directions

SAN FRANCISCO--Though he was in town to discuss Dell's new storage products for small and medium-size business customers, company founder and CEO Michael Dell also took time to answer questions about the company's main business, PC sales, which is also an area in which it's recently struggled.

Dell reiterated his company's assertion that there will be more to come of its recent dabblings in selling desktops and notebooks through retail channels.

"We're going to expand to a number of places," he said. "I would expect over the next quarters you'll see … Read more

The Airborne Laser has taken another step forward in its long slog off the drawing board and into the Pentagon's arsenal.

The first-of-its-kind 747-400F this month completed a series of low-power test flights, using onboard infrared sensors to locate "an instrumented target board" on an Air Force NC-135E aircraft. Once the Airborne Laser(ABL) found the target, two solid-state illuminator lasers tracked the target and assessed atmospheric conditions--the later function being key to plotting a path to the target for the weapons laser. Since the high-energy COIL (chemical oxygen iodine laser) weapons system has yet to be … Read more

The chances of your flight being hit by a shoulder-fired, laser-guided missile are good enough that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has spent more than $100 million looking into ways to prevent it.

Defense contractor Northrop Grumman just completed 6,000 hours of in-flight testing on its Guardian directed infrared countermeasures (DIRCM) system, all part of the DHS initiative to adapt existing military technology to protect commercial aircraft from attack by surface-to-air-missiles (SAM) similar to the U.S.-made Stinger.

The DIRCM system works by first detecting the attack, then directing an invisible, eye-safe laser to the homing/seeker … Read more

Amazon.com has a new online grocery service for Seattle residents called Amazon Fresh. Users can pick from an selection of grocery items and have them delivered to their home, or one of the local "pickup centers." The home delivery options come in two flavors--a predawn delivery in a temperature-controlled crate, and a scheduled in-person delivery within a one-hour time slot of your choice. The service is in part the next step to Amazon's "Food and Grocery" section, which contains nearly everything except foods that require refrigeration.

Online grocery shopping is not a new phenomenon. … Read more

What came first, the chicken or the egg? For PC gamers, the answer is a no brainer...The advanced hardware comes first, and the game titles that can truly take advantage of that hardware come months, if not years, later. It comes as no surprise that Microsoft's own DirectX 10 page talks about the benefits of DX10 in the future tense: "Many of the newest Windows games will take full advantage of the next-generation graphics technology in Windows Vista called DirectX 10." (Italics added.)

Game developers have little incentive right now to produce games for DX10, as … Read more

Our meeting with Sierra yesterday highlighted perfectly why you'll need to be very careful in cutting through the hype surrounding the next-gen PC gaming graphics. First we sat down for a showing of World in Conflict, a real-time strategy game that asks, "What if the Cold War ran hot?"

As part of the demo for World in Conflict, a producer from Sierra showed us a video hosted by the game's lead designer, highlighting the game's graphical features, specifically regarding the benefits Sierra is getting from DirectX 10. "Soft particles" was one feature the … Read more

We admit heading into our preview of Gearbox's Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway with some trepidation yesterday. Shooters set in World War II feel so played-out that even calling them a cliche has become a cliche. It seems that the team is trying some innovative things with its new title, though, including an attempt at making the "feel" of combat more authentic. Some new tactical features, like requiring you to lay down suppressing fire, as well as a mechanic for simulating the overall heat of combat, gave the preview we saw a unique flavor.

But the … Read more

Category: Reference

Ask.com may not be the No. 1 search engine out there, but it's been doing some interesting things with new Web technologies, including its mapping services. Ask.com Maps and Directions allows users to search and get directions in any city really quickly. What separates it from some other directions services is its capability to give you directions for both driving and walking. It works mostly for short hauls (obviously) and gives you turn-by-turn directions for getting around city blocks on foot. If you've ever been following a road map in the city and come … Read more

It may surprise many readers, but it's been brought to our attention that some people think Crave can be somewhat sarcastic in our gadgetry observations. For the record, we honestly don't derive any kind of sadistic pleasure from denigrating products (there are so many more fun ways to do that).

But once in awhile, along comes something like the "TheraSpa Sound Therapy Eyeshades" as seen on Uber-Review, and we just can't help ourselves. We're not even sure where to begin, so let's just start with shades' own description by Brookstone, which says they &… Read more