Gadgetopia Archives

You’re Never Too Young for a Sonic Screwdriver

by deCadmus | Jun 29, 2015 | Gadgetopia, Web/Tech

Makers don’t only dream, they also learn, discover, invent, fabricate, and — often with great enthusiasm — share not only what they’ve built but what they’ve learned along the way.

Will Your Next Wearable Come from Google, Apple, or a Middle Schooler?

by deCadmus | Jul 10, 2014 | Featured, Gadgetopia, Web/Tech

In 1990 I bought a Nintendo Power Glove. I wasn’t exactly Mattel’s target demographic: I was twenty-four years old, and I didn’t have a Nintendo game system. I bought the glove for one reason alone: to hack it, hook it up to a personal computer and control the machine by gesture, alone.

It’s a Consumer Appliance. It’s a Digital Media Consumption Device. Oh, and it takes calls.

by deCadmus | Jun 22, 2014 | Featured, Gadgetopia, Web/Tech

Jeff Bezos this week trumpeted Amazon’s Fire Phone, an all-new smartphone-cum-shopping-appliance species with a fork of Android OS at its core and cameras perched on most every available conceivable surface, most of which unblinkingly observe the user. (Selfie fans take note.)

For Prior Art, Samsung Cites… Stanley Kubrick?

by deCadmus | Aug 23, 2011 | Arts & Letters, Featured, Gadgetopia, Web/Tech

This isn’t the first time that SciFi has been used as the basis for prior art in a patent suit. But this one overlooks so much it’s embarrassing.

It’s (Still) Not About the Technology

by deCadmus | Aug 4, 2011 | Arts & Letters, Gadgetopia, Usability

With 100,000 subscribers, The New Yorker is enjoying better sales on the iPad than its sister Condé Nast publications — including Wired Magazine.

But wait… Wired is all about technology — and in particular all things digital — and the iPad is a digital platform. Shouldn’t they go together like peaches and cream? Pizza and beer? Like Wired Magazine and a freaking 21st century wireless multimedia tablet display? Well, yeah.

iPhones, Black Holes and Stickin’ It to The Man

by deCadmus | Aug 21, 2007 | Gadgetopia, Life in Vermont, Web/Tech

The state of Vermont is a black hole so far as AT&T is concerned… they offer no direct cellular service here, only a roaming agreement through Vermont’s regional carrier, Unicel. Which is neither here nor there, unless you want to buy an iPhone. And...