tech

Rule the swamp with a scary, solar-powered alligator

When I was a kid, my family put a life-size plastic owl near our house to keep birds and squirrels away from the porch. (At least, I think that's why they had a life-size plastic owl near our house.) Unfortunately, I don't think it worked all that well, because last I heard, the cat had mauled it and thrown it into the hedge. I suppose it really wasn't that scary.

Consequently, the next time I'm desperate to scare away animals, small children, or the IRS, I'm going to get one of these instead. Because this … Read more

Growing green friends

Many green products and services sprout on Earth Day only to wither the rest of the year. Hoping to maintain the momentum year-round, many geeks are nurturing social-networking sites for the nature-loving set.

Online communities built to help you take baby steps to green your life include Riverwired--where you can keep a blog, upload videos, and mingle with other members--and Be Green Now, a project of Green Mountain Energy. And in addition to the many green car-sharing, rental, and limo services out there, the new GoLoco site might help you find carpooling pals.

Internet services that encourage users to … Read more

Headphones that worship the sun

The idea of solar-powered headphones is certainly a worthy one, but we're not sure how well products like this will fare in hotter climes. The "Soltronix Headphone Radio" looks a little bulky for summertime wear and, as we've noted many times in this space, we're morally opposed to anything that might draw perspiration.

And as Ubergizmo notes, plastic tends to warp and crack if left in the sun too long. But if they do hold up, this $50 headset can get 19 hours of playback time on a four-hour charge.

Just remember, unless you've … Read more

Back to the (post-war French) future

Alternative forms of eco-friendly personal transportation have been appearing on drawing boards and wacky-tech Web sites for quite some time now, and in most cases they don't actually gain much traction. And many are painfully awkward despite a seemingly 'streamlined,' 'futuristic' design (we're talking about you, Segway). So maybe it's time that personal-transportation visionaries actually looked to the past for inspiration.

Like this one, a new take on the classic VeloSolex motorized bicycle. The VeloSolex, according to oO's Very Eclectic, was originally introduced in 1946 as a low-cost transportation solution for post-war France. The funky little … Read more

Living Laguna Seca

It's difficult to describe the smell of boiling brake fluid and barbecued brake discs. Or the sound of a BMW M6 being flogged to within an inch of its life, squealing for mercy as it hangs on to traction by the skin of its Z-rated rubber. We just got back from a day of track testing at California's Laguna Seca raceway, courtesy of the Western Automotive Journalist association, and can report it was by far the most enjoyable day's work we've done for a long time.

Among the cars up for grabs were many of the … Read more

Tesla geek-out in Silicon Valley

The new Tesla Roadster is getting some buzz. Being built as an all-electric car, Tesla's engineering aims to minimize resource consumption per mile. CNET News.com reporter Stefanie Olsen watched a Tesla engineer answer questions from a roomful of Silicon Valley engineers. He said his Tesla will go 4,900 miles on 1 megawatt of energy while a hydrogen car would go about 1,800 miles because of the energy needed to produce the hydrogen.

The Tesla on display was the second engineering prototype. Last fall, CNET captured video of an earlier prototype.

Tesla has already sold 180 of … Read more

New show: Tech Snack!

I'm shooting a brand new show today, called Tech Snack! The premise is that I'm going to tell you about four bite-size morsels of Internet culture in each episode, from a bunch of different categories. For example, today we'll be talking about a seriously addictive blog, a tech-savvy politician, a fantastic Web comic, and more!

Sounds pretty tasty, right? Another aspect of the show is that I want to showcase some of your favorite things. I'll start posting the categories here on the CNET TV blog each week, and then you can name some of the … Read more

Tune in to CNET Live today

Hosts Tom Merritt and Brian Cooley have struck gold with their new Live streaming program on CNET TV. With a hot live guest every week and an opportunity for viewers to call in to get their personal tech queries answered, it's the best thing to do on a Thursday afternoon...since afternoon cartoons!

Past guests include Justin Kan of JustinTV and James Kao at Green Citizen, who shed some wisdom on earth-friendly tech. Last week, Biz Stone from Twitter.com joined CNET Live to talk about the future of mini-blogging. Tom and Brian also took a number of calls, … Read more

SF New Tech Meetup -- Livestreamed

I am at the SF New Tech Meetup, I've got a webcam on my laptop, and I'm not afraid to use it. I'm trying out Veodia (preview) to stream the event.

Update: I had two dropped connections and crashes, and gave up on the streaming. Here is the archive of the first segment Veodia recorded: