Color

For all the innovative, unusual and creepy designs we've seen in loudspeakers--not to mention expensive--it's surprising how boring many high-end systems can look. It's reminiscent of the PC industry, which lived in a beige and gray world until Apple came along with the first iMac.

Urban Fidelity is one company that's apparently learned that lesson and has responded by selling a line of "Duevel Planets" speakers online for "hip music lovers, not tweaky audiophiles." Not only do they come in neon colors, according to Audio Junkies, but the German-made loudspeakers are … Read more

Could the end of the next-gen optical format war be on the horizon? While you wait for the shakedown, why not tune in some ambient color for your TV? Plus, organizing meetups with your 700+ Facebook friends, 800 IM contacts and your five real friends isn't an easy task, and we found one service that aims to annoy everyone equally. Lastly, we send Mark the intern out into the streets to see if New Yorkers are scared their workplace computer habits could get them fired. That and more, on today's episode of The Queue.

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It seems everyone is jumping on the rainbow bandwagon nowadays. From Dell Inspirons to Sony VAIOs, black, white and gray just don't cut it anymore.

Which is probably why MSI decided that its latest 12-inch portable should go the funky route. Available in pink, blue or green, the MSI PR210 YA Edition looks good enough to bring to your next rave. But don't look too closely under the hood because a business-like fingerprint sensor kind of throws off its wild image. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Webcam, Gigabit Ethernet and DVD writer actually make this a respectable corporate machine. A little … Read more

Have you ever known exactly what color you wanted to use to paint a room but had trouble describing it to another person or finding it in a paint catalog? How about finding the hexadecimal code for adding a specific color to your Web site?

For those of us hue-challenged Web users who can't tell Kenyan Copper from Korma, Chirag Mehta has created a very cool Web application for determining a name for any color you want to use, as well as its hexadecimal and RGB values.

Simply and accurately titled Name That Color, the Web-based application consists of a color wheel with a tint/shade box in the middle. Combine both input tools to specify the exact color you want, and that color's name, hex value, and RGB values will appear on the right. The larger outer box will display the color you've selected, while a smaller square inside that box will show the actual color of the closest named match.… Read more

Given that Rubik's and even Tetris cubes are particularly popular among Cravers, we thought this "Color Cube Speaker" might be an especially appropriate gadget to feature. The audio specs are fairly unremarkable, but that's forgivable because a product like this is all about the visuals, as indicated by its description: 48 colors, 16 multi-color cubes, 4 color patterns--you get the idea.

Oh, and if you happen upon a particular combination that strikes your fancy, you can freeze the colors in that pattern forever. But that might disqualify it as a "color-changey" objet d'art, … Read more

One of the last things I did at Siggraph this year was to spend about 20 minutes enraptured by the best video I've ever seen. It's called "4K" (after the number of pixels on each horizontal line), and you'll be seeing it in theaters within the next few years.

The Siggraph Computer Animation Festival included one session of video driven by a Sony SXRD SRX-R105 projector displaying 4,096 by 2,160 pixels at 24 frames per second with progressive scan (or 2160p24 for short).

That's four times the number of pixels you'll see on a home HDTV set-- or in… Read more

Color matching and management is a serious technology hurdle for retailers, online and off. Navy blue is frequently indistinguishable from black in stores, rust-colored shirts ordered online turn out to be bright orange when you open the box and that seafoam green paint that looked so good on the chip makes your living room look like a kelp bed.

These are not the problems that HP Labs announced it has addressed with its new color-matching technology.

No, HP Labs sent out a press release touting its ability to base cosmetics recommendations on your cameraphone self-portrait, and seeking business partners who … Read more

Actually, we're declaring the color-laptop trend to be no longer a trend, but rather a standard feature. A few weeks ago, Dell, not exactly known for its cutting-edge designs, announced that it would offer a fleet of new Inspirons in a range of color choices. And now even Gateway has launched two new notebook lines--the 14.1-inch T series and the 15.4-inch M series--available in three colors.

Inside the red, blue, or gray exterior (subtly pattered with a series of dissolving spheres), you'll find a computer that's classic Gateway: plenty of configuration options ranging from inexpensive … Read more

With Caroline McCarthy on tough assignment at E3 all week, we've been having a field day poaching on some of her favorite topics. We're talking pillows specifically and, better still, ones in the kind of obscene neon colors she so loves.

These phone-shaped music pillows, for instance, connect to any MP3 player for direct eardrum-shattering pleasure while maintaining a suitably cheesy look. (The player can be kept snugly in a mesh sleeve at one end of the giant fuzz-bound receiver.)

As Shiny Shiny astutely observes, these items are being marketed for for kids, but we all know better. … Read more