computer

It’s not hard to notice when your co-worker is grouchy, your friend is exhausted, or your boss is overjoyed. Without recognizing it, we easily pick up on other people’s emotions by registering certain behavioral cues. In turn, we understand whether we need to back off, lend a helping hand, or, in the case of the boss, ask for a raise. Now comes the question: If we can do this, then why not computers? Why not robots? Indeed, by picking up on some of these same emotional traits, robots today are learning to act more naturally around their human counterparts.

Here, we present a compilation of PopSci coverage of the season´s hottest tech- 60 pages of lust-worthy items, from a luxury amplifier that will please the most discerning audiophile to cutting-edge smartphones to household gizmos that will make everyday tasks easier. Get ready to drool.

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Make a Laptop DVR

Cost: $110
Time: 30 minutes
Easy | | | | | Hard

How It Works:

1. Use the CD to install on your laptop the software and drivers for the Instant TV card. Restart, and plug in the card.
2. Connect to a video source (cable box or jack, TiVo) using either the S-video plugs or composite (red, white and yellow) plugs.
3. Open the Ulead InstaMedia software (the CD will also install a program called Instant TV, but it's clunky). Select "Settings." Choose your connection type, then choose the recording quality you want (a medium setting is fine for laptop playback).
4. Sit back and watch TV. Hit "Timer Record" or use titantv.com to schedule a recording.

Car engines have been governed by computers for years, but Honda’s iGX440 (honda.com) is the first power-equipment engine with a microchip. The electronically regulated iGX440which will show up in lawn mowers, water pumps and pressure washers later this yearruns at a constant engine speed even under changing loads. Thick grass usually causes mower engines to slow, bogging down whomever's pushing the machine, but the iGX440 maintains speed, and thus power, by giving the engine more gas and manipulating ignition timing.

Tony Rose

Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada

All computers lock up or crash, and no operating system is immune (as a matter of fact, we crashed once as we wrote this answer), but singling out specific reasons oversimplifies the issue, explains Daniel Jackson, a computer science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The underlying cause, Jackson says, is that hardware and software developers are trying to bring products to market in "Internet time"-that is, hyperfast. The result: Quality and reliability suffer.