dragons

Dice Gauntlet puts unlimited rolling power on your wrist

Back in my day, we used paper and pencil for our Dungeons & Dragons games. Our fighters and clerics had to walk uphill both ways in the snow to attack a castle. Kids nowadays don't even have to use real dice anymore. They just wave their fists and let the Dice Gauntlet do all the work.

Sweet orc feet, but the Dice Gauntlet from Geekify is a brilliant idea. It's a leather gauntlet with a digital dice system built right in. You get both the tough "Game of Thrones" look and the convenience of two independent displays that can roll two separate dice at a time.… Read more

Crave giveaway: Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12

Congrats to Jonathan H. of Flushing, N.Y., for winning two canvas-mounted Instagram prints from CanvasPop in last week's giveaway. This week's freebie is really something to talk about. We're offering up a copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12, Nuance's new voice recognition software for PCs.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12 promises 20 percent more accuracy than its predecessor, Dragon 11, as well as faster speeds and new technology that learns your preferences as you use it.

The product plays better than ever with Gmail and Hotmail, according to Nuance, and also extends the free Dragon Remote Microphone App experience to Android, turning compatible phones into a wireless microphone for Dragon for PC. … Read more

Raise dragons

Unlike other free, social gaming apps, DragonVale doesn't want you to build cities or farms or whatever; instead it's about something special: raising dragons. The clean, well-designed interface, combined with the constant help from onscreen tips, makes the game fun at first, but its limited action can drag the overall experience down.

DragonVale introduces its players into its nicely designed virtual world through a very helpful tutorial, teaching you about the care each little dragon needs. We liked how the app teaches players about caring for and learning about dragons, as well as interacting with the society. The … Read more

A tiny USB digital-to-analog converter from AudioQuest

The AudioQuest DragonFly is a USB-powered (it doesn't use batteries or an external power supply) digital-to-analog converter. I usually need some time to get a handle on the sound of a component, but within minutes of plugging in the tiny $249 DAC I knew exactly what made it so special. It sounds clear and clean, so there's less standing between the music and my ears.

The DragonFly is a bona fide audio component, designed by Gordon Rankin, a man known in audiophile circles as a great tube electronics engineer, but Rankin is also a computer audio guy. He's one of the few DAC designers with equal depth of knowledge in analog and digital audio technology.… Read more

Does size matter? Over-the-ear vs. in-ear headphones

Since in-ear headphones sit in or near the ear canal, they don't interact with the pinna, the bends and curves of the outer ear that direct sound to the ear canal. The pinna also serves as an acoustic filter, enhancing the frequency range of human speech, and it also supplies directional cues, so we can localize where sound is coming from. That's how our ears and brains process sound in real life, but in-ear headphones don't interact with the pinna, so they can't sound as realistic as full-size headphones or speakers. In-ears can still sound great, … Read more

Headphone geekfest in Babylon, NY

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

'Phone, unlock thyself'

Sooner than you think, the Holy Grail of mobile password security could land on your phone thanks to new tech from Nuance called Dragon ID.

Dragon ID is a voice biometrics system from the same company behind the voice-recognition tech in Dragon Dictate for PCs and Dragon Go for iOS and Android. It promises a hands-free login system, but Nuance isn't putting it out in an app.

Instead, it's licensing the technology to manufacturers so they can build it into their phones.

"We're going to be pretty aggressive with our longstanding OEM partners, so we certainly … Read more

SpaceX Dragon capsule reaches space station (live video)

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The payoff moment of the historic SpaceX mission to the International Space Station is upon us.

A robotic arm on the International Space Station has reached out and captured the SpaceX Dragon capsule at a distance of about 10 meters. Next up in this historic mission: docking with the space station.

The capture occurred at 9:56 a.m. ET / 6:56 a.m. PT. It had been expected to occur about an hour earlier, but the capsule held at the 30-meter point as the ISS crew made evaluations and adjustments.

Folks at SpaceX, founded by … Read more

From Nuance, Siri in your next car

If you find yourself with Siri envy but don't want to pony up the $600 for a phone, you may be able to get that same level of convenience and computerized companionship in your car.

Nuance's technology powers Apple's voice-recognition system, and the company is making its natural language command platform available to automotive manufacturers with Dragon Drive. Vehicles equipped with Dragon Drive will enable drivers to use spoken commands to get the system to perform a range of tasks, including open-ended conversational text messaging, getting directions to restaurants, or finding traffic information.

The benefit of Dragon … Read more

SpaceX sets May 19 as date for space station mission

SpaceX and NASA said today that May 19 is the new launch date for the first-ever attempt to send a private company's rocket to the International Space Station.

Intended as a demonstration flight, the mission is designed to give NASA and SpaceX information that will help them plan future missions to the space station. Weather scrapped the previous attempt at the launch, which had been scheduled for May 7.

Unless weather or other factors intervene, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft will launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on May 19. On May … Read more