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Congrats to Kurt H. of Baltimore for winning a pair of Coloud Boom headphones in last week's giveaway. This week, we've got another great prize for audiophiles.

We're giving away a Sensia 200D Connect portable wireless audio system from Pure, a British maker of digital radios that's aiming to crack the streaming-audio market as well.

The football-shaped Wi-Fi digital radio also streams audio from Pure Music, Pure's Web-based on-demand subscription service that will hit the U.S. later this year, or from your music collection on a PC, Mac, or network storage device.

In addition to displaying radio, music, or podcast info, the 5.7-inch color 640x480-pixel touch screen can be used to show album art, weather reports, Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, and photos stored locally or on Picasa. … Read more

These days, computer-generated imagery rules the movie scene, but 20 years ago, it was still a relatively fresh idea that was difficult to integrate into film without looking fake.

When production of "Jurassic Park" commenced, director Steven Spielberg enlisted iconic special-effects guru Stan Winston and his studio team to design and create realistic-looking animatronic dinosaurs. The groundbreaking work, which included an incredible amount of engineering and artistry, forever changed the way people think about dinosaurs. … Read more

3D TVs were supposed to be the Next Big Thing, but they never really caught on with consumers, no doubt due to high prices and the dearth of 3D content.

And yet, I think if you can get a 3D-capable model for around the same price as a non-3D one, why not? That was my thinking when I bought my last TV, and although I don't don the glasses very often, sometimes it's really nice.

For example, our local Family Video has a pretty decent 3D movie selection, so when my family went to rent "Life of … Read more

Of the three 3D printers I've used so far, the $1,599 Afinia H-Series H479 is my favorite. That doesn't mean it's perfect, but it's a more precise, and more flexible machine than 3D Systems' first-generation Cube printer, and it's significantly easier to use than the first-generation MakerBot Replicator.

The high price of this printer will remain an issue for many consumers. Post-print cleanup with certain materials can also be a hassle. The fact that you can achieve good prints so easily and so quickly, though, makes the H479 easy to recommend. If you're … Read more

If you've always wished you could watch 3D content on your mobile device, you're in luck. A team of Singapore-based researchers has developed a special film that turns the screens of mobile devices into 3D-capable displays.

The EyeFly 3D film, which looks just like a typical screen protector, actually consists of 500,000 miniaturized lens-like structures that measure about one-thousandth the width of a human hair. When applied to a mobile device, the filter works with dedicated iOS and Android apps to render stereoscopic 3D content for playback. Nanovue, a startup set up to bring the EyeFly 3D to market, is working on apps to convert existing 2D content to stereoscopic 3D.

There's one tradeoff: In our tests, the film made the iPhone 5's Retina Display look like it had a lowered resolution, as text and icons appeared to have jagged edges. Screen brightness remained the same. … Read more

R2-D2's iconic droid look has inspired quite a few products, ranging from speakers to a rolling suitcase. Instructables user seamster took a look at R2-D2 and zoomed in on the "Star Wars" robot's head. What did it remind him of? Why, a bra, of course.

Most people would giggle about the idea and then move on, but seamster set about making not one, but two R2-D2 bras. He also posted painstakingly detailed instructions for making your own from scratch on Instructables.… Read more

On today of all days, sketchy-looking would-be 3D printing company Massive Dynamics puts out a comically vague press release. Is this yet another apparent attempt to pump its penny stock, or the April Fools' prank from a master troll? Maybe it's both.

Before you read any farther, I will direct you to this piece of excellent reporting by Rose Brooke and Dan O'Connor at the 3D printing blog Personalize.

You do yourself a disservice by not reading their article, but here's the gist: Rather than report blindly on yet another press release from an aspiring 3D printing … Read more

Microsoft's next version of Internet Explorer might just support WebGL, a standard for accelerated 3D graphics on the Web that the company previously has attacked as a security risk.

A leaked version of the next version of Windows, code-named Blue, came with a version of IE11, and developer's scrutiny of the browser shows evidence of WebGL.

"It seems like WebGL interfaces are defined but not functional at this time," said Web developer and author Francois Remy in a blog post this week. That means that the IE11 build has some infrastructure in place to support WebGL, … Read more

If you're on the fence about seeing an elder Luke, Han, and Leia return to the next installment of "Star Wars," it's possible artist Adam Schickling's illustration of a mock "Episode VII" poster could get you in the mood to see some geriatric Jedis on the silver screen.

Schickling, a 37-year-old professional illustrator based in New York, drew and painted the 30x40-inch "Star Wars" art by hand over the course of four weeks. The mock poster features most of the beloved characters from the original trilogy -- including Luke, Han, Leia, Chewbacca, Lando, R2-D2, and C-3PO -- with some extra gray hair and wrinkles. Well, except the droids, who don't really age.… Read more