future

This week, our Crave team talks about treats for tweets, geeky furniture, intelligent bullets, and a way to strap your phone to your face. In Geek News, we have a new "Avengers" trailer, a discussion on good and evil, and the gamification of our lives.

Subscribe in iTunes SD Video | Subscribe in RSS SD Video … Read more

Hey, look at this: Kinect on a laptop. OK, so there we go. According to The Daily, companies are well on their way to making laptops--or, at least, laptop prototypes--running Windows 8 and equipped with Kinect motion camera hardware instead of standard webcams.

The Daily got to see some of this technology first hand on what it thinks were Asus laptops. Intel's CES 2012 press conference featured a stage re-enactment of a similar Kinect-like idea on a laptop, shooting a virtual catapult in a game.

The real question here is, who's going to use this?… Read more

This week, we have a giant NES controller perfect for Donald's purely hypothetical furry party. Plus, the creepiest robot baby yet, a turntable that plays trees, and a uncut "Star Wars" along with a cut-worthy Stormtrooper cake. In Geek news, Eric confesses that Star Wars: The Old Republic may be his new World of Warcraft.

Subscribe in iTunes SD Video | Subscribe in RSS SD Video … Read more

When I was a kid and my family went on road trips, my siblings and I played "Punch Buggy," a particularly brutal game of spotting a VW Beetle and punching the kid next to you in the arm. Kids today have less combative forms of in-car entertainment such as DVD players and game machines. But kids in the future may have backseat entertainment that looks like it's straight out of a sci-fi movie.

Recently, General Motors Research and Development tasked researchers and students from the Future Lab, at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Israel, to … Read more

In the future, robots equipped with tails may help with search-and-rescue missions, but it also could be that robots deployed by those with tails will also have a hand in finding survivors.

A new system created by researchers at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Lab and Ryerson University's Network-Centric Applied Research Team provides another way to get audio and visual feedback from a disaster zone, particularly those areas that are too small for humans or canines to search. The twist here is that it's all initiated with a dog's bark. … Read more

Fresh from CES 2012, Eric, Donald, and Bonnie wrap up all the best CES tech they missed during their week in Vegas. On deck is a touch-screen window, an R2-worthy 3D projector, Kinect-controlled skateboards, toilet tech, zombie tech, and of course, Geek News.

Subscribe in iTunes SD Video | Subscribe in RSS SD Video … Read more

LAS VEGAS--The message of CES 2012 for laptops thus far: wait.

I'd love to tell you that one of the laptops of this year's Consumer Electronics Show is absolutely wonderful, a must-buy. However, I can't. I have a strong feeling that whatever we see at this show is only a half-step forward. Worse, there's a very good chance that it'll all be out of date by midyear.

The reasons are utterly simple, and made even clearer by this morning's Intel keynote presentation.… Read more

"Star Wars" is great, but "Star Wars" on your head is much better. The Crave team discusses this idea in depth in this first episode of 2012, along with Jell-O dispensers for grown-ups, StarCraft in Legos, and harmonizing hobbits.

Subscribe in iTunes SD Video | Subscribe in RSS SD Video … Read more

Today's smartphones are already pretty smart, but New York-based designer Julius Tarng thinks they can be smarter.

Imagining a mobile device that's more human than machine, Tarng came up with a concept phone called the Modai that learns from your behavior and adapts itself to different environments.

For example, it would know when you're at work and when you're at play, and adjust the contents of your home screen accordingly to present the most relevant information at that time.

Tarng also sees the Modai giving contextual prompts based on location, so if you're at a bus stop or out grabbing lunch, the phone could help out by displaying a bus schedule or today's lunch specials while you wait. … Read more