serenity

Nearly 10 years after the debut of the sci-fi television show "Firefly" (and the follow-up 2005 movie "Serenity"), fans still express great interest in the series despite its short run.

Mild-mannered "Firefly" fan (and mechanical engineer) Adrian Drake decided to build the ultimate homage to the fallen show: a 70,000-piece Lego replica of the Serenity spaceship. … Read more

Want more of a sensory experience while chilling to music on your iPod? Scentilizer is a series of diffusers that puff out smells and mist along with an LED display while you're listening.

The seven units available from Serene House come in various shapes and sizes. They emit fragrant vapors by combining essential oils and water and vibrating at a frequency of 1.70KHz.

It might be an ideal accessory for lava lamp lovers. Or Barry White fans.

Models such as the Rainbow ($249.95, above) have built-in speakers and a selection of installed music, but you can also hook up your MP3 player to them.

Scentilizers will debut at the New York International Gift Fair in August and will range from $119.95 to $299.95. You can also get them online now at the Serene House Web site. … Read more

Apparently even Bang & Olufsen is feeling the effects of the sour economy. The Danish company, which has a built a reputation as a purveyor of high-end electronics, is exiting the cell phone business. The Financial Times reported Wednesday that besides phones, Bang & Olufsen will also stop making DVD players and recorders in an effort to concentrate on televisions and audio equipment.

Granted, it's not a huge loss to the cell phone world. The Bang & Olufsen Serene, which the company designed two years ago with Samsung, certainly had an intriguing design. But the phone faltered in functionality … Read more

When we saw pictures of the "Buddha phone," we didn't actually think we'd see it for real. So when one of my colleagues said he saw one at Sim Lim Square (the gadget bazaar of Singapore), I knew I had to see it with my own eyes.

Unlike the laughable Lillian Too Lucky Dragon handset, the Buddha phone drew a much more subdued reaction. Maybe because the shopowner got a little suspicious of my close scrutiny and fusillade of questions. I swear he had me in the corner of his eye even while attending to other … Read more

Conspiracy theories sure are fun.

A forum post Friday about a curious line of code in Apple's iPhone quickly grew into suspicions that the company was tracking all kinds of data after a blogger picked up the tin foil and ran Sunday night. Apparently when you check stocks or weather on the iPhone, the application sends a string of code back to an Apple Web server that appears to send the device's IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number along with the query.

This line of code: dgw?imei=%@≈ptype=finance, was apparently enough to suggest to many people … Read more

As promised by the annoying countdown clock on its teaser site for weeks, Bang & Olufsen and Samsung jointly unveiled their "Serenata" mobile phone today. And though it's been described as a successor to the much-discussed "Serene," you wouldn't know it by its design and features.

The Serenata is much more focused on music with built-in "hi-fi speakers," a docking station and 4GB of storage, far more than most other phones on the market. Particularly useful is a specific button that toggles back and forth from phone to music, which is then … Read more

Before iPhone fever erupted in full force, one of the more talked-about handsets was Bang & Olufsen's "Serene"--albeit in mixed reviews, to say the least. The bloom may be off that rose, but its successor may inspire renewed buzz in just a few weeks.

The "Serenata," the product of a collaboration between B&O and Samsung, has begun a countdown on a mysterious Web site, which says it's 17 days away as of this writing. SlashPhone says the handset is believed to be the SGH-F310 leaked last month and pictured here. Among … Read more