radio

If London were a circuit board

Wanna get from South Kensington to Piccadilly on the London underground? According to artist Yuri Suzuki 's Tube Map Radio, you'll just need to pass the capacitor and get off at the resistor.

Using an electronic circuit board, Suzuki created a radio that looks like a map of the London underground. He even strategically placed components to reflect London locales -- a speaker volume knob sits at the site of the famed Speaker's Corner, for example, and a power battery gets placement near the Battersea Power Station on the south bank of the River Thames. … Read more

The pacemaker is about to get a whole lot smaller

A team of engineers out of Stanford is introducing a truly tiny wireless cardiac device to demonstrate that, thanks to a little ingenuity and impressive math, all medical implants may soon be powered wirelessly.

Which means that devices such as pacemakers, which owe the majority of their bulk to the battery, are about to get a whole lot smaller.

Head researcher Ada Poon, who earlier this year showed off a proof-of-concept, wirelessly powered device small enough to propel itself through the bloodstream, says the main achievement with the cardiac device is that it can be implanted on the surface of … Read more

Nokia Lumia shows off new camera tricks

Wednesday's tech news roundup cures the colorful phone shakes:

Nokia revealed new Lumia smartphones running Windows Phone 8. The Lumia 920 comes in red and yellow and the camera has "floating lens" technology, meaning it helps stabilize shaky movements and allows the shutter to stay open longer for more light to enter. It also has photo editing tools that remove someone walking by your picture, or you can animate part of a still photo as a cinemagraph. (Check out these examples.) It also has a charging station, so it doesn't need cords. The JBL Power Up … Read more

RadioShack kicks off latest contract-free mobile plans

Mobile phone customers can choose from even more contract-free plans from RadioShack as of today.

Four new plans are available altogether through Cricket Wireless -- two for feature phones and two for smartphones.

The $25-per-month feature phone plan offers 300 voice minutes, while the $35 plan raises that to 1,000 minutes. Both plans up the ante with unlimited data access, unlimited texting, call waiting, and three-way calling.

The $50-per-month smartphone plan adds unlimited voice minutes and promises that the first gigabyte of data will run at full 3G speeds. The $60 plan offers the first 2.5GB of data … Read more

Worldwide TV viewing

The Online TV Player is a program that accesses online TV and radio from around the world and streams it on your computer.

This program has a very simple layout and there really isn't much to it. You simply go through the lists of online TV and radio from whichever country you want, and select one to watch. It does require you to have certain additional programs like RealPlayer and Windows Media Player in order to play a number of the TV channels. We didn't have RealPlayer, but even the channels that did not require this would not … Read more

Logitech UE rolls out new wave of headphones and wireless speakers

Logitech purchased the Ultimate Ears headphone line way back in 2008. Since then, slowly but surely, the UE logo has been creeping in as the upscale Logitech audio brand -- witness the UE AirPlay speaker from earlier this year.

As of today, the Logitech UE branding officially goes large with the introduction of seven new audio products. Among the new models are two mobile Bluetooth speakers, three new headphones with memory foam cushions, a noise-isolating in-earphone with four-armature speakers in each earpiece, and the next evolution of the Squeezebox Radio powered by Logitech UE's new mobile companion app.… Read more

RadioShack's no contract smartphone plan starts at $50, report says

Leaked price plans for RadioShack's rumored foray into no contract wireless plans show smartphone plans starting at $50 for 3G service, Engaget posted today.

The gadget-focused blog posted rumors last week that RadioShack was getting into the no contract business with Cricket providing the service.

Cricket offers similar no-contract service at other retailers, but according to the previously leaked memo, RadioShack's service will offer "an exclusive 8GB SD memory card with all Muve Music phones."

Today's leak highlights several price plans. Smartphone plans come with unlimited voice, messaging, and the Muve Music downloads. $50 a … Read more

Rumor Has It: Apple TV to be your next cable box?

You've probably heard the one about Apple and the HDTV it's reportedly working on, but have you heard the one about how the next Apple TV could double as a cable box? No? Well according to a Wall Street Journal report, that's exactly what's happening.

In other news, RadioShack reminds us that it exists by possibly joining with Cricket Wireless to offer no-contract phones, and a supersecret event invite from Motorola tells us, well, pretty much nothing. But we do have a couple ideas about what the event is for.

Thanks for watching, and don't … Read more

The 404 1,115: Where the streets have no name (podcast)

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Pitchfork's People's List polls readers for the best albums of the last 15 years.

- The new rise of a summer hit: Tweet It Maybe.

- How Murder by Death became the No. 3 most successful Kickstarter music campaign ever.

- The Internet has finally met its match: Avril Lavigne engaged to Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger.

- Lights turning off at Nintendo Power?

- Custom BioShock pinball machine is Rapturous.… Read more

RadioShack to launch 'no contract wireless' on Sept. 5, report says

RadioShack may be doubling down on the wireless game.

An alleged internal memo has started floating around the Web indicating that RadioShack will launch a No Contract Wireless service on September 5. According to Engadget, which obtained the alleged memo and posted an image of it, the service will be powered by Cricket, a wireless provider offering no-contract service.

Cricket offers similar no-contract service at other retailers. According to the leaked memo, RadioShack's service will be differentiated by the company offering "an exclusive 8GB SD memory card with all Muve Music phones."

RadioShack currently sells smartphones in … Read more