Crave

"Hylozoic," the physical book: saying good-bye.

(Credit: Scott Stein/CNET)

It's been widely debated since Amazon's Kindle began redefining the e-book space: when will e-books become more compelling than the physical books they were meant to replace?

For me, it happened. Today, at 2 p.m. Eastern, I went to Borders and returned a book I bought just a week ago. The reason was this: I found the book had popped up on the Amazon Kindle store for less. So I pulled the trigger.

The funny thing is I don't even have a Kindle. I have an iPhone 3G running the Kindle app. Yet, for me, in a crowded New York ecosystem where I barely have time or room to pull a book out of my backpack while crammed onto a subway, quick-fix iPhone reading does the trick better than anything else.

The book in question was "Hylozoic" by Rudy Rucker, an excellent and weird science fiction writer whose works I've become addicted to. I had tracked the release of his latest, a sequel to his equally odd "Postsingular," for months. I should have ordered on Amazon in the first place, where it was far cheaper than Borders' full retail, but I wanted instant satisfaction and got trigger-happy. Hylozoic wasn't available on the Kindle store when the book first hit the streets.

I submitted a "this should be a Kindle book" request to Amazon and went back to my life, when yesterday I discovered that "Hylozoic" had in fact been added...for $14.95.

(Credit: Chrome Bags)

Chrome started with a couple of guys in Boulder, Colo., who set out to built a bag that could stand a lifetime of daily abuse. Eight years later, the operation is now based out to San Francisco, where Chrome bags have become the staple of bike messengers, students, and packrats alike. Today, Chrome also announced its sojourn into the techie commuter market with the release of two stripped-down, laptop-friendly bags: the Vega and Corsair.

Chrome Vega

(Credit: Chrome Bags)

The Vega draws inspiration from the classic "musette" bags used to feed cyclists in the middle of a big race. Since weight is everything to these pros, the bags have to be minimalist and utilitarian, and the Vega is no different. It's light, tough, and can easily fit up to a 15-inch laptop.

It's important to stress the tough material used in the build: 1,000 denier Cordura material, a heavyweight nylon with a urethane coating to protect from water, abrasian, and grime. Make no mistake about it: these are some of the toughest bags you can get.

The cuffs on the Bike to Work Pants fold up to increase reflectivity.

(Credit: Cordarounds)

Cycling commuters are forced to deal with a million obstacles on the ride to and from work. In urban areas, cars remain our biggest foe, largely because people don't make the effort to look out for our blinking lights. Plenty of companies offer cycling-specific clothing, but they're terribly unflattering in all the wrong places.

But check this out: Cordarounds has developed these Bike to Work Pants. The inside of the pockets and pant cuffs are actually made from a material that reflects lights, thus increasing a cyclist's visibility and safety.

In "daytime mode," the pants just look like a standard pair of khakis, made from a brushed pebble cotton that's just as comfortable as they are durable. The mudflaps subtlety fold into the pockets, completely concealing the reflective material. Wear them around the house, at work, or while running errands, but when it comes time to jump on the bike for the ride home, the Cordarounds really shine: the inside cuffs and pant pockets of each pair are made of a strong Illuminite Teflon material and bound with reflective 3M Scotchlite that illuminate at night to protect the rider. Get a more detailed look at the pants by watching this video.

All Cordaround products, including the Bike to Work Pants, are sewn exclusively in San Francisco and are available through the company's Web site. If interested, head over to Yanko Design and enter for a chance to win a free pair!

Turn on the magic of reflective light

If you've walked down the street in an urban area, you've likely witnessed at least one near-accident between a car and a cyclist or pedestrian wearing earbuds.

How welcome, then, are these groovy concept headphones by Seohyun Baek? The semicircle shape is designed to fit in your ear without blocking out background noise, so you can have your tunes but still be in tune with what's going on around you. The designer also claims the small shape will produce less fatigue during long stretches of music-listening.

The headphones themselves are connected via wire to a Bluetooth receiver, which communicates with a small transmitter plugged into the headphone jack on your music player. The wireless connection lets you stash your MP3 player in a bag, carry it in a secure pocket, or even mount it on your bike without limiting movement.

As with all design concepts, there's no telling whether this will ever see the light of day as an actual product. But we hope accessory manufacturers are paying attention, because neither cyclists nor pedestrians should be forced to forgo their music fix during the daily commute.

(Credit: Hammacher)

OK, so this isn't a gadget per se. But we're willing to bet that more than a few caffeinated Cravers out there are interested in a commuter cup that's supposedly guaranteed not to spill even when tipped over, so you can concentrate on more important things. "When the lid is closed, analysts were able to turn the commuter cup upside down and shake it vigorously without a single drop escaping," according to its product description.

These "analysts" (we'd love to see their resumes) apparently also concluded that it's the easiest to drink from, by the way--as long as you remember to press the button on the lid. Some of us at Crave are skeptical, to say the least, after having gone through dozens of defective commuter cups over the years, with shirt and carpet stains to prove it. But we'll probably never find out because $25 is way too much for us to pay for a type of cup that sells for a buck or two at so many other places, leak or no leaks.

Australian pilot Michael Coates and his short-wing Pipistrel were the big winners at the PAV Challenge.

(Credit: Stefanie Olsen/CNET News.com)

There's a lot of room for novel aircraft design between the gargantuan (the Airbus A380) and the flimsy (that balsa wood toy that never flew the way you wanted it to).

One such design that's getting some attention these days--from no less than the likes of NASA--is the "personal aircraft vehicle." The notion here is that small propeller-driven planes could someday become the Camrys and Escorts of the skies, whisking commuters to the office or on short business trips while also undoing the gridlock that defines the automotive life for so many of us working stiffs.

Over the weekend, a small bevy of aerospace engineers and airplane enthusiasts headed to an off-the-beaten-path airfield in Santa Rosa, Calif., for the inaugural edition of NASA's PAV Challenge--a contest intended to assess key qualities of potential aerial commuting craft. A prize purse totaling $250,000 awaited entrants who scored best on matters such as engine noise, fuel efficiency and overall niftiness.

For a look at some of the people and planes vying for the prize money, check out News.com's gallery, "Photos: Commuter challenge in the skies." Terrafugia's futuristic flying car was present in spirit only, but there were some sleek Slovenia-built Pipistrels on hand. Those of us who had a fleeting childhood fantasy of being an ace fighter pilot will have to dream on still about pulling into the office parking lot with the vintage Yak-3; it was there for display only--and apparently is an oil hog to boot.

(Credit: Spluch)

Fancy gadgets aren't the only products deserving of their own trade shows, you know. There are plenty of other innovations celebrated within their respective industries--even buses. That's right, like the kind you pay tokens to ride.

As every schoolboy knows, the Busworld Asia 2007 convention was held in Shanghai this year, though you may not have been aware of its main attraction: a bus that measures a full 82 feet long. This serpentine form of public surface transportation, which can hold 300 passengers, will be used mostly for the commute between Beijing and Hangzhou, according to Spluch. It had better be a well-traveled line to recoup the cost of this monster, which is estimated at up to $258,000--three or four times more than the standard bus in China.

Three aircraft in the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) pipeline promise to change some assumptions we have about air travel--the assumption that there's a pilot in the cockpit, for instance.

(Credit: IAI)

In the works is an unmanned cargo plane with a 30-ton payload capacity. IAI could have gone for an unmanned passenger jet--the technology does exists--but "the world is not yet ready to be flown without a pilot at the stick," Shlomo Tsach, IAI director of flight sciences, told the Jerusalem Post. "A psychological obstacle needs to be overcome before people are willing to fly in unmanned planes." Ya think?

No such reservations however, when it comes to consigning innocent cargo to the uncharted skies of unmanned delivery. While most people admit they would not get on an unmanned flight themselves, they had no problem sending their cargo that way, according a Boeing poll quoted by the Post.

The Israelis have two other projects they say will "revolutionize civilian and military aviation": an eco-friendly inter-city commuter aircraft powered by fuel cells and a drone called the Sun Sailor, a solar-powered UAV that weighs 4 kilograms and is capable of carrying a small digital camera or other detection equipment. The latter should be able to stay up indefinitely because it has no need to refuel. The 10-seat commuter, which runs on fuel cells, is supposed to reduce noise and exhaust pollution, plus it's expected to be a stepping stone for the use of alternative energy in other aircraft.

That's not the end of it. We'll all have a chance to fly pilot-less soon enough, according to Tsach. "Once the new cargo plane takes to the air, it will only be a matter of time before there also are unmanned passenger planes." Quick! Drop a dime to the Airline Pilots Association.