friday

So Apple's iPad is in the news again this week, with more rumors of a smaller, perhaps 7-inch, version due in time for the holiday-shopping season.

The iPad has arguably created a new market, which Apple is clearly dominating. But non-Apple tablets are on their way.

Research In Motion, Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, and even Google are gunning for the Cupertino company's market share.

Until we get our hands on the devices themselves, we can't make any predictions of the iPad's demise.

But you're not like us. You're Crave readers and you love to prognosticate. So...… Read more

This week we reported that Amazon may be broadening its hardware efforts beyond the e-reader.

A Tuesday piece on the New York Times Bits Blog said the online retailer is looking to build gadgets beyond the Kindle in a bid to retain and expand its niche in the digital marketplace.

CNET's David Carnoy, for one, posits that it would make sense for Amazon to build and sell a small Android-powered tablet that manages to undercut the pricing of Apple's competing iPad products. We've also heard recent rumblings that the e-retailer could be building a phone.

So, if … Read more

This week, Google surprised absolutely nobody everyone when it announced that it was pulling the plug on Google Wave, its collaboration tool that was billed "as if e-mail were invented today."

The tool, which debuted in June 2009, was ambitious, to be sure, and many--myself included--liked where Wave seemed to be headed. It just never got there. Or even close. Or anywhere really.

Google says it's going to keep Wave around, but stop supporting it (kind of like the kid I had with my first ex--JK, JK). Some think Wave failed because it wasn't tied to … Read more

Apple's new Magic Trackpad is a clear sign the company is serious about multitouch and gesture as the future of personal-computer navigation. And it might be right.

Almost all modern smartphones incorporate a series of swipes and taps as their interface. MacBook users have been using multitouch on their trackpads for a few years, and the Magic Trackpad is clearly an extension of that experience.

But a lot of people are making noise that the Magic Trackpad--and it's sure-to-follow imitators--heralds a mouse-free future. This being the Internet, there's an opposing camp calling them all idiots.

So … Read more

In Sweden, musicians, actors, and other artists get revenue from blank CDs via a copy fee built in to the price consumers pay. This is a fee supported by the Swedish copyright authority, Copyswede, to ensure that home recording doesn't destroy the music industry there, as it contends home recording would.

But as more people stop purchasing discs in favor of online storage and iPods, these artists are seeing income from the discs shrinking. That's why Copyswede is pushing for legislation to extend the reach of its copyright claims to thumbdrives, external hard drives, and even cell phones, … Read more

If you live outside of your mom's basement (suckers!) and aren't transfixed by the minutia of gaming news, you may have missed the word that Microsoft just dropped a new Xbox 360. It's sleeker, cheaper, and more wireless-ish than its predecessors. The PS3 got slimmer not so long ago, and we can only assume the Wii will get more wee in the near future (sorry, had to).

But despite the leading consoles shrinking in size and price, some game developers, notably BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk, think consoles' days of leading the video game market are numbered. And … Read more

Hot on the heels of the new iPhone (you heard about that, right?) come a plethora of rumors related to the next version of the iPod Touch. The buzz is that the next Touch will have a front-facing camera and integrated FaceTime, just like the iPhone 4.

Apple has in the past more or less kept the Touch up to date with current iPhones features-wise, so there's no surprise there. The new device is also rumored to have HD video recording, video editing, and other features based around the camera.

But there's more room for improvement to get … Read more

This week brought news that Microsoft was pulling the plug on its teen-focused phone, the Kin, less than two months after its launch. Microsoft announced that the phone wouldn't be making its way to Europe after all and that the team that designed it would be moving over to the Windows Phone group for the forthcoming (and long-anticipated) Windows Phone 7.

While we found the Kin to be lacking in certain areas (no calendar? really?) it wasn't a bad product. That said, why Microsoft would have another phone platform to go alongside the Windows Phone 6.5 never … Read more

This week brought lots of cool health- and medical-related news. We told you, for example, about lab-engineered lung tissue living and breathing in rats, a promising development in the quest to regenerate lung tissue for larger animals--and eventually humans.

We reported on a tweaked digicam that can spot cancer cells in real time; injectable synthetic antibodies successfully used to trap antigens; and a new set of electronic eyeglasses that could replace old-school bifocals.

In the mental-health realm, we mentioned a software program that detects depression in online texts and could raise self-awareness in people who may not even know they … Read more