Gadgets

By Sarah Buhr The Internet of Things has entered the kitchen space. Everything from an app to turn on your coffee maker to a pan that monitors heat on your iPhone to cook the perfect steak is so close we can (almost literally) taste it. Here are some of the top tech gadgets making their…

By Darrell Etherington Samsung has approached BlackBerry with potential takeover offers, according to a report from Reuters today. The Korean company offered as much as $7.5 billion for the Canadian company, with an interest specifically in the smaller company’s patent portfolio. The offer by Samsung ranges between $13.35 and $15.49 per share, which would represent…

By Darrell Etherington The virtual reality space is pretty much Oculus Rift, and then everyone else. Even Sony’s Morpheus VR project was conspicuously absent from CES 2015, but one startup stood up and made sure that there was more to VR at the event than just the excellent Crescent Bay demo: Sulon Technologies were showing…

By John Biggs As a representative of M.U.S.C.L.E., I find artificial muscles a bit unseemly. However, researchers at Duke University have been able to grow their own twitching tissue, a first that could allow researchers to test drugs on working muscle without damaging a live host. Read More …read more Source: TechCrunch Gadgets

By Jordan Crook GoPro has forged a partnership with Vislink to bring live HD broadcasting to the GoPro line of portable, rugged HD cameras. The companies have been working together to build a small live transmitter that can be attached to GoPro Hero4 cameras, taking the professional use of the GoPro camera line to a…

By Jordan Crook Meet Charlie and Billy, the most adorable little robots in all the land. Billy, the first iteration, is a combination of 3D-printed parts, an Arduino Leonardo, and dual DC motors to form a hexapod robot. Billy is controlled through a simple joystick app on the phone, and can handle various types of…

By Darrell Etherington The education potential of VR and the Oculus Rift is already well-established, but this year at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Toyota showed off TeenDrive365, a driver education simulation to teach new drivers about the risks of distracted driving. The simulator puts drivers in the cockpit of a Toyota…

By Darrell Etherington Nintendo has revealed that it will bring the new version of the 3DS XL to the U.S. on February 13, following its launch of the redesigned hardware in Japan last year. The new version features a second analog stick, as well as two new shoulder triggers, microSD and NFC support. It also…

By Darrell Etherington Excited about modular smartphones? So is Google, which is hosting its second Project Ara Developer Conference today in California. The Ara project is designed to provide a consumer-ready platform for modular smartphone tech, letting users buy and swap out individual components like cameras, processors and sensors in configurations of their choosing. Remember,…

By Natasha Lomas After crowdfunding a minimalist e-paper smartwatch last year, another Sony-backed ‘special project’ is currently passing a donations bowl around on Indiegogo — as the electronics giant continues to try to nurture new ideas via an internal seed acceleration program. And by allowing the employees working on these internal projects to seek external…

By Lily Prasuethsut The latest from Misfit is undoubtedly its trendiest fitness tracker yet. Misfit has always strived for fashion, similar to the approach Withings has taken with its Activité and Activité Pop, but with the new Swarovski partnership, Misfit has taken it one step further. By combining the Shine with nine different accessories, the…

By Lily Prasuethsut The latest from Misfit is undoubtedly its trendiest fitness tracker yet. Misfit has always strived for fashion, similar to the approach Withings has taken with its Activité and Activité Pop, but with the new Swarovski partnership, Misfit has taken it one step further. By combining the Shine with nine different accessories, the…

By Josh Constine If laziness was a sport, the equipment would be the Hovertrax. You step up onto the foot pads, tip your feet forward, and two motorized wheels carry you around while gyroscopes auto-balance the Hovertrax so you don’t fall off. What’s hilarious is just how casual you look riding it. You’re basically standing…

By Darrell Etherington A new leak of details from within the upcoming companion app for the Apple Watch claims to show some unannounced features we can expect from the wearable when it arrives sometime early this year. The dump of the app’s settings screens from 9to5Mac show panels that let users tweak how it handles…

By Kyle Russell At some point in the next few months (“Early 2015″ can’t push much past March, can it?), Apple will release its Watch, likely defining the high end of the wearable category. The Apple Watch is, in hindsight, exactly what Apple would make when entering a new category: a general purpose computer trimmed…