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ReviewsHeadphonesThese Ultralight Carbon Fiber Headphones Are Perfect for Traveling Again, Whenever That Might Be
Carbon fiber, the high-tech material that now makes up everything from car hoods to iPhone cases, is light and strong. When Bowers & Wilkins designed a Carbon Edition of its PX7 headphones, the goal was to create a pair of headphones that were rugged and streamlined with solid audio quality. They pulled it off. B&W … Continued
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ReviewsAttak Piks are High Tech Guitar Picks that Mix Up Your Music
Guitar picks are pretty low-tech. They’re usually little pieces of plastic and you buy a few dozen and keep them for years or promptly lose most of them and then buy another few dozen. Now, however, there’s a new pick in town. Called the Attak Pik, these oddly-ridged guitar picks promise distortion and harmonics that … Continued
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Tech NewsPrivacy & SecurityHackers Steal Thousands of Customer Emails From Popular Crypto Wallet
Hackers have released over 270,000 email addresses associated with customers of the popular hardware-based cryptocurrency wallet Ledger. The leak, which allegedly stemmed from a company hack last July, appears to contain over 270,000 customer emails and other identifying information. The hack does not directly affect the security of the hardware wallets and only involves customer … Continued
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Tech NewsGadgetsGifts for the Unrepentant Luddite
You know that special person in your life, the one who thinks technology is all around us. Who can taste the stink of it, as it were, and worries they’ll be infected by it? The result? Their anger at modernity creates a sense of absolute horror at what the world has become, and, worse, makes … Continued
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Tech NewsPrivacy & SecurityComputer Memory Can Be Made to Speak in Wifi, Researcher Discovers
A new theoretical exploit called Air-Fican turn a secure, air-gapped computer into a wifi transmitter that can help a hacker exfiltrate secure data. An air-gapped computer is a computer that is completely disconnected from any network. Many air-gapped machines have every possible network feature removed, from wifi to Bluetooth, but this exploit shows that hackers … Continued
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Tech NewsFind Focus With This DIY Distraction-Free Editor
I’ve tried way too many distraction-free writing devices, from the Freewrite to an old Brother typewriter. As a glutton for punishment, however, I may just build the FeatherQuill while I’m trapped at home. The FeatherQuill is a project by Cameron Coward, a writer and hardware hacker who focuses on 3D printing. The project consists of … Continued
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ReviewsOther GadgetsMake the T-Shirt Designs of Your Dreams With the Brother ScanNCut DX
As we’re all crafting this holiday season, the Brother ScanNCut DX offers endless possibilities for DIY decorations. The ScanNCut is a CNC-style cutting machine designed to create shapes in paper, vinyl, and even thin wood. It also includes a small spatula for removing the stickers from the mat. The device consists of a sharp stylus … Continued
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Tech NewsFintech App Threatens to Sue Facebook and Friends Over Diem Name
Diem it! A London-based finance app called Diem is threatening to sue the Diem Association, the consortium in charge of what was once known as the Libra token. Diem Group Ltd—not to be confused with the Diem Association—is considering suing the consortium over the use of the name. The small fintech company seems to believe … Continued
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Tech NewsThe SMS Has Been Able to Rent a Car By Itself for Three Years
Happy birthday, SMS! Today marks the 28th birthday of the SMS aka the Short Message Service, the way GSM phones used to send text messages to each other. In other words, texting is now as old as the Big Bopper and Caligula were when they died. Neil Papworth of Sema Group sent the first SMS … Continued
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ReviewsOther GadgetsThe Mikme Pocket Is a Solid Little Voice Recorder for Your Phone
The Mikme Pocket is something you don’t know you need until you try it. Created by a hardware startup in Vienna, Austria, this pocket-sized audio record is the second product in the Mikme line and, arguably, and it makes it easy to record meetings, vocals, and video soundtracks with a box the size of a … Continued
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Tech NewsFacebook’s Libra Seizes the Diem
We can’t blame you if you forgot about Facebook’s Libra project. The blockchain-based ZuckBuck scheme is the basis for a future payment/scam gateway, but not much has come out of the platform in the past few years… until now. In fact, the fintech giant is proud to announce that the platform has taken the bold … Continued
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Tech NewsGadgetsThis BBC Micro Emulator Takes You Back to 1981
If you are of a certain age and nationality, you’ll remember the BBC Micro or Beeb, a computer produced by Acorn for the BBC Computer Literacy Project, an effort by British Broadcasting Corporation to bring computer literacy to the lads and lasses of that fair isle. The Beeb is a beloved piece of hardware to … Continued
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ReviewsHome Entertainment & Smart HomeThe Signals BBQ Thermometer Wirelessly Watches the Meats
As a fan of multiple meats, I’m always checking hamburgers, steaks, and other grilled gobbets with a portable thermometer to test for doneness. Until the ThermoWorks Signals, I haven’t been able to find a product that acts as sort of a meat tender, something that will monitor multiple foods at once. It’s not a new … Continued
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Tech NewsBitcoin Could Hit $20K Again But This Time No One Cares
If you’ve been watching the crypto markets over the past few weeks you’ll have noticed something special: bitcoin, everyone’s favorite decentralized digital currency based on hype, lies, and general malfeasance, is about to hit $20,000—if it can break through what is known as a “resistance zone,” a financial term describes a price that an asset … Continued
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ReviewsOther GadgetsHydrow Is a Great Peloton Alternative if You Hate Cycling
$2,245.00 A muscle-bound and joyful young man is cutting down the Charles River like a water strider. His chipper banter distracts you briefly from the whir of an internal flywheel and a constant stream of numbers—split times, speed, strokes per minute—helps keep up the momentum. With a little more push, a little more pull, you … Continued
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Tech NewsGadgetsThis Super-Compact Computer Will Let Me Live at Least One Neuromancer Fantasy
Clockwork, makers of the Gameboy-esque GameShell, are back with a new mobile product aimed even more squarely at lovers of retro tech. Their DevTerm is a self-contained computer powered by a low-energy CPU or Raspberry Pi aimed directly at folks who are looking for a low-profile, extremely portable computer for coding, sysadmin work, or writing. … Continued
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Tech NewsThe Shambling Corpse of RadioShack Is Rising From the Grave
Retail Ecommerce Ventures, a company that buys and resurrects old brands as e-commerce sites, has bought a number of RadioShack’s global assets, rocketing the defunct brand back into the spotlight once again. According to a release, REV purchased the assets for an undisclosed amount and is exploring bringing back some beloved RadioShack brands. The company … Continued
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Tech NewsIt’s Time for Twitter to Die
Not unlike Twitter’s new Fleets, the company’s time is rapidly expiring. The platform, which is now dedicated to dunking on the earnest, yelling about conspiracies, and sharing bad memes, is on its way to the big social media cemetery in the sky to join MySpace, Plurk, and (hopefully soon) Facebook. Here’s how it dies: Donald … Continued
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Tech NewsTower Records Rockets From the Tomb
If you’re of a certain age and cultural predilection, you’ll remember Tower Records with great fondness. Founded in 1960, the store was a bulwark against normality for years and probably one of the best places to buy vinyl, tapes, CDs, books, and merch for all your favorite pre-Spotify bands. When it died 14 years ago, … Continued
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Tech NewsPrivacy & SecurityRussian and North Korean Hackers Attacked Covid-19 Labs, Microsoft Says
Microsoft researchers have found evidence that Russian and North Korean hackers have systematically attacked covid-19 labs and vaccine makers in an effort to steal data and initiate ransomware attacks. “Among the targets, the majority are vaccine makers that have Covid-19 vaccines in various stages of clinical trials, clinical research organization involved in trials, and one … Continued
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