gadgets

The Grouse

R.I.P. [your gadget here]

The Grouse officially launches the Technology Deathwatch list. Find out if your despised gadgets make the cut

Over the past dozen columns of Grousings, I’ve occasionally, sometimes vehemently, nominated various bits of gadgetry to an ad hoc deathwatch list. In particular I singled out Polaroid photos, home photo printers; disposable batteries; and Sprint’s WiMAX venture Xohm (maybe even Sprint itself, if they aren’t careful). Some of those predictions are necessarily more long-term than others, and some probably wishful thinking.

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Monitoring Soldiers' Brains in the Field

Scientists are working on a device that will quickly assess whether a soldier has incurred a serious brain injury

As many as 320,000 U.S. troops may have sustained brain injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet less than half of them were evaluated by doctors. But now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Pentagon is funding a project to develop a device that would do on-site testing for brain trauma, and be tough enough to hold up in a war zone.

The gadget, which is being developed by neurosurgeon Jamshid Ghajar and his team at Weill Cornell Medical College, will use eye-tracking technology to measure the brain's health.

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Cellphone a la Carte

Make this mini cellphone do just about anything, simply by swapping its case

Carry a different phone for every situation, whether you’re traveling light or blasting tunes in your car. On its own, Modu is one of the smallest, lightest cellphones yet. But when you want to do more than basic calling, pop it into a new outer shell to give it features like a full keyboard, a wider display or a longer-lasting battery.

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Generating Energy by Recycling Semiconductors

A team of researchers performs some nano-magic on a well-known material to increase its thermoelectric efficiency

A new low-cost, nanotech-based approach to power generation developed by researchers at Boston College and MIT could lead to cleaner-running semiconductors, air conditioners, car exhausts and more. The technique, published online yesterday in Science, uses the nanostructures to dramatically increase thermal efficiency.

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The Goods

The Goods: March 2008

From a solar-powered Bluetooth speakerphone to the smallest hi-def camcorder, our editors round up the must-have products for the month of March

Each issue, PopSci rounds up the must-have products for the month. This March, check out a media streamer that lets you buy movies with just your remote, a Bluetooth speakerphone that charges in the sun, a super-strong vacuum and more.

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A Fabric That Will Charge Your Gadgets

A stroll around the block in the right outfit could be enough to power your cellphone

Forgot your charger? No problem. Scientists have developed a microfiber fabric that can generate enough electricity to juice up a cell phone or a mini-music player. If turned into clothing, the fabric would get its power from the action of your daily movement. The material uses zinc-oxide nanowires that are arranged in pairs—one wire in each grouping is coated with gold, and serves as the electrode. When the fabric moves, the wires move and bend, and the fabric translates this mechanical energy into electricity.

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Green Plug's Digital Power

Future gadgets might demand less power--and ask nicely instead

Green Plug wants to rewire your gizmos and even your home, and ditch most of your “wall wart” chargers in the process. Instead of each gadget having its own charger built to deliver just the right amount of power, it would have a chip that tells a universal charger how much power it needs.

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The $1 Touchpad Stylus

Lost your pointer? This cheap substitution works with a variety of touchscreen gadgets

$1 Stylus:
This project keeps gettin’ better and better. We just revisited our Tablet PC project in the beginning of the new year and now we have another major advancement in this project. To get you up to speed, our last installment in this saga demonstrated how to make a viable boot disk for the discontinued Fujitsu Stylistic 1000 Tablet PC. Now we’ve unearthed a workable stylus for under one buck.

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Girls Heart Gadgets

The women of PopSci round up the best new gifts for geeky Valentines

Eeesy on the Eyes: Our favorite tiny, inexpensive, easy-to-use PC runs on Linux and is shock-proof, preinstalled with 40 popular applications and, need we mention . . . pink? Asus Eee PC, $300
Thinking of giving flowers and candy this Valentine's Day? Nice gesture, but chances are your girl would prefer something a little shinier. Something with buttons perhaps, and a flash drive. Fortunately, PopSci is here to make shopping a breeze.

She likes jewelry? How about a necklace decked out with resistors? (It's pretty, we promise.) A sucker for sweets? Get her chocolates shaped like Miis. Got a cuddler on your hands? Buy a blanket covered in binary code. Remember, creativity goes a long way, but a little Internet goes further.

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Kitchen-Counter Lab

In the kitchens of today's cutting-edge chefs, food processors share prep space with appliances straight out of the lab. See our gallery of the most extreme kitchen tech—as well as some more accessible gizmos for the home chef

A kitchen equipped for "molecular gastronomy"—gourmet cuisine as cooked by Mr. Wizard, basically—is all about the tech. Devices that wouldn’t be out of place in a chemistry lab fill the kitchens of some of the world’s most adventurous chefs, enabling far-out dishes like whipped-cream pancakes, lobster sorbet (shells and all) and meat-flavored mushrooms.

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