SI

It's already been a great year for the Danish headphone designers over at Aiaiai, and it's about to get even better.

The company's TMA-1 DJ headphones recently earned a spot in an exhibit at SFMOMA documenting contemporary industrial designs influenced by Dieter Rams, and its latest headphones, the Capital, are already garnering shrieks of schoolgirl glee from audiophiles who appreciate equal parts form and function.

Aiaiai supplied the audio technology for the Capital headphones, but once again leaned on Scandinavian design group Kibisi to design their form. The two made a great first impression last year with the release of the Tracks supra-aural headphones, and Kibisi's simple design ethos is made clear again in the Capital.… Read more

What technology can make an in-car cell phone ban workable? Morgan Stanley takes a dim view of electric cars. Acura's first hybrid is on the way. Renault is first with a dash system based on Android. And we drive the 2012 Honda Civic Si and get the VTEC to kick in.

LAS VEGAS--Last year's SEMA Show may have been the year of the hybrid, but this year Honda is throwing its weight behind its original golden child, the Honda Civic.

The automaker has filled its booth here at the 2011 SEMA Show with a collection of high-performance and high-styled 2012 Honda Civic Si Coupe and Sedan models.

Leading the high-performance charge is the Bisimoto Engineering 2012 Honda Civic Si Coupe, which spins the dyno's rollers to the tune of 1,004 horsepower. That's no typo: one thousand and four ponies. More amazingly, Bisimoto does so with the Si'… Read more

In the pursuit of squeezing more current from a solar cell, Harvard spin-off SiOnyx is using lasers.

The company today announced third-party tests found its Black Silicon laser texturing process increases the efficiency of traditional silicon cells by 0.3 percent. That may sound minor, but it takes solar manufacturers about a year to achieve that sort of gain through process changes, said Chris Vineis, director of solar technology at SiOnyx.

The company plans to license its technology, which essentially scans a pattern on the surface of solar-grade silicon, to solar manufacturers. In traditional solar production, pure silicon is sliced … Read more

Time Inc. developed a tablet version of Sports Illustrated before Apple acknowledged the existence of the iPad, so it should come as no surprise that Sports Illustrated is one of the first magazines to allow current subscribers free access on the iPad. (The New Yorker is another.) Previously, to access a digital copy of SI on the iPad, you had to pay $4.99 per issue, whether you were a subscriber or not.

It's easy to link to your SI account on the iPad, and the app includes all the print material and more, with a redesign reportedly on … Read more

LAS VEGAS--In the world of wireless display technology, so far we have WHDI with the Asus Wavi, and Intel's WiDi with the Netgear Push2TV or the D-Link MainStage. All of these devices allow for displaying high-quality audio and video from your laptop, desktop, or even a media player to a TV, wirelessly.

Now, however, if you want the devices to share more than just an audio and a video signal, but also data or the connection to the Internet, you'll want to consider a third technology, called WirelessHD, which uses the 60GHz frequency band.

Unlike WHDI or WiDI, … Read more

Soda is known for many things, convenience being among them. The ubiquity of the sweet beverage is evidenced by its presence on shelves from the smallest corner stores to the largest grocery chains. Soda may be available everywhere, but even with a plethora of choices, its ready availability doesn't necessarily mean the flavor one is looking for will be accessible. Or even exist.

As with many things in life, sometimes it's best just to do it yourself. This happens to also include creating carbonated beverages. The iSi Twist 'n Sparkle is a beverage carbonating system that makes it … Read more

Harvard University spinoff SiOnyx has raised money to commercialize a semiconductor technology with the potential to improve solar-cell efficiency and light sensors in digital cameras.

The Beverly, Mass.-based company today announced its $12.5 million series B round of funding which brought in laser manufacturer Coherent and Vulcan Capital, the venture investment firm started by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

With the money, SiOnyx will be seeking to hire more people to commercialize its "black silicon" technology in consumer electronics and solar-cell manufacturing, CEO Stephen Saylor.

The company is developing a semiconductor process to blast silicon with a … Read more

CSR has unveiled a new GPS architecture that it says will let portable devices be constantly location-aware without draining their batteries.

The architecture, SiRFstarIV, was announced on Tuesday along with the first product to use it, CSR's GSD4t receiver for mobile phones and other portable devices.

Mobile phones increasingly have GPS (Global Positioning System) as a feature, for navigation and other location-based services. However, current GPS architecture is a major contributor to battery drain--a situation CSR is hoping to fix.

The U.K.-based company, which has generally concentrated more on Bluetooth chip design, bought GPS architecture firm SiRF … Read more