Gadgets

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…

By Darrell Etherington Apple has been awarded a patent by the USPTO based on IP it acquired from Kodak in a deal from 2013, which details a remote digital camera system that can be controlled from a smartwatch (Apple Watch fantasists should note that this patent was originally created in 2012). The Apple patent specifically…

By Alex Wilhelm Is the PC market growing or shrinking? It depends on who you ask. As TechCrunch wrote yesterday, tracking firm Gartner reports that PC sales were up 1 percent globally in the final quarter of 2014. However, IDC, another company that keeps tabs on the sales of electronics, noted a 2.4 percent decline.…

By Darrell Etherington Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk held a press conference today at SpaceX HQ (via Bloomberg) to discuss a number of his company’s upcoming initiatives, including a new engineering office in Seattle, as well as next-generation autonomous driving features for Tesla, and the progress of SpaceX’s reusable rocket program, in light of…

By Matt Hanson Introduction and design The ZTE Kis 3 Max is a budget Android smartphone with an incredibly low price of just £54.99 SIM free. It can even be had for less, with Argos offering the handset with a Virgin Media SIM card for just £30, though you do need to buy a £10…

By Darrell Etherington The Pop is simply the best dedicated activity tracker that money can buy for $150, for the simple reason that unlike the rest, it won’t just be shoved in a drawer and forgotten weeks, or even months after purchase. Basics Bluetooth 4.0 iPhone (4s or up) or iPod touch (5th gen or…

By Darrell Etherington The smart home needs a remote, and one startup debuting on Kickstarter today thinks the smartphone isn’t necessarily the best option of that. NEEO is a dedicated device that includes a remote, as well as a brain to centralize control of your home, including your home theater equipment as well as connected…

By Darrell Etherington The first week of 2015 was CES for me, which meant working out of a suitcase in a bizarre fantasy land hewn from hard desert rock, grit and little else. My home office is a veritable oasis of displays and screen real estate, while my mobile CES office most definitely is not.…