Author: Ty Dunitz

Word on the tubes is that Facebook is about to drop live, in-browser video chat next week. According to Zuck, Facebook will be unveiling an as-of-yet-secret, “awesome” product to the press at the Seattle office on July 6th. And according to those in the know, it’s more than likely Skype-powered in-browser video chat. So now not only can you be bugged in text format at random by friends acquaintances you don’t actually want to speak to, but now you get to look at them, too. Great. In all seriousness, though, this can only be a good thing for both Facebook and Skype. Skype could benefit from a kick in the…

The visually impaired don’t get a lot of help when it comes to next-gen tech to help them better live autonomous lives. For generations, the most cutting-edge apparatus has been an extendable stick. Whee. But designer Xun Ye is turning all that negligence on its ear with the Origin GPS, the first truly next-gen device for the blind. Okay, so it’s still just an extendable stick, but it is to extendable sticks what Snoop Dogg’s favourite low rider is to a rickshaw. Fitted with a GPS unit that tracks the cane-bearer’s whereabouts, the Origin’s built-in handle mic has only a destination to be spoken into…

Valve and Nintendo have sort of been gaming chalk and cheese in the past – but that may not be so forever! Valve co-founder Gabe Newell has whispered what is perhaps the sweetest nothing into Joystiq’s ear regarding a possible harmonious future on Nintendo’s upcoming Wii U. “We’ve always loved Nintendo,” asserts Gabe. “Wii U seems to be a lot more powerful than the previous generation. It sort of fits better into the scalability in terms of graphics performance and CPU performance, so I think it’ll be a lot easier for us to fit it into our scalability model.” So does this mean we’ll be seeing…

Your service is probably pretty fly if you’ve hit ten million users, and Foursquare as of Monday has become such a service. Foursquare, in case you’re dead, is the darling of the location-based social networking party, and has hither and yon become a great service for both consumers and businesses alike. Now, of course, how many of those ten million are actually using their Foursquare accounts – mine, for instance, exists as little more than an verification email – but any way you slice it, it’s still reason to tip your proverbial hat. Foursquare was even nice enough to do up this slick little animated…

Magician Marco Tempest has coined possibly the coolest term you’re gonna hear all week: technoillusionist. What is a technoillusionist? Why, a magician aided by technology, of course – in this case, a whole stack of iPods. You may argue that ‘magic’ performed via ipods is not really magic at all, but Marco makes the case for it in this video, which can only be described as impressive as all hell. Hey, if you think you could do better, you have only to download Marco’s app and try your own iSleight-of-hand. …

The designers at Loft117 and programmer Jason Belmonti have teamed up to tap the Kinect for something that has been suspiciously absent from its ever-growing palette of applications: advertising. Behold the slick, stylish, and interactive ad potential exhibited in this installation, and marvel at what the future might bring. Would you stop and spend more time in front of an ad if you could control the action? Would a slammin’ soundtrack and kaleidoscopic visuals help? I think we can agree that the answer to both questions is a crystal-clear, resonant ‘most likely’. …

Add to your personal list of things that don’t need to exist (everyone keeps one of those, right?) this remote-controlled car, which has the singular distinction of being the world’s fastest. Nic Case designed the Schumacher Mi3 with one purpose in mind: to break the world record for fastest toy car – and boy howdy, has he done exactly that. This $4000 pocket rocket is made of carbon fibre, powered by an 11HP motor connected to a 12-cell battery pack, and travels at a cool 161.76 mph. In the event you’re unaware, that’s really damn fast – perhaps fast enough even that I can’t imagine this thing handling…

Are you about ready to throw your car stereo in the trash? You’re about to be. Students Robbin Ingvarsson and Waldemar Wegelin have designed what they hope to be the next revolution in in-car audio – and from the looks of things, they’ve pretty much got it in the bag. Soundtracks is a system that takes input from your car to design on the fly a soundtrack that reacts according to the action on the road, as well as the environment in which you’re driving. The resulting synaesthetic experience is nothing short of brilliant What about your favourite tunes? Surely you’re not going to throw your classic jams…

Monday is going to be an interesting day, to say the least. Rumours surrounding WWDC ’11 concern all sorts of neat stuff, including but not limited to what the final build of Lion has in store, iCloud, and more. But this is a cool little tidbit, especially if you’re a Twitter freak. According to Rob Scoble, Twitter will have deep integration with iOS5, much more robust than “lame send to Twitter buttons”, and “a lot deeper than just photos”. What exactly this means remains unclear for the moment, but if like me you’re a Twitter nut, you await the official announcement with bated breath. Hopefully,…

It doesn’t get more awesome than this. It does not get more awesome than this. I don’t think anyone can argue that the iPhone already takes pretty swell pictures, as far as phones are concerned – but this is something new entirely. Black Design Associates have dreamed up this inarguably awesome iPhone/Leica i9 combo that simply begs to be produced for real-real. Can you just imagine this? Says BDA of the design: “It’s common practice to combine a smart phone with a digital camera, but how do you combine a great smart phone with a great digital camera when your brands may speak to very different…