Gadgets

For me, lifeguarding in high school was easy money and great tanning. For Katie Williams, it was the inspiration for her stroke of genius.

Williams, an industrial design student at Brunel University in West London, designed swimming goggles that display lap count and time on the inside of the lenses. The idea for the "Inview" goggles was seeded back in high school while Williams was lifeguarding lap-swimmers who often stopped to watch the time clock or look at their wristwatch, she said in a university statement. "I was aware there was a gap in the market," … Read more

Before there was iPod, there was the Sony Walkman.

The first blue-and-silver Walkman--TPS-L2--debuted 26 years ago in Japan today, harkening back to a time when Disco was king and personal computers were slowly creeping into people's homes.

The portable cassette player was created by Masaru Ibuka, Kozo Ohsone, and Sony founder Akio Morita. Last year, Sony paid several million euros to a German inventor who patented the idea in 1977.

It was Morita that came up with the name Walkman, which spawned other Sony devices like the Pressman, Watchman, Scoopman, and Discman.

When the Walkman started shipping, there was … Read more

A new security device for the BlackBerry handheld may make losing or misplacing one less of a nightmare.

Research in Motion (RIM), which makes the wireless gadget, announced its BlackBerry smart card reader this week. The device can be clipped to a purse or a belt and uses Bluetooth wireless technology and high-level security encryption standards (AES-256) to help authenticate a user.

The BlackBerry owner simply slips his or her smart card into the wearable add-on hardware; presses in a PIN code or password and off they go.

This is particularly good news for companies and organizations that use both … Read more

For those of us taking our tech out on the road this summer, San Disk is offering words of advice on how to protect those flash memory cards used to store pictures in digital cameras.

And while San Disk is one of a handful of companies that make the postage stamp-sized memory cards (Lexar, Sony and Samsung are others), the company has some valid points about how to handle them. Call it one part public service announcement, one part self preservation. Still, there are those of us who don't know what kind of cards to buy or what to … Read more

Digi International has a new commercial-grade digital camera on the market that plugs into a USB port and lets you keep an eye on your stuff.

The company's Inside Out Networks Watchport/V2 is a follow on to its original design. New for this version is improved low-light sensitivity, JPEG compression that renders 30 frames per second at all resolutions, and new camera mounts. The camera is designed for use in kiosks, automated teller machines, ID badge checkpoints, cash registers and mobile computers.

Combine it with the company's motion detection software, and Digi said its USB camera can … Read more

If you start spotting fellow commuters donning extra-funky eyewear, this could be why: Scalar's Teleglass, which lets users privately watch movies or TV, read text or view pictures via a tiny screen attached to their glasses, just started selling on the Japanese company's Web site and is expected to hit stores soon. Might not be a bad way to pass a subway ride or endure a line at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Connected to a mobile phone, portable DVD player or digital camera, the Teleglass projects high-resolution video on eyeglasses, with the wearer seeing images as if … Read more

King C. Gillette, the brains behind the razor and razor blade business model would be proud at TiVo's latest offer: The DVR maker is giving away a free factory-renewed Tivo box for customers who buy a 12-month or lifetime TiVo gift subscription. That means you have to shell out at least $149.99, the price of the one-year subscription.

The offer is good through July 17. The offer was e-mailed to some customers on Tuesday and is featured on TiVo's Web site.

Seems the new Joybee MP3 player is showing up online for sale in Taiwan with more bells and whistles than its predecessors.

The new palm-sized Joybee 220 from BenQ ships in three different versions: a 128MB device that sells for $156, a 512MB version for $181 and a 1GB version retailing for $223. Songs are loaded in through the device's USB cable.

The flash memory device features a 1.4-inch, 65,000-color LCD screen with a bright-colored dock, integrated loudspeakers and separate bass and gain control. Like its cousins, the new Joybee can accommodate MP3 files. But the latest … Read more

We all know the Fab Five have great tips on skin care and couture, but who knew they'd end up being a source for cool products?

Our friend Tim, an editor with CNET's Shopping Services & Advice group, did a little assessment of the gadgets featured on Bravo's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and concluded that the iconic style mavens have pretty good taste when it comes to gear. Tim rounded up the tech gifts given to the straight-guy proteges on the show--an Apple iBook, a T-Mobile Sidekick, Polk Audio speakers and 42-inch Mitsubishi … Read more