Author: James Mowery

While Microsoft was preoccupied with its conquest for desktop supremacy, something crazy happened. They called it the mobile revolution. This was when the notion that an iPod was only a music player and a computer was only only something used at a desk quickly faded away. It was a time when devices were getting smaller, smarter, and sexier. Microsoft, unfortunately, didn’t get the memo. Apple did. Apple took control of mobile with the iPod Touch and the iPhone, notebooks with with Macbook/Macbook Pros, digital distribution with iTunes, third-party developers with the iOS ecosystem. Everything…

Steven Bathiche might have just become Microsoft’s most popular developer for the time being. He has created a slew of new tech demos utilizing Microsoft Kinect that will enable users to interact with displays in ways never done before. One demonstration — of a “wedge” lens — in particular could solve the problem of creating a 3D image without active- or passive-style glasses. The image on the screen orientates itself to the user by using Kinect’s tracking mechanism; the exciting thing is that it can do this for more than a single user. Either way, it is pretty cool stuff, and we hope that the…

Lavo is a backpack that functions as a hand-washing device for clothes. It operates by giving users a way to wash their clothes with biodegradable washing detergent. Simply add the clothes, mix in some detergent, grab some water, and get to work. As for the drying part… Lavo leaves it to you to figure it out. That said, it’s a fairly unique idea that should be popular with campers, which is also part of the reason why you’ll never see me using it. …

I sense a theme coming on: people create robots, robots destroy robots, and robots destroy humans? Well I’m a believer after what I just watched. In the above video, there is a four-legged robot called BigDog that is capable of walking in a freakish but effective fashion, which is entertaining to say the least. However, it’s all about to get a bit more awesome. There is a new bot on the block, and it has one goal in mind — speed! It is named Atlas. It looks more like a cheetah than a four-legged freak of nature, like the BigDog mentioned above. And it is going to be fast, according to Boston Dynamics, the…

There are some things worth watching in life: a revolution for freedom, a Jersey Shore escapade, and, now, a slow-motion take on the destruction of a BattleBot. These hunks of destructive metal used to be all the rage on Comedy Central in the 2000s, but it eventually fell through. Since then, the world has gone without seeing robot destruction (unless you have watched the new Terminator movies). But it has come to my surprise that BattleBots has a renewed vigor, and tournaments are being held. Someone just so happened to record some footage of a battle in 60 frames-per-second. Enjoy….

Amazon Prime subscribers have received a bit of a treat, as Amazon just flipped the switch for Prime subscribers to stream movies. There are over 5,000 movies and television shows are available. Early reviews peg the service as promising. But Netflix it is not. The “free” Amazon Prime Instant Video service — with a not so free $79 Amazon Prime subscription — has a collection of movies and television shows that is sort of what you would expect. Lesser quality than the likes of Netflix, but still enough to possibly keep you entertained. The actual video quality is a bit suspect. With Engadget’s…

If you have ever downloaded a music track from Apple iTunes, a few of you might be shocked to know that the quality of the song you have purchased is not the highest possible quality you could receive. Apple and the music industry knows this, and they probably did this from the beginning because of how technology was back nearly a decade ago. But times are different now, and higher quality music is in demand. Disk space is no longer really a concern these days, so why not give people the choice of having the highest possible quality? That is what Apple is asking themselves, and a few people in the music biz…

I am quite fond of Mario Kart. I played it way too much as a kid. And I still day dream of wiping out a few cars on the streets with a red shell every now and then. But now it appears that someone else has taken my dream and turned it into a bit of a reality, with real carts, a real track, and everything else you could imagine (not to mention some awesome CG effects). Check out the video, and then check out the behind the scenes to see how they made it. …

Porsche has come up with a unique and expensive way to thank its Facebook fans. They took a GT3 R Hybrid and, on it, gave it a kick-ass paint job and inscribed Porsche’s 1,000,000 million Facebook fans in the ultimate showing of appreciation. Not only that, but the German automaker also created a website that lets users see if their name is on the car. It’s a very unique marketing gimmick, but I must say that I think it is really cool. Check out the site to see a few close-up shots, watch a video of it being made, and to see if your name is on the car….

Sony was, at a time, the most well-known name in consumer electronics, but the company has lost its mojo. It has been relegated to the middle of the pack while a company by the name of Apple shines brighter than ever. But does Sony have a plan to regain its former glory? I’m not going to claim to know what that plan is, but I believe they do have a plan that the intend on executing in the next few years to put the company back on the map in innovation. If I was the CEO of Sony, these four steps would be the key to regaining our former glory. Sony does have the power and resources to accomplish these goals. But the question…