bubbles

Up until this afternoon I had never heard of the expression "hypervideo," although I was quite familiar with the concept having used it in video services like Viddler, and enhanced podcasts in Windows Media Player. The idea is simple--take hyperlinks and textual information, and add it to various times or positions on a video. The result is that your viewers can have added contextual information about whatever they're watching, at the moment it happens.

The hard part is the execution, and making things user-friendly. A service called Asterpix has taken a stab at it with a hypervideo … Read more

With the piles of dish scrubbers on the market, finding the right one was a somewhat dirty operation. There were so many things to consider: regular or mini sized, mesh or sponge, soap squirter or standard, Walgreen's or OXO. And though I've been known to enjoy doing the dishes, my main goal was to find a scrubber that expedited the process. That is until I met the Bubble Scrubber.

Incorporated into this souped-up scrubber is a large bubble wand that sends a combination of Dawn and microbial remnants of last night's spaghetti into the air. It isn'… Read more

Appearances notwithstanding, we take our health seriously here at Crave and try to highlight as many fitness-related technologies as possible, ranging from the Wii Fit to robotic drill sergeants. We've even passed along some weird exercise machines for the more adventurous out there.

But this was the first time we'd ever heard of anything like the "Hawaii Chair." Although it's tempting--the name alone is stress-reducing--we're not quite sold on its aerobic effectiveness: All you're supposed to do is sit down and let the $350 chair swivel your hips in a circular, hula-style motion--like … Read more

It's the height of summer, and for some of us that means allergy hell. Even our fortified caves and vehicles can't keep out all the offensive particles that make life miserable. So it may seem like desperation to you lucky non-sufferers out there, but we're sorely tempted to invest in this "Pro-Aqua" air-cleaning system, which sounds like a combination of a "Scooba" and one of those industrial-strength mosquito machines.

The indoor system improves air and climate quality through wet and dry cleaning mechanisms, including "wet vacuuming, air washing and scenting, inhalation, bed … Read more

Even if they involve Optimus Prime, we're sick of geeky cakes.

The convergence of the automotive and confectionary industries reached a fever pitch quite some time ago, in that South Park episode where Satan demands to have a "Ferrari cake" at his Halloween party, after all. But that doesn't mean there's no room left for innovation in the field of tooth-rottingly-sweet edible homages to technology.

We are, for example, totally loving this masterpiece by artist Heidi Hesse. has created a wire frame shaped like a Humvee (the military vehicle that inspired our wonderful, beloved Hummer) … Read more

Greetings and felicitations, Bubblenauts! This is Episode 3 of our new gadget show, set aboard a tiny bubbleship floating in geostationary orbit far above the planet. This week you can feast your tentacles on an exploration of whether robots deserve human rights, and witness everything there is to know about the socio-cultural evolution of the beat 'em-up videogame.

We'll also give you a bunch of good reasons to hate the Motorola Motofone F3--a mobile for the third world that's distinctly third-rate. Thrill as we blast it into a gabillion plastic shards. Subscibe to the podcast through iTunes, … Read more

Yesterday O2, the network that loves bubbles, announced it was adding a new handset to its business phone portfolio called the Xda Argon. The Argon is the long-awaited successor to the O2 Xda IIi and offers a similar feature set.

At the time of its launch back in 2005, the Xda IIi was a feature-packed, cutting-edge handset that appealed to executives and gadget fiends alike. Two years on and we're not sure if the Argon has the same wow factor.

Yes, there's a large 89mm (3.5-inch) color touchscreen, Wi-Fi connectivity and support for push email, but there'… Read more

For awhile we thought the majority of Webcams on the market were being designed by aliens. That was the only explanation we had for the inordinate number of models we've seen that have menacing or downright scary looks. (Except the ones that look like blenders, of course.)

The "Bubble Head" concept could change all that, as their friendly one-eyed faces show, if some manufacturer would just show a little guts and make them on a mass retail scale. The cams are made of polyurethane to survive falls from wherever they're perched, including the ladder that comes … Read more

Hey, Bubblenauts! It's the second episode of Crave UK's new gadget show, set aboard a little Bubble Ship, floating in space. This week we investigate the gluttonous power consumption of modern gadgets, and prove that "digital" doesn't necessarily mean "more advanced."

We also take a look at a laptop made entirely of bamboo, and kick one particuarly obnoxious mobile phone out of the airlock, where it explodes into a billion shards of ill-concieved plastic resin.

Climb aboard the Space Bubble, a geostationary satellite high above the surface of Earth, crewed by a solitary … Read more