Tamagotchi creators Bandai have plans to turn iDevices (iPhone or iPod Touch) into robotic pets with Smartpet-- a clunky yet cute robot dog with an iPhone for a brain.

Controlling the robot is a free app, making the Smartpet to react to touchscreen gestures, voice commands or movements in front of the Facetime camera. The "pet" can learn various tricks, as well as make facial expressions, sing and even dance with other Smartpets via Bluetooth.

And when the games are over the Smartpet also doubles Continue reading...

The New York Times R&D Lab combines a reflective LCD display, a Microsoft Kinect and the NYT.com APIs and creates a "Magic Mirror" ideal for bathrooms of the future.

The result is a hi-tech take on the standard bathroom mirror-- allowing one to check the internet, schedule events and carry out other tasks while brushing their teeth or brushing their hair.

The Kinect handles the motion-based user interface, voice commands and even product recognition and information access via RFID tags.

The magic Continue reading...

It's perhaps the cruelest cut of all. Paul Allen, the forgotten Microsoft man, the lost partner, wants to set the record straight by publishing his memoir: Idea Man.

Written with best ghost writer money can buy (and thanks to his time with Microsoft, Paul Allen can afford the best), Allen gives his side of how Microsoft started. But instead rallying to the Idea Man, reviewers scathe Allen and defend Bill Gates.

One must-read review comes from the New York Times Sunday Book Review, the authoritative Continue reading...

West|280's product is admittedly rather simple-- it's an iPhone case with an added bottle cap remover. Thus, iOpener.

The product comes as a polymer alloy case with what the company describes as a "14 gauge, 304 food grade stainless steel opener". Thankfully one can retract the opener back into a slot when not in use.

In other words, it's something of a novelty for parties and the like as a (wait for it) eye opener, even if models are currently only compatible with the iPhone 3 and below (and Continue reading...