tech

The 2013 BMW 135is restored my faith in "The Ultimate Driving Machine." Many years ago, I owned a 325is, of the E30 generation, which taught me what BMW was all about. But over the last few years, coinciding with the launch of the X6, the brand seemed to take a turn for the mundane, turning out cars tuned for the mass market rather than enthusiasts. After driving a particularly placid 3-series, I was beginning to fear the worst.

Now, the little 135is has convinced me that BMW still knows how to make a sports car.

Despite the 1 … Read more

Wearable tech is becoming a hotbed for innovation, but fitness tech has been the category that's opened people's minds to wearing tech 24-7. So we're taking the Fitbit Flex and the Jawbone Up and throwing them into the Prizefight ring!

The Fitbit Flex is the company's first fitness wristband with Bluetooth syncing. The Jawbone Up brings a unique design that's been fine-tuned after its initial release.

Both of them measure your steps taken, distance traveled, calories burned, and quality of sleep with complementary apps.

Who will cross the finish line first? Will it be the … Read more

As we all rush to embrace this month's newest, hottest technology, it's easy to forget about the old technology that's being pushed aside. Who among you is holding vigil for the portable CD player or the CRT computer monitor?

Yet, I'm old enough now to remember a time when I couldn't wait to make the jump from my creaky, old Walkman to a shiny, thin portable CD player. In the grand scheme of things, that day was not so very long ago.

Following that same logic, there are hundreds of modern technologies around us today … Read more

Google appears to be boosting both its wearable tech and its gaming status. According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), the tech giant is working on developing both a video game console and a smartwatch that could run on Android.

Last year, Google unveiled a Web-connected media-playing console, dubbed the Nexus Q, but it never sold it to the public. The spherical device featured glowing LEDs that responded to music. The Q also streamed content directly from Google Play Music, Google Play TV & Movies, and YouTube, using an Android phone or tablet as the controller. However, a couple … Read more

GM brands such as Chevrolet and Buick, along with most luxury automakers, offer their customers telematics services enabling connected features such as maintenance alerts, vehicle tracking, and even remote door unlocking. If you want these features, you don't have to buy a whole new car -- Delphi and Verizon have partnered to offer Vehicle Diagnostics, a plug-in module for adding advanced telematics to existing cars.

The Vehicle Diagnostics module, a little black box about 4 inches long, plugs into a car's OBD-II port, and comes packed with a GPS chip, a wireless data connection, and the ability to … Read more

CE Week in New York is often about finding the oddball bits of CES all from the comfort of your Manhattan midtown event space. Winning the Oddball Award for me this year was the PSiO AVS MP3 Color System, a wearable "audiovisual stimulation" device aimed at wellness.

It may look like some bizarre knockoff of Google Glass, but PSiO has more in common with home relaxation-therapy gadgets and meditation tapes. The plastic glasses have a variety of colored LED lights that strobe and shift across an opaque visor, while earbuds (or headphones) play back stereo sounds and voices … Read more

The past three weeks of Always On showcased the roles tech can play in your summer vacation. In some cases, we determined whether or not your tech can survive your summer vacation. Now this episode doesn't involve snapping photos of spinner dolphins, desert road tripping in a tricked-out RV, or fitness tracking through mud at an average of 8,150 feet of elevation. But just because we're finally back home in the Bay Area doesn't mean we took a break from turning our environment into a tech battleground.

We start things off with an unboxing of the … Read more

As I swooped the 2013 Mini Cooper S Paceman into turn after turn, window open so I could hear the tires sing their tortured song, the car repeatedly admonished me about "Dangerous cornering." At first I thought it was a compliment, but it was apparently too much excitement for the Driving Excitement feature in the Mini Connected app.

The Mini Connected app is one of the coolest features of the Paceman, combining Google local search, Web radio, social media, and a unique connection to the car for driving enthusiasts.

However, for the Paceman, the app might have been … Read more

LE BOURGET, France -- Maybe we should call them e-craft.

At the Paris Air Show here, a handful of companies tried out their own version of a change sweeping the automotive industry: electric power. There are abundant challenges to the approach, but some believe that the technology will catch on at least in some circumstances.

Early electric cars were small and light, and electric aircraft are following suit for the same reason: having less mass to push around means a vehicle can get farther on a limited amount of energy. Thus, you shouldn't expect a 250-passenger electric jet any … Read more