Hasta La Gadget!

Lockitron. Even the name inspires a feeling of security. Security administered by giant Japanese robots, perhaps, but security nonetheless. Lockitron is a door lock that you can unlock with your cellphone.

It works like this. You replace either part or all of your door lock with Lockitron’s parts (depending on the kind of lock you have). Then, when you get home you fire up the app on your phone and hit the “unlock” button. That’s it. There is also a “lock” button for when you leave, and you can give access to a friend just by sending them an SMS with a code that lets them use their phone to open the door.

The Lockitron can also be used with an optional NFC (near field communication) add-on. This sticks onto the lock and when you wave your NFC-equipped phone in front of it it will open the door for you.

What’s not to like? If you have an NFC phone like the Nexus S, then you can now leave not only your wallet but your keys at home. Just make sure you don’t lose your cellphone, or you are royally screwed.

The Lockitron starts at $295, and is available now.

Lockitron product page [Lockitron]

See Also:

• Apple Adding NFC Contact-Less Payment to iPhone 5, Consultants …
• Remote Control Your Car With Your iPhone

Web Browser for Apple TV shows web pages from the iPhone on the big screen

Tap Media’s Web Browser for Apple TV is about as plainly-named as it gets. The iPhone app uses AirPlay to beam its web browser over onto your television via Apple TV.

Simple, and probably very useful, the app lets you browse the web for anything you like and then throw it up on the big screen for everyone to see. This is the exact way this should be done, instead of the Google TV way which forces onlookers to witness every mis-typed step of your browsing odyssey before you get to the actual goal. Watching somebody else browse the web is hell on earth, and it should be kept strictly private.

The browser is basic, even by iOS standards. You get bookmarking, a search bar and history, and you can display documents in-line (PDF and DOC files are listed), but right now there’s no way to show any video you may come across, which is a rather large shortcoming, especially as it works in Safari. My guess is that an app can’t have two different sources to send to the same AirPlay receiver.

Still, for quickly showing off a web page it looks handy, and at $2 the price is certainly right. IPhone only, available now.

Web Browser for Apple TV [iTunes via Cult of Mac]

See Also:

• The Hidden Secrets of Apple's AirPlay
• AirPlay Hack Streams Non-iTunes Video Between Mac, Apple TV …
• AirServer
• Beam Music, Movies, Photos from iPad to Mac With AirServer …

Professional drinkers eschew glasses altogether, but clean-freak dilettantes will love Quirky’s Tether

I gave up on wine glasses years ago, replacing them with free, tough and — most importantly — resealable jam jars. They never tip up, they bounce off even the toughest wooden floor and I can screw on the lid and take my drink with me wherever I may stumble. The sole remaining wine glass in my apartment is reserved for guests, and I dust it off every few months.

But if I used stemware (and owned a dishwasher), I might be interested in Quirky’s Tether, a set of four silicone rods that acts like restraining belts for your fancy glasses. One end of the hollow tube squeezes down onto the dishwasher’s inadequate plastic spikes, and the other clips onto the glass’s stem. This stops the top-heavy (bottom-heavy?) glass from toppling over and snapping-off its own appendage.

The purple tubes are small enough to leave installed permanently inside the dishwasher, and at $15 for a set they cost less than a couple of decent glasses.

As ever with Quirky, the manufacturing process will get underway once a minimum number of orders have been sold — in this case 1,000. And if past experience is anything to go by, you could be in for a long wait even then. So, go pre-order, then head down to the local vintner for the wine, and stop off at the corner store for some jam on the way home. Those jars should keep you going until the Tethers finally turn up.

Tether product page [Quirky]

See Also:

• Single-Serve Takeaway Wine Glasses Intoxicate Britain
• Quirky Switch, A customizable Multi-Tool
• Quirky's 'Petal Drops' Turns Soda-Bottle into Rain-Catcher …

Next Issue Media brings magazine subscriptions to Samsung Galaxy Tabs, but not all of them originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 May 2011 06:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We dropped by Nanosys’ nook at SID 2011, and not only was it showing off its new Quantum Dot Enhancement Film, but had hacked the tech into an off-the-shelf iPad. A company representative presented the modified slate as an example of how quickly QDEF‘s high color gamut magic could be integrated into existing devices, offering “OLED color depth without OLED power consumption and OLED price.” Sure enough, we were told to expect to see QDEF in a “mobile device,” probably an Android tablet, sometime in Q4; when pushed for details, our rep could only tell us that the device would come from a Korean firm. (LG or Samsung, take your pick.)

Integrating QDEF into new devices may be a snap, but company representatives told us the film could add as much as 100 microns to a screen’s thickness, suggesting that smartphone manufactures aren’t too keen on the idea of a thicker display. Still, Nanosys has high hopes for the new film and told us that it expects high-color QDEF to become an “ecosystem changer,” as industry-altering as HDTV. The firm even suggested “wide color gamut” apps could be in our near future — we love our color depth here at Engadget, but somehow it’s hard to see Angry Birds: High Color (its suggestion, not ours) taking off. Check out our hands-on after the break.

Continue reading Nanosys QDEF screen technology ships in Q4, slips into iPad at SID 2011 (video)

Nanosys QDEF screen technology ships in Q4, slips into iPad at SID 2011 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 May 2011 05:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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