Over the weekend, the New York Times published a timeline of photographs of technological advances in the classroom. While the blackboard and the horn-book (a wooden paddle printed with the alphabet) look like artifacts that might be leftover from when dinosaurs walked the earth, the ones that are a bit newer are quite interesting to behold. For instance, you may or may not be old enough to remember the blue-inked glory of a mimeograph machine (the oldest example dating from around 1940 is above), or the awesomeness of a Scantron machine which automatically graded multiple choice tests. Seriously, we can’t tell you how many hundreds of Scantron forms we filled out in our time as students, but it was unfortunately more than none. Hit up the source link to see all of the glorious gadgets throughout the years, but be forewarned: the last one is an iPad.

A beautiful timeline of educational gadgets reminds us that the Scantron machine was really awesome originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 21:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Laura June

If you’ve read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (or either of its sequels), you’re probably aware of the fact that its characters have a striking and awesome penchant for gadgets. The thing is, those gadgets are from… 2002. While reading through the books, we took the opportunity to jot down all that name dropped gear, and what we’ve got here is both a list of that gear and a walk down memory lane. Author Stieg Larsson (who was the first writer to sell one million Kindle e-books) often gives out actual lists of specs, which we find to be pretty endearing, but where he’s left anything to the imagination we’ve tried to use context clues to fill in the gaps. Like we said, the action takes place in Sweden in 2002 (the books were published in Sweden in 2005, though Larsson died in late 2004 so they were likely written somewhere between 2002 and 2003), so the options were… a little more limited. There are some mild spoilers below, so if you plan on reading the books and don’t want to know what kind of gadgets await you, then beware. Otherwise, join us, won’t you?

Continue reading The Girl with the Insanely Long Gear List

The Girl with the Insanely Long Gear List originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Laura June

You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto
by Jaron Lanier (January, 2010)
Alfred A. Knopf, 209 pages, $24.95

I’m often accused of being a Luddite — mostly based on my fervent and affectionate clinging to several physical objects that are quickly becoming cultural artifacts: the ink pen, the paper book, and the vinyl record — but those items haven’t been the only ‘evidence’ my accusers have historically cited. In addition to that physical evidence, there has always been my suspicion that some of the things I valued in life — listening to a whole album, reading an entire novel in one sitting before grabbing another off the shelf — were also going the way of Betamax, and being replaced by short attention-spanned, sound-bited fragments of conversation that didn’t convey knowledge or ideas in nearly the same way. This suspicion, this “feeling” if you will — obviously doesn’t originate with me, and it’s often diluted (by the internet) into some version of “the internet is making us dumber” argument. Of course, that’s not really the argument at all, but who needs to be bogged down with details these days? Enter You Are Not a Gadget, which I review below.

Continue reading Book Review: You Are Not a Gadget

Book Review: You Are Not a Gadget originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Laura June

You’ve undoubtedly seen iFixit‘s teardowns — but you may not know anything about the men (and women?) who do the actual work. The company was started about 7 years ago, and currently employs 25 people. Its founders, Kyle Wiens and Luke Soules started after meeting at Cal Poly, and sell electronics parts to DIY-ers. They told the LA Times that iFixit’s teardowns are actually “PR stunts” to attract potential customers. Still, iFixit’s expertise and attention to detail has certainly grown over time, and we’re really glad they have the heart to rip apart all the things we love, so that we don’t have to.

iFixit: a teardown of the guys behind the teardowns originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Laura June

Guy what kiddos? That recession that harshed your mellow all last year is officially over and done with… according to the Consumer Electronics Association, anyway. Based on a new report put out today by the CEA (you know, that organization that sets up CES each year?), the average US household spent $1,380 on consumer electronics over the past dozen months, which represents an increase of $151 from last year. The report also found that the average household spent 12 percent more on CE devices over the past year, and individual consumer spending shot up 10 percent year-over-year. Other tidbits included: ladies spent more on CE wares than the did last year (but still trail the guys overall), and the average home reported owning 25 consumer electronic products, up from 23 in 2009. We’re also told that 86 percent of all US households own at least one computer, making it the third most owned CE product behind TVs and DVD players. Oh, and as for those pesky netbooks? 12 percent of US households own one of those, while 58 percent own “laptops” of some sort. Head on past the break for the full skinny — we hope you’re in the mood for good news, ’cause that’s all you’re getting.

[Image courtesy of TooMuchNick / WireImage]

Continue reading Shocker: CEA’s spending report finds Americans buying more technology

Shocker: CEA’s spending report finds Americans buying more technology originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 May 2010 17:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Want your stolen gear back? Don’t call some gung-ho superhero who’s as likely to blow up your small grocery store as he is to catch those perps, call GadgetTrak instead. The little startup company has grown since we last heard of it back in 2007, and is now operating a $25 per year tracking service that has delivered a statistically significant 95 percent success rate on reuniting gadgets with their owners. Available for Mac OS and Windows laptops, as well as mobile phones (BlackBerrys, WinMo, and iPhone) and even removable USB storage, the software’s intelligent enough to remotely activate your webcam and ping the incriminating info back directly to you — no data is sent to GadgetTrak. Check out some recent news coverage of the software and its implementation in local schools after the break.

Continue reading GadgetTrak retrieves 95 percent of stolen laptops, puts RoboCop to shame (video)

GadgetTrak retrieves 95 percent of stolen laptops, puts RoboCop to shame (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Vladislav Savov

We know it’s a really busy week, but we wanted to take a moment and remind all of you that there’s still time left to nominate your favorite gadgets of last year for the 2009 Engadget Awards!

For your voting (and nominating) pleasure, we present the sixth annual Engadget Awards! The premise is simple: 2009 may have slipped through our fingers, but all the memories of gadgets-past are still with us (some in a more favorable light than others). Here’s your chance to sound off on what you loved in 2009, and tell us what you’re psyched about for 2010.

This year we’ve got 24 categories up for grabs, with 48 total awards to be decided. All finalists for Engadget Awards are reader-nominated, and the editors of Engadget will then select the best of those nominations (usually somewhere between 4-6 devices or technologies) as finalists.

There are two awards per category, Reader’s Choice (voted on by you!), and Editors’ Choice (selected by us). The vote will take place in a few weeks once the nominees are picked, and winners will be announced shortly thereafter.

You can find all the info and nominees on a landing page we’ve built this year which should make it easier to get all your selections in (and vote once we’ve picked the finalists). Just click right here.

You’ve got until 11:59PM ET on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 to get your entries in. Now, go nominate, or use the handy list after the break!

Continue reading Reminder: nominate your favorite gadgets in the 2009 Engadget Awards!

Filed under: Announcements

Reminder: nominate your favorite gadgets in the 2009 Engadget Awards! originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Laura June

We’ve already seen MIT researcher Pranav Mistry’s SixthSense projector-based augmented-reality system in some cool demos, but he just gave a TED talk and his latest ideas are the wildest yet. Forget simple projections, he’s moved on to taking photos by just making a box with your fingers, identifying books and products on store shelves and projecting reviews and other information on them, projecting flight schedules on boarding passes, and even a new paper “laptop” concept that works by using a microphone on the paper to sense when you’re touching it. It’s pretty amazing stuff — check out his whole talk at the read link.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Latest SixthSense demo features paper ‘laptop,’ camera gestures originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Nilay Patel