Crave

The new and improved Belkin TuneStage isn't slated to hit stores for a few weeks, but got our hands on an early unit and give it a test run. Right out of the box, we had the TuneStage II up and running in less than two minutes. Plug in the base station, run a connecting cable to any stereo or powered speaker system, and you're ready to use your iPod as a wireless music box. The new and improved transmitter dongle uses the standard iPod 30-pin connector, so unlike the original TuneStage, the TuneStage II is compatible with … Read more

The rumors about Photoshop CS3 started way back in August 2005, mere months after Adobe Photoshop CS2 shipped. One twist that none of the speculators foresaw, however, was Adobe choosing to test run its first public beta program using a major product. (Lightroom, the "beta" cycle for which is almost a year old, doesn't count.) It turns out that CS2 runs so slowly on Intel-based Macs that Adobe decided to throw those users an early bone.

I suspect Adobe is also using the opportunity to test its activation technology: CS3 will be available only to users with … Read more

Growing up in the mid-Atlantic, I was subjected to watching more than a handful of squash matches back in high school. No offense to anyone who's an avid squash fan, but it's not always the most interesting sport to watch. You take people, and racquets, and balls, and a wall. There are a lot of smacking noises. Yawn.

But this is a little different. The creators of "Laser Squash" took the basic concept of squash and turned it into something that seems like it came out of a military training exercise in Ender's Game. Beams … Read more

Monitors have something in common with keyboards--and no, Sparky, it's not just that they're both connected to your computer. Where design is concerned, both are often neglected stepchildren toiling in the shadow of their showy sibling, the the mouse.

BenQ, however, is one manufacturer that sees monitors as objects of beauty, and it partnered with Taiwan's National Palace Museum to prove it. Chip Chick, in fact, calls their new "Art Museum" line "the most beautifully designed monitors we've ever come across."

The 17-inch LCD screens, which have built-in speakers, are adorned with … Read more

BenQ has just announced a new big-screen, high-ISO, compact snapshot camera, just in time for holiday shoppers to ask why the company is announcing a new product in mid-December. The X710 is a slim, 7.2-megapixel shooter with a big 3-inch LCD screen and a 30fps VGA movie mode that can hit ISO 4000 sensitivity for filming in low light. Of course, that setting will probably mean incredibly noisy, grainy movies that look like they come out of 1970s-era video tapes. Still shots can only go up to ISO 1200, which will still probably be pretty darn noisy. The … Read more

When Bono and his buddies came up with the Red campaign a while back to promote AIDS awareness in Africa, I was delighted--not only because of the charity involved, but also because red is my favorite color. I wish more gadgets came in red. It does appear that the savvy folks over at Motorola have answered my call, with a brand-new crimson edition of the Motorola Krzr that they have dubbed the Krzr Fire. It is sadly available only in Korea for now, but it would be quite lovely if it were available here too.

Everyone has seen those arm straps to hold your iPod, but a company called JAMinnovations also makes arm/wrist straps to hold your cell phone or smart phone. The straps will hold handsets of all different designs, from tiny flip phones to clunky candy-bar models. They even have a strap for Treos and other smart phones.

No doubt, having a cell phone on your morning jog would be convenient in an emergency, but otherwise the straps border on the land of "things you don't need" (at least in my opinion). And what's more, they just seem … Read more

I have to admit, Engadget's comment on the 34x zoom JVC GR-D750 camcorder is the best thing about it: "For moms and creepy men." With a 1,496mm-equivalent maximum zoom lens, you have to wonder where the specsmanship will end. I mean, to take a close-up shot of the moon, you really need only an 800mm lens. And image-stabilization technologies in consumer camcorders can usually handle up to only about 20x zoom, so clearly you'd need a tripod to get decent video. So we're talking about a camcorder optimized for shooting from a fixed position … Read more

This week, MTV quietly launched a new feature within Urge, dubbed My Auto-Mix. I had a chance to sit down with MTV reps last week to preview the tool, and I was pretty impressed with what I saw. Yesterday, I finally had a chance to start playing with My Auto-Mix, and now I'm hooked. This handy music discovery tool provides you with custom playlists based on several factors that you can adjust. My personal favorite is the Mood Selector, which can be seen in the screenshot below. The experience is entirely visual, with different emoticons representing all 179 moods … Read more