Latest Digital Home Opinion

  • 21 May 2013

  • Opinion: Lightpack protects your precious eyesight while watching TV

    Your eye can clearly see only a small part of your screen any given time. The rest of your field of view is some measure of blurry--a smearing of color your brain pulls, along with the sharp central focus, into a coherent image. That makes it relatively simple to extend the perceived breadth of a scene on your TV screen or monitor. Woodenshark aims to capitalize on this with its Lightpack (funding through May 31), an inexpensive back lighting system that extends your visual experience beyond the borders of your box.

  • 15 May 2013

  • Opinion: Ultimate tech tools for the household CTO

    Running a household smoothly is like heading up a small business--even more so if you manage a home office on top of it all. You need to be detail-oriented, organized, and well equipped. Luckily, even if you lack those first two traits, the proper tools can go a long way toward filling the gap.

  • 13 May 2013

  • Opinion: This wooden record lets you listen to Radiohead the low-tech way

    TechHive intern and beard maven Albert Filice has been playing around with a 3D printer and managed to make a 3D-printed necktie. As impressive as this is, it looks like he may have some competition.

  • 10 May 2013

  • Opinion: This Week in Lego: Zoetropes and ghosts and barons, oh my!

    Mad physicist/Flickr

  • 09 May 2013

  • Opinion: Xerox scanner grades handwritten tests, scolds you for dangling modifier

    We're now one step closer to a completely automated classroom. Xerox recently pulled the wraps off a new program called Ignite that will turn photocopies into test grading machines.

  • Opinion: HTC First price tumbles as Facebook Home ratings tumble

    It turns out that not everyone wants Facebook to be the centerpiece of their smartphone. The "Facebook-enhanced" HTC First was released little more than a month ago and already it's selling for less than a pack of gum.

  • 08 May 2013

  • Opinion: Mind is what matters when you arm-wrestle with WrestleBrainia

    Due to my intolerable addiction to the Internet, I'm pretty terrible at arm wrestling. Luckily, the cutting edge of neurogaming technology proves that science supports my decision to never work out.

  • Opinion: Protect your camera with rain covers

    Portable electronics have the same Achilles' heel as the invading aliens in M. Night Shyamalan's movie s--Signs: water. It's not a good idea to get your digital SLR wet. Taking photos in a rainstorm can end the life of your camera. So how do you protect your camera while taking pictures in a spring shower or a summer deluge? Dress your camera in a rain cover--usually, waterproof fabric that keeps water away from the lens and body, while leaving both the business and control ends open for business.

  • 07 May 2013

  • Opinion: Eidos isolates sights and sounds, lets you tune out that annoying coworker

    What if you could focus on one person's voice in a crowded shopping mall? Or focus on just the drummer at a concert? Students from the Royal College of Art developed a pair of head-mounted devices can do just that.

  • 30 April 2013

  • Opinion: How to shoot macros of flowers and bugs

    This time of year tends to slow down my progress whenever I'm outdoors; my wife, it seems, can't pass a flower without taking a picture of it on her phone. Indeed, no matter what kind of camera you own--SLR, compact, or smartphone--spring is a great time to take photos of flowers, insects, and other small details of the natural world.

  • 26 April 2013

  • Opinion: Bugs & Fixes: Fixing Apple TV lost network connections

    Occasionally, my 1080p Apple TV (ATV) loses interest in connecting to my local network. More specifically, if I go to the Network setting I find no IP address listed. That's right. The IP address listing is empty. There isn't even an invalid self-assigned (169.x.x.x) address. Not surprisingly, when this vanishing act occurs, the ATV can no longer access my iTunes Library or any of the ATV's Internet-based services.

  • 25 April 2013

  • Opinion: How to grab a freeze-frame from a video

    How to grab a freeze-frame from a video

  • 22 April 2013

  • Opinion: Save yourself a trip to the body shop with this DIY rear-view camera

    If there's one challenge mankind has been wrestling with for well over a century, it's how to parallel-park your car without backing up into another car or a parking meter. Once again, the intrepid Raspberry Pi computer comes to the rescue. Developer Jeremy Blythe designed a Raspberry Pi-based project that combines a cheap and effective parking camera along with a distance sensor in your vehicle.

  • Opinion: #Flock is a Twitter integrated-cuckoo clock that chirps when others tweet at you

    The clever folks at Berg, along with Twitter UK, have put their collective hand to an interesting Twitter-driven cuckoo clock they call #Flock. While it's easy to appreciate the lovely craftsmanship of these clocks (they really are pretty cute), what's even more interesting is how they're wired into the Internet.

  • Opinion: Mini PCs amok: From 3ft tower to 3cm mini marvel

    Back in the 1980s the PC revolution brought about the microcomputer. We’re still seeing an ongoing trend in shrinkage, which has resulted in the current mini PC.

  • 20 April 2013

  • Opinion: Tiny microbatteries could power devices for days, recharge in seconds

    Smartphones have become dramatically more powerful in recent years, featuring ever-increasing amounts of processing power, memory, and data storage, and higher screen resolutions. The only thing that seems to be lacking is enough battery power to keep our devices running all day.

  • 17 April 2013

  • Opinion: Read your RSS feeds as 'Star Wars' opening crawls (and other stuff you missed)

    Hey, Wired is officially 20 years old today! But before you head over to check out the amazing stories Wired has done since 1993, here are some other things that you might have missed.

  • 15 April 2013

  • Opinion: All PCs great and small: how competition and collaboration is driving tech innovation

    A strange set of competitive and interdependent business relationships is driving innovation in PCs, laptops, smartphones and tablets. And for the consumer that's mostly good news.

  • 12 April 2013

  • Opinion: DARPA makes an indoor GPS chip that's smaller than a penny

    GPS IS a godsend for people with absolutely no natural sense of direction. But sometimes, these people-tracking satellite systems don't work so well in a dense city, or worse--when you go anywhere indoors.

  • 10 April 2013

  • Opinion: Revisit Jurassic Park in blocky, non-3D Minecraft

    It's Jurassic Park fever. Just last week, the 3D remastered version of Steven Spielberg's dinosaur classic hit theaters. But if that's not enough childhood nostalgia for you, Josh Collin recreated the entire prehistoric amusement park in Minecraft for your virtual touring pleasure.

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