Sony Ericsson is introducing a feature it expects to become a standard in the earbud world: motion control. Pop the MH907 headphones into your ears and your music plays immediately. Pull ‘em out and it stops — or you can pull out just one and take a call. Sony Ericsson calls it the ‘SensMe’ system, and it means you won’t need any buttons at all.

Well, would this be a boon? An annoyance? It all depends on how reliable — or temperamental — the technology is. The MH907 earbuds will be available this week for $55, though it looks like you need a Sony Erisson phone with a “fast port” connector to get them to work right. Sony Ericsson has more info about compatibility on its website.

Click Continue to check out an animated ad for the MH907s.

Continue reading...

There are good microphones, and there are bad microphones, but pretty much all of them are limited by the nature of the technology — specifically, the diaphragm that moves in response to air. The structure of that diaphragm will affect the sound that’s recorded, even if that influence is minute. There’s simply no way around it.

Or is there? David Schwartz at the Rochester Institute of Technology says his Laser-Accurate micorphone is capable of recording “pure sound.” Instead of conventional transducers, Schwartz’s mike uses lasers to scan an air chamber filled with microscopic particles (read: smoke). When the particles move in response to sound, the laser detects the motion without disturbing the air (at least not in any acoustic way), so the vibration — and thus the recording — should be as close to acoustically perfect as possible. In theory.

The laser mike looks like a promising new technology, but it’s clearly in the infant stages. If you check out the second vid through the Continue link below, you can see Schwartz has to shout to get the smoke microphone to get a decent recording. If he can somehow get a working product, though, it would certainly quickly become the go-to mike for the recording industry.

Continue reading...

Just last week we showed you HP’s forthcoming DreamScreen, which adds several widgets to a digital photo frame form factor for greater connectivity and functionality. (Say that 10 times fast.) Well, it looks like that’s going to become the norm, as European electronics company PURE is rolling out its Sensia touchscreen radio with widgets that connect you to the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

It’ll also let you browse photos using Picasa, listen to Internet and FM radio, and read the news or check the weather. Really, it’s just up to you whether you prefer something that looks like this, or is a little more squarish and thin like the DreamScreen. All that touchscreen goodness comes at a price, however: $400.

Sensia, via Crunch Gear

Continue reading...

I am thrilled to announce that Instructables Build Nights have returned with a vengeance. And our amazing new friends at The reMake Lounge are going to help host them and a host of upcoming Instructables workshops.



We invite one and all to come and bring whatever it is you are working on or would l…


By: randofo

Continue reading...

Imagine a box that can play almost any video or audio file from anywhere, right there in your home theater. That’s the promise of the $300 Syabas Popcorn Hour C-200, billed as a Networked Media Tank (NMT) that brings digital movies, photos and tunes to your living room via Ethernet, Wi-Fi, attached USB drive or internal hard disk. Let’s see what it can do.

Continue reading...

I would like to introduce to you all and welcome to the site The reMake Lounge, a new local DIY Maker space whose mission is to inspire the maker spirit, foster community, and keep materials out of the landfill. They are looking to provide a center for makers to be able to drop in, use their facilit…


By: randofo

Continue reading...

I’ve been happy with all the recent efforts by European auto manufacturers to bring fuel-efficient diesels back to the States. From Volkswagen to Mercedes, diesels seem to be the new attempt at pleasing the US “green” crowd with classy, low-emissions fuel-sippers.

Reading that last sentence over, it seems funny to call them a “new attempt” because these high mileage diesels have been available to Europeans for a LONG time — but that’s another story.

So, while it’s debatable whether a gasoline-powered Prius at 40 mpg is more “green” than a diesel-powered Jetta at 40 mpg — it all has to do with how much of each type of fuel comes out of one barrel of oil — It’s a fact that having these new clean diesels as an option is certainly something the US has been lacking for a long time. And I appreciate having that option, I really do.

Read more of this story »

Continue reading...