rock

Rock's nutty professors have been hard at work cooking up the Meivo--a 22-inch LCD TV with a high-end PC stuffed inside it.

The Meivo (pronounced my-vo) is Vista-ready, meaning it'll have awesome media-handling capabilities out of the box, and it'll have up to two hard drives and an incredible four Freeview or analog TV tuners--a media junkie's dream.

This does overlook the impossibility of there being four things on Freeview at the same time you desperately have to watch. "Oh no, the repeat of Deal or No Deal clashes with Hollyoaks, the local news … Read more

Slidez is a new photo slide show tool for showing off photos on blogs, Web sites, and social networking profiles. Slidez pulls double duty as a hosting service and presentation tool, allowing users to upload and organize their photo library online. It's not a substitute for photo-hosting services like Flickr, Photobucket, or Yahoo Photos, but its embeddable slide shows are good-looking, and easy to put together.

Basic photo management is kept simple with a batch uploader that allows you to select multiple photos from your hard drive. As a test batch I uploaded 20 shots without a problem. Your … Read more

Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero 2 were big hits for Harmonix, and now the company is going even further with its newest game. Today, Harmonix announced Rock Band, a music game for the PlayStation 3 and 360 that combines guitars, drums, and singing into a mutant offspring of Guitar Hero, Karaoke Revolution, and Taiko Drum Master.

Like the name implies, Rock Band will focus on cooperating with friends as players take lead/bass/rhythm guitars, drums, and vocals and work together to rock out. Guitar, drum, and microphone peripherals will all be available, but you won't need them all … Read more

A few years ago we may have asked, "How did we ever live without cell phones?" Now we ask the same question about text messaging. It was indeed a lifesaver last week at the South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas. With live music ringing throughout the city 24/7, it was hard to find a quiet spot to make a phone call. So, along with thousands of others, I found myself obsessively texting to stay in touch with my cohorts about great shows (and to find ways to escape the bad ones). Cryptic messages such as &… Read more

We weren't particularly fond of the keyboard computer, but we don't want to hold that against all combo devices. The "Meivo TV," for instance, is something we wouldn't kick out of the living room if someone gave it to us as a gift. The 22-inch LCD has 720p resolution, an Intel Core 2 Duo chip, wireless keyboard and mouse, and is ready for both HD and Vista, according to Tech Digest

Made by U.K. gaming notebook maker Rock, the Meivo is priced at 1,000 pounds (around $1,940)--which may be its biggest … Read more

The country is experiencing record swings in temperature this winter and $1 billion in failed citrus crops due to freezing temperatures in California.

What a great time to think about pool sports.

The AquaClimb is a rock climbing wall for your pool. And who knows, you may not have to wait until summer to use it if temperatures swing back into the 70s, as they did on January 7 in the northeast.

There is no limit to the weight that the wall--a stainless steel frame with fiberglass panels and nonslip coating--can hold, according to the company. AquaClimb's base screws … Read more

So maybe you don't have a recording studio in your basement. But if your musical ambitions go beyond playing "Freebird" on Guitar Hero, you might be interested in this new product from Belkin that's making its debut this week at CES. The TuneStudio, as it's called, might look like something like a Fisher-Price "My First Recording Studio" with its compact size and bright colors, but it's actually a pretty hardcore piece of equipment. You can plug in up to four audio sources (you know...mics, guitars, old-school beat boxes). There's a … Read more

If it's possible to have a polar opposite to the "Hover Mouse," it would be this decidedly terrestrial Stone Age version reportedly from Russian designer Neko.

No, there's nothing terribly Crave-worthy about this Jurassic item, at least from a technology perspective. But given that we're often accused of being Luddites--OK, Neanderthals--we thought we'd beat our friends to the punch before they sent it to us. We doubt that it's solid rock, but it still achieves that fossilized caveman look that so many of us aspire to.

But if you'd rather go the … Read more

Cue the Deep Purple. Air guitar, that time-honored musical tradition generally best left for performances in garages and basements, has just gotten a big boost from technology.

Scientists at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation have created a T-shirt that adds a real-life sound track when wearers strum their imaginary instrument.

Textile motion sensors embedded in the shirt sleeves detect motion when one arm bends and the other fake-strums. They then send the information to a computer that interprets the data and plays it as a series of guitar riffs.

Fortunately, the contraption is wireless, so there are … Read more