A new system devised by a pair of UCLA students could well bring democracy to music selection at parties. The two scientists have created a software-and-antennae combo that currently works on laptops, scanning people's music collections, grabbing the most popular tunes from guests' MP3 players and adding them to the night's playlist. The next step will be to see if Smart Party can be made to work on MP3 players (currently it only works on laptops), polling partygoers' music devices as they arrive at the party. More info below.

Read More »

Some of you asked for it when we showed you the LEGO Steampunk Tie Fighter and here it is: a LEGO Steampunk Pod Racer, the Darling Apollo IV driven by Trenton Telgaard. Whoever that is. It's also part of the LEGO Steam Wars contest, like the brilliant London Imperial Shuttle after the jump (right next to a hilarious LEGO animation set to Eddie Izzard's monologue on Darth Vader's at the Death Star's cafeteria. A must for a Monday morning.)

Read More »

Much more tech-y than some case mods we could mention is this Weighted Companion deal from Magnus Persson, based on those handy crate-like things all you Portal players are fond of throwing around. Magnus designed and completed the 7.9-inch-wide case in the space of a week. Still, he managed to successfully squeeze a VIA Epia EX1500G motherboard in there along with a PicoPSU, 2GB of memory, a 250GB HDD and WLAN, which makes it pretty capable for its tiny dimensions. Shame about the cutsey hearts, but we've got to blame the game designers for that.

Miniature laser pointers in the shape of the classic Jedi weapon: got to be a great idea. Styled to look like Vader's and Darth Maul's lightsabers, use these keychain lasers to point out any old PowerPoint slide you're presenting, and we bet they'll have you wearing a secret grin as you imagine that sound effect. [Technabob]

Read More »

Our pals over at Tokyoflash have given us the scoop on their newest, ultra-chic watch model. The new design, which will go by the Tibida moniker, boasts 42 white LEDs in its display. Sure, it looks completely outrageous, but we have come to expect nothing less. Hit the gallery below to check out what KITT would look like if he was involved in a serious road traffic incident, written off by the insurance company and then reincarnated into a timekeeping device with supernatural quantities of cool.

Read More »

The HD DVD troopers are surely fighting the losing battle, as new research from Japan details a surge in Blu-Ray recorder ownership. The study surveyed buying trends from 2,300 electronic stores across Japan, and the statistics showed that next-generation DVD unit sales rocketed from 6.1% in October to 20% in November and December. As the next-generation recorders have a higher price point, they managed to account for some 35% of the total DVD player market value. However, Blu-ray walked home with the largest market share of the two.

Read More »

And no, we're not talking about some weird fusion of Silverchair and Bon Jovi. Instead, we're talking about SLS, or Scalable To Lossless (we assume that there's something lost in translation here), a music format that lets you buy a track at a certain bitrate, and then "add-on" all the missing sound at a later date.

The technology is from a joint venture from Singapore including Soundbuzz, Exploit Technologies and the marketing and commercialisation arm of Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). Soundbuzz has launched an online store in Singapore to sell the tracks for S$2.50 (about $1.98) for the standard compression, or S$3.00 (about $2.39) for a lossless file. 

Read More »

This isn't exactly new news, but it's actually pretty important for the Australian market. Soundbuzz, the company that manages the online and mobile music stores for Telstra BigPond and Optus Zoo, has been taken over 100 per cent by Motorola. Considering they're the biggest online and mobile music company, offering over 750,000 songs and 500,000 mobile derivitatives (like truetones), this suddenly makes Motorola a big player in the mobile music space. According to Motorola, the move is a part of their strategy to create
the complete music experience on the mobile, along with their new range
of music handsets, including the ROKR E8.

Read More »

Tao Ma is at it again, cranking out another great phone concept. The new design, the LED Cellphone, incorporates hundreds of LEDs, all of which are used to create the mobile's striking UI. Check out the gallery below to see a cellphone your plastic white MacBook would fall head over heels for.

Read More »

"Finally!" you shouted. "About time" we echoed. But the joy of hearing Fox's announcement on the iTunes digital copy on Fox DVDs is to be short lived for Australian movie lovers.

Turns out that the big MacWorld announcement last week was only for US DVDs. All of us suckers in region 4 will have to resort to illegally ripping our DVDs watching our copy of Family Guy presents: Blue Harvest on our TVs, not our iPods.

The good news is that 20th Century Fox are looking to introduce the technology to Australian (and the rest of the world's) DVDs later this year.

There has been more than enough Apple coverage recently, so here is some "Apple" coverage. These new Chinese "Apple" USB speakers won't ever replace the ill-fated iPod Hi-Fi, but they could possibly be useful as a travel accessory for that ultralight laptop of yours. [Product via 7gadgets]

Read More »

Our Panasonic pals just dropped a new compact digital camera into their Lumix range. The new device, bearing the DMC-LS80 moniker, will boast an 8.32MP CCD sensor, 3x optical zoom, 4x digital zoom, 2.5-inch intelligent LCD, MEGA O.I.S image stabilization, ISO 1600 (maximum at full resolution), 30fps 4:3 (640x480) and 16:9 (848x489) video capture, as well as support for SD, SDHC and MMC. Checkout the gallery for a closer look.

Read More »

The cupholder hardly feels like breaking technology today, but back in 1950, it was the bee's knees (and we say that without an ounce of snark). Seriously, Popular Mechanics featured the device in their November issue that year with this caption:

Read More »

AppleTV may be full of neat new-fangled technology, but we're old school. That's why we prefer this AppleTVesque mod called the Nanoscope. Formerly a 35mm slide viewer, the device was repurposed through a bit of Dremel/cursing to fit an iPod Nano (because it happens to have a screen size not so different from 35mm film). Additionally, a speaker was crammed into the 70s era casing so that the whole family at least two people could enjoy a movie together. Hotness. We'll have to install green appliances to match while waiting for our videos to encode upside down.

Read More »

Researchers have uncovered a potentially critical security flaw within Skype that enables malicious code to be run, given certain conditions. The flaw affects those using IE, and is related to Local Zone security settings Skype uses to render internal and external HTML. Hit the link to find out more. [Ars Technica]

Read More »

Most of us have heard about the P2P filesharing network BitTorrent, so when we present the term CarTorrent, you probably already grasp the concept. A UCLA project with big partners like BMW and Toyota, cars communicate through 5.9GHz wireless LAN over ranges of 100-300 meters. During its first implementation—currently project for 2012—the system will communicate navigation info (road/traffic conditions), various media (ads and attractions) and surveillance (data from car cameras, etc for police to comb through later).

Read More »

Do you have too much free time? Do you have crates of different inanimate objects that need labelling? Well, you're in luck; Suck UK has just launched this range of customisable tape.

Much like normal tape, the adhesive goodness can be used pretty much anywhere you want, but this type specifically has an artistic value, allowing you to create your own messages, profanities and primitive pictures, which can then be used to decorate your abode. Prices range from £5-£7 ($11 - $16), but can't you just get some nice wallpaper instead? [Technabob]

We've seen plenty of other Eee PC mods, but an intrepid Norwegian bested everyone by building what appears to be the One Eee to Rule Them All. Not content with only one modification, this Eee modder installed ten add-ons to his diminutive subnotebook including bluetooth, 802.11n Wi-Fi, and GPS. Here's the full list:

Read More »

You were born to rock, and to help you live dream, Shinya Kasatani has released PocketGuitar for the iPhone and iPod touch, which turns your device into a touchscreen guitar. The application looks insanely great, and we cannot believe it has taken humanity this long to realise the true destiny of the iPhone. It makes so much sense now; it is the guitar of the future, sent back to destroy enemies of rock music.

Read More »

This HD DVD ad was unveiled at CES. [thanks Rye!]

Read More »