Crave: gorgeous gadgets and other crushworthy stuff. - CNET

This week in Crave: The up-in-Flame edition

Leslie Katz — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 06:00:00 PDT

Too busy watching the Olympic Flame wend through such Britishly named towns as Stoke on Trent and Shrewsbury to keep up with Crave this week? Well, take your eyes off Trowbridge for a moment and catch up on what you missed.

Flickr pics show Brits celebrating the Olympic torch as it makes its way toward London.

(Credit: Screenshots by Edward Moyer/CNET)

• Could this little box stop the other Flame?

• Personalized action heroes: It's your turn to save the world!

• Wait, what's Darth Vader doing at the Yalta Conference?

• Bright idea from Gucci: biodegradeable sunglasses.

• Take a look at (or through) this ... [Read more]

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Surgeons use Kinect tech during aneurysm procedures

Elizabeth Armstrong Moore — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 15:05:14 PDT

Microsoft's Kinect has in recent years spawned hundreds of side hack projects. This week, a group of researchers and surgeons out of London is piloting a project developed alongside Microsoft Research to enable touchless viewing and manipulation of images while performing vascular surgery.

A surgeon demonstrates the touchless manipulation of images during surgery.

(Credit: King's College London)

During complex aneurysm procedures, a computer program takes a 3D image of a patient's anatomy and produces several 2D images taken from different angles. The Kinect tech then enables surgeons to operate those images using gesture and voice alone.

The benefits are two-fold: surgeons can more easily maintain a sterile environment when they don't have to manipulate equipment, and they rely less on assistants to manipulate the visual-aid equipment for them, which can result in miscommunication and errors.

15 best free iPad games

Scott Stein — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 14:50:00 PDT

Free iPad games

Congratulations! You've just gotten an iPad. Your first question, of course: what are the good games, and how much do they cost?

Now, obviously, those are separate and quite different questions. However, even though iPad games tend to cost more than the average iPhone game, there's good news: a lot of games are out there that don't cost anything at all. See for yourself in the slideshow below, and click through for our picks. Board games, arcade games, shooters, puzzles, simulations--there's something for everyone.

15 best free iPad games (screenshots)

1-2 of 15 Scroll Left Scroll Right

Street View gets groovified with stereographic animations

Edward Moyer — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 14:26:13 PDT

Frames from Heathsplosion's "Street View Stereographic animation," (top) and Giacomo Miceli's "Chemin Vert." The videos are embedded below.

(Credit: Screenshots by Edward Moyer/CNET)

Google's Street View keeps on playing the muse to various digital artistes out there and yielding interesting visual confections.

Our buddies over at the Creators Project have made us aware of a trippy little film called "Chemin Vert" that uses Street View images to let Rome-based creator Giacomo Miceli visualize what he calls on his site "one of my childhood fantasies, riding a rocket launched at full speed just above the ground of a long road."

The vid takes us around the world over and over again, across five continents and through four seasons in the space of 3 minutes and 15 seconds. (The music for which the film is named is by electronic musician A Ghost Train).

The five handiest smartphone apps ever

Rick Broida — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 14:15:54 PDT

The newly updated Bump makes it awesomely easy to transfer photos to your PC.

(Credit: Bump Technologies)

Technology advances so rapidly these days, it's easy to become jaded, to take for granted the minor miracles we can now accomplish using our phones.

For example, yesterday I met my wife for lunch in an unfamiliar area of town. We were both in the mood for Thai, so I pulled out my iPhone, fired up a certain app, and in seconds found several nearby Thai joints. Ah, but which ones were good and not so good? An abundance of user ratings answered that question.

How amazing is that? And it's just one example of how select apps can make life not just easier, but also better. Below I've rounded up five that I consider both essential and indispensable. Check my picks, then add your own to the list (in the comments, of course).

1. Bump (Android | iOS) Because I'm not a mover and shaker in the business world (or even the outside world), I rarely had the need to use Bump's cool contact information-swapping capabilities.

But last month, the app got an upgrade that makes it crazy-handy: you can now ... [Read more]

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Fujitsu prepping a pair of 10-inch Android tablets

Scott Webster — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 12:30:46 PDT

Will Fujitsu debut two 10-inch Android tablets this summer?

(Credit: Notebook Italia)

Fujitsu's Android presence has been meager, especially on the tablet front. Its state of the slate could change soon, if a leaked company roadmap is any indication. Italian blog Notebook Italia obtained a copy of what appears to be Fujitsu's planned product releases for 2012-2013, which shows at least two Android tablets on the horizon.

According to the roadmap, Fujitsu has a pair of 10-inch Android 4.0 tablets expected to arrive any day now.

The "high end Bacura" tablet is thought to be water resistant, much like recent Fujitsu smartphones. Its release is tied to Q1, which means we could hear an announcement in the near term.

On the other hand, the fact that the calendar is a "planning" roadmap hints that Fujitsu is only a few months into development. Nevertheless, Notebook Italia still suggests that we could hear some Bacura noise by the end of June. I'll be curious to see what constitutes "high end" in Fujitsu's eyes, and whether or not we'll see it outside of Japan.

The document's second suspected tablet, also listed as a 10-incher, is the "Volume." Aside from its name and an expected... [Read more]

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Ultracompact megazooms compared

Joshua Goldman — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 11:33:15 PDT

Zoom lenses sell cameras these days, so it's no surprise that manufacturers are doing everything they can to get longer lenses into increasingly smaller bodies.

A 3x or 5x zoom lens used to be the standard for ultracompact cameras -- those measuring 1 inch thick or slimmer -- but in 2012, you can easily find a skinny point-and-shoot with a 10x optical zoom.

The frontrunner here is the sub-$250 Sony Cyber-shot DSC-WX150 thanks to its excellent features, fast autofocus, and the quality of its pictures and video (though its color accuracy could be better). Most of the category consists of sub-$200 cameras, though, so there are options if you're just looking for a simple pocket camera with a long lens.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-WX150The 10x, f3.3-5.9, 25-250mm lens in the WX150 is nice, but its fast BSI sensor and image processor are what helps put it ahead of others. Read the full review.

The 404 1,065: Where it's all in our heads (podcast)

Justin Yu — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 11:08:12 PDT

Tyll Hertsens from InnerFidelity.com and CNET Audiophiliac Steve Guttenberg join us on today's episode of The 404 Show.

(Credit: The 404)

Today's episode of The 404 is a valuable resource for anyone obsessed with headphones -- classic audiophiles, young audiophiliacs, musicians, producers, and casual listeners will all benefit from Steve Guttenberg's knowledge, and he brought a friend! Tyll Hertsens is largely credited for creating the first portable headphone amp and currently the editor-in-chief of InnerFidelity.

With Tyll's help, we'll run through the differences between on-ear and in-ear headphones, give credit to two companies responsible for introducing high-quality headphones to the next generation of audiophiles, and we'll even spend a little time dissecting the criteria for what makes a headphone "sound good."

You've certainly arrived at the right episode if you're shopping for a new headphone! Tyll, Steve, and I throw out a bunch of recommendations with models ranging in style, design, application, and music genre. As always, you can check out ... [Read more]

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Zombie Gnomes: Apocalypse in your garden

Amanda Kooser — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 11:00:00 PDT

Zombie Gnomes have been known to viciously turn on other lawn ornaments.

(Credit: Chris Stever & Jane DeRosa)

If you're anything like me, you've thought about the zombie apocalypse. You've wondered how long your canned goods will hold out and if you'll be able to fortify the windows against the onslaught of zombified neighbors.

What you might not have considered is that the zombie apocalypse could start right in your own patch of rosemary. You won't know the true meaning of terror until you feel that nip at your ankle and see your once-quaint garden gnome now thirsting for your blood.

Five most unlikely E3 2012 announcements

Dan Ackerman — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 10:16:41 PDT

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

The days before E3 are always filled with endless pontificating and predictions. The lesson? Throw enough predictions up against the wall and something is bound to stick. Of all the ideas we've heard, you'll probably agree that these are the least likely to happen, although each one still seems like a potential blockbuster to us.

Nintendo SmellDS Nintendo finally explores the next dimension in handheld gaming: olfactory. (Nintendo promises: sense of smell not necessary to enjoy SmellDS; scent slider included.) Reggie Fils-Aime promises, "You've never smelled Super Mario...like this."

Double-glasses 3D We tried regular stereoscopic 3D, didn't catch on. We tried no-glasses 3D, not much better. The answer is finally here: combining two sets of active-shutter lenses for extreme depth, with only a slightly increased chance of migraines.

Double the fun, double the headaches.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

PlayStation Vita 4K Now with a DoubleRetina(TM) display for graphics, for details the human eye can't see! With 4,000 lines of resolution, this upgraded handheld console needs to store some of its pixels in another dimension.

FreemiumVille The ultimate social media game. Free to play, except for the parts where you pay to play more for free.

No-motion gaming First there was motion gaming... [Read more]

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Crave: gorgeous gadgets and other crushworthy stuff. - CNET

This week in Crave: The up-in-Flame edition

Surgeons use Kinect tech during aneurysm procedures

Related stories

15 best free iPad games

Free iPad games

15 best free iPad games (screenshots)

Street View gets groovified with stereographic animations

Related stories

The five handiest smartphone apps ever

Fujitsu prepping a pair of 10-inch Android tablets

Ultracompact megazooms compared

The 404 1,065: Where it's all in our heads (podcast)

Zombie Gnomes: Apocalypse in your garden

Related stories

Five most unlikely E3 2012 announcements