Hasta La Gadget!

Who's a good kitty? You are! You are!

(Credit: PetChatz)

Humans have long used technology to stay in touch with one other. It’s only natural to harness tech to stay in touch with our four-legged loved ones, as well.

PetChatz is a system designed to help you interact with your pup or kitty, no matter how far away you are.

It’s one thing to just use a two-way video system. PetChatz has that. But it also caters to your furry friend’s heightened senses of taste and smell.

You install PetChatz in your home into an electrical outlet, which is typically located close to pet eye level. It connects to your home Wi-Fi network. The device activates remotely from your computer through the PetChatz Web site, or through a tablet or smartphone app. It plays a tone to get your pet’s attention, and then you can see the wee beastie, talk to it, and push a button to dispense a small treat onto the floor.

One of PetChatz’s more unusual features is a scent dispenser. It holds proprietary scent pads and releases the odor on demand. The company offers a “calming” scent, but will also let customers create their own scents. That should work well for pets who like to cuddle with your dirty socks or sleep with their noses pointed at the pot roast in the oven.

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The gadget-opening geeks over at iFixit have laid hands on the new Kindle Fire HDX seven-inch tablet and proceeded to tear open the device. The teardown uses a look at what the hardware inside the tablet looks like. To get inside its juicy insides required several tools designed specifically for opening plastic cases and removing Torx screws on the inside.

The Kindle Fire HDX has a seven-inch screen with a resolution of 1920 x 1200, a quad-core 2.2 GHz Snapdragon 800 processor, integrated Wi-Fi, a front 720p resolution front-facing camera, and up to 64 GB of storage.

However, the company always gives products a repairability score based on how difficult it is to open them up and get at the components. On a scale of 10 with 10 being the easiest repair, the Kindle fire HDX seven-inch tablet scored very poorly, with a final score of three.

Some of the things most negatively affecting the score are a battery that’s glued firmly in place and an LCD that is fused to the front glass requiring the entire LCD unit to be replaced if you break the glass. Eesh.

[via iFixit]

As the federal shutdown limps on, donors large and small have stepped forward with gifts to maintain shuttered government programs.

Laura and John Arnold provided $10-million to continue Head Start programs. The Fisher House Foundation worked with donors and the Department of Defense to ensure a timely payout of survivor benefits to families of fallen service members.

The Arnolds made clear that they don’t want government to think philanthropists can or should step in to provide the payments. Perhaps that is why the Arnolds made their contribution a loan that must be paid back when the shutdown ends, and Fisher House, too, is expected to be paid back.

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Kylie and Kendall Jenner wound up in the firing line of a middle finger flip Tuesday, but were they the intended targets?

The Jenner girls and Scott Disick were seated front row at the Day By Day fashion show at LA Live in Los Angeles Oct. 15. The three were smiling and chatting when DJ/model/designer Caroline D’Amore walked down the runway. Dressed in a black hoodie and sweatpants with her platinum hair pulled into a tight bun, D’Amore strutted past Kylie, Kendall and Scott and flipped the middle finger.

We’re not sure what the intention was here, or if her hand gesture was aimed at anyone in particular, but Kylie’s face sure was priceless.

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