emergency

More computers than expected will ship this year, thanks to the need for PCs in emerging markets, particularly China, according to research firm Gartner.

Although Microsoft's new Vista operating system hasn't provided as big a boost as previously thought, worldwide PC shipments should pass 257 million units by the end of this year, according to the figures compiled by Garter analyst George Shiffler. That's an 11.1-percent increase over the 2006 shipment total of 231.5 million units.

It's also a slight bump up from the 10.5 percent unit growth Gartner had projected back in … Read more

Researcher Ermanno Pietrosemoli has set what appears to be a new record for the longest communication link with Wi-Fi.

Pietrosemoli, president of the Escuela Latinoamerica de Redes (which means networking school of Latin America) established a Wi-Fi link between two computers located in El Aguila and Platillon Mountain, Venezuela. That's a distance of 382 kilometers, or 238 miles. He used technology from Intel, which is concocting its own long-range Wi-Fi equipment, and some off-the-shelf parts. Pietrosemoli gets about 3 megabits per second in each direction on his long-range connections.

Most Wi-Fi signals only go only a few meters before … Read more

It's taken 27 years to reach 1 billion PCs in use, and market researchers say it will take only five to reach the next billion.

Forrester Research is set to release a report Monday titled, "Worldwide PC Adoption Forecast to 2015," saying that many of those next billion will be used by first-time PC users in emerging nations like Brazil, Russia, India and China. At least 775 million new PCs will be in use in those countries by 2015, according to Forrester.

Not only is access to computers beneficial to those users, it also will represent a … Read more

PALO ALTO, Calif.--Despite the digitization of nearly everything else in our daily lives, the Sunday circular ad for beef and bags of baby carrots has remained. Hewlett-Packard is developing a technology to bring even the banal task of grocery shopping into the Digital Age.

At HP Labs here, researchers are developing an in-store kiosk solution called Retail Shopping Assistant (RSA) that will make shopping for food, clothes and electronics easier for buyers and make selling things easier for retailers.

The idea is this: imagine walking into a grocery store, and instead of bringing your shopping list along, simply swiping … Read more

We're relieved that Motorola has apparently decided to consult some people in the fashion industry before introducing their newest line of headgear. That, anyway, is the only explanation we can assume for the contrast between its utterly nerdsome MP3 knit cap of last winter and the Bluetooth bike helmet it's co-branded with Red.

The helmet has been touted for bike riding, but Gearfuse points out that it can be used just as well for skateboarding, snowboarding or other life-threatening activities we're far too old to contemplate. Using Motorola's Audex system, it can also work with special … Read more

Sure, you can get vests that play your music, but what will you do in an emergency situation? That's when you may wish you had what Hammacher Schlemmer calls "The Only Two-Way Radio Life Vest."

The Coast Guard-approved personal flotation device comes with two (count 'em) 14-channel two-way radios--"one integrated into the chest of the life vest and another for use on a boat or on shore, allowing instant communication from water skier to boat or ship to shore from up to 1.8 miles away." They also have large buttons and LCDs "… Read more

After all these years, it's amazing that those infuriating plastic "bubble packs" are still around. By now, we'd have thought for sure that there would have been a major class action over bodily injury caused by the sharp edges of this horrible stuff.

Until that day, we may have to try out something called the "Package Shark" that supposedly opens the hated material cleanly and, more important, safely. If it works as easily as it appears to in the company's video, we're getting one for sure. We totally agree with Red Ferret'… Read more

So you're ready to take on the world with your Lightsaber phone and MP3 Lightsaber. But wait--your Millennium Falcon develops engine trouble. What's a Jedi to do?

Why, whip out your Safety Wand and Megaphone, of course--"a safety beacon that amplifies your voice up to five football fields away," as Uber-Review says. It's not an official piece of equipment from the Lucas empire, but it sure could have fooled us. (Do we hear the pitter-patter of trademark attorneys?)

Anyway, at least your ship has been rescued. And good thing you didn't have a … Read more

If there were no buttons on your cell phone, imagine how big the screen could be.

Synaptics is doing just that with its Onyx phone, a new concept in cell phone technology. Shaped like a remote, it's a bar-style phone that would integrate GPS, music, teleconferencing and calendar events.

But the coolest part is the screen, which takes up nearly the whole handset. Synaptics calls it ClearPad, a thin, high-resolution touch screen based on the company's proprietary sensing technology. With it, there would be no need for buttons to input information. Information can be entered into the Onyx … Read more