It’s easy to track the tidal movements of the ocean by looking at waves, but all of that energy is moved around under the surface of the water as well. Florida Atlantic University’s Center of Excellence in Ocean Energy Technology hopes to harness these underwater currents by placing 100-foot-in-diameter 20 kilowatt turbines that are anchored [...]

Regardless of how Tablet PCs have actually done in the marketplace, Microsoft has always been a staunch proponent of touch interfaces, and it looks like the next version of Windows, currently under the codename Windows 7, will bundle in multi-touch features like those found in the iPhone and Microsoft’s own Surface. The news comes from [...]

This has to be one of the most amazing hardware hacks ever. Using a Nintendo Wii remote and some software that he ginned up himself, Johnny Chung Lee of Carnegie Mellon University took a few ballpoint pens, replaced them with IR lights, and presto! Since the Wii tracks IR lights, Lee found that practically any [...]

For anything light enough like leaves or insects such as a water strider, a body of water’s surface tension gives the uppermost areas of the liquid a bit of elasticity. In effect, it becomes a virtual solid that can be rested upon and even moved across. The CMU Water Strider by NanoRobotics Laboratory relies on [...]

In an ambitious scheme than even industry proponents seem skeptical of, Britain has unveiled plans to power every home in the country via off-shore wind farms by the year 2020. Right now the UK produces approximately half a gigawatt through this method of power generation, enough to provide 2% of the country’s electricity, but nowhere [...]

Bathrooms are generally pretty tech-free places. Sure, maybe you have a shower radio in there so you can listen to NPR in the mornings while you bathe, but otherwise, it’s a pretty low-tech affair. Well, that doesn’t mean it has to be like that. It’s your bathroom, after all. This Aquavision Towel Rail TV [...]

There aren’t many things worse than being one of “those guys.” You know that guy, wearing his Bluetooth headset all day and giving the impression that he is talking to no one. This is probably one step worse. Talking into a vintage telephone handset that isn’t attached to anything will radiate lunacy a bit more [...]

This may be one of those alarm clocks that would be better to leave at home while traveling. This alarm clock is shaped like a bundled stick of very cartoon-esque dynamite. Based on the size of the electronic components on this alarm clock, one would assume that it, in fact, doesn’t make that big of [...]

Android might have launched last month in a cloud of vapor, but since then we’ve seen a couple of concrete developments from Google’s mobile phone project. The latest comes courtesy of Japan’s Willcom, which recently demonstrated what appears to be an early prototype of an Android reference board running on a FreeScale CPU. The unit [...]

DisplayLink’s certainly no stranger to wireless monitors, but it now looks set to push the technology even further along, with it and Alereon trotting out a new reference design for a wireless USB video card (and corresponding monitor adapter). That’ll apparently let you use a monitor at a distance of up to three meters, with [...]

Lots of people take issue with wind power systems. They’re unsightly, loud, can be unreliable if the wind slows down, and their windmills kill innocent birds. A company called Magenn aims to change all that with the Magenn Air Rotor System (MARS), a helium-filled floating wind turbine that operates 1,000 feet off the ground. As [...]

For the football fanatic, you’ll always fight with your significant other for the TV remote, in order to stay tuned to your favorite soccer channel. You’ll probably always lose control of those square remote controls, but how about a remote that is shaped like a football? I guess that you should have much better possession [...]

SSD (Solid State Drive) will be the next generation of storage seen in computers, which will be slowly kicking hard disk drives out from the market. SSD drives have couple of goodies over the disk drives such as better data seek time due to no mechanical parts involved and subsequently also consume less power. Now, [...]

The USB business card is dumb. I use business cards. I have a friend who is an awesome graphic designer. She does me a good deal and I get to have the coolest looking business cards out of anyone that I know. I have had a few and have pretty much nailed the crucial information [...]

Architecture these days has never been more advanced: Buildings are making their own energy and using ice as air conditioning. Creative buildings don’t always involve special technology, however. One could build a home shaped like a giant toilet or shoe, for example. We’ve found nine buildings that are sure to disorient their residents, either by [...]

Sure, we’re used to seeing some damn tiny SSDs and flash drives but Tomato’s D-18 manages to be only 8.5mm (.3 inches) thick and still pack in a 60GB 1.8-inch Toshiba hard drive. That’s quite a feat — and you’ll be able to show it off in your choice of five colors, if you can [...]