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Swedish phone company Hi3G Access wants to reach out and touch everyone with a new "Minority Report"-style video chat system through which its staff can shuffle graphics around with their hands.

As seen in the vid, 3LiveShop is a Flash-based multitouch system through which Hi3G staff can pull up images with the flick of a finger while video chatting with customers.

Developer B-Reel, a production company in Stockholm, says the system is the first of its kind in the world. The products are shown in a separate stream from the video for better resolution.

Staff can also create onscreen bills to show costs associated with phone models. After a customer selects a phone, it gets dropped into a cart for checkout in the e-commerce system.

The multitouch screens, developed with Teenage Engineering, include mirrors and high-end cameras. There are only three workstations with the system at the moment, but the company is thinking of expanding it to other countries if it's successful.

I think using a mouse would be a lot easier on the sales staff's arms, but of course it wouldn't look as cool. … Read more

B&W, which is now branding itself by its longer, more formal name, Bowers & Wilkins, is known for its high-end speakers. However, a few years back the company dipped into the more mainstream consumer market with its first iPod speaker system, the $600 Zeppelin, followed by the smaller and more affordable Zeppelin Mini.

Now the company is back with a new version of the Zeppelin called the Zeppelin Air that shares many design traits with the original Zep but offers better sound and one very important new feature: support for Apple's AirPlay. That feature allows you to … Read more

Almost from the very beginning seven decades ago, flying wings have been something of a specialty for the aircraft company founded by Jack Northrop.

The 1940s saw the XB-35 experimental aircraft. The late 1980s brought the B-2 bomber.

Now Northrop Grumman is pushing ahead with the X-47B UCAS (for unmanned combat air system), a prototype going through its fledgling stage en route to the goal of demonstrating in 2013 that an unmanned, tailless, strike fighter-size aircraft can land on and take off from an aircraft carrier.

Earlier this month, the X-47B made just the second and third flights (from dry … Read more

A second mysterious, robotic space plane was launched into orbit by the U.S. Air Force today, after the first craft safely returned to Earth late last year following a secretive months-long mission and speculation about its potential military or intelligence uses.

The second Boeing-built X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, or OTV, left Cape Canaveral, Fla., at 2:46 p.m. PT, atop an Atlas V rocket, Boeing said.

"History was made in December when the X-37B became the United States' first unmanned vehicle to return from space and land on its own," Craig Cooning, vice president and general … Read more

Senior editor Donald Bell stops by, Motorola Xoom in tow, to give us a hands-on the first Honeycomb tablet. Once we've had our fill, we take a look beyond Honeycomb at the next generation OS for Android phones. Also, a pair of apps may be able to save your lost phone and save you from a speeding ticket on this week's edition of Android Atlas Weekly.

Motorola Xoom review http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/motorola-xoom-tablet/4505-3126_7-34468548.html?tag=mncol;txt … Read more

Business computers have long been an area where design has started to matter, and HP's newest line of business-oriented EliteBook p- and ProBook b- and s-series laptops do their best to provide some additional style to IT-friendly computers.

We've already considered their previous ProBook models to be attractive enough to draw attention away from the rest of the consumer-focused Pavilion lineup, but the new models bridge the gap even more in terms of design. They also incorporate Intel's new second-generation Sandy Bridge CPUs, as well as USB 3.0, upgraded sound options, and HD webcams.

The EliteBook … Read more

Only six years after the film "Stealth," Northrop Grumman has demonstrated its much ballyhooed X-47B robot stealth plane, successfully completing a 29-minute test flight to 5,000 feet at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Developed under a $635 million Navy contract, the unmanned, tailless jet provides greater range and power by taking off from aircraft carriers, delivering laser-guided bombs and refueling in the air.

The test flight, which had been expected to take place over a year ago, is a first step to demonstrating the plane on a carrier. Northrop Grumman now says that will happen in … Read more

A Canadian satellite maker plans to launch a network of 78 small, relatively low-flying satellites designed to help relieve network congestion that's significantly dampening smartphone enthusiasm.

MSCI, which stands for Microsat Systems Canada Inc., is trying to be a bit of a maverick with its project, called CommStellation. The company said today that its approach of using small, inexpensive satellites in low orbit--about 620 miles above the Earth--means better coverage of the world's population, quicker launch, and better network capacity.

The company likes to spotlight its competition with the O3b, the Google-backed satellite project to improve Net access … Read more

LAS VEGAS--B&W's series of Zeppelin iPod speakers have always been known for their striking design and better-than-average sound quality and at CES 2011 the company announced the Zeppelin Air, now compatible with Apple's new Airplay streaming audio platform.

AirPlay compatibility means you'll be able to stream music wirelessly directly from iOS devices (iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch), either from apps or your own music collection. You'll also able to stream music directly from iTunes on a networked computer. The Zeppelin Air still includes a dock, which is handy in case you want to charge your … Read more