gadgets

You almost can't go wrong giving the gift of music, so take a look at our top audio picks in this year's Holiday Gift Guide.

My opinion is that one can never have too many headphones since each model offers a different sound profile, but check out these alternatives for the audiophile on your gift list.

A good place to start is obviously a portable music player like the versatile Apple iPod Touch, but I also love the Logitech Wireless Boombox for iPad.

It lets you stream music from any device with a Bluetooth connection (most current smartphones, … Read more

It's Monday, all the more reason to offer you a little fantasy to help you through what might be a difficult week.

So please lean back a little and make sure there's no one close by whom you might accidentally nudge with a flinging arm or head. For I am going to show you gadgets having sex with each other.

You see, on Saturday, the kind and thoughtful folks at "Saturday Night Live" decided that given gadgets' new societal podium of sexual desirability, they should be shown having sex.

No, this is not pornography. There is foreplay. … Read more

Core Temp Gadget is a free Windows gadget that displays the temperature and load of your CPU's cores as well as basic information about your processor and platform. To use it, you must have ALCPU's Core Temp installed and running. Core Temp is a small, free application that extracts critical data from sensors and displays it in a compact interface. Core Temp Gadget simply displays data from Core Temp in an unobtrusive desktop gadget.

Core Temp doesn't have to be running to download and install Core Temp Gadget, but the utility must be running to port data … Read more

Desktop gadgets are simple little tools that add simple little features to the desktop in Windows 7 and Vista. Simple, yes, but extremely useful. The most popular gadgets are clocks, calendars weather displays, Web feeds--stuff you need often and want fast. Clocks make great gadgets because there are so many ways to improve on the box-standard Windows system tray clock. We took a peek at ActiveX Clock Gadget, a free digital clock display that automatically changes hues. It works on 32-bit editions of Windows Vista and 7 with up-to-date ActiveX controls, or you can download a version for Windows XP.… Read more

I know enough French to order two croissants and buy a bottle of wine. That successfully got me through a week in Paris, but I could improve my skills astronomically if I got a French Digital Kitchen.

Newcastle University in England has installed this kitchen, which is designed to helps students learn a language and gain some cooking skills at the same time. PBS should be all over this.

Everything from the mixing bowls to the peelers to the flour and sugar have embedded sensors that work under the same concept as a Nintendo Wii. The computer knows where the tools are and what motions are being made.

The computer gives you instructions in French and tracks your progress as you work your way through a recipe. It's like a GPS for making crepes and Croque Monsieur.… Read more

I don't hate girly things. Shiny, pink objects actually excite me, but sometimes the marketing of gadgets to women takes the meat out of a product.

I've been oohing and aahing over the HTC Rhyme because it's so hot and sexy, but geez. I was so distracted by the gorgeous purple color that I didn't even notice what operating system was installed or why its processor is not as powerful as the HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio--another recently released HTC Android phone.

The Rhyme has a 1GHz processor, while the Sensation XE has 1.5GHz, dual core. Say what?! Women like dual-core processors, too. Ahem!

And don't even get me started about video recording--780p versus 1080p.

One look at the Sensation XE and it's clear that it's a man's phone. (OK, and goth girls too--don't hate me.)

All this made me think: Should gadgets be gender-neutral? And for argument's sake, if gadgets are going to have to be gender-specific (like pants and shoes), how different should the hardware be? Heck, the only reason pants and shoes are designed with gender in mind is because our bodies are made differently. That's a fact. But when it comes to technology and our use of mobile devices, are women that much different than men? … Read more

Apple and other gadget manufacturers are once again said to be investing in new manufacturing techniques that will yield electronics with rounded glass surfaces, a new report claims.

Following up on its own report from May, DigiTimes today says Apple and other unnamed technology companies are working to produce "products with curved cover glass." That's the glass on the front of the device, the one users touch when using apps and press up to their face when making phone calls.

Citing unnamed sources, DigiTimes says the effort is purely competitive, with manufacturers looking to set their devices apart from the pack.

A report in late May--also by DigiTimes--claimed Apple had bought 200 to 300 glass-cutting machines to help glass makers make curved glass for its gadgets. That report was of special note given curiosity around Apple's next iPhone, which is now rumored to be making its debut next week. While numerous reports have now suggested Apple plans to release two new design variations, mentions of curved glass on the front have been all but non-existent. … Read more

On today's show we're covering an emerging tech trend: The Quantified Self movement, or the collection of data streams about what we do, how we feel, how we move, and so on. Why? That's one of the big questions. The best answer is probably: to live better lives. And today we're talking with two entrepreneurs who are working on a subset of the quantified self movement: body monitoring. Both their companies have the goal of making us more aware of ourselves. Using that knowledge, hopefully, we can live more healthy lives.

Our guests are Monisha Perkash, CEO of Lumoback, which I covered this week from the Demo conference, and Jef Holove of Basis, which I wrote up in July.

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… Read more

You've looked at the edge of your MacBook Air and thought, "Dang, that's super slim." A man who writes for a Japanese blog called Mochrom looked at his MacBook Air and thought, "Dang, I can cut vegetables with that."

And so he did. Mochrom gives a step-by-step guide to prepping a meal with a MacBook Air in place of a kitchen knife. You can check out Google's attempt at a translation. He started with mushrooms, known to many chefs as an easy first vegetable for testing out your knife skills.

The MacBook handled the 'shrooms with ease. Emboldened, our culinary hero also whacked through a cabbage and shaved a carrot. Getting a good cut on the cabbage required the more extreme step of opening up the MacBook Air to get a thinner edge.

He had no fear in rubbing raw shrimp all over his laptop during the de-veining process. Scallops quickly surrendered to its chopping prowess.

Here's hoping it got a good cleaning before being pressed back into service as an actual laptop.

As it turns out, there are some things a MacBook Air will not cut through. A real kitchen knife was required for carrots and raw bacon. At least he had the good sense not to stir the stir-fry with the laptop.… Read more