Articles by Brian Heater
Frinkiac Delivers Nearly Three Million ‘Simpsons’ Meme Screen Caps At Blazing Fast Speeds
Greatest search engine ever. Simpsons quotes are the cultural currency of a generation. Until yesterday, however, hunting the things down involved hours of time lost to crawling through grainy YouTube videos of Spanish language translations.
Zagg Is Buying Rival Phone Case Maker Mophie
The acquisition will run the Utah-based accessory maker at least $100 million. The handset accessory market is set to get a little snugger, as InvisibleShield maker Zagg gets ready to buy Mophie, a name that's become virtually synonymous with smartphone charging cases.
Make A Mess And Listen To An Unreleased Animal Collective Single Using The 'Painting With' App
Animal Collective issues a new single from its forthcoming album via an MS Paint-style iOS app. I've got some good news and some better news for Animal Collective fans.
Ello’s CEO Has Some Helpful Advice For Peach
'Ignore the hype and stay to your course.' Paul Budnitz knows from hype. When his social network launched in March of 2014, Ello's anti-advertising stance struck a nerve with an online audience sick of being sold down the river by Facebook's data-mining policies.
Bob Mould Wrote a Song About Being Hacked on Facebook
The Husker Du frontman battles social media hackers with his ax. We all cope with stress in our own way. Some of us meditate, some exercise, some eat compulsively.
Eight Hexacopters Combine Forces to Score the World Drone Weightlifting Record
They lifted 134 pounds up for 37 seconds. File this one under: world records it never occurred to you might exist. But here it is, all we're all the better for knowing about it.
Microsoft Offers Up Replacements For Surface Pro Cords Due to Overheating Concerns
Concerned customers can exchange cords through Microsoft's site. After a day or two of dropping hints, Microsoft this morning officially issued a voluntary recall for Surface Cord Pro AC power cords.
Remodeling A Kitchen In Virtual Reality
You can remodel bathrooms, too, using the Oculus Rift. Not every application for virtual reality will be a sexy one — but that's okay. A truly import platform transcends the flash and pomp and circumstance and pushes toward the truly useful, even the utilitarian.
Playing 'Assassin’s Creed Syndicate' And 'Grand Theft Auto V' With My Eyes
Don't worry, it's definitely as cool as it sounds. Someone told me I had to play Assassin's Creed with my eyes before leaving CES. Sounded like a pretty unreasonable request, but thankfully the people behind the Tobii EyeX were on hand at the show to help me achieve my two-day-long dream.
Misfit's New Earbuds Also Track Activity And Sleep, Naturally
They're basically a Misfit Shine with headphones attached. Here's a bit of a surprise addition to the Misfit ecosystem. In addition to the Ray fitness wearable the company introduced earlier this week, the fitness tracking manufacturer also showed off a pair of wireless earbuds designed to complete the company's existing hardware.
Check Out These Running Shoes With A Crazy Built-In Shock-Absorbing Spring System
It's built to help absorb impact and steady the runner. Would you judge me if you saw me wearing these things? It's OK. Be honest. I've been utterly fascinated with things since I saw them on the CES floor.
A Look At QuitBit, The Anti-Smoking Smart Cigarette Lighter
Success means never having to use it again. You've got to hand it to QuitBit. The company knows how to pick a name. And the mission to help people put down the cigarettes is far more admirable than most of what folks were offering up on the CES show floor this week.
The Spherical Luna Cam Shoots VR-Ready 2K Video For Under $500
And it actually looks pretty good. It comes as little surprise that there were so many VR cameras on the CES floor this year, as companies attempt to ride the recent boom in interest around virtual reality technology.
Spün Is Taking Calorie Counting Seriously With A Set Of Smart Utensils
They know if you've been good or bad. A lot has changed in the world of consumer electronics since the HAPIfork debuted at CES. Back in 2013, the smart utensil was one of the show's great oddities.
Hands-On With A Gadget That Turns Furniture Into A Giant Rumble Pack
Get ready for some good, old-fashioned couch-shaking fun. Gaming furniture has actually been a thing for some time now, primarily focused on an attempt to make the the experience more engaging through well-placed speakers and other living room trickery.
The Soles On These New Balance Running Shoes Were Made On A 3D Printer
New Balance and 3D Systems team up to create some fascinating (and likely prohibitively expensive) 3D-printed running shoes.
And Then There’s Laundroid, The Laundry Folding Robot
Because there are still some menial tasks we haven’t managed to outsource to robots just yet. Laundroid looks like a supercomputer — or something more ominous — rather than a kindly, benevolent robot designed to perform one of the more annoying tasks most of us are forced to do on roughly a weekly basis.
A LEGO Set That Teaches Young Minds The Fundamentals Of Coding
LEGO does it again. LEGO has arguably been more influential in bolstering the imagination of the world's youth than any other single toy line and served as the focal point for the first sparks of brilliance for future architects and engineers all over the globe.
The Human Charger: Earbuds Full Of Daylight Designed To Defeat Jet Lag
It beams white light directly to your brain. Yeah, I realized how weird that headline was as I typed it — but these are really weird things, little earbud-shaped flashlights you pop into your ears to battle jet lag.
Martian’s Smart Kindred Vip Jewelry Is Intense
Finally, phone call notifications on fancy bracelets. I really like my Martian smartwatch. It splits the difference nicely between tasteful analog and smartwatch functionality.
This Is, Hands-Down, The Best Connected Rubber Duck We Saw All CES
No contest. If anyone deserves the title of "surprise star" at this year's CES, it's this little guy from Pi Labs. His name is Edwin.
Misfit Maintains Its Minimalistic Ways With the Ray Fitness Band
The Ray offers similiar functionalities as the Shine, is a sleeker package. While folks like FitBit are betting big on larger display, Misfit is keeping things as sleek as possible.
FitBit Steps Up Its Game With the Color Screen Blaze, We Go Hands-On
FitBit tries to split the difference between fitness tracker and smartwatch. The Blaze is FitBit all grown up. The new wearable marks a further evolution for the fitness tracking company, adding a 1.
$99 Will Get You a Smart WaterBottle That Tracks Hydration
And it won't shut up about it! The H20-Pal is worried about you. Maybe "worried" is too strong a word - concerned. It's pretty sure you're getting your required two to three liters a day, and frankly, it's been voicing those concerns with you phone.
RideBlock Tracks Skateboard Tricks From the Bottom of the Board
It sends your best moves to a mobile app. Oh RideBlock, you had me at skateboard technology. The small device screws into the truck of a board, featuring built-in sensors that track things like tricks, utilizing pattern recognition technology.
Wrists-On With a Prototype of Blocks’ Modular Take on the Smartwatch
It's shaping up to be an extremely fascinating project. It can't be that easy getting people excited by a new smartwatch not made by Google, Motorola, or Samsung these days, but the team behind Blocks were able to muster enough enthusiasm to score an extremely impressive $1.
Vuze is Aiming to Deliver Portable Virtual Reality Shooting for (Just) Under $1,000
And it's shaping up to be a pretty solid little device Content is king, as the saying goes (among people who get paid to create content, naturally).
A Smartphone Case That Promises Longer Battery Life and Better Cell Signal
Droppin' phones without droppin' calls. Phone cases seem to be making a lot of promises these days. Take that Lifeproof case we looked at a day or two back that'll give an iPhone battery a boost while snorkeling or tumbling down the side of a cliff.
A Plant Pot That's Also An Air Purifier
Clairy harnesses the plant's filtering properties to remove pollutants from the air. So, that plant pot right there is an air purifier. The big vent you see blows out air that's absorbed through the plant and filtered through the soil.
Here’s A Patch That Monitors For Early Signs Of An Asthma Attack
The ADAMM is designed to catch asthma attacks before they strike. I've been fairly lucky as far as asthma goes. I suffered from it a bit as a youngster, but my symptoms have mostly gone away as I've gotten older.
