Hasta La Gadget!

It’s now officially spring — that wonderful time of the year that leaves you feeling guilty for not going outside. Why not take a small, portable computing device with you? A selection of modestly discounted Android, iOS and Windows 8 slabs await…

It’s a shame you can’t unsubscribe from group texts. This week I was one of the recipients of a never-ending text bacchanal with a bunch of people I didn’t know. But it wasn’t fun or consensual. It was just a good reminder that we need to talk about text etiquette.

Read more…

(Credit: Video screenshot by Lexy Savvides/CNET)

Daniel Boschung is a cartographer, but not as you know it.

He creates intricate photographs captured by his robotic camera that provide incredibly high-resolution overviews of paintings and insects.

For his latest project, Boschung set his camera on faces. He asked his subjects to remain perfectly still for 30 minutes as the robot took their portrait.

Each of the finished photos consists of 600 individual shots all stitched together. The level of detail captured is amazing, turning a regular portrait into a map of the human face. Eyelashes, stray hairs, and pores get captured in all their macro glory with incredible depth-of-field. Just like a gigapixel image, you can zoom in and out to explore every facet of the photo.

Related stories

• Artist, robots draw simultaneous portraits in three cities
• Meet e-David, the robot that paints

The photos are all taken by an ABB industrial robot that has been programmed specifically to take the images in the correct order and orientation. A … [Read more]

Related Links:
Simple smartphone photo tips
MIT’s super-speedy robot fish makes flashy escape
Cool! Real train arrives, woman’s hair blows onscreen
Watch robotic pole dancers shake their actuators
The not-so-secret appeal of Snapchat’s fleeting stories

While sleep may be an easy task for some, it can be an overwhelming chore to others. Sometimes it takes tea, music, watching a show, or a combination of all of the above and more to calm your brain down. If your mind is working so loudly or quickly that you can’t lay down and relax, which is often linked to anxiety or being overly stressed, then maybe you need a different kind of sleep aide.

The Dreampad will play music that only you can hear. No, it doesn’t make you go insane, but it is embedded with Intrasound Technology  transducers. This means it uses bone conduction to put the music quite literally into your head, rather than playing it externally through a speaker into the air. Obviously it would be best to pair this with calming music, but as you can hook up an MP3 player (or anything with a 3.5mm jack), you can use any type of music you’re comfortable with.

There are five music programs which are included in the $179 price. However, you can buy a Sony Walkman MP3 Player for an additional $70 that is preloaded with all of the music that was meant to be used with the Dreampad. This is a thin pillow that can be placed inside of the case of the pillow you’re already accustomed to. The cover is made of a quilted microfiber that is hypoallergenic, and can be removed and washed.

Available for purchase via dreampadsleep, found via ohgizmo
[ The Dreampad will sing you to sleep copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

“I just want to make a world which I can be a god in,” jokes developer Peter Molyneux (Fable, Curiosity) in a San Francisco hotel suite. “Imagine being able to make and construct a world under your own rules.” He’s speaking with us at GDC 2014,…