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For Bryan Duxbury and Adam Ellsworth, a shared interest in DIY Arduino projects and a conversation at a Christmas party led to a pretty bright idea and an unexpected side business.

The two San Francisco residents are the creators of the Interactive 8bit Question Block lamp--a Super Mario Bros.-inspired piece of home decor. For fans of the game, the lamp should instantly look familiar, as it resembles the blocks that Mario hits to earn coins and other loot. The design alone already makes it pretty cool, but that's not where the fun ends.

To turn the light on or off, you must punch (actually, a gentle tap is enough and recommended) the bottom of the block, and every time you do so, it makes a coin sound just like in the video game. On every eighth tap, you're rewarded with the 1-Up sound. It's a piece of Super Mario Bros. come to life.

This project may never have seen the light of day, however, had it not been for a chance meeting at a company Christmas party. … Read more

With such an overwhelming number of products flooding the Google Play Store (aka the Android Market), Appreciate helps you cut through the clutter to find the apps that are tailored to your tastes. It's free, simple, and it works.

Appreciate takes inventory of the apps you have installed on your device, those you've uninstalled, and your usage habits across them all. It even takes into account your demographic and Facebook friends if you make that info available. After plugging the data into its formula, Appreciate serves up a menu of recommended apps for you to download, with new … Read more

Shopping online has many benefits. You almost never have to worry about how many of an item a specific store has in stock, how bad traffic is at certain times, or having to deal with other shoppers who are angry for whatever reason. It also has its downsides. If you purchase a lot of items online, it can be easy to lose track of what you've purchased, when they're supposed to arrive, or how much they cost. Does this sound like a problem you've encountered before, or are currently encountering? Try out Slice for Android if it … Read more

I've always been a 32GB iPad kind of person. It's done me well the last two generations, although I've come up against my storage limit pretty frequently. So, this time I'm going 64.

Am I mad? Maybe, but I asked the same question when the 64GB iPhone 4S made its debut. In that instance, I wondered whether the 5 megapixel camera and 1080p video recording capabilities would eat up valuable space on the iPhone. I was particularly concerned about videos, since their file sizes can get big fast and because they're not backed up or synced on iCloud, unlike photos.… Read more

Have consumers forsaken the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet? Not at one large Canadian retailer.

In a tweet on Friday, RIM linked to a Future Shop tweet that cited the PlayBook as the bestselling tablet this week. Future Shop is a major Canadian reseller.

That may have something to do with the price, of course. The 16GB PlayBook is selling for $199 in Canada, as it is in the U.S. at retailers like Best Buy.

Like Future Shop, Best Buy is also selling the 32GB model for $249.99 and the 64GB model for $299.99.

The low price isn't … Read more

In Greek mythology, Pegasus was a winged horse that was very handy when it came to slaying monsters. Huawei is hoping its Pegasus smartphone sculpture at Mobile World Congress 2012 will help slay some competitors.

As the Chinese manufacturer pulled the wraps off what it calls the world's fastest smartphone, the Ascend D Quad, it also unveiled this striking statue outside the MWC venue in Spain. … Read more

One of the advantages the physical version of your Sunday newspaper has over the digital edition is the inclusion of all those weekly sales fliers. The ones I look forward to are from Best Buy, Staples, and other tech-heavy stores, with all the latest sales and new products. However, beyond the color photos and bold-face prices, the actual details about the products on display can be hard to decipher. … Read more

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Without a doubt, one of the Internet's most gracious gifts is instant gratification. Its magic is everywhere--it happens when you google a topic, post a status on Facebook, and (worst of all) purchase a product online.

For the most part, the instant gratification is beneficial, but when its crack-like qualities start taking a toll on your wallet, it may be time for an intervention.

If "Add to cart" is an all-too-familiar phrase, and you're getting a bit too popular with the mailman, you might be an impulsive online shopper. That is, you don't … Read more

Despite retailer GameStop's initial enthusiasm about opening a storefront in Facebook, it looks like it's Game Over for the effort--and perhaps for such Facebook stores in general.

Bloomberg published a story this week that chronicles the closings, during the past year, of Facebook stores opened by GameStop, the Gap, Nordstrom, and others.

When GameStop cut the virtual ribbon on its Facebook storefront last April, the company's vice president of e-commerce seemed to think the move was a no-brainer.

"Social commerce on Facebook is a natural complement to our trusted store and online networks," Kelly Mulroney … Read more