Category Archives: Gadgets

Watch-ing your weight

Basis bands
Image courtesy BASIS Science, Inc.

Times are tight. Many of us feel trapped between the food we can afford and the medical bills that we can’t. As obesity and its related illnesses – including heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes – grow more prevalent, ballooning healthcare costs threaten to shrink our wallets.

Most of us know that we need to take charge of our own health, but how? And where will we find the time? We’re busy, frazzled, mired in bad habits and assailed by late-night ads for fad diets, pills and gimmicky workout machines. Meanwhile, most of us have no idea how our caloric intake stacks up to our daily burn.

Surely, this is a job for a gadget.

Can a watch help you lose weight?

Wristwatches: Is it time to disband?

Wristwatches at a store in London
Image courtesy David Castor

Every few years, someone writes an article about how kids today don’t know what a rotary phone is, or have never heard of a cassette tape, or are losing the ability to spell or write cursive. I still remember, years ago, when one study revealed that not only did today’s youth not know how to wind a watch – they didn’t know what the phrase meant.

As someone who was required to be able to understand references to technology, art and entertainment dating back to my grandmother’s time, I take these articles with a grain of salt. That includes the recent spate of pieces in blogs and news outlets declaring the death of the wristwatch. Sure, we all have cellphone, and there are as many clocks in my kitchen as appliances, but – as I point out in this misleadingly named article – the watch has yet to tick its last tock.

Why don’t we wear wristwatches anymore?

It’s like Dazzler and Tesla had a baby, and it was a t-shirt

Orange Sound Charge T-Shirt
Photo courtesy Orange

The pages of ThinkGeek teem with techno-tees fitted with LEDs, speakers, DIY artwork, virtual instruments and WiFi meters. Meanwhile, companies vie to gin up greener charging methods for cell phones.

Is it time for a mashup? A cellphone-charging tee? Maybe – but good luck wearing one through airport security.

Can a T-shirt turn sound into electricity?

Dirty photography no more?

Nikon D40 digital SLR camera with visible CCD image sensor
Photo: Kaspar Metz/Wikimedia Commons

If it takes a certain daring – or disregard – to crack the case on your computer and blow it free of dust, then it takes even more gumption to tackle cleaning your digital camera sensor. In this article, I’ll walk you through the basics of sensor cleaning, give you the rundown on which tools you’ll need (and which ones you won’t), show you how to get the gunk off your lenses and throw in some general upkeep tips for good measure.

How should a digital camera be cleaned?

Funk with me if you want to live

Is the world clamoring for a dancing robot-speaker? Perhaps not. Then again, I probably said the same thing about Big Mouth Billy Bass, Let’s Rock Elmo or Furby. Heck, something has to be the toy that dominates Christmas.

So, read on. After all, it’s Bieber-certified.

How the mRobo Ultra Bass Works