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Joby noodles with flexible monopod

LAS VEGAS--Joby announced its latest Gorillapod model Wednesday at the Photo Marketing Association trade show here, the one-legged Solo.

Joby just finished its first year selling monopods with flexible, rubberized legs that can be flexed to deal with uneven perches or wrapped around poles or tree limbs. The Solo has just one stalk and comes in a $30 20-segment model or a $40 30-segment model.

The new model, currently available only off the company's Web site, can hold up to two pounds worth of camera, but the company expects it to be popular holding other photographic equipment such as … Read more

Save money while just after you sleep!

Imagine, if you will, this conversation between members of a product development team: "Man, waking up is hard."

"You know what else is hard? Saving money."

"We should make something that will help us do both at the same time!"

Maybe it never happened, but it's the only way we could explain the Banclock, an attractive, cube-shaped alarm clock that requires you to deposit change to turn off the alarm--no snooze, no off button, no wimps need purchase. (Though if your pockets are empty after playing too much pinball the night before, the … Read more

Gigabyte U60 ready for CeBIT

Everything's coming up UMPC for CeBIT--at least, that's how it feels today. In addition to a rumor that the Samsung Q2 will be announced at the show, Taiwan-based Gigabyte has started hyping its own U60 UMPC on its CeBIT page. The company's release [PDF] offered only a teaser's worth of details, describing a 6.5-inch LCD screen, built-in wireless, and a sliding QWERTY keyboard. Earlier rumors add that the U60 has 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, two USB ports, and an SD/MMC slot.

The most unusual element of the 1.6-pound U60, though, may be … Read more

Samsung Q2 on its way?

Engadget has posted details and photos of the rumored Samsung Q2, a follow-up to the Q1 ultramobile PC that launched last year. If the leaked details are accurate, the Q2 stands to outshine its attractive but poor-performing predecessor. The new model's 7-inch touch screen will feature a finer 1,024x600 native resolution and beefed-up components that include 1GB of RAM and a 60GB hard drive (all the better to run Windows Vista Home Premium). Borrowing an idea from the Sony VAIO UX, the Q2 will also have two digital cameras--1.3 megapixels for photography and a lower resolution for … Read more

Car seat knows when you need a nap

There are a number of technologies on the market aimed at keeping us from falling asleep, especially while behind the wheel, but they usually involve some kind of device affixed to the noggin. Researchers in Japan, however, are working on a protype car seat that senses when you're about to nod off by monitoring pulse, respiration and other physical changes that typically occur 10 minutes before someone falls asleep, according to Pink Tentacle.

Sensors are embedded throughout the seat to detect those changes and, eventually, some kind of alarm system will be included to kick in when Mr. Sandman … Read more

FCC reveals TomTom's product road map

GPS maker TomTom has been pretty quiet as of late, but thanks to some FCC slips, it looks like we'll be seeing several new in-car GPS devices from the company soon. Details are pretty light at the moment, but here's what we know so far. First, there's a product called the TomTom One XL. A follow-up to the no-frills TomTom One, the XL is said to feature a larger 4.3-inch touch screen and integrated Bluetooth so you can use it as a hands-free speaker system. You'll also have the option to receive real-time traffic updates, … Read more

Nokia divulges details on new N-Gage platform

The rumors were true: Nokia's N-Gage is returning, but it will be a gaming platform available on several new phones rather than on a single gaming handset. Gaming blog Kotaku was among the first to report on the news, which Nokia will expand upon at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. Top mobile publishers such as EA, Glu Mobile and THQ Wireless are said to be on board, and Nokia is showcasing at least six N-Gage games, including versions of such well-known franchises as Brothers in Arms and FIFA 2008.

Nokia's press release specifically mentions that … Read more

Juicy BlackBerry 8300 pictures emerge

Man, the RIM BlackBerry 8800 has to feel a little jilted. The sleek, full QWERTY device just came out over a week ago, and already we've moved on to the next big thing. That's a pretty quick 15 minutes of fame, even in the tech world. But can you really blame us? Not when there are rumors of a Wi-Fi-enabled BlackBerry 8820 out in the wild. And now, thanks to Spanish site Mentesdigitales, we can drool over another rumored RIM device, the BlackBerry 8300, aka "Daytona." This sexy beast sports an attractive silver casing as well … Read more

Charles Darwin + Audiobook = Next-generation torture device

Boing Boing has alerted us to a public-domain audio recording of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection that you can download and plunk onto your iPod. Now, I did a bit of the History of Science thing in college, and I must have taken at least four seminars in which Origin of Species was on the syllabus. I can consequently tell you that this is the most boring book ever written.

Yes, it's difficult to express just how influential a work of research and literature it was, and it's still obviously … Read more