paper

Even on the first day the iTunes App Store launched there were photo apps that let you manipulate and edit images on iPhone. The App Store has come a long way since then and, with new iPhones with faster processors and better cameras, the apps have gotten significantly better as well.… Read more

There are plenty of those awkward moments in the kitchen when your hands are covered in raw chicken bits or eye-searing chile and you're trying not to touch anything. There's only so much you can do with your elbows.

This is why it makes sense to bring touchless technology into the kitchen. Restaurant and gas station bathrooms have been using touchless paper towel dispensers for years. Now there's a fancy version for the home.… Read more

I'm told wedding dresses can cost thousands of dollars. But in these trying economic times, brides can seek inspiration in Susan Brennan, winner of a contest to design a wedding dress out of...toilet paper.

Brennan, of Orchard Lake, Mich., takes home a prize of $1,000 for this innovative gown for the throne, created from four rolls of toilet paper, some hot glue, and some packing tape, according to contest organizer Cheap Chic Weddings.

I've heard of turning office paper into toilet paper, but I confess I didn't know the latter could be the stuff of fashion.

I think rain could really ruin a wedding that featured this getup.

Still, the winners of this, the seventh contest of its kind, created some truly remarkable, detailed, and gorgeous dresses out of dead trees.

Nearly 1,000 dresses were submitted to the contest, including the gown created by Third-prize winner Cynthia Richards of Marietta, Ga., who pieced together her creation out of a whopping 20 rolls of bathroom tissue. You can see more pics of the dresses here.

Now if only Mr. Whipple were around to give away the bride. … Read more

Pulse News gives you all the news from your favorite Web sites laid out in an intuitive interface. News sites are laid out vertically so you can swipe up and down to the latest news from all sites quickly, or you can swipe horizontally to read more stories from the same site. Each story heading has the headline and an included graphic, making for a more elegant approach than other news readers that show only text links. Touching a story heading gives you either a text-based summary, a mobile-optimized version for easy reading, or a way to view the story … Read more

Paper Toss is an extremely simple but still fairly addictive game that simulates the time-honored office pastime of tossing crumpled pieces of paper into a trash can. In the game's interface, you hold your Android mobile device vertically as you flick a wad of paper toward the target can, attempting to account for a blowing fan when you calculate your trajectory. The fan changes sides and speed for each shot, and Paper Toss features three levels of difficulty, with the trash can at varying distances.

Where this game really shines, though, is in its production values: the crisp visuals, … Read more

The folks at Engineering Degree have taken a scientific approach to answering one of the most critical questions of modern times--should toilet paper hang over or under? Check out their detailed infographic above, complete with Jay Leno's take on the issue and scientific equations to impress your postmodern nerd friends.

The in-depth look into the advantages and disadvantages of each toilet paper orientation was created as part of a viral marketing campaign for Engineering Degree, a resource for would-be engineers.

My personal take--if you really want to get good coverage in the trees and on the roof, it's essential to throw the roll with the paper hanging over. So, which way do you roll?… Read more

How many times have you wanted to smash your phone when talking to annoying people? Thanks to research at Queen's University in Canada, you'll soon be able to crush that handset mercilessly. Well, almost.

The e-paper prototype PaperPhone has a 3.75-inch thin-film display and developers call it the world's first flexible smartphone (remember Nokia's patent application for one?). It can do everything a smartphone can, such as make calls, display books, and play music.

"This is the future. Everything is going to look and feel like this within five years," Queen's Human Media Lab Director Roel Vertegaal was quoted as saying in a release.

As seen in the vid below, the prototype is based on e-ink technology and is more like a bendable plastic sheet about the thickness of a conference badge. It can be operated by bending the corners to turn a page, squeezing to make a call, and even written on with a pen.

The lab has also been working on video game screens that are bent as a control input. … Read more

Could an Amazon tablet reach consumers later this year?

Sources quoted by tech site DigiTimes claim that Taiwan-based Quanta Computer has already gotten orders from Amazon to build the retail giant's first tablet PC. The new tablet will apparently use E Ink's Fringe Field Switching LCD technology, suggesting it will be a color LCD touch panel (a departure from the black-and-white E-ink Kindles we've seen to date)."

The tablet will start shipping as soon as the second half of the year with monthly orders expected to hit 700,000 to 800,000 units during the peak … Read more

The White House is urging Congress to enact a new "privacy bill of rights" that would provide clearer guidelines to online users and businesses about the collecting of personal information over the Internet.

Speaking in Washington yesterday at a special hearing devoted to online consumer privacy, Assistant Commerce Secretary Lawrence Strickling acknowledged that the ability to store information about customers helps make online companies more efficient. But he said that consumers are growing increasingly uneasy about how their personal information is being collected and used.

With the lengthy privacy policies now offered by Web sites proving confusing and … Read more