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Researchers at Cambridge University have created a virtual talking head that expresses emotions and someday might be your personal assistant and a shoulder to cry on. Scotland may pass a law allowing Jedi to officiate at weddings. And the Image Toaster prints pictures from the headlines on your toast, making breakfast a whole lot more enjoyable. This, and more, on Crave. … Read more

The Epson Moverios are heavier than my regular glasses. I'm not sure I mind. Since I first got glasses in the fourth grade, I dreamed about them having some sort of built-in head-up display, feeding me real-time data about the world around me. Two seconds into the Google Glass launch video, and I said, out loud, "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY."

Turns out, Epson has been working on similar "iGlasses." Like Google Glass, these are an early entry into the technology. So if you're hoping for a snarky review about early tech, you'll be disappointed.

If you want to know what it's like having something like this, what it can and will be, and a shocking lack of jokes about me wanting Geordi La Forge's barrette thing, read on.… Read more

High Resolution Technologies makes some of the very best and most affordable digital-to-analog converters on the market. The company's newest model, the MicroStreamer, is a tiny thing, just 2.5 inches by 1.2 inches by 0.4 inch, and since it's USB-powered it doesn't have a power supply or require batteries. It works as an external sound card for computers, tablets, and some smartphones. It's also a high-quality headphone amplifier. It was designed in the U.S., and the little guy's circuitboard's components are mounted in Southern California. The aluminum case is made … Read more

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease thought to play a role in the deaths (which are sometimes suicides) of athletes, soldiers, and others who have suffered concussions and repeated hits to the head, is currently only able to be diagnosed postmortem.

"After a while it gets old and not so fulfilling to take the brain out when [an athlete] is dead," Julian Bailes, a neurosurgeon and director of the Brain Injury Research Institute, told CNN. "At that point there is no solution, no answer."

So a study co-authored by Bailes suggesting that PET scans … Read more

True story. A few years ago, I got a concussion at a baseball game -- and not because a ball hit me in the head. When my friend and I simultaneously turned and leaned in to talk, her head hit mine with such force I thought I had broken my nose. My doctor, however, said all signs pointed toward a concussion. Did I mention it was a Giants game? Go, Giants!

World Series aside, had I been wearing a new impact-sensing skullcap from Reebok and startup MC10, I might have immediately known whether I needed medical treatment or rest before resuming play, which in my case involved sitting on a bench trying to explain baseball to CNET's Swedish summer interns.

The sensor-laden mesh cap provides colored LED readouts that vary according to the level of impact, thus providing instant information on the gravity of the blow. It should be commercially available to consumers early next year, "essentially serving as an extra set of eyes on the ice -- or any other playing field," MC10 says. … Read more

Coinciding with many other announcements during its presser today at the IFA 2012 confab in Berlin, Sony quietly launched the HMZ-T2 personal 3D head-mounted display.

The headset -- vastly similar to its predecessor (the HMZ-T1) -- contains two small 0.7-inch OLED (organic light-emitting diode) displays placed in front of the wearer's eyes that simulate a big screen and can display 2D/3D content from any HDMI source. Crave sent Sony an e-mail to see if the HMZ-T2 offers the same 720-pixel resolution and picture quality as before, which seems likely, as T2's marketing babble reads very much like that of the HMZ-T1. We'll let you know. … Read more

You'd think this were the turn of the 1990s. The "Total Recall" remake just opened today in theaters, and a virtual-reality headset ended up being up the hottest thing in the gaming world this week.

The Oculus Rift works like a conventional head-mounted display, but packs a few features that make it ideal for gaming. For example, the Rift offers impressive head-tracking capabilities; stereoscopic 3D rendering; a wide field of view (110 degrees -- most headsets only offer around 40 degrees); and several inputs (DVI/HDMI and USB). When wearing the Oculus, each eye gets close and personal with a 640x800 LCD screen for a total resolution of 1,280x800 (720p). … Read more

Heads up, Google. Apple may be eyeing its own "portable heads-up display" that could one day give Google Glass devices some competition.

Outlined in a filing published by the U.S. Patent and Trade Office yesterday, Apple's patent application refers to a technology that increases the resolution on a display without increasing the number of pixels. Such technology could be used in a portable heads-up display, Apple explained, where limiting the number of pixels is especially useful.

"In particular, a portable heads-up display may be size and weight constrained such that addition of physical pixels may … Read more

Head-Fi is a national headphone club, and I went to the local meeting in Babylon, N.Y., last Saturday.

The vibe was friendly, and it was great to hear Head-Fi members' home-built gear, but there were a few surprises popping up from the headphone and electronics manufacturers in attendance.

Logitech Ultimate Ears' Personal Reference Monitor in-ear headphones feature a new twist on custom-molded-to-your-ears headphone design. Lots of brands now make custom in-ear headphones, and Logitech's have been among my favorites for years, but the upcoming Personal Reference Monitor takes the personalization to the next level. Once your ear canals' &… Read more