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A phone made for gas stations

If you ever bother to read your cell phone's user manual from front to back, you'll see a whole section with neat safety warnings. One of them advises you not to make calls in a gas station since the phone's electrically energy could cause a gas explosion. Sounds like fun!

While I doubt that many people have heeded the warning, much less read it, Motorola is taking it seriously. Last week, Sprint Nextel announced the Motorola i356IS, which is a variation of its burly i356 candy bar phone.

The i356IS (the "IS" stands for "… Read more

Canon SD880 IS firmware update fixes mysterious power issue

I don't typically write about firmware updates on Crave (it is, after all, a tech gadget/gear blog). But this is for one of my favorite cameras from last year--the Canon Powershot SD880 IS--and the combo of settings that causes the problem that the update fixes is just funny. Especially since Canon refers to it as a "phenomenon" in the announcement. So here we go:

This firmware update corrects a phenomenon that when the following settings are used in combination, if the shutter button is pressed halfway to focus during shooting (AND the AF frame … Read more

Shocker: VTech enters the home-audio market with music-streaming device

In an interesting move, VTech, the makers of wireless home phones, has entered the home-audio fray with the IS9181, a Wi-Fi-enabled Internet radio receiver that will cost $199.95 when it's released this spring.

VTech claims the "competitively priced music hub delivers higher sound quality than other similarly priced music devices" and it allows you to play not only Internet radio selections but also to stream your music library stored on your computer (the IS9181 is compatible with both Windows PCs and Macs). There's also the requisite line input so you can connect any digital audio … Read more

91: Big hybrids dying an ugly death?

Big hybrids are dying an ugly death, GM and Chrysler not married yet, a look at the new Nissan Z, and a ride in the Lexus IS-F. Listen now: Download today's podcast

SHOW NOTES

• Lexus IS-F review & video

• The buttony madness of the Porsche Panamera

• Cheapest car in America. Period.

• Ford's SmartGauge brings dashboards to life

• Check out the new look of the new Z car

Sony's home theater systems get built-in Blu-ray

Standalone Blu-ray players may still be expensive, but you know Blu-ray can't be too far from being a "commodity" feature when it starts getting bundled in with home-theater-in-a-box (HTIB) systems. While we've already seen HTIBs with Blu-ray from Panasonic and Samsung, these are the first systems from Sony, and also the first that we've seen with Blu-ray players that are upgradeable to Blu-ray Profile 2.0. Here's the summary of the information Sony has released so far:

Sony BDV-IS1000

Key features of the Sony BDV-IS1000:

5.1-speaker system, with five tiny speakers Currently Profile 1.1, … Read more

'This is sand' offers sweet reprieve for landlocked office drones

Did you forget to schedule vacation time this summer to hit the beach, or another place with that thing called nature? There's hope, albeit a dirty one in the form of ThisIsSand.com. This simple Flash app will let you drop colored sand to your heart's content. You can build up huge mountains to stare at in place of the real world, and it comes complete with a soothing sand sound with each drop.

While not as engaging as the classic falling sand game, the end results have a really neat textured look, and you can swap between … Read more

Sony HT-IS100: Home-theater system with supertiny speakers coming to America

Sony's HT-IS100, a 5.1-channel home-theater system that includes five speakers that are just 1.7 inches in diameter, will be coming to the U.S. next month. If it looks familiar, there are two reasons: The unit was announced for the Japanese market just a couple of weeks ago, and the tiny speakers were first featured in 2007's DAV-IS10, which is still widely available. (Fun fact: Sony calls the speakers "roughly the size of a golf ball" in its press release--an adjective that nearly everyone who covered the IS10 lazily cribbed. The company uses the same golf ball wording in the IS100 press release--but, oddly, included the strawberry photo above.)

Unlike that earlier model, the new HT-IS100 doesn't have a built-in disc player, or even a "head unit"--all of the electronics and amplifiers are consolidated into the system's subwoofer, so there's no need for a separate AV receiver.… Read more

VTech adds IM to home phones--but why?

Some companies just refuse to give up on an idea, no matter how illogical it may be. That seems to be the case with VTech, which is still trying to sell the concept of a land-line phone with computer-like features.

More than a year ago the company came out with its "infoPhone," a cordless handset that included limited online functions, such as getting news headlines and doing local directory searches--a classic example, we thought, of a solution in search of a problem. But this year, rather than ditching the idea, VTech has actually expanded the concept in its … Read more

First ride: Lexus IS-F

Back at SEMA last week, Lexus brought along a handful of 2008 IS-Fs for driving at a proving ground course set up in the back parking lot of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

While some folks waited in line to drive the course themselves, we opted to hop in the passenger seat with Scott Pruett, who has driven in Champ Car, IMSA, Grand-Am, and NASCAR.

Lexus' latest performance sedan, which was unveiled at the beginning of the year in Detroit, is souped up with a 5.0-liter V8 that puts out 416 horsepower and 371 pound-feet of torque. Standard features … Read more