facebook calendar become part of the phone's calendar. Take a picture with the 3.2-megapixel camera, and you can automatically upload those shots to a Facebook album.

WIRED Brightly hued, easy to use, easy-to-sync OS pairs perfectly with your Facebook account. Skype integration is thoughtful. Thoughtfully spaced keys make texting, entering URLs rather pleasant. Camera takes photos that are sharp enough to be a profile picture. Extremely cheap for an unlocked device.

TIRED Humdrum hardware punctuates novel OS. Not offered in the United States ... yet. Battery life is clinically depressing when surfing the web, using Skype.

$112 (estimated), Three

Read our full INQ1 Facebook Phone review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

HP has been tinkering with touch tech for a couple of years. But they have yet to nail the bull's eye with a machine that mixes mature hardware with a haptic interface that feels like more than just a half-assed effort. So, we were cautiously optimistic with the TouchSmart tx2z. The good news? As HP's first multitouch convertible tablet, it's got a lot of potential.

Converting from notebook to tablet proved painless, thanks to a solid hinge and the included pen. After swinging the 1280 x 800 screen around (and folding it back), we found two goodies. First, using the pen automatically disables the touchscreen (to prevent palm-related havoc), and second, HP included an active digitizer for handwritten input. This made reckless activities like e-mailing while strolling around the block surprisingly easy. Even jotting down quick notes using a finger (instead of the pen) gave us minimal hassle.

WIRED Fully baked as both a touch and tablet device. Travels well with its compact and stylish chassis. Includes quick keys for rotating screen orientation. Mini media remote and pen conveniently hide away in chassis. Altec Lansing speakers strike decent balance between volume and clarity. Extra goodies aplenty: biometric security, webcam, dual headphone jacks, 802.11n compatibility and 5-in-1 card reader.

TIRED Bloated OS hinders performance of otherwise decent specs. Occasionally laggy switches between notebook and tablet mode. No multitouch love for the trackpad. Terrible viewing angles and weak visibility in direct sunlight. Fan sounds like a leaf-blower at a My Bloody Valentine show.

$1550 (as tested), HP

Read our full HP TouchSmart tx2z review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

Nero's LiquidTV TiVo PC looks like a TiVo and acts like a TiVo, but, brother, it ain't no TiVo.

Actually, the package makes your PC act like a TiVo by adding a USB TV tuner and the same TiVo software that drives the set-tops. You also get a for-reals TiVo remote and an IR receiver so you can command content from the couch.

Ironically, that's where you're gonna get pissed. The remote can't launch the software, so you'll have to physically walk over and mouse it open. The remote can be programmed to turn your TV on and off, but it can't put your PC in standby mode or wake it up again. If you do that manually, the IR receiver fails to wake up with the rest of the system.

WIRED Includes a one-year TiVo subscription, and after that it's a cheaper-than-set-top $99 per year. The software can auto-convert recordings to iPod or Sony PSP format. Integrates with any TiVo boxes you already have. Extra storage is just an external hard drive away.

TIRED The remote lacks necessary PC controls. Not measurably better than Windows Media Center — which, incidentally, is free. The tuner supports ClearQAM, but the software doesn't, so forget digital channels unless you hook up the antenna.

$125, Tivo

Read our full Nero LiquidTV TiVo PC review.

Check Wired.com's latest Product Reviews, updated daily.

June 19, 1964: 'Twilight Zone' Fades Into Twilight Zone

Florida town orders employees to wear underwear and cover wounds

There's your new tourism slogan: "Come to Brooksville: We've Covered Our Wounds!"

Fighting for the great American tradition of going commando at work was the city mayor, Joe Bernardini, who was the only member of the council to vote against underwear. He expressed concern over how the new code could be enforced, while also getting a headstart on being charged with harassment: "They said you had to wear undergarments," the mayor was quoted as saying, "but who's going to be the judge of that? Sometimes when it comes to certain people going bra-less, it's obvious. [Emphasis added.] But who's staring to see if that person doesn't have underwear on?"

Adopt a Classroom, help kids and teachers, get a tax-break

I am fortunate enough to teach children who have a variety of disabilities, ranging from Autism, Mild Mental Retardation, to Specific Learning Disabilities. Many of my students come from low income households where even items as simple as crayons are not easily attainable. It is rare that special education students get what they truly need in a system where budget cuts take away the most basic tools for these wonderful children.

Last year Cory adopted my class through Adopt a Classroom and I'd like to make Boing Boing Readers aware of this wonderful website.

Whether you choose my class or another, 100% of your tax deductible donation (as little as $25) goes directly to the teacher and you are informed of every item purchased. The budget cuts are worse than ever this year, but I know there are people out there willing to help.

I hope this doesn't sound like an advertisement. I am a teacher, with 2 California Teaching Credentials and a Master's Degree. I work for LAUSD, one of the largest school districts in the country. Yet, if I don't get donations or use my own money, my class doesn't get things as simple as printer ink and crayons.

I also always make sure to thank my donors personally from all the kids!

Adopt a Classroom (Thank, Patricia!)


Source: Boing Boing | 19 Jun 2009 | 3:36 am

Opera Unite Web Server Benchmarked

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jammie Thomas fined $1,920,000 for sharing 24 songs

The RIAA seems not to realize that the more it gets per song, the worse it looks. What could this do except further the impression that it is simply a public enemy?

Node power outlet: how come nobody thought of this before?

Probably because there are a few design issues with it. Although the Node outlet is very stylish-looking and certainly an elegant solution to the too-many-plugs problem, a moment’s reflection brings up a few serious issues. In fact, they got nailed by the commenters at BBG almost instantaneously. Can you spot what’s wrong?

1. Toddlers are free to stick butter knives, forks, hairpins, and pretty much anything thin into the slot. Not to mention you’re supposed to touch it, yet it is at the same time an incredibly dangerous item. Modern outlets are almost all designed to be accessible only by an actual two- or three-pronged plug. Which brings us to out next problem:
2. Uh, what about grounded plugs? Your PC, TV, monitor, and many other household electical doodads would be SOL with this thing.
3. It looks good naked (kind of like… never mind), but what about when it’s got four different-colored plugs going at different directions with curly wires going off every direction? The best part about this design is hidden as soon as you start using it — the opposite of what good design should do.

So, points for innovation, but I doubt you’ll be seeing these at your local designer furnishings store any time soon.

[via BBG and Giz]

Fulfill your dreams of becoming a catalog model

If you’ve always dreamed of being a catalog model, this is your chance to really show off your stuff. Tech-friendly clothing company Scottevest is running a contest where you can appear in their catalog wearing their products. All you have to do is take a picture of yourself (in focus, and in high resolution) and email it them, and you may get your big chance to be in a catalog.

Of course, if I was cynical (which I am), I’d question the ethics of them running a “contest” where people who buy their clothing can appear in their catalog for no reward or monetary gain. I’d probably even go so far as to suggest that this is an extremely cheap way for them to model their clothing for their new catalog, without having to actually pay a model!

Despite their somewhat questionable marketing methods, Scottevest does make some pretty sweet hoodies.

ACL Services Wins British Columbia Technology Industry Association Award for Best Application of Technology

Univ. of Wisconsin's 30-Year-Old Payroll System Needs a $40 Million Fix

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Acer introduces some new, green monitors

Section: Computers, Desktops, Hardware, Gadgets / Other, Green, Peripherals, Displays/Projectors

Monitors that don’t consume a whole lot of energy are starting to become more and more popular as the public becomes more energy conscientious.  Today, the Japanese Acer released some information on two new monitors they started shipping today.  The two new monitors include the Acer V193WBbmd and Acer V223WBbmd, both of which reduce power consumption by 36%. 

In terms of specs, both monitors feature 10,000:1 contrast ratio, a 5ms response time, and a brightness level of 300cd/m2 brightness.  What separates the two devices apart is the size.  The Acer V193WBbmd measures in at 19 inches with a resolution of 1440 x 900.  The other monitor, the Acer V223WBbmd, measures in at 22 inches with a resolution of 1680 x 1050.  For quick reference, take a look at the model number and then you will be able to figure out the sizes of the monitor. 

The 19 inch Acer V223WBbmd will be on sale for $185, while the other monitor sells for $236.  Of course, even if the price doesn’t meet your budget, remember that with all the power it could save for you, it may be worth it in the long run.  Both these monitors are currently shipping, but expect them to ship in Japan first, before anywhere else. 

Via [PC Launches]

Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

All In the Family: Sergey Brin Loans 23andme $10 Million And Google Ponies Up $2.6 Million

Google is still tightly intertwined with 23andme, a company that helps consumers understand and decipher their genomes. 23andme has raised another $2.6 million from Google out of a total $24.26 million it is trying to raise in a Series B round of funding, according to regulatory filings. This brings the total amount raised from this round to $13.6 million, after May’s $11 million funding round. At the time, Mohr Davidow Ventures divested its stake in 23andme after investing in a direct competitor Navigenics.

The juiciest disclosure in the filing is that Brin loaned the startup an additional $10 million which is being converted into Series B preferred shares. Earlier in 2007, he had loaned the company $2.6 million which was repaid from the proceeds of Google’s subsequent $3.9 million stake in 23andMe in May, 2007. The debt was repaid after the Google investment. It appears that Brin once again had to dig into his own pocket to help keep the company afloat.

The filing also says one of the investors in the Series B round in May was New Enterprise Associates, which also invested in 23andme’s Series A round. And it mentions that Google has entered into a lease agreement with 23andme, possibly for office space, but it is unclear what exactly is being leased.

23andme, which was co-founded by Sergey Brin’s wife, Anne Wojcicki, raised $9 million in a Series A round of funding from Google, Genentech, New Enterprise Associates, and Mohr Davidow Ventures in 2007. The company maps consumers’ DNA and helps them find information about their ancestry and their risks of getting certain diseases (Michael tried it last year).

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Alan Gibb's Eclectic, Electric Art

Dylan Thuras is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Dylan is a travel blogger and the co-founder of the Atlas Obscura: A Compendium of the World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica, with Joshua Foer.

Riffing off of Xeni's excellent post about Omega Recoil I wanted to bring your attention to the Electrum, the world's largest Tesla Coil.

"Known as Electrum, the four-story (38-ft) Tesla coil was commissioned by a prominent New Zealand art patron Alan Gibbs, and set up on on his farm outside of Auckland, New Zealand in April 1998. Built by artist Eric Orr and high voltage engineer Greg Leyh, the enormous coil puts out over 3 million volts.

A particular delight of the Electrum Coil is the hollow spherical cage on top, where Greg Leyh would often sit during shows. While Leyh is safe within the Faraday cage created by the sphere, if he were to put his hand through the cage, he would be instantly electrocuted."

As interesting as the coil itself is Alan Gibbs, the art patron who commissioned it. Gibbs is one of New Zealand's wealthiest residents and is worth a third of a billion dollars. Called a "James Bond in Jandals" Gibbs has dabbled in everything from cars to telecoms, however the Bond reputation comes from Gibbs' recent project, the Aquada. The Aquada is an amphibious car that travels at over a 100km/h on land and smoothly transitions to 30km/h in water. Along with his other hobbies Gibbs owns what he calls "The Farm," an area rural in New Zealand where he collects and privately displays massive works of art such as the Electrum and Neil Dawson's "Horizons" pictured below.

There is more info on the Electrum on the Atlas, this is an interesting article about the Aquada, and a link to more pictures of the enormous art on found on Gibb's Farm.

3D Conferencing System Allows for Virtual Light Saber Duels

If your Wii boxing buddy or Star Wars light saber duel partner moved to a different town, technology can help bring you together for just one more game. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Intel have created a system that can support collaborative physical activities from different geographical locations.

“We can capture motions of the human body in real time and bring them together on a big screen,” says Ahsan Arefin, a doctoral student currently involved with the project.

The project called ‘Tele-immersive Environment for Everybody’ or TEEVE hooks up two off-the-shelf 3D cameras to a PC with a Firewire port. A gateway server at each site sends and receives the different video streams using standard compression techniques. A renderer is used to project the virtual interactions on a big screen monitor, creating a real-time virtual 3D effect. It’s like web conferencing, but with a virtual reality twist.

The system was on display Thursday at an Intel Labs “research day” in Mountain View, California. At the event Intel showcased technologies the company is working on.

In their demonstration of the TEEVE idea, Arefin and his colleague stood in two opposite corners of a room with light sabers in hand. They had 3D stereo vision cameras called BumbleBee 2 pointed at them. As the duo dueled, they could see their 3D images captured and reflected on screen.

The idea has applications beyond gaming. It can be used in business, sports and medicine, says Arefin. An experiment by the University had two dancers from different locations dancing together on a large screen.

The system is part of the quest towards more visual computing, says Jack Gold, principal analyst with consulting firm J. Gold Associates.

“Moving to a visual environment, from the text heavy one we are in right now, is one of the most important issues that we have to deal with in computing,” he says. “As they say, sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.”

The biggest challenge in the application for the researchers comes from the demand on computational and network resources that the system imposes. TEEVE uses real-time 3D reconstruction algorithms that are necessary to convert 2D frame images to 3D frame that also includes the depth information. To optimize it, researchers have used multi-threaded computation and Arefin says TEEVE can work on PCs with high-end Intel processors.

“Our goal is to make the system portable and easily deployable because of its use of off-the-shelf components,” he says.

Jury Slaps $2 Million Fine on Jammie Thomas

In Round 2, Jammie Thomas Jury Awards RIAA $1,920,000

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you'd pay $55 a month to tether your iPhone, you're just plain stupid

Appmodo reports that the iPhone MMS is coming in July, and that tethering will be $55 a month. This can't be true: tethering simply means that AT&T is allowing the iPhone to share its internet connection. To nearly double the data plan's price as a result means either that AT&T's network simply can't handle it, and it's pricing it to kill it, or it's just concluded that iPhone users are gullible spendthifts.

Tethering is a $10-$15 extra on other phones: even that is a scam, given that you've already paid for the bandwidth. One does not require a tethering plan at all on Windows Mobile handsets, in fact, which are easy to dupe into sharing their connection using PDANet.

Prediction: this is a seeded rumor, designed to make the eventual $25 tethering plan appear generous and cheap.

Mtech Technology Advancement Program Graduate Lurn Inc. Wins Second Major Award This Year

Review: Nokia e71x for AT&T

Can great things get better? Sure they can! We’ve loved the Nokia E71 for nigh on a year when we ran a review in October describing it thusly:

This phone is a magnificent piece of work. Everything about it screams “quality” from the texture of the keys to the styling and heft. Everyone I saw, be they users of iPhones, BlackBerries, flip phones or what have you, everyone thought it was a beautiful piece of hardware. It’s well constructed, uses a fair amount of real metal, and has a weightiness to it that seems out of keeping with its slight frame. And it is slight: it’s nearly as thin as my old Samsung Trace, and it’s narrower than a BlackBerry.

I won’t add too much to that except to explain what the “x” means and to note that yes, this is a kickass smartphone.

First off, the E71 differs from the E71x in that it uses Symbian 60 Feature Pack 3.2 as opposed to FP 3.1. I know, right? This means there are some drastic UI difference between this and the E71 model. This model also has the FM radio removed.

So what do you get for your $149 with 2-year-contract? All the things we loved in the E71 without the price. The E71 costs about $400 unlocked while the AT&T version costs half that. Add in a $50 rebate and you’re down to $99.

The device has turn-by-turn GPS built-in, instant and MMS messaging, as well as an HTML browser with 3G networking. The camera is a 3.2-megapixel shooter with video capture and it is a world phone which means you can roam internationally.

Bottom Line
Because we’ve already gone over the merits of this device in a previous review, I’ll offer a bottom line to those thinking of picking up a Nokia phone on AT&T. I’m of two minds when it comes to S60. S60 is sort of like Android at this point - powerful, wonky, and often modified by carriers to bend to their whims. The E71x has a great messaging system and excellent keypad and the build quality is top notch. This is sort of a Euro BlackBerry without a lot of the business oriented features and makes for a great phone for a user looking for messaging, email, and IM with a little bit of personal information managing capacity.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

How-To Wiki: How to Open a Beer Bottle With a Lighter

The Pre App Catalog Is Tracking Way, Way Behind Apple’s App Store. And It’s Palm’s Fault.

One month after the launch of the App Store in 2008, Apple had seen over 60 million downloads of its apps. The Palm Pre hasn’t been out for a month yet, but it’s about halfway there, so how close is it to that number? Not close at all. Not in the same ballpark. Not even in the same city.

Palm’s App Catalog has seen roughly 666,000 app downloads in its first 12 days, according to the mobile analytics firm Medialets. And what’s worse is that the download momentum is slightly slowing down since the initial launch. So don’t be too surprised if one month after the launch, the App Catalog downloads are near 1 million. Yes, 1/60th of what the App Store was doing last year.

So why is that? After all, reports are that the Pre itself is selling pretty well. Well, the reasons are fairly obvious, and are all Palm’s fault. Right now, there are only 30 apps in the App Catalog. That’s up from 18 at launch, but there have been no new ones in just about a week now. How many did the App Store have at launch last year? Over 500. And more importantly, the rate of expansion was massive — which led to those 60 million downloads in the first month.

The reason the Pre has so few apps is because it has limited who has access to its webOS SDK. Even today, only select developers can get it, to start working on apps. And that’s better than it could have been — initially, Palm wasn’t planning to launch with an app store at all, according to Medialets. But that would have been a really bad move. The smartphone wars today are at least partially being measured by the various app stores, on top of actual device sales. While the iPhone is far from the most popular device around the world, the App Store has had over 1 billion downloads now, and has over 50,000 apps.

If you were buying a phone today and had to choose between a device with 50,000 apps and one with 30 apps, which would you choose? Yeah.

To be fair, Apple had a built-in advantage at the launch of the App Store — there were already a few million first generation iPhones out there. Palm attempted to launch the entire package: new device, new OS and new app store, all at the same time. As Medialets notes, the other company that did this recently was Google with its Android platform late last year — but it didn’t have to make the phone, HTC made the G1. Still, Android also failed to secure the type of launch the App Store had for its Android Market. It’s still growing, but not nearly as fast as the App Store.

And don’t expect things to pick up anytime soon for the App Catalog. While more developers do have their hands on the SDK now, there is still no real infrastructure to do things such as app payments. That’s something that really hamstrung the Android Market early on.

But farther in the future, Palm does have a second device running the webOS coming out. That should undoubtedly help move some apps. Of course, perhaps you heard, Apple has a new device of its own coming out tomorrow.

[photo: flickr/robert thomson]

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Bubble wrapping death masks

Joshua Foer is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Joshua is a freelance science journalist and the co-founder of the Atlas Obscura: A Compendium of the World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica, with Dylan Thuras.

My wife and I are in the process of relocating from Brooklyn to New Haven. So far, the most tedious part of the move has been packing up the collection of death masks we acquired once upon a time in a fortuitous eBay bonanza:

The majority of these heads are gazillionth-order plaster cast reproductions (knock-offs of knock-offs of knock-offs) of originals held in the Laurence Hutton Collection at Princeton. Several are actually life masks, originally cast by sculptors.

In roughly bottom-to-top, left-to-right order, the faces in this photo belong to:

On the ledge: Abraham Lincoln, Laurence Barrett, Sir Richard Owen, Robert E. Lee, John C. Calhoun, William Tecumseh Sherman

The bottom six hanging on the wall: Ludwig van Beethoven, Antonio Canova, John Keats, Hyrum Smith, Joseph Smith, Jean-Paul Marat

The next highest six: Franz Liszt, Napoleon Bonaparte (well, maybe), Frederick the Great, George Washington, William Blake, Oliver Cromwell

The next highest five: Jeremy Bentham, Aaron Burr, Friedrich Nietzsche, Edward Kean, Ulysses S. Grant

And the top row: Jonathan Swift, Maria Malibran, David Garrick, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Moore.

On another wall not pictured we've got: Robespierre, another Abe Lincoln, Frederic Chopin, Pope Pius IX, Benjamin Disraeli, Benjamin Franklin, and John Dilinger. Plus there are a few more whose names I've forgotten in storage.

If there's one death mask I wish we had, it would be the Inconnue de la Seine.

Fighting For Downloaders' Hearts and Minds

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NASA launches lunar satellites

Leave It To Chinese Quarantine To Reinforce The Value Of Social Media

After a whirlwind tour of East Asia with GeeksOnAPlane (see my assessment posts for China and Japan here and here), I’m back in the states and almost fully recovered from a potent bout of jet lag. I’m not complaining, however, since several other members of our group came down with a nasty stomach flu on the return flight. And one member, Mike Su of Break Media, actually got picked up by the Chinese authorities in Beijing on suspicion of swine flu, only to be stuck in quarantine for five days before getting cleared and released.

Mike, who had skipped the Tokyo leg of the trip and joined us in Beijing only a couple of days earlier, took his poorly timed incarceration in stride. Since he needed no real medical attention whatsoever (the officials nabbed him because he had sat two rows away from someone on the plane over who indeed carried swine flu), Mike was left to sit alone in a hotel room for days on end with just his thoughts and a computer. Finding nothing else meaningful to do, he decided to blog his entire experience for the rest of us to enjoy.

The result is a set of some pretty amusing and informative posts about what it’s like to experience Chinese quarantine. Welcome to Hotel Quarantine will start you off with the back story, while The Seven People You’ll Meet In Hotel Quarantine is the post that should stand the test of time.

Most relevant to the TechCrunch audience, however, is the second-to-last piece, Quarantine 2.0, where Mike reflects on how social media helped make his time in quarantine bearable. He describes how he was able to use Twitter to interact with the outside world and live vicariously through the rest of the GeeksOnAPlane group. Skype and other live streaming services helped him tap remotely into the events we were attending. And blogging, of course, helped him pass the time and ensure that his experience wasn’t for naught.

Kris Krug, who spoke at a TEDx event in Shanghai on Monday, noted that these days “If you don’t stick it on the Internet, it didn’t happen”. For Mike, that didn’t sound like hyperbole, since no one could share his memories unless he published them online. As he put it, “[It's] not that social media replaces or reduces the need for human interaction, but when you’re forced into a situation that specifically prevents human interaction, social media becomes your best alternative.” Well put, I think, and a good counter-argument to the idea that social media is a waste of time and ironically anti-social. Not that most of us live in a quarantine-like environment, but it’s important to step back and see just how much better we’re able to connect with other people through space and time these days, even compared to 5 years ago.

The most inspirational part of his post comes as an update:

Been thinking about all this more throughout the day. It’s hard to imagine five years from now that we’ll look back at this and think how primitive it was and how much things have changed. But in the meantime, how cool is it to live in a time with so much change, and so many things left yet to be discovered? I’m leaving this quarantine more excited than ever that I get to work in web technology, and to think, no matter how mundane something such as “What are you doing?”, or a video of this kid starting a dance party is, we are changing the way we live our lives, and that’s pretty cool.

Hear, hear. Let’s hope Mike will join GeeksOnAPlane for the full tour when it travels next to Latin America or some other region, with or without a high sensitivity to transmittable illness.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Facebook defends targeted ads

Section: Web, Web 2.0, Websites

Facebook defended its use of targeted ads before a Congressional hearing today.  The site insisted that using its users’ profiles to allow advertisers to target specific demographics and audiences was not a violation of privacy because no personally identifiable data is shared.

“In offering its free service to users, Facebook is dedicated to developing advertising that is relevant and personal without invading users’ privacy, and to giving users more control over how their personal information is used in the online advertising environment,” read the remarks for two subcommittees of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce.

The site is no stranger to privacy concerns having weathered storms of outrage over the news feed introduction in 2006, the Beacon ad program in 2007, and TOS revisions earlier this year.  It has always been swift to make corrections and offer apologies however.

The ads on Facebook do seem to be getting more and more annoying though.  Just this week I’ve seen tacky “Slap Susan Boyle” banners, flashing sidebars screaming that I’m a winner, and of course those really charming “3 of your friends think you’re an idiot!” ads.

I know the site needs to make money but they really should be more selective in what ads they allow.  There’s at least one that can be considered downright malicious, and that’s the IQ test mentioned above.  Not only does it tell you your friends think you’re an idiot, it uses their pics with fake results to make you think they took the test and are truly challenging you.  Clicking on the ad brings you to a site that won’t let you leave without several irritating pop ups urging you to stay and even worse, you have to give your cell phone number to get your test results - and guess what?  Doing so rewards you with a $9.99 charge on your cell phone.  Very deceptive and downright sleazy.  Come on Facebook, clean up your advertising act!

Read [CNet]

Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

All new Popcorn Hour C-200 set-top box supports Blu-ray and every video format

While I've been pleased as punch with my Mac Mini (with Boxee/Plex) working as a set-top box, I know many of you guys have been using Popcorn Hour boxes to great satisfaction. You may lust anew: there's a new model announced, the C-200, with Blu-ray support, a front-panel LCD, and a swappable bay that can hold a hard drive—if you don't use it to install a Blu-ray drive.

The C-200 will continue the Popcorn Hour tradition of playing pretty much every video format known to man. Except to pick it up next month for $300—with included HDMI cable. [via Oh Gizmo!]

As Blogger Nears Its Tenth Birthday, It Still Dominates. But For How Long?

Never underestimate the power of first-mover advantage, especially when being one of the first movers gets you bought by Google. Back in August, 1999, Pyra Labs launched Blogger. LiveJournal had launched six months before and Open Diary in October of the previous year. But it was Pyra Labs which was acquired by Google in February, 2003, and the rest was history. Now, nearly ten years later, Blogger is still the dominant hosted blogging platform. In May, 52 million individual people from the U.S. visited a Blogger blog, almost twice as many as the 28 million who visited a blog hosted by Wordpress.com (comScore). Six Apart properties, including Typepad.com, attracted 14 million.

Millions of bloggers still use Blogger because it is easy. However, Wordpress.com is making steady gains and growing its aggregate audience in the U.S. at more than twice the annual rate of Blogger (40 percent versus 14 percent). These numbers don’t count all the blogs that host Wordpress on their own servers, such as Techcrunch.

The vast majority of Blogger traffic comes from outside the United States, where its annual growth rate is 38 percent compared to Wordpress.com’s 59 percent. On a worldwide basis, Blogger blogs have a readership of 267 million people a month, compared to 143 million a month for Wordpress (comScore, April, 2008). The biggest countries are, in order:

1. U.S.
2. Brazil
3. Turkey
4. Spain
5. Canada
6. U.K.

From a business standpoint, Blogger is good for Google because it creates millions of sites which can show AdSesne ads. It creates more inventory for Google. Only recently has Google bothered to start showing ads to the users of Blogger itself every time they publish a post.

Can Blogger keep its lead indefinitely, or will Wordpress eventually catch up? Or will something else entirely overtake both of them?

Today, two of the people behind the original Blogger, Evan Williams and Biz Stone, have another little service that is capturing people’s attention. It is called Twitter, you may have heard about it. In May, Twitter.com had 17.6 million unique U.S. visitors to its Website alone, making it bigger already than Six Apart.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

YTB Elects Three New Board Members

CreditCards.com: Weekly Credit Card Rate Report

K12's Florida Virtual Academy Receives an 'A' for the 2008-2009 Academic Year

IBM and Siemens Announce Integrated Solutions to Help Companies Deliver Smarter Products

Proposed Canadian Law Would Allow Warrantless Searches

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lloyd I. Miller III Announces Voting Intentions for Tollgrade Communications Annual Meeting

Court Stiffs Veterans Caught in Privacy Breach

Justin.tv Gains DVR Functionality

The thing that saved television watching for me was the advent of the digital video recorder (DVR). I love the idea that you can be watching something, but have to stop to do something else, so you just pause it, and it will record it so you can come back later and pick up where you left off. Now you can have the same functionality on the live-streaming video site, Justin.tv.

While most live-streaming services offer archives of live recorded video, the nice feature here is the simple way to pick up just where you left off watching something. The feature, rolling out this afternoon, will offer a bar under each video that will read, “Continue watching this later.” If you click on it, all that live video will be recorded so that you can come back to it at a time of your choosing. You’ll receive a link to a place to come back and watch it with a message that looks like:

Use the link below to continue watching this broadcast when you have time, starting from what you’re watching right now (to within a few minutes).
This link will continue to work for 7 days.

You could also use this link to share with friends if you all wanted to pick up watching something together. Unfortunately, unlike TV DVR, there is no way to fast-forward through parts that you may want to skip. But I’m told that such functionality is likely in the works for a later release.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

iPhone OS 3.0: Nice-to-Knows

FROM APPLETELL - The long-awaited iPhone OS 3.0 is finally here.  While it is certainly less momentous than the launch of the original iPhone, it is still a solid OS upgrade in terms of performance and additional features.  Here are a few I have discovered
MORE »

Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

TJX Hacker Was Awash in Cash; His Penniless Coder Faces Prison

Inside a Giant 50,000 Pound Life-Size Mouse Trap

Inside a Giant 50,000 Pound Life-Size Mouse Trap

Trek the globe with the Verizon USB1000 Global Modem

Globe trotters-

Starting tomorrow you’ll be able to purchase the Verizon Wireless USB1000 Global Modem (Novatel) for $150 after a $50 MIR with a two-year contract.

GlobalAccess is available either as a monthly plan or a pay-per-use plan. GlobalAccess Monthly Plans start at $129.99 monthly access, offering a 100 MB allowance in 31 select destinations ($0.005/KB after allowance) as well as access in the U.S. and Canada (5 GB allowance in the U.S. and Canada and $0.05/MB overage). Additionally, for $219.99 monthly access, customers can have a 200 MB allowance in 31 select destinations and a 5 GB allowance in the U.S. and Canada with the same rates for overage as the $129.99 monthly access plan.

GlobalAccess Pay Per Use must be purchased with a 5 GB monthly allowance Mobile Broadband service plan in the U.S. for $59.99 monthly access. The Pay Per Use rate is $0.002/KB in Canada, $0.005/KB in Mexico, and $0.02/KB in more than 175 other destinations.

Verizon Wireless’ GlobalEmail Plans begin at $20.00 monthly access when added to a Nationwide Email Plan. Corporate e-mail and Web access is available as are data only plans for $64.99 and $69.99 monthly access respectively.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Inside Jesse James' Record-Setting Hydrogen Racer

New Blackberry Messenger coming to all OS 5.0 devices

Section: Communications, Accessories, Cellphones, Email / IM, Smartphones, Mobile

Looks like that hot new Blackberry Messenger (“BBM”) that everyone seems to love will be coming to all Blackberry devices with OS 5.0.  And folks are lovin’ it.  Previously, only select models were lucky enough to be blessed with BBM, while the rest were stuck with something that looked like something out of decades past.  BGR has apparently been playing around with it on the Curve 8900, and claims it’s here for all with 5.0.

So, what does this give you?  GPS integration with proximity sensing for one.  Then, you’ve got avatar support.  The ability to set and group your conversations by subject is another.  You can create homescreen icons for your messenger contacts.  Are we having fun yet?

It also features PIN barcode scanning, which will allow you to add your friend by simply entering their PIN.  They just click the barcode option on their device, then a barcode will appear which can be scanned with a Blackberry camera and then you’ve got an addition to your contact list.  That’s it!

Everyone wanted threaded SMS support, it’s now here!  How about the fact that you can now backup and restore your messenger list to microSD card.  Have fun Blackberry fans!

via: [BGR]

Full Story » | Written by Jodie Andrefski for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

Video: AT&T’s Distribution Center Gets Busy Packaging iPhone 3GS

The above video provides a behind-the-scenes look at AT&T’s distribution center in Ft. Worth, Texas, where workers are packaging the iPhone 3GS handset due in stores Friday. Pretty neat! Now, if only someone would video tape the factory where the iPhones are made, starring the famous iPhone Girl. Perhaps the iPhone 3GS’s video camera will help with that?

AT&T YouTube Channel [via Gizmodo]

First Look: Beejive 3.0 for the iPhone

Before we start review, there’s something I have to admit: I hate most mobile IM clients. We see a whole lot of phones go in and out of the MobileCrunch office, each generally toting its own crappy, broken instant messaging suite. Be they slow, flakey, or just outright terribly designed, we’ve grown to have a nearly unshakable bias against them.

With that in mind, know this: We love Beejive 3.0 on the iPhone.

As past reviews would indicate, I’ve been a fan of Beejive for a while. It wasn’t perfect - but it was one of the few IM clients I’d turn to on a regular basis. Its largest fault was the lack of background notifications (otherwise known as “Push notifications”), and as any good blog reader should know well by now, such limitations were due to Apple’s shortcomings.

Yesterday,iPhone OS 3.0 came along and swept all our background-notification-worries away. As we’d found out back in early June, Beejive has had their 3.0-friendly app ready to go for some time. It took a few days longer than expected for OS 3.0 to go live and for Beejive to get approved, but we’re told it should be live in the app store by the time this review goes up (if it hasn’t already).
Update: As of 12:10 PM on June 18th, it’s not available yet

Services:

Outside of Skype, Beejive supports most of the big IM services. As of 3.0, Beejive supports AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN/Windows Live, Myspace IM, Yahoo! Messenger, and Facebook IM. While platform limitations keep Beejive from running in the background on the iPhone, Beejive’s servers will keep you connected (and handle the background notifications) until you sign off. You can also set Beejive to automatically log you off if you’ve gone a certain length of time without opening up the app.

Background Notifications:

For most users, IM clients are the key justification for background notifications. After all, it’s pretty tough to have a conversation with someone when you’ve got no idea whether or not they’ve said anything to you. You could keep your iPhone locked onto the IM app at all times, but that’s not how we’ve trained ourselves to use IM. On any PC client, we say something and then go do something else while we wait for that person to respond. It’s all very passive.

With background notifications flipped on, Beejive 3.0 now seems like a full-fledged alternative to IM’ing on the PC. Go ahead - do whatever else you want. Once the person responds, you’ll be alerted and offered a way to quickly jump to the conversation.

Notifications work well, arriving just a second or so after the message is sent. When a message arrives while Beejive isn’t in the foreground, a (surprisingly pleasant) sound plays and the notification window pops up, displaying the text of the last message you received. Back on the iPhone home screen, the Beejive app icon has a small badge that indicates how many messages are waiting for you.

Notifications are tweakable to some extent; while you can’t change that sound that plays, you can toggle the sound, badge icon, or the notification pop-up individually.

Meta contacts:

Beginning a few years ago, most major IM clients began allowing for multiple accounts to be signed in simultaneously. As a result, a good chunk of people have a bunch of accounts for any given service, allowing them to separate their work buddies from their play buddies, or just keep their “HotLatinaQueen69″ screen name private outside of those lucky few who you knew before you realized what a terrible mistake the name was.

Presumably influenced by the much lauded contacts system of the Palm Pre, Beejive allows you to link multiple IM names to one buddy. Merged names come together into one listing called a “Meta contact”. Tie any accounts belonging to your split-screen-named friend into the one meta contact, then reorder the accounts within the contact to your liking. Next time you tap on the meta contact, Beejive will open a conversation with the first currently signed on account in the list.

Copy and Paste:

Making use of iPhone OS 3.0’s other big-deal feature, Beejive 3.0 now ties in to the iPhone’s copy/paste system. Tap and hold a chat bubble to bring up the copy prompt. To paste, begin typing a message, tap and hold within the text input field, release, then hit “paste”. There’s no way to paste without typing at least one key to bring up the text input field, which leads to a few extra keystrokes/backspaces if you’re looking to paste only the copied text.

UI improvements:

Beejive 3.0 brings a bunch of UI improvements. Groups on the buddy list are now collapsable, allowing you to clean up the screen a bit by tucking away the contacts you’re not looking to chat with right now. The color scheme of the chat screens are now customizable, letting you tweak the colors of chat bubbles and change the wallpaper.

Unfortunately, the only thing that we really took fault with was amongst these UI changes. In the primary buddy list window, each contact has a small arrow next to their name. You’re supposed to hit this arrow for meta contact linking, checking out profiles, blocking buddies.. all things that you aren’t doing a lot, but enough that you’d expect that little arrow button to work. It doesn’t. At least, not without a hell of a lot of effort. Its hit zone is entirely too small. If you miss the arrow button, you’ll instead tap the contact and begin a conversation. In our testing, we missed the button more than 3/4 of the time.

Update: Beejive just contacted us about this issue. If you’ve got big old paws and are having trouble with the made-for-babies arrow, you can just double tap on a contact to access the same screen. Not super intuitive, but definitely good to know.

Conclusion:

With support for just about every major IM protocol we ever find ourselves using alongside things like voice/image transfers, Beejive was already our IM client of choice on the iPhone. Background notifications really just sealed the deal, and anything else they’ve added was just frosting on the already delicious cake. Beejive for iPhone’s pricetag, generally varying between $9.99 and $16.99, may seem a bit steep - but it’s absolutely worth it for any regular IM user.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

GPS Device + Web Access = Never Get Lost Again

Moon Probes Blast Off to Scout for Water

Music Video: Fever Ray "Triangle Walks"

Scandinavians: the only goths that are cool.

Video: Toy Movies

What if more '80s toys were turned into Hollywood blockbusters? Spoiler: They wouldn't be as awesome as this.

Google experimenting merging Google Voice and GMail?

Section: Web, Web Apps, Web Browsers, Websites, Google

Users of Google Chat have recently seen new contact entries with green cell phone icons in their available-to-chat window.  To date, Google has made no announcement about these and has yet to address the questions.  These icons appear to be quick SMS links that allow chatters to send SMS to users mobile phones.  They started appearing on or about June 16, 2009.

There was speculation that these icons had to do with the fever pitch of Google Voice accounts, but my contacts have mobile phone icons without having a Google Voice account.  By switching off SMS capabilities in Google Labs, the icons disappear.

So what’s the big deal?

Annoyingly, these SMS entries are numerous and repeats of other contacts on my chat list.  It looks to me like Google is looking into presence for users by allowing them to select what is the best way to contact them, much like VoIP offers.

It is unclear if the green mobile indicates the phones are in use or checking GMail.  There does not seem to be a red mobile phone icon either.

Users seem mystified by the inconsistencies of these icons.  One user wrote in on GMail help forums:

To cloud the subject a bit further, I have used Google Voice to send SMS messages to 2 people so far and only one of them appear in my Google Chat list with the green phone icon.

So what is it?  We’ll have to wait for Google’s official explanation.

Read [GMail help forum]

Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

Gadget Lab Video: Geeks Get Tan With Mobile Office Gear

So maybe the weather is getting nice. So maybe you don’t feel like toiling away in your slate colored cube farm anymore. Know what? We don’t either. Steven Leckart and I recently gathered up the gear you need to make your office mobile so you can do your job from practically any location. (We worked in the park!)

We’ve got the fastest netbook money can buy, a ruggedized ultraportable, a folding chair that comes housed in a messenger bag and a portable device that “barfs up Internet signals.” Oh yeah there’s a tandem bike in there too.

This video podcast was produced by Annaliza Savage, edited by Fernando Cardoso with camera work by Annaliza Savage.

Mekong River Dolphin Nearly Extinct

iPhone app review: Appy Newz

Here’s a fun way to waste time: make fake tabloid covers using photos from your iPhone camera! Appy Newz is a cute little faux desktop iPhone publishing application that makes it super easy to create slick looking magazine covers. It comes filled with stock backgrounds and faces, but you can easily select backgrounds and faces from your camera roll.

I was a bit skeptical as to how much fun this app would be, but I must admit: I can’t stop playing with it. This is the kind of app you’ll find yourself using when you’ve got 5 or 10 minutes to kill in a waiting room. You’ll want to make tabloid covers for all your friends. You’ll want to take photos of everyone you know so you can add them to some goofy breaking news story.

Appy Newz is super easy to use. When creating your masterpiece, you can simply click on the screen to set the publication title, headline, and the text in the explosion at the top right. Then you can select background, object, and people to fill in the scene. There are a healthy number of ways to add people: you can add a single headshot, a pair of heads, a single male or female body, or a couple.

You can only select faces to add, not full body shots. If you select one of the full-body templates you can scroll through a number of goofy bodies in different poses and clothes. The face you select will be added atop the body. There’s enough variety and creativity in the stock bodies that this ought not be a severe limitation. Besides, it’s editing the faces that’s the real fun!

Select the face you want to use from the list. You can use one of the stock faces supplied with the app, or for more fun you can select a photo from your photo roll or take a photo using the camera. Use multi-touch controls to resize and rotate the image so that the face aligns inside the window provided.

With a face selected, you can then get to work tweaking it. You can add a variety of hair and head styles (including a literal butt head, weirdly enough), masks, glasses, beards, eyebrows and ears. There are a lot of combinations, and the multi-touch controls make it pretty easy to resize the accessories for placement on the face you selected.

Appy Newz is pretty flexible, allowing you to opt to exclude a person, background, or object from the cover you create. Alas, you can’t add multiple objects, and eventually the stock bodies for your faces will get a little over-used. But with some creativity, this app should allow you to continue to create fresh content for quite some time.

Complaints: I understand emblazoning the product name all over the created images when using the free version (Appy Newz Lite), but if I shell out money for the app I’d prefer to not have the app name included in every single tabloid cover I create.

My other gripe with Appy Newz is that it places my custom photos at the end of the list of stock images, which means if I want to use John Biggs’ face in my latest masterpiece, I need to scroll past the stock faces first. Annoying!

Finally, it would be nice if you could reposition, or exclude altogether, the little explosion at the top right. Not every tabloid needs a call-out like that.

Bottom line: You’re almost guaranteed to get at least $3 worth of entertainment from Appy Newz! If not, fire up Appy Newz and hand your iPhone to the nearest 10 year old kid. They’ll love it.

Here are a couple of tabloid covers I created in no time at all.

Appy also makes Appy Face Fighter, which uses similar face editing features to create custom opponents for a silly fighting game. I’m not sure of the long-term replay value in this, but it’s certainly a new application of technology.

Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies

UnPirate: Why pay for WinRAR?

Section: Computers, Software / Applications, Web, Downloads, Features, Originals

WinRAR is software used to compress files in order to save space on your hard drive.  It can minimize the size of downloaded files from both the Internet and email attachments. Supported file types include CAB, ZIP, TAR and more.  For a single user license, you will need to pay $29 for WinRAR.  Check out these alternatives instead.

Open source compression with 7 Zip

7 Zip is an open source program that also provides file archiving for Windows users.  The same file types as WinRAR are supported and provide a high compression ratio.  In the zip format, the compression ratio is 135% compared to the 109% offered by WinRAR.  The 7z format has a slightly lower compression ratio at 100%.  The utility is free, but 7 zip does ask for donations to help keep the project going.  [7 Zip]

Weird name, but good utility

Free RAR Extract Frog is an extraction utility that has the ability to support spanned archives as well as compress files on your computer.  Free RAR Extract Frog even has the ability to work on password protected files.  The interface is easy to use with the drag and drop option available to extract files.  You can also assign an output folder in order to speed along the utility.  [Free RAR Extract Frog]

Get brilliant file compression with ZipGenius

ZipGenius has all of the basics of file compression programs, but has the nifty feature of offering support for PocketPC users that you can access through ActiveSync.  Another benefit of ZipGenius is that it can send archived files via email.  You can also assign your archives a password to ensure security of your data.  [ZipGenius]

Full Story » | Written by Heather Wood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

Mars Lake Held as Much Water as Lake Champlain

Plane lands safely

When people ask why the media only covers bad news, a traditional way of illustrating why good news usually isn't newsworthy is to reply "When did you last read the headline, 'Plane lands safely?'"

Here's a sign of the times: a few hours ago, an airline captain died over the mid-atlantic, apparently of natural causes, and the world knew about it immediately. The co-pilot, and a third qualified pilot who happened to be aboard, have taken the reins, and CNN is covering the landing live.

Condolences to the friends and family of the as-yet unnamed captain. Is it doubly cynical that coverage of good news here is merely the opportunistic result of something awful?

BB Video: Omega Recoil, Mad Electro-Makers Who Craft Giant Tesla coils

(Download / YouTube)
Boing Boing Video today peeks inside the electrified world of Omega Recoil, a group of engineers and "makers" who craft giant Tesla Coils, and stage humorous and thrilling performances with those large electrical devices.

What's a Tesla Coil? From the Tesla Society website:

[It] is one of Nikola Tesla's most famous inventions -- essentially a high-frequency air-core transformer. It takes the output from a 120vAC to several kilovolt transformer & driver circuit and steps it up to an extremely high voltage. Voltages can get to be well above 1,000,000 volts and are discharged in the form of electrical arcs. Tesla himself got arcs up to 100,000,000 volts (...) [They] are unique in the fact that they create extremely powerful electrical fields. Large coils have been known to wirelessly light up florescent lights up to 50 feet away, and because of the fact that it is an electric field that goes directly into the light and doesn't use the electrodes, even burned-out florescent lights will glow.

For viewers in San Francisco -- Omega Recoil members will be giving a talk at the 7th anniversary Dorkbot event, which features other cool "maker mutants" we've featured on Boing Boing Video before, like Jon Sarriugarte and the Boiler Bar folks. Organizer Karen Marcelo says,

...and to think this all started because i was bored seven years ago and decided to call Douglas and start the SF one in Marc Powell's garage! Pesco was a speaker at the first one! We had Brian Normanly talk about how to 'liberate' electricity from PG&E. I dont think anyone has the guts to do that now! :) Here's that first event from 2002.

More on Jon Sarriugarte's blog.

Sponsor shout-out

Tibetan Exile Group Seeks Your Used Audio Recording Gear

A Tibetan exile group in Northern India (whose work I've reported on previously for Boing Boing, WIRED, and NPR) is seeking used voice recording gear for an upstart independent community radio station.

At left, a photo I shot of Phuntsok Dorjee with a fellow volunteer, setting up a wireless network relay point inside a tribal family's barn on the top of a mountain at the southern edge of the Himalayas. Goats and routers, under the same roof, not far from the Tibetan Government in Exile's home of Dharamsala, India.

Phuntsok says,

"We have 10 students in the radio team but have only 2 Sony IC voice recorders. A friend of the organization will be in San Francisco sometime in early July on his way to India and he can bring for us the voice recorder if we manage to get some."

Got any used voice recorders, or related gear you're not using? Email him at: phuntsok at tcv.org.in. These are good folks, doing innovative work without a lot of resources.

Related: A Wireless Network for 'Little Lhasa' (Xeni on NPR)

Node, the power outlet of tomorrow

Plug is as many things as your circuit can amp up, and power them all on or off with two taps of your toe. I can think of one good reason this would be much safer as a power strip than a wall outlet, however.

Making of the node [Metaphys]

BLOG: Where to Gas Up on Alt Fuel

Dash 3G launched by T-Mobile, Android news soon

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones

With the release of the iPhone 3G S tomorrow and the Palm Pre about two weeks old it seems like a poor time to launch a new phone.  Thankfully, the phone T-Mobile is launching isn’t something anyone would get too excited over either way.

On Wednesday T-Mobile officially launched the Dash 3G, which was previously known as the HTC Snap.  It is a pretty standard phone with a 2 MP camera, Wi-Fi and GPS along with the obvious 3G connection.  It runs on (sigh) Windows Mobile 6.1—the only significant change being that WinMo’s Inner Circle has been replaced with T-Mobile MyFaves giving easy access to the five lines T-Mobile users can call for free.  While the phone has been launched, it won’t be released until July, most likely for somewhere between $100 and $150 with a two year contract, making it almost a nonpoint given the $99 iPhone 3G.

Though not as significant as launching a new phone, T-Mobile has taken a cue from the video game industry’s recent fascination of announcing announcements, and has said that it will talk about the next Android phone next week.  That phone is likely to be the HTC Magic, possibly relabeled as the myTouch 3G. 

It’s about time we’ve heard something on this front.  The HTC Magic, also known as the Google Ion has already been previewed by Wired and the like, so it’s about time T-Mobile got around to launching it.  Even if it only confirms the phone’s existence and gives a rough time table of by the end of the summer as we’ve already known it will be better than just saying more Android phones are coming “soon.”

Read [Electronista]

Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

BLOG: Why the Presidential Fly Swat Impresses

iPhone 3.0 First Look: Cut, Copy, and Paste

FROM APPLETELL - One of the most prominent new features of iPhone OS 3.0 is cut, copy, and paste.  It took Apple way too long to get this into such a powerful device, but I believe the extra time they took to create it paid off.
MORE »

Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

Sun: Just Warming Up Now

Outlet Wall: More Powerful Than You Could Possibly Imagine

Imagine not only being able to plug in your hardware exactly where you like, never having to search for a power socket again. Imagine, further, that it looks like this resplendent Outlet Wall, and that the cables, normally  mere clutter that needs to be hidden, instead become elements of this decorative piece of art.

Now, imagine actually having this thing installed. Marty F, reader of the Ironic Sans blog where this wonder-wall was posted, points out (in rather a lot of detail) just what is involved:

A grid of maybe 40×40 outlets (about 8’ x8’) would require 1,600 outlets (providing 3,200 actual places to plug in). In bulk you can get outlets for $0.30 each ($480) and you’d need another $3,500 in materials (boxes, covers, wire, fittings, backing board). It would be HEAVY once built, so the wall to which it’s attached would need to be sturdy. All told, this could be commissioned and built probably for about $15,000 by the time you factor in labor and other expenses, maybe a little more for a complex installation.

Idea: The Outlet Wall [Ironic Sans]

Sirius XM iPhone app released: No Howard Stern, MLB or NFL; Opie and Anthony make the cut

Big news today, Sirius XM fans. The Sirius XM iPhone app has been released, and is available to download right now. The app itself is free, but you’ll need to be a Sirius XM subscriber to use it. Obviously.

Let’s get the bad news out of the way: there’s no Howard Stern on the app. There’s also no MLB and NFL. So if you were looking forward to using your fancy new iPhone 3G S to listen to Howard Stern, well, tough luck.

The good news: there’s plenty of other fine content to listen to. There’s Opie & Anthony and Ron & Fez from channel 202; Oprah; CNN and Fox News; and all that music, music that you can later buy from iTunes if you so desire.

As you may well know, I’m not an iPhone owner, nor do I have an iPod touch, so I can’t try it out myself.

Now, the Howard Stern fans will pan the app—“this sucks,” etc.—but if you can move past that you might just find what looks to be a neat little app.

Here’s a video of the app in action. Let me know what you think. And I do mean “me,” since I’m the only Sirius XM fan ’round here.

(Ron and Fez, 11 to 3.)

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Play Lebowski@Home With Wii Bowling Ball

This is the Wii accessory Homer would buy Marge for her birthday. The “Bowling Ball for Wii” is supposedly an “ultra-realistic” ball for the many bowling games for the console. Three holes in back provide a place to grip, just like a real ball, and there are buttons on the other side to take care of level selections and the like. There’s even a wrist strap to stop you flinging the thing into the TV set.

Best of all, though, is that the ball opens up like Pacman’s head to accommodate your actual Wiimote. This means it should work with any other Wii game. Imagine using this to play Wii Tennis and Wii Fit starts to look like an afternoon nap. Rumors that it comes with a White Russian are unfounded.

Price and availability to be announced.

Product page [CTA Digital via Oh Gizmo!]

Samsung Highlight coming to T-Mobile next month

Poor Samsung. They can never keep any of their secrets. This time, images of the “Highlight” have been leaked to TmoNews. The 3G touch-screen devices looks similar to the Instinct s30 and features a 3.1-megapixel camera and GPS. Look for it to drop on July 15th.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

PETA Wishes Obama Hadn't Swatted That Fly

The International Costs of iPhone Tethering

While we know how to switch on tethering on the iPhone 3G, we still don’t know what AT&T will charge when the service finally goes official. But around the world, news of updated tariffs is trickling in, and it doesn’t look good.

Spain’s Telefónica, for instance, will be introducing a new €39 ($54) per month data plan for heavy users. Current data plans give either 100MB or 1GB per month (for €15 and €25, or $21 and $35). The company has not yet said how much data that €39 will buy, but the going rate in Spain is around €40 for 5GB per month.

Interestingly, Telefónica will let existing iPhone 3G users tether their computers on their current data plans. I guess that with these tiny data caps, Telefónica isn’t too worried about network overload. The Web site has yet to be updated with any 3G S details.

Over in sunny Britain, the Telefónica-owned O2 has also revealed its rates ahead of tomorrow’s launch. £15 ($25) will buy you 3GB and £30 ($49) will get you 10GB for regular customers. Business customers get things a little cheaper, although it is a matter of a few dollars and depends on other confusing factors. Pay as You Go customers can’t tether, at least not without a hack.

TIM in Italy, meanwhile, is keeping quiet. A regular, 1GB data plan can be had for €15, but to get “unlimited” you need to spend a whopping €180 per month ($250). And that unlimited plan appears to be just 5GB. Tethering is not mentioned specifically, but small print elsewhere says that the service can be cut if used “improperly”.

The most worrying part, though, is the international tendency to top-out at 5GB on data plans. This is the real barrier to personal internet connections, and until this changes we’re stuck with home connections. Remember, though, that we are at the very early stages of mobile internet, and possibly even the greedy telcos will eventually be forced to offer reasonable plans.

iPhone, la nueva generación: misma cara, distinto corazón [Europa Press]
Product page [O2]
Tutto Compreso 2.0 per iPhone [TIM]

See Also:

• Review: The iPhone 3GS By Steven Levy
• How to Turn on Tethering in iPhone 3.0
• iPhone Tethering Plan Could Cost $30 Per Month
• Tether Your AT&T iPhone Right Now
• How to Turn on Tethering in iPhone 3.0