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Must-see videos from the New York auto show

This week our Car Tech team was on-hand at the 2013 New York auto show, busily scouring the floors in order to bring you the best from the event, here in video format.

1. 2014 Kia Soul

The 2014 Kia Soul is the surprise of the 2013 New York auto show and a hit of the "box on wheels" movement, plus it comes stacked with some nifty tech.

Phil Jackson's first tweet is a work of art

When you join Twitter, the elation of suddenly experiencing free access to self-expression can be Zen-like.

You become at one with it. It becomes at one with you. Until the point where you're not sure which is you and which is it.

I feel sure that such feelings overcame Phil Jackson -- the NBA coaching great -- when he joined Twitter and 55,000 people immediately genuflected in the face of his Zen.

His account, @PhilJackson11, has been verified. It describes him as "coach and author." I have not read one of his books, but I suspect they don't necessarily include the character sequences that appear in his first tweet.

For it reads: "11 champ;ipnsikp[ ringhs."… Read more

Man accused of selling golf-ball finders as bomb detectors

Gadgets sometimes have alternative uses.

You can hold up a phone at a U2 concert and show that you, too, can create a religious light source.

You can use a hair dryer to bring your iPhone back to life after you've dropped it in the toilet.

However, I have never heard of someone attempting to pass off a golf-ball finder as a bomb detector. There again, I never thought Harvard could beat anyone at basketball.

Excitingly, there is a trial currently in progress in which a British businessman is accused of fooling the military, the police, nay, even governments themselves into buying bomb detectors that were golf-ball finders.

I cannot imagine how the two might have been confused. But the prosecution alleges that 56-year-old Jim McCormick persuaded many important people around the world that these things could spot bombs, ivory, drugs, and even bits of human bodies.

He allegedly claimed they even worked through walls, under water, and even from planes. … Read more

Google launches Keep to help you store your notes

Google unveiled its rumored Keep service today, giving users a new way to create and save notes and integrate them with Google Drive.

The service is live both on the Web and in a new app for Android devices running on 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and above.

Keep gives Google users a central place to store the information they collect from its various services. People are doing this already in Google Docs -- keeping to-do lists, recipes, and other short snippets of text on individual documents.

Here's how the company put it in a blog post:

"With … Read more

Use IFTTT to get breaking news, score updates from ESPN

If you're looking to combine a bunch of unrelated Web services with each other and come up with a concoction of triggers and alerts to intertwine your online life, look no further than If This Then That (IFTTT).

The site, as we've previously told you, allows you to set triggers based off of various services such as Facebook, local weather, Instagram, package tracking, and many others -- 60 channels in total. Those triggers will then carry out an action on another channel, ranging from calling your phone to adding a line to a Google Drive spreadsheet. When you … Read more

Catch a wave with Kymera electric body board

If paddling out to that wave is getting a little too tiring, this electric body board puts you right in the water while pulling you along effortlessly.

Kymera is a lightweight, motorized jet board that can send you crashing through waves to help a struggling swimmer. Mainly intended for lifeguards and search and rescue teams, it's designed to be placed in the water more quickly and easily than personal watercraft.

The focus of a $250,000 Kickstarter campaign, Kymera weighs 48 pounds with the rechargeable lithium polymer battery pack, and 29 pounds without it. … Read more

You got game? Prove it with electronic basketball

So you've got the LED-lit Tron basketball court. Now you need an electronic ball.

94Fifty is a sensor-laden ball that's designed to give you feedback on your court athletics. It has wireless links to your iOS or Android smartphone and a Qi charging pad.

Part of a Kickstarter campaign by InfoMotion Sports Technologies, 94Fifty is a regulation-size ball that gathers data on everything from dribbling to shot arcs, backspin, and speed. … Read more

Watch Kim Jong-un throw nuclear bomb, hoops in video game

Perhaps Kobe Bryant's teammates feel the same way.

They stand back and watch their supreme leader perform as no other man can. Or no other man thinks he can.

In this case, on one team is North Korea's "Supreme Leader" Kim Jong-un, partnered by his new bosom chum, Dennis Rodman.

On the other team are two Americans -- one of whom, curiously, isn't an American.

The genesis of this sparkling video game is the recent visit of Rodman, the former Chicago Bull great and "Celebrity Apprentice" not-so-great to North Korea. … Read more

Best music and audio apps for iOS

Slacker Radio (free) This is a great option for listening to streaming radio, with an intuitive interface that makes it easy to find what you want quickly. To use Slacker you must sign up for an account or log in with your Facebook credentials.

You can search for artists using a field at the top; check out the Music Guide curated by Slacker; or search by genres, stations you've previously listened to, specialty stations, or news, talk, and sports stations. Each selection on the first screen leads to another list where you can swipe to browse selections to find … Read more