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For those who have succeeded in cutting the cord on their cable television, solutions for sensible TV streaming are, to say the least, a challenge. The Elgato HDHomeRun, announced today, offers up a small box that connects to a router and TV antenna and streams HD TV content via Wi-Fi anywhere in one's house. More importantly, unlike other Elgato products, the HDHomeRun comes with dual TV tuners for watching simultaneous recordings/viewings of two different channels on two different computers.

The $179 HDHomeRun is a small box that offers a lot of the same features as the small USB-stick Elgato EyeTV Hybrid, which we recently reviewed. The Hybrid, however, required physically interfacing with a Mac or PC via USB. The HDHomeRun more conveniently handles the video transfer wirelessly, and still works with (and is packaged with) Elgato's EyeTV3 Mac software for DVRing and managing TV content and programming.… Read more

Imagine logging in to Facebook or eBay with just a blink of an eye. A new gadget for consumers may soon make that possible.

Designed by the Hoyos Group, a device called EyeLock uses iris-recognition as an alternative to passwords to log you in to password-protected Web sites and applications. Although similar eye-scanning devices are already used in the business and industrial markets, Hoyos calls EyeLock "the first and only portable iris-scanning device for consumers."

The scanning device, which resembles a wand, plugs into a base that connects to your PC via a USB port. After you install the software and choose the sites and applications that you want to iris-protect, you pass the scanner in front of your eye. A snapshot is taken of your iris to confirm your identity. Assuming you're the real you, you're then granted immediate access to the secure Web site or application.

With security always a primary concern, the company boasts that the device is unhackable.

"Every time you log in, it reads your iris and creates a unique key, which is a series of numbers, and this key changes every time you log in, so no one can hack it," Tracy Hoyos, assistant marketing director, said in an interview with CNN.… Read more

Indulge me here for a minute while my mind boggles.

I spend a lot of time looking at the latest technology, so I live in a perpetual state of low-grade future shock. Yesterday, though, was one of those days when I was floored by how far things have progressed.

First, I asked for and received satellite photos taken that morning of Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Then, in about 10 seconds, I got directions on how to drive there from my house in Old Windsor, England, in 4 days and 16 hours.

These moments created a vivid, … Read more

Acorn is an easy-to-use but still relatively feature-filled image editor that provides a lower-cost alternative to professional editing programs. With its slimmed-down interface--just a single palette and a document window--Acorn feels much like Apple's iLife applications, but it still provides a full array of editing features, including multiple layers (with masks), vector shapes, filters (such as tilt-shift, plus support for Quartz Composer compositions), blending, gradients, text and drawing tools (including a Brush Designer for custom brushes), and a hex color picker.

What makes this app most appealing is its ease of use and raw speed: Acorn takes full advantage … Read more

When we first heard about Lenovo's new eye-controlled laptop, we worried that we'd have to stop winking at our monitors every time Justin Bieber popped up in our browser--or risk a seriously messy desktop. Fortunately, the eye-tracking technology is reportedly highly accurate and probably wouldn't be overly sensitive to our odd little tics.

The functional laptop prototype, being demonstrated this week at the CeBit tech fair in Hannover, Germany, lets you point, select, and scroll with your eyes alone. With a stare, for example, you can make a cursor appear, zoom in on pictures or maps, or switch between open windows and browse e-mails and documents. To increase battery life, the computer can auto-dim and brighten the screen when it recognizes your peepers. Also, as demonstrated at CeBit, gamers can glance to pull off actions like burning up incoming asteroids.

The laptop tracks eye movements by shining infrared lights into the user's eyes; hidden cameras then detect the glint in the retinas. The system needs to be adjusted to fit each individual user and works for those with or without eyeglasses. … Read more

Rob Glaser, the founder of Real Networks, is launching SocialEyes at the Demo conference today. It's a new video-calling service that blends Skype and FaceTime features with Facebook's social graph.

On the surface, it seems like just another video-calling service, but its social architecture is unique.

Glaser says, "This is not Skype or YouTube or Facebook." So I asked him, "What is it?" Oddly, he shrugged and said, "We're going to find out." Normally I'd say that not knowing how your product is going to be adopted is a negative … Read more

University of Michigan computer scientists and engineers are at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco today presenting papers on two systems: a prototype implantable eye pressure monitor for glaucoma patients and a compact radio for wireless sensor networks.

What makes their presentation so remarkable is that both systems involve what is believed to be the first complete millimeter-scale computing system.

The near-invisible package is just over 1 cubic millimeter in size and includes an ultra-low-power microprocessor, a thin-film battery, a solar cell, memory, a pressure sensor, and a wireless radio with an antenna.

"Millimeter-scale systems...have a host of new applications for monitoring our bodies, our environment, and our buildings," said Professor David Blaauw in a news release. "Because they're so small, you could manufacture hundreds of thousands on one wafer. There could be 10s to 100s of them per person, and it's this per capita increase that fuels the semiconductor industry's growth."

The team points to Bell's Law, formulated by computer engineer Gordon Bell in 1972, which says that a new class of smaller and cheaper computers is developed roughly every decade. This is considered to be a partial corollary to Moore's Law, established in 1970 and named after Intel co-founder Gordon Moore (first names coincidental), which describes the now 50-plus-year trend that the number of transistors able to be placed on an integrated circuit doubles every two years.

The new system out of Michigan is being hailed as the first in a new class of millimeter-scale computing, and while the researchers are specifically targeting the medical side of body sensor networks, other potential applications include tracking such things as pollution, weapons, structural integrity, and more.… Read more

STOIK Imagic is a large, feature-packed photo album, organizer, manager, and editor. It's also a retouching tool, a calendar maker, a media cataloger, a video editor, and a drawing tool. In short, it's a full-featured graphics suite with an emphasis on digital photographs. At 80MB, it's a big download, but since it's compressed, it's a fast one, too, and setup is virtually automatic, including scanning your system for images. Anything else? You bet: it's free.

Like all proper graphics apps worth the name, STOIK Imagic's interface is finished in mod dark-gray tones with … Read more

Millions of sports fans gathered around the TV yesterday to watch the "Big Game," and it's hard to believe that another Puppy Bowl has come and gone. Just kidding, if there's one thing we learned from Super Bowl XLV, it's that brand endorsements are ruining the illusion for celebrities like Eminem and Kim Kardashian who would have us believe that they drive Chrysler minivans and wear Skechers Shapeups.

We're wrapping up the winners and losers of the Super Bowl on today's episode of The 404 Podcast, and the winner for lowest blow is a tie between Groupon and Christina Aguilera.

Groupon took a page from Kenneth Cole PR (context) and pulled a "too soon" with an ad exploiting the tragedy in Tibet, while Christina Aguilera changed the lyrics to the National Anthem into a song about vampires squeezing juice from citrus fruits.

I'll leave it to Jeff to do his own reaming on the Black Eyed Peas half-time show before we move onto the most important part of the game: the commercials!

We all agree that for better or worse, this year's commercials stood out from years past, and our favorites include Volkswagen's Darth Vader spoof, Chevy's Camaro ad featuring Bumblebee from the "Transformers," and Doritos and Bud Light touched our hearts with animals doing human things.

There were also a ton of movie trailers that blew up our skirt, so tune into today's show to hear more of our thoughts on "Super 8," "Captain America," the Lingerie Bowl, and Angry Birds in real life!