Crave

As flat-screen TVs continue to evolve, so does the design of furnishings around them--some less successfully than others, as evidenced by the combo TV fireplace. And, as is to be expected, the Italians are leading the way.

Bruno Fattorini is the latest designer to meld form and function with this TV panel from MDF Italia, which BornRich says is equipped to flush-mount plasmas and LCDs in sizes from 37 to 50 inches. It comes in such finishes as anthracite gray and anodized aluminum. This isn't just an updated '70s wall unit in faux oak veneer.

We eagerly await the … Read more

Some years ago, after a particularly bad outbreak of bug bites, we purchased a $500 propane-powered mosquito-repellant system that was supposedly effective enough to be used by the military. (Is that an official gadget cliche yet?) We never got it to work, naturally, and it sits in a corner of the garage mocking us daily.

So we're somewhat dubious about any device that claims to eradicate the winged leeches unless it involves mass quantities of highly toxic industrial-strength pesticides. But this mosquito repeller claims to do just that with ultra-sonic sound in adjustable frequencies.

Please forgive our skepticism, but … Read more

What do Ashton Kutcher and voice over IP technology have in common?

Kutcher, best known for his role on That '70s Show and MTV's reality show Punk'd, is "creative director" for a Silicon Valley start-up called Ooma, which has developed a device that will allow users to make free VoIP calls to any phone in the U.S.

The company, which has $27 million in funding, officially announced itself Thursday.

Unlike Vonage, which requires users pay a monthly flat rate for domestic calling, or Skype, which charges users a low-cost fee to make or accept calls … Read more

It's not Friday, but we'd like to pretend it is. So here you go: left over from last week's E3 Business and Media Summit, two representatives from Gamecock Media learning how to ride a Segway Human Transporter while wearing makeshift chicken outfits.

It's just really kind of awesome.

They're no Lee Majors, but thanks to groundbreaking work in prosthetics, some people with missing limbs are becoming (at least partially) bionic. Earlier today, sister site CNET News.com took a look at two devices that are helping get amputees back on their feet and into the kitchen, office, and even the shooting range.

Yesterday, Scottish company Touch Bionics announced its i-Limb Hand, which ushers in the next generation of prosthetic hands. The i-Limb Hand uses individual motors in each finger, so people wearing it can move fingers independently of each other. It's also got pressure sensitivity, so … Read more

A hand-delivered box containing a new Sony Vaio TZ laptop just arrived, temporarily holding the CNET Labs staff transfixed with its ultra-slim design. The spell was only broken by a quick inquiry about the system's price ("How much is that? $3,000? Oh...")

Our review unit is actually one of the lower-end TZ models, clocking in at a more reasonable $2,299, meaning it has only 1GB of RAM, a slightly slower CPU than the more expensive models, and a standard hard drive, instead of the 32GB solid-state option in the higher-end TZ configurations (those get up … Read more

The most surprising thing about this household energy monitor is that it's made in Japan. Not because the country has anything against green technology, but because the device doesn't have animated penguins or some other irritating example of the country's kawaii culture.

The "Wattson Limited Edition" supposedly can monitor individual appliances and instantaneously provide information on the amount of power it uses and at what cost. OhGizmo notes that it's unclear how the gadget from DIY Kyoto connects or taps into the power lines, but it had better work if consumers expect to recoup … Read more

Vienna, VA.-based Space Adventures said Wednesday that it's booked two added passenger seats for orbital flights on the Russian Soyuz rocket in the coming years, upping its commitment in the tourist spaceflight market. The company, which was the first to send a private citizen into space on the Soyuz, said that because of consumer demand, it has reserved two commercial seats on flights in fall 2008 and spring 2009, under contract with the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation. And Space Adventures is negotiating terms for flights in 2010 and beyond. (Previously, it has sent one tourist … Read more

Flash memory chips bound for Apple's iPods and iPhones will account for 25 percent of the world's total flash output in the third quarter.

So says DRAMeXchange, a market research company out of Taiwan that tracks the memory industry. It's referring to a specific kind of flash memory known as NAND, which is the flash technology of choice for modern cell phones and MP3 players. Flash memory can store data without an electrical charge and without any moving parts, which makes it ideal for mobile devices and increasingly for notebook PCs.

Apple's share of the MP3 … Read more