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The words "flashlight" and "beautiful" don't generally occupy the same sentence. But designer Greg Hinzmann wants to change that with the new Trioh, which bears the tagline "world's most beautiful flashlight."

I'm not current enough on flashlight design to say whether the Trioh lives up to such lofty claims, but it's certainly way prettier than the red plastic job I have sitting on the floor next to my bed.

The three-in-one device functions as a rechargeable flashlight with three super-bright LEDs; an emergency light that automatically goes on when the power goes out; and a modern-looking accent light that can sit on an end table in its charging dock looking sleekly unassuming until it has to jump into emergency duty. … Read more

My culinary life won't be complete until I have the raw, awesome power of a Sushi Bazooka in my kitchen arsenal. Want. Desperately.

I've made sushi before. It was an inglorious exercise in frustration and failure. That's probably why I prefer sashimi. It's also why I have such respect for talented sushi makers.

Finally, there's a kitchen gadget that panders to my lazy sushi-making skills. It's essentially a sushi extruder. Pack the tube full of rice and whatever ingredients you want to go in the middle. Close it. Push down the plunger. Roll up the resulting sushi log in seaweed. Instant apathetic sushi!… Read more

Public restrooms can really test your senses, especially if you're super fastidious about cleanliness. Thankfully, as automation becomes more commonplace, we get to enjoy futuristic time savers like Camitool, a touch-free toilet paper dispenser by Japanese company Shikoku.

You may wonder if toilet paper dispensers need any further optimization, but this product addresses some valid points. A touch-free dispenser lets those with conditions like rheumatism collect toilet paper much more easily, and it reduces the chance that infectious diseases will get spread by removing hands from the equation. Less hands mean less germs. … Read more

Ikea has already introduced its catalog for mobile devices, but now the Swedish furniture giant is going a little more in-depth with the 2013 edition. There are more than 40 bits of extended content sprinkled throughout the catalog.

The 2013 physical catalog pairs with a special Ikea catalog app to unlock more than meets the eye on the printed page. Unlike the Moosejaw X-ray catalog peep show, expect to see furniture rather than statuesque Scandinavian models.… Read more

The lightsaber chopstick isn't the newest idea in the galaxy, but a previous attempt at capturing "Star Wars" magic in chopstick form fell woefully short by virtue of just being a translucent stick.

Now Kotobukiya is doing lightsaber chopsticks right by embedding LEDs into the food-gathering gadgets. Now you can look forward to bathing your sashimi in the warm red or blue glow of a miniature lightsaber.… Read more

Looking at the Stig Chair for the first time, you'd almost think this thing originated from Batman's flight simulator.

The exotic $11,000 seat by Veraseri Designs sits at 52x23x39 inches, and consists of stainless steel, yellow pine, and deer leather for the ultimate in "high-performance sport luxury furniture," according to designer Adam Krehbiel. Additionally, the supporting frame contains recycled steel pipe from the frames of previously crashed Nascar stock cars.

For protection, the Stig sports Line-X protective coating, somewhat similar to the type one would see in the bed of a pickup truck. Krehbiel notes that someone can "hose down" the coating if needed, and that it "resists 9mm small-arms fire." … Read more

In a nutshell, a network-attached storage server is an external storage device, like an external hard drive, but instead of plugging it directly into a computer, via a USB or a Thunderbolt port, you plug it into a switch or a router, via a network cable. The main benefit of a NAS server is that its storage is available to the entire network, meaning all computers on the network can access the same storage space at the same time.

In reality, an advanced NAS server can do much more than that, such as streaming its contents to network media players, hosting Internet-based services such as personal clouds, acting as a centralized server for a business, and even being a video recorder for your TV programs or surveillance cameras, and all at the same time. Think of it as a real server, minus a mouse, keyboard, and a monitor. Instead, you control it via a Web interface.

Advanced NAS servers are generally not for novices, but they don't require years of training, either. In fact, if you are comfortable with computers and the Internet, and have an interest, you can easily figure one out after having invested some time, of course. And you really want to figure it out since the return is huge.

Following is a list of the five best NAS servers that I have reviewed in recent years. This list is sorted based on the amount of drive bays and review dates and updated on a regular basis as more servers are reviewed.… Read more

Synology announced today that version 4.1 of its DiskStation Manager (DSM) operating system (firmware) for DiskStation NAS servers, such as the DS1511+ or the DS712+, is now in beta state. This means the final update will be available in a month or so.

DSM has been one of the main reasons why Synology NAS servers are the best among network-attached storage devices, thanks to its vast amount of features and robust and easy-to-use interface.

The new version offers some major additional features to the already feature-rich OS, including a Video Station and mobile apps for Windows Phone 7. The … Read more

I silkscreened a shirt once for a middle school art class. It was an intensive, smelly process that didn't come out very well. That's why I'm intrigued by the Lumi Process, a water-based printing method for textiles that uses sunlight to develop the prints.

The Inkodye used in the process was developed from a nearly-forgotten dye formula from the 1950s that has some useful light-sensitive photographic properties.… Read more