Hasta La Gadget!

Forget the tablet, 2011 is the year of the shower radio! Last week we reported on Toshiba’s wirelessly connected water-proof song box and, just as our nerves began to settle from the excitement, someone came along and dropped this eco-friendly, shower-ready gem on us. Not only is the H2O Shower Powered Radio waterproof, but it actually uses the water from your shower to pump out the jams. The thing connects directly to your shower hose, and uses the flow of water to set a micro-turbine spinning, thus charging an integral battery and eliminating the need for disposables. As the video below points out, the radio “doesn’t just offer 80s classics — it has the full spectrum of FM,” and its creators say it’s compatible with 99 percent of showers, but what we really want to know is: how well does it crank the Ke$ha? Video after the break.

Continue reading H2O Shower Powered Radio blasts the Biebs by way of micro-turbine

H2O Shower Powered Radio blasts the Biebs by way of micro-turbine originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Mar 2011 18:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When we first peeked this AirPlay-enabled speaker dock, we were admittedly excited to see how things would turn out after it made rounds through the FCC. JBL just tossed up the splash page for the On Air Wireless speaker and we’ve gotta say — it looks to be a promising means of streaming your jams. The system connects wirelessly to your AirPlay-enabled Mac and iOS device on 4.2 or later and packs a screen that’ll display the track info of the song you’re rocking out to. What’s more, the rounded grill sports a dual alarm clock, FM radio, and a USB port for future firmware updates. As you might have surmised by now, the dock is not yet available for purchase and there’s no word on price. If you’re interested, though, be sure to hit the source link, sign up for more info and get ready to headbang this spring.

JBL’s On Air Wireless AirPlay speaker dock gets official, unavailable to purchase originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Mar 2011 07:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Where can you find Orson Welles, Marconi’s daughter, Alexander Graham Bell’s grandaughter, and inventors of the transistor and television? You might try To Communicate is the Beginning, a 1976 educational publication tracing the history of electronic communication, which AT&T recently decided to exhume from its archives of Bell Labs material. The 30-minute video’s just the first in a series, too, as AT&T’s website is already playing host to films about the origins of the laser and integrated circuit too, with more on the way. Find them all at our source link — you do want to know how your favorite technologies evolved, right?

AT&T opens up video archives, shares the history inside originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 Feb 2011 20:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Toilets, cows, and Germans have all been tagged by RFIDs, but according to a new study, it’s footwear and fashion that top the demand for radio-enabled tracking. In a report released yesterday, ABI Research said more than three-quarters of a billion RFID tags will be used in global apparel markets in 2011, with retailers like Walmart, Macy’s, and JC Penney leading the way. Item-level tracking isn’t new — in fact we saw something similar in 2006 — but with the likes of Walmart on board, the system is expected to grow as much as 60 percent in the next three years. The study suggests inventory and security as driving factors in the adoption of RFIDs, but we’ve got our suspicions. And anyway, we don’t want anyone to know how much we spent on that Material Girl leopard print shrug — not even a machine.

Item-level RFIDs get support from big retailers, track your every purchase originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Feb 2011 09:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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They’ve been fashioned after palm trees, Christ on the cross, and what look to be Dyson Ball vacuum attachments. But now, Alcatel-Lucent is giving cellphone towers a makeover that might actually stick. The company’s new broadband base station solution, known as lightRadio, eliminates the need for cumbersome huts at the base of cellphone towers and packs antennas into a series of 2.5-inch boxes, while simultaneously improving capacity and reducing cost. These so-called radio cubes combine 2G, 3G, and LTE antennas with an SoC for processing, making them small enough to prop up on a lamp post. They’re firmware upgradable, and utilize beamforming to more efficiently connect to wireless devices; according to the company, groups of ’em can not only increase broadband capacity by 30 percent, but also cut operation costs and CO2 emissions in half. Clearly, lightRadio makes a compelling case for narrowing the digital divide, but it won’t be available broadly until 2012, which means the creative cover ups will just keep on coming. Sorry, JC.

[Thanks, Nathan]

Alcatel-Lucent’s lightRadio shoves a base station in a box, minimalists cheer originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Feb 2011 01:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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