Crave

Though it's probably heretical to say this in consumer electronics' circles, sometimes it's nice when nothing new happens. Take for instance Canon's HV20 HDV camcorder. On the inside, it's pretty much identical to the HV10--the same 3-megapixel 1/2.7-inch, 1,920x1,080 CMOS sensor, the same 10X zoom Canon HD lens, the same Super-Range Optical Image Stabilizer and Instant AF focus support, and the same Digic DV II HD processor. All that similarity means we're probably going to be as impressed with the video from the HV20 as with the HV10's.

So you'… Read more

If you've ever wasted away the weekend playing Guitar Hero II, there's nothing to feel guilty about. Feel proud. Feel like a rock star. Feel these things because you're probably better at Guitar Hero II than actual guitarist Scott Ian of Anthrax.

And he even gets to play his own song.

As this fascinating video on Kotaku.com shows (WARNING: Swear words are all over the place), Ian had a bit of trouble performing his own song on Guitar Hero II. During his first attempt, he fails 31 percent of the way through the song.

And if … Read more

Sail-World just called attention to the fact that l' Hydroptère is on the brink of breaking the record for the world's fastest sailboat.

L'Hydroptère reached 47.2 knots on January 25, according to the log on its Web site. The absolute sailing speed record for 500 meters is 48.7 knots. L'Hydroptère also achieved an acceleration of 14 knots in 6 seconds.

The boat has been in development for several years on the principle that a sailboat's hull should not float on the water, but fly above it supported by &… Read more

Sci-fi time at Demo 07: call in to Qtech's ReQall, speak your ideas and to-do lists, and the service then does smart things with them. For example, if you save a task for a particular date, ReQall will feed it to you when you call in on that future day.

It also does speech-to-text conversion, and can e-mail you your notes, or put them on a desktop widget.

Pretty cool idea. For me, it depends on the speech-to-text quality. Can't wait to try it out.

The headline on this item posted by Gizmodo says it all: the "opposite of a chick magnet." No offense to Star Wars loyalists (OK, a little), but this has got to be one of the nerdier ideas we've seen in awhile--and, trust us, that's saying a lot. Do you really want to be known as the guy/gal who has a Lightsaber MP3 player?

Then again, it would be the perfect complement to the Lightsaber phone and, for that matter, the R2-D2 projector. All this could end up costing a pretty penny, but think of all … Read more

No, the Japanese "I'm a Mac" ads do not include Hello Kitty, Pikachu, or anything with tentacles. But they're quite funny in their own right, if only because I have absolutely no idea what the actors are saying in them but can still pretty much grasp the message that they're trying to convey. It's interesting, too, to see how the Japanese ads are much more reliant on physical expressions and gags, whereas the British Mac ads that Candace blogged here a few days ago are all about the wit (not surprisingly).

Additionally, I am … Read more

Being the responsible lot that we are, Crave occasionally posts public service announcements for the benefit of our readers. So here's one for those of you who use cannabis for medicinal purposes only, of course.

The appropriately named "Volcano Vaporizer" is a device that can make your prescription up to four times more potent than the average dosage. The German-made "BMW of bongs," as Uncrate calls it, also helps purify the substance and minimize the accompanying odor. But the Volcano's $540 price tag could be prohibitive--unless you have the most liberal of health insurance.… Read more

It still smacks of urban legend to us, but some people swear that teenager-repelling sounds do exist--and work. So we wouldn't be surprised to see some desperate parents and shop owners rushing to order the "Mosquito," an ultrasonic youth deterrent from the United Kingdom, which Gizmodo says is being imported to North America. The device, distributed by a company with the irresistible name of Kids Be Gone, supposedly creates an adolescent-free zone with a range of 40 to 60 feet. We'll be right back (need to find a tape measure).

Regardless of which game console you prefer, the Wii apparently has it all over the Playstation 3 in at least one category: colors. GameDrift says it has confirmed that Nintendo will release its game box in red, black and possibly other hues at an undisclosed time, according to CrunchGear. If true, it would be a smart move (and we think an obvious one), given the success that custom shops have seen just by adding a little color to PS3s and selling them on eBay for upwards of $1,400. Why Sony itself is taking so long to figure this out, … Read more