Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a device about the size of a credit card that can ‘taste’ the type of sweetener that is in food or drinks.
It can detect 14 different sweeteners (I can’t even name 6!). While it still takes about 2 minutes for the result, target audiences include diabetics or those watching their sugar intake.
Robotics research continues unabashedly as the human race strives to capture their essence in machinery, or at least put together a C-3PO! Boston.com has a great photo essay of all kinds of robots from the recent past, although there seems to be a preponderance of androids.
My favorite is of course, the soccer-playing bot!
Hint: maximize your browser and use the ‘j’ and ‘k’ keys to go back and forth between photos.
The Myine Ira (acronym for Internet Radio Adapter) is another take on Internet radio, this time in a (mostly) standalone device that plays any of the over 11,000 free radio stations available on the Net.
Hook it up to your wireless network and then plug it into some speakers or your AV system, and you’re good to go. You can filter by location, store up to 40 of your favorite stations and program it to play back podcasts.
More info from the manufacturer
Price: $129.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)
Tivo isn’t the only name in the HD DVR game. Digeo also has a very solid product in their Moxi HD DVR. To help promote it more, they are currently running a sweepstakes where you can win the HD DVR and their new Moxi Mate. The Moxi Mate lets you view what’s on your HD DVR on other HDTVs.
In what I think is a bad move by these independent coffee shops in NYC, they’re shooing their laptop-wielding customers who camp out and buy very little in the way of coffee.
Enter Starbucks, who saw an opening and jumped into the conversation saying that their customers can stay as long as they want. See what just happened there? We blogged about it too, and now Starbucks has just a little more publicity.
So now you know where to get that caffeine hit and hang out with your ‘puter.
This was too good of a story not to post, especially for the jealousy that it will generate among … well, everyone!
Mom, Patti Deni, gave her teenage son a huge gift in his new bedroom of their newly built home, and we do mean huge – a 98″ video projection screen TV. But wait, that’s not all – it’s mounted in the ceiling!
There are over 300 pounds of equipment above his bed now. Want one of these TVs? It’s a 98-inch StarGlas60 display from Stewart Filmscreen.
Here’s another potential calorie management gadget that you can wear to monitor things like calories burned and even steps taken. The bodybugg is a small piece of electronics that you wear on your arm throughout the day. It has sensors that monitor your calories using metrics such as galvanic skin response, heat flow and skin temperature.
At the end of the day, you upload the info in your bodybugg to your PC or Mac via a USB cable. The small catch is that you have to subscribe to a Web-based application that crunches all the data and presents it to you in graphical and other formats. Fortunately, purchasing the bodybugg gives you 6 months for free.
The bodybugg reminds me of the Cosmed Fitmate and the SenseWear Weight Watcher. And while you’re at it, you should monitor the nutritional value of your food with an EatSmart Nutrition Scale.
Price: $199.99
(Please note prices are subject to change and the listed price is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of posting)
iGoogle now has ‘social’ gadgets, gadgets and widgets that allow you to collaborate (a.k.a. play games), share info and see what your friends are up to.
For example, there are gadgets for Scrabble, chess, trivia, horoscopes, sharing photos, YouTube and much, much more. Video after the jump.
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A startup called RockMelt is set to build yet another new Web browser with the backing of former Netscape founder, Marc Andreesen’s venture capital firm.
No real details on what they have in plan, although they initially let slip that their browser will probably integrate Facebook info in some seamless way.
You can sign up for their mailing list to get news as they release it.
A few months ago, we told you that Microsoft was shipping a new Zune, the HD, in Fall. Well that time is on us and it will be available Sep 15, but you can pre-order it now!
There are 2 models: a 16GB for $219.99 and a 32GB for $289.99.
