Regardless of its ability present a 3D image without glasses, we just weren’t very impressed with Sharp’s 10.6-inch display at the IFA show. That’s not to say that its parallax barrier technology doesn’t perform well at smaller sizes, like say, oh, the Ninentdo 3DS . In fact, Sharp’s 3.8-inch switchable 3D (400 x 480) / 2D (800 x 480) display did a decent job of tricking our eyes into seeing a 3D image by exposing different pixels to each eye though tiny slits placed in front of a normal LCD. What we didn’t see, though, was this smartphone-looking prototype (lacking radios, unfortunately) that combines that 3.8-inch parallax barrier panel with Sharp’s twin-lens 3…

By Chris Scott Barr Not long ago the Solarbotics company sent us its easiest BEAM robot that they had to assemble.  Everything came included in the kit along with a nice screwdriver to put it together. The only thing required is about an hour of your time and 4 AAA batteries. Unpack it all and you are well on your way to building your very first robot. The kit assembles easily enough and the supplied instructions are very detailed and easy to follow.  All of the pieces screw together quite nicely and each part is clearly labeled.  I would highly suggest this item to anyone looking to build a first robot.  For its size this thing is extremely fast.  I threw in some fresh batteries …

Back in May when Logitech released the Harmony 600 on unwitting Australians everywhere, they promised that their colour-screen Harmony 650 would be following shortly. What we didn’t realise then was that the term “shortly” is a sliding scale, as the 650 has just hit Dick Smith stores, four months later. (more…)

Reader Gary sent us pictures of his cat blocking his iPad, reminding us all that beasts like this cat know that we are throwing our lives away on technology and our inexorable march to a life chained to machines will cause us more suffering than we know. The cat could also be hungry. You never know with cats. [ Thanks, Gary . Also, don't troll. It's a slow news day.]

Oracle has confirmed that former Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd has found a cushy place to land after one of the year’s messiest tech scandals. Hurd will be joining the company as Co-President alongside Oracle CEO and close friend Larry Ellison. This comes as no surprise if you believed yesterday’s rumors of Hurd’s hire or took note of the fact that Ellison came to his defense during the controversy over allegations of harassment by former HP contractor Jodie Fisher. According to The New York Times , Ellison chastised HP for firing Hurd last month, calling it “the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve…

Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed a new laser-based countermeasure for aircraft, and unlike others we’ve seen (and we’ve seen a few ) this technology aims to “blind” missiles rather than knock ‘em out of the sky. The system uses a mid-infrared supercontinuum laser to mimic the heat signature of a helicopter, and it has no moving parts — making it rugged enough to…

The careful readers at Engadget have noticed that Apple cut a few corners (so to speak) on its website documentation for the latest iPod touch. There’s no ear speaker or phone service on the device, obviously, but nevertheless Apple’s iPod touch display units show that the Phone app is still sitting down there in the lower left corner. Searching in Spotlight, according to another screenshot, will bring up the text messaging app, and there’s one more little mistake (look in the Travel folder to see if you can spot it). Apple…

You got to hand it to the Internet. Give it YouTube video with a trippy guy trying to figure out the meaning of a rare natural phenomena and you have an instant 15 minute celebrity. I’m referring to our friend Yosemitebear, a.k.a. Paul “Bear” Vasquez, who was freaking out (in a good way) when he spied a double

If you like puzzles and watching your productivity plummet, let us direct you to ‘Swarmation,’ a time-based game that asks you to form shapes by moving a pixel across a grid filled with other pixels . It’s deceivingly simple (navigation being controlled with the arrow keys), but, once you guide that little blue square and its buddies into the shape of a lobster or a house for the first time, you’ll find hours wasting away. The object is to create the required pixel shape, and you get points for each shape you build. Don’t expect to …

Should the honor of standing as best man ever grace your stylish self, no doubt you will have to procure the cigars for the bachelor party. Well, choosing one great cigar is similar to identifying the most beautiful woman (for you husbands, your answer is both easy and required, “my wife”) or selecting a favorite automobile. There’s just so much out there. All of this is hard work, really fun and nearly impossible. We’re here to help you arm yourself with some key information to build your tobacco arsenal. We recently recommended the CAO La Traviata Divino cigar and now we want …

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Samsung Mobile Display will use Samsung’s new, $2.1 billion factory being constructed in Korea to increase display production. The new factory, located in the southern section of Seoul, will up Samsung’s display making capacity from 3 million units to 30 million units per month. Martin Fichter, HTC’s vice president of product management and planning, said “the display was definitely one of the bigger issues that we needed to solve.” Samsung expects demand for its AMOLED displays to drastically increase in the coming years, estimating that 700 million AMOLED devices will be in the market by 2015. The report cited HTC — specifically the DROID

Here’s a great and super-simple mod that turns an iPhone 4 into a portable digital microscope . Using an inexpensive microscope found on Amazon (seven bucks as of this writing), an iPhone case and some superglue, this user has hacked together a stable, portable digital microscope that also takes pictures. The iPhone’s flat back makes attaching the microscope super easy. After getting it glued to the case, simply snap it onto the iPhone and start observing things close up! For bonus points, pair the iPhone with BlueCam for iPad , which feeds an iPhone 4’s live video stream to an iPad via Bluetooth for big-screen observations. We love this mod! Very well done. [Via DVICE ] TUAW Cool …

Practitioners and patrons of the world’s oldest profession will no longer be able to conduct business on Craigslist, as the classifieds site has now censored all of the pages under its famed ‘Adult Services’ section in the U.S. On Friday, pages offering or seeking adult services were suddenly replaced by a giant ‘CENSORED’ bar . The site still has yet to comment on the decision. A group of 17 state attorneys has also been conducting a major investigation into the site’s efforts to control illegal activity, and recently sent a letter to Craigslist, demanding that the company remove its lurid — and lucrative — section. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who spearheaded the investigation, told Reuters that Craigslist could be …

What’s more annoying than heading out with your date and finding that the restaurant you wanted to eat at has an insane wait list? Not much. Instead of playing restaurant roulette, why not download WaitList (free) on your iPhone and check the wait times before you go ? Free from the App store, WaitList keeps you on top of wait times in your area – including bars, clubs, and restaurants – thanks to other helpful patrons using the app, which means the more people use it, the more helpful it’s going to be. So everyone download it now and start reporting, OK? Have you found a cool download-worthy treasure you’d like to share with the rest of us? Join the Download of the Day group , where you can submit your favorite …

Minuscule solar cells that can fix themselves using the same building blocks as plant cells have been demonstrated, with our old friend the carbon nanotube one of the key components that holds these self-healing power units together. (more…)