Cool Hunting

World's Smallest Flying Robot
One can imagine all sorts of uses for this little bugger. Seiko Epson Corporation ("Epson") has developed the mFR ("Micro Flying Robot"), the world's smallest flying prototype microrobot. Epson developed the mFR to demonstrate the micromechatronics technology that it has cultivated in-house over the years and to explore the possibilities for microrobots and the development of component technology applications. The company will display its...

Philips Prestigo Touch Screen Universal Remote
Beautifully designed, highly functional and easy to set-up, Philips' Prestigo remote rivals top-of-the-line models with similar features but costs significantly less. The latest model, the STR9320 (still yet to hit the market), hosts 300,000 devices in its memory, requiring little more than a few taps to program it to work with up to 20 components. But the "activity" settings are the real revelation, allowing...

Plustek V100 BookReader
Plustek's new v100 BookReader is an optical scanner device with built-in character recognition. Plustek comments, the V100 "transforms printed words into audio output, that can be saved in MP3 format for future access. With the press of one button, the Plustek BookReader will convert printed text into high quality speech with a lifelike voice." Available for purchase for $700 from Plustek, you could have...

Plastic Logic Reader
Still one year out of consumer reach, the Plastic Logic reader is already being touted by some sources as the Kindle killer. At this week's Tools of Change for Publishing Conference in New York, I had a chance to see the reader prototype in action and get my hands on one, albeit briefly. With a form factor equivalent to that of a legal-size pad of...