Gadgets

The quantified self movement's gaining steam, with companies creating all sorts of gadgets to track our activity levels, sleeping habits and even what's going on inside our heads. Melon's an EEG headband that taps into your brain's inner workings to show you how well you maintain mental focus. We actually saw Melon's prototype predecessor last year when it was called Axio, and while this new band packs largely the same components, the design's been refined to a much thinner profile. As before, its got a trio of electrodes for sensing brainwaves, a NeuroSky chip for filtering out extraneous electrical noise and Bluetooth 4.0 for offloading data wirelessly. It sends data to iPhones (Android's in development) running the Melon app, which translates that info into a focus graph -- generally speaking, the higher the neural activity in your pre-frontal cortex, the higher your level of focus. Users then input contextual data tags like time of day, type of activity and the surrounding environmental conditions to allow them to track variables that may affect their focus. Filed under: Wearables Comments Source: Kickstarter

There are probably a lot of things you learned in school that you don't even remember, but the "order of operations"—also known as PEMDAS—is likely to be one that stuck with you; you'll mess up even simple equations without it. The catch? Well, it's wrong. Read more...

Want some more tech to put on your face? Neither full-on goggles like the Oculus Rift nor slender no-AR-yet specs like Google's Glass, CastAR takes a whole different approach to modified-reality tech by slapping tiny projectors on your face, and The Verge got to take a peek.Read more...

When Valve's first hardware hire, Jeri Ellsworth, tweeted back in February that she was fired from the company, we were disappointed but also intrigued by what she meant by "time for new and exciting projects." Well we finally saw what she's been up to here at at Maker Faire 2013. It's called Cast AR, and it's a pair of 3D augmented-reality glasses that she and fellow co-worker Rick Johnson were developing at Valve before leaving. The model we saw is still in the early prototype stages, but the concepts are already in place. Perched atop a pair of active shutter glasses are a couple of miniature LCD projectors, which bounce images from a connected computer onto a special reflective surface at a 120Hz refresh rate. A camera module sits on the eyewear's bridge and monitor an array of infrared LEDs embedded in the reflective surface. This allows for quick and accurate head tracking. Stay tuned for our video interview with Jeri Ellsworth and take a look at our hands-on gallery below. Developing... Gallery: Cast AR hands-on at Maker Faire 2013 Filed under: Gaming, Wearables Comments

Alt-week takes a look at the best science and alternative tech stories from the last seven days. If we're to find a common thread in this week's collection of stories, it'd be nature's guiding hand. How it inspires science, how we seek to imitate it, and how unnatural the future of policing could be. This is alt-week, Filed under: Science, Alt Comments

While you are hanging out on the Internet (in your underwear, maybe?) on a Saturday, kids that are smart than either you or I are out there getting ready to change the world. 18-year-old Eesha Khare (left), for instance, not only invented a supercapacitor that could someday be a phone battery that charges in a handful of seconds; she also one $50,000 for it.Read more...

We know that "where for are thou?" was in search of a different Shakespearean character, but if you had the same question for (Dell's) Ophelia, then the answer is July. The Android pendrive / USB computer we saw back at CES may be one of many, but distinctive thanks to its mainstream PC-maker origins. We're still lacking a lot of the specifics, other than that there's WiFi, Bluetooth, Wyse PocketCloud integration, plus, of course, HDMI and Android 4.something. There will likely be a few enterprise-friendly features too (administration tools, remote wiping) reports PC World. As usual, developers will get their hands on them first, with -- interestingly -- some cable and telecoms companies potentially stocking it too -- though no specifics at this time. So, the $100 Dell might not be the portable you'd love for this price, but maybe the USB PC finally crossing over? Filed under: Desktops, Dell Comments Source: PC World

We spent the week at I/O sitting in sessions, walking around the show floor, and congregating with developers. After the keynote, things got quieter on the news front but there was still plenty to learn about. This conference is about community, bringing together developers of all types, and connecting people with similar interests and backgrounds. It's also about adorable little Androids, which absolutely overwhelmed downtown San Francisco's convention center, the Moscone Center. The Google Store A Google Store employee models the Android Superhero costume, available for a mere $32.80. There was no word on compatibility with the YouTube Socks. Sean Gallagher 14 more images in gallery Read on Ars Technica | Comments

Who has time to watch a whole movie anymore? It's summer! So in the spirit of phoning in everything once the temperature rises above 70-ish, here's Ridley Scott's Aliens in 60 seconds of adorable animation. Brought to you, of course, by the fine folks who did Star Wars Episode IV, Back to the Future, and The Matrix. Not bad for a human. [YouTube]Read more...

(Credit: CNET) It's a natural instinct to resist if someone tries to steal something out of your hand. In Las Vegas on Thursday afternoon, that instinct might have cost a 15-year-old boy his life. As the Las Vegas Sun reports, Marcos Vincente Arenas was walking down the street, holding an iPad. Police say an SUV pulled up alongside him. A man allegedly got out of the passenger seat and tried to wrest the iPad from Arenas. The teen wouldn't let go of the device, so, investigators say, he was dragged along by the alleged thief toward the vehicle. He was still near the passenger door when the car took off. Arenas was run over and died in hospital of his injuries. Police have issued descriptions of both the driver and the passenger of the SUV, said to be a white Ford Explorer or Expedition. This is the latest and most gruesome example of the phenomenon known as "Apple-picking." More Technically Incorrect Fugitive to police on Facebook: Catch me if you can. They do ... [Read more]Related Links: