color

Learn the difference between Goldenrod and Corn Field with Name That Color

Have you ever known exactly what color you wanted to use to paint a room but had trouble describing it to another person or finding it in a paint catalog? How about finding the hexadecimal code for adding a specific color to your Web site?

For those of us hue-challenged Web users who can't tell Kenyan Copper from Korma, Chirag Mehta has created a very cool Web application for determining a name for any color you want to use, as well as its hexadecimal and RGB values.

Simply and accurately titled Name That Color, the Web-based application consists of a color wheel with a tint/shade box in the middle. Combine both input tools to specify the exact color you want, and that color's name, hex value, and RGB values will appear on the right. The larger outer box will display the color you've selected, while a smaller square inside that box will show the actual color of the closest named match.… Read more

If Rubik's Cube morphed into a speaker

Given that Rubik's and even Tetris cubes are particularly popular among Cravers, we thought this "Color Cube Speaker" might be an especially appropriate gadget to feature. The audio specs are fairly unremarkable, but that's forgivable because a product like this is all about the visuals, as indicated by its description: 48 colors, 16 multi-color cubes, 4 color patterns--you get the idea.

Oh, and if you happen upon a particular combination that strikes your fancy, you can freeze the colors in that pattern forever. But that might disqualify it as a "color-changey" objet d'art, … Read more

After HDTV, what's next?

One of the last things I did at Siggraph this year was to spend about 20 minutes enraptured by the best video I've ever seen. It's called "4K" (after the number of pixels on each horizontal line), and you'll be seeing it in theaters within the next few years.

The Siggraph Computer Animation Festival included one session of video driven by a Sony SXRD SRX-R105 projector displaying 4,096 by 2,160 pixels at 24 frames per second with progressive scan (or 2160p24 for short).

That's four times the number of pixels you'll see on a home HDTV set-- or in… Read more

Before you blush, call HP

Color matching and management is a serious technology hurdle for retailers, online and off. Navy blue is frequently indistinguishable from black in stores, rust-colored shirts ordered online turn out to be bright orange when you open the box and that seafoam green paint that looked so good on the chip makes your living room look like a kelp bed.

These are not the problems that HP Labs announced it has addressed with its new color-matching technology.

No, HP Labs sent out a press release touting its ability to base cosmetics recommendations on your cameraphone self-portrait, and seeking business partners who … Read more

Gateway joins color-laptop trend

Actually, we're declaring the color-laptop trend to be no longer a trend, but rather a standard feature. A few weeks ago, Dell, not exactly known for its cutting-edge designs, announced that it would offer a fleet of new Inspirons in a range of color choices. And now even Gateway has launched two new notebook lines--the 14.1-inch T series and the 15.4-inch M series--available in three colors.

Inside the red, blue, or gray exterior (subtly pattered with a series of dissolving spheres), you'll find a computer that's classic Gateway: plenty of configuration options ranging from inexpensive … Read more

Attack of the giant fuzzy phone speakers

With Caroline McCarthy on tough assignment at E3 all week, we've been having a field day poaching on some of her favorite topics. We're talking pillows specifically and, better still, ones in the kind of obscene neon colors she so loves.

These phone-shaped music pillows, for instance, connect to any MP3 player for direct eardrum-shattering pleasure while maintaining a suitably cheesy look. (The player can be kept snugly in a mesh sleeve at one end of the giant fuzz-bound receiver.)

As Shiny Shiny astutely observes, these items are being marketed for for kids, but we all know better. … Read more

Techno-color Sony Vaio CR laptops

Forget Roy G. Biv--the rainbow according to Sony includes such colors as sangria, cosmopolitan, dove, and indigo. At least, those are the shades the company offers for its new Vaio CR series laptops. (City-dwellers, take heart: they're also available in black.)

Sony has long led the laptop-as-fashion-accessory movement (see previous C series models and the FJ series that started it all), offering laptops in wild colors when other manufacturers were just starting to experiment with hues beyond black and gray. The CR series is no different, featuring a case that is saturated with color, right down to the … Read more

Pimp your bathtub with this color-changing hub of pointlessness

When it comes to bathtime, bubbles aren't just good enough anymore. You either need a floating music player, or maybe light-up disco balls for your bath salts. But even that might not suffice in today's cutthroat bathtub-gadget culture.

Enter the Aqua Rain, which does all of the following: 1) lights up via LED to illuminate your tub in soothing, color-changing hues, 2) plays waterfall noises, and 3) creates a mini-fountain of water. I'm normally a fan of things that change color, but really, I don't see any point to this whatsoever. And it's $40.

Next, … Read more

Writing in rainbows

One of the beauties of computing is that it can take your imagination on just the wildest rides.

The latest incarnation of this is Kmail, an e-mail system based on Kromofons. So what is Kromofons? It is an alphabet in which the 26 English letters are represented solely by colors. A Florida doctor named Lee Freedman came up with the alphabet as a teen in the early 1970s. He just needed technology to catch up so he could spread the concept. It finally has.

You can write e-mails that look like rainbows. Check it out here.

Apparently, kids can catch … Read more

ICFF Field Report: Testing out the trippy Transport sleeping pod

A few months back, the Transport pod created by Alberto Frias gained some serious blog buzz, and with good reason--what self-respecting tech blogger wouldn't want to write about a space-age sleeping pod equipped with speakers and color-changing LEDs that pulse along with the music?

Consequently, while wandering around at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in NYC on Sunday, I spotted one of the cocoon-like Transport pods on display and more or less squealed. Frias himself was there to show it off, and the first question I asked was, "Can I go inside?" I wasn't expecting Frias … Read more