Gadgets

This photo was taken by Nonja. She is an orangutan. Like many of us, she is interested in keeping her friends up to date on what she's up to in her pen at the Schönbrunn zoo in Austria. She takes and immediately uploads photos to Facebook with her specially modified Samsung ST-1000 point-and-shoot (it dispenses raisins!).

Tethering your phone's data connection to your laptop (and the fact that the iPhone can’t do it – thanks AT&T) is all the rage right now, but despite the convenience of the mobile Web, such connections are still comparatively unreliable. But the geeks over at Microsoft Research have come up with Cool-Tether--a seemingly obvious, yet novel way to pool multiple cellular data connections into a single, faster and more reliable Wi-Fi hotspot that can be shared by all.

Imagine playing a frantic session of the video game Modern Warfare 2 in the virtual ruins of suburban USA, and suddenly seeing a scrolling message that announces a real manmade or natural disaster appear on the TV. Such a meta-experience may soon arrive via your Xbox, PlayStation or Wii, because New York State officials have begun testing a plan for emergency alert broadcasts over online gaming networks.

The advantage to working at a place like PopSci is that, between our editors and contributors, I’m surrounded by tech experts I can turn to whenever I’m in the market for a gadget and ask simply, “So which one should I buy?” This year, we decided to package all of that expertise into the Tech Buyer's Guide which we're giving away for free starting today.

Skiing and snowboarding have always been cutting-edge sports, thanks to renegade personalities and high-tech gear. But this ski season, designers are stepping it up to a whole new level. Here, take a look at some of the finest in snowsports tech—and enter to win some gear of your own.