Daily Tech and Gadget

Think giant active-shutter glasses are a roadblock to 3D adoption? Wait until you get a load of this, the N-3D from Aircord Labs, a glass pyramid with semi-reflective sides that allows you to peer through while reflecting the image of a screen above. In this case the screen is provided by an iPad which, as you can see in the video below, separately renders three sides of an object.

If you live in America, you’re probably not at work right now. You probably have a half day. And you probably have Monday off. In honor of the Fourth, Canada Day (yup, we’ve got a goodly number of Canadians on staff) and Social Media Day, we chose to assign a theme to this week’s YouTube roundup: Freedom! (Isn’t that image over there just wonderfully inspiring?) Why

Theodore Gray, the man behind our Gray Matter column and the amazing The Elements: A Visual Exploration periodic table app for the iPad (and in print), has just rolled out a version for the iPhone 4, which packs all the same info and photography into that Retina Display, along with a special trick. Here, Theo gives us the back story on what made this new edition possible. My book The Elements: A Visual Exploration has been available in paper form since last year, and in electronic form for the iPad since April 3rd, the day the iPad was released.

The 720P video capabilities of the iPhone 4 are fantastic —really calling into question the need for a camcorder—but there’s one gimpy limitation. You can’t upload HD videos wirelessly. More » iPhone – Handhelds – Smartphones – iPhone 4 – Video

The community-driven Quirky website has already managed to bring products like the Space Bar and DigiDude camera mount to market, and it’s now offering what may well be its most useful product to date: the Pivot Power strip. That, as you can probably surmise, is a power strip that pivots, which lets you plug in up to six power adapters or chargers of any size (within reason). This being Quirky, however, things are done a bit differently that your usual retailer — only 960 units are available for pre-sale right now, and you can “commit” to buying one for $23.

iPhone “Apple of My Eye” – an iPhone 4 film from Michael Koerbel on Vimeo . It had to happen eventually. Here’s the first (that we know of) movie shot and edited entirely on an iPhone 4.

If you’ve always wanted a D&D-style bag of holding, we’re thinking Infinitec’s IUM is as close as you’re going to get, looking like a plain ‘ol USB thumb drive but actually storing an infinite amount of, well, stuff. However, you’re going to have to wait a little longer to reach into this magic satchel, with the unit’s ship date being delayed until the end of August. The price is still the same, at $129, and the company was kind enough to create a video just for you that shows how it all works.

Seriously, words cannot describe how incredibly entertained we are by this Mario Live wallpaper for Android 2.1 and above devices. All across the home and locked screen, our favorite Italian faux-plumber protagonist runs through randomly-generated levels across various themes like outside, underground, and castle. It’s very customizable, allowing you to change the level’s difficulty, see the alternate paths Mario’s AI has plotted, and rendering the background (all at a cost to CPUs and battery life, of course). Free download — donations suggested, of course — and if you’re looking for a way to stare at your phone even longer, well, look no further.

iPhone , App Store I’ve just recently started making the transition to ebook reading with my iPhone’s Kindle app — after a little hesitance about reading a screen rather than ink on paper, I’ve gotten used to the form, and really appreciate the convenience of always having my reading with me (and the free ebooks help too — I definitely recommend His Majesty’s Dragon ). The Kindle app is seeing some good support from Amazon, too — the most recent update not only enables the Retina Display on the iPhone 4 , but adds both video and audio to the offerings in certain titles. If the books are created for a “Kindle Edition with Audio/Video,” you’ll be able to play other media right next to the text in the app. Of course, the actual Kindle can’t play this media, which probably means a few things

If you own a Pre , you like to tempt fate, and you don’t faint at the mere thought of your phone melting into a nondescript heap of plastic and silicon, have we got some exciting news for you: some crazy dude with a death wish has somehow eked an honest gigahertz out of the Pre’s OMAP3430 processor that normally plods along at 600MHz. Of course, this isn’t the first time the phone’s been overclocked, but traditionally, those overclocks have topped out around 800MHz — so if you need serious speed and don’t mind nuking your battery at a record pace, this so-called “F105 Thunderchief” kernel project is one that you’re going to want to keep an eye on. The project’s owner says “do not install this if you like your phone,” so… you know, proceed with extreme caution, especially considering that your warranty’s probably going to dry up as fast as your battery

If you’ve been looking for the perfect material to mold your next great DIY idea—protective bumpers for your phone, a custom grip your favorite pen, custom-molded earbuds—Sugru, a moldable silicone putty, is practically science-fueled DIY magic. More » Sugru – Business – Chemicals – Polymers – Rubber

Let’s not forget that before “tablets” were all the rage there were, well, tablets. While most tablet PCs were — and still are — aimed at the business market, the HP TouchSmart tm2 (which began as the tx2000 ) was one of the first tablets for the average Joe. And despite rumors of a slate product and future WebOS devices, HP hasn’t given up on the tm2, and rightfully so. Just updated with a brand new Core i3 ULV processor , the convertible has a 12.1-inch capacitive touchscreen, a new TouchSmart layer for laptops, an onboard stylus for taking notes, and a striking design with a rather stellar chiclet keyboard.

While the various and sundry Android manufacturers are all scrambling (or casually strolling) toward official Android 2.2 updates for their manifold handsets, someone managed to get Google’s Froyo running on the Nokia N900 . Turns out, the two are a pretty great pair, with some super speedy browsing (like, really fast) and decent hardware support outside of an unfortunate lack of memory card support. Hit up the video after the break to see it in action, the browser starts kicking around the 4:45 mark. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Continue reading Hacked N900 blazes through Froyo Hacked N900 blazes through Froyo originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 27 Jun 2010 05:07:00 EDT

The white iPhone 4 didn’t make it out on launch day, much to some excited Apple fans’ chagrin — or did it? This Sky News video report shows two people using the new white iPhone in a central London Apple store nearly a month before it’s expected to be available. Though it didn’t offer pre-orders of the white iPhone 4, Apple waited until the day before the iPhone 4 launch to announce that no white iPhones would be available until the second half of July because they had “proven more challenging to manufacture than expected.” The Sky News report embedded below focuses on Apple mania and expresses doubts as to whether or not the gadget is worth the excitement, but the producer of the segment either didn’t know about the white iPhone delay or didn’t care to ask about it, so there’s no explanation. Have you seen any white iPhone 4s in the wild

Maybe you know someone who’s just a little too cray-cray for Gears of War . If not, now you do. Meet iSekC, who’s cuckoo for Cole Train and was knighted by Cliff Bleszinski himself as the game’s No. 1 fan