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Wired Gadgets and Gizmos

• Pimp My Pony: Gear for the Equestrian Commute (Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:00:00 -0700)
  Gas gas hovers around $4 a gallon, your Prius-driving neighbors are cruising smugly all the way to Whole Foods. Sure, you could join their self-satisfied ranks. Or you could commute in style — on a horse (if your city's ordinances allow it). The timing is good: Equestrian gear recently got some serious and long-needed upgrades. High tech, Silver, away! 1 // Bitless Bridle Robert Cook's Bitless Bridle is an evolution of an ancient pony-friendly design. It steers with straps that crisscross under the muzzle: To turn left, draw the left rein away from your steed's neck, applying pressure to the right cheek and turning its head in the direction you want to go. 2 // Ultralight Helmet Old-school hats were just velveteen-sheathed plastic. Today's models, made of high-density polystyrene, are almost half the weight of the classic style yet can withstand several hundred Newtons of force. 3 // Carbon-Fiber Saddle Leather seats have all the give of a two-by-four, and a bad fit can cause your horse's vertebrae to dip. The Swedish company Linear has designed a modular seat (for a custom fit) with a carbon-fiber core to spread your weight as evenly as possible. 4 // Polyurethane Wraps To better protect tendons and joints from accidental hoof slaps, wool wraps are being replaced by boots padded with gel and carbon fiber. An outfit called Veredus molds its shells from 54-Shore TPU, a tough polyurethane mixture that stays flexible down to 5\0xB0F. 5 // Springy Stirrups Invented around the third century AD, the first stirrups were nearly perfect; they lacked only suspension. The company Horse-tec has added spring-loaded shocks to relieve strain on your legs and the horse's back, which increases as you gallop faster. 6 // Flexible Shoes Horse hooves change shape with every step, helping to pump blood through the legs. Thus, steel kicks ain't the best. High-grade polymer compounds are the material du jour — elastic enough to absorb shock and reduce muscle stress.
• Sega Getting Back into the Hardware Game (Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:29:00 -0700)
  According to the Register, Sega plans to launch a new handheld console next year, and it won't just play games. The new console, called the Vision, will also play music and movies, have a built in camera, TV-Tuner and display e-books. We speculate that the battery pack will come in a separate, suitcase-sized box.
• How to Hack Your Apple TV With Boxee (Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:45:00 -0700)
  The open source software package Boxee frees up your Apple TV, allowing you to play any DRM-free movie, TV show, song or video on the set-top box. All you need is a USB stick and some know-how. We show you how to unleash your Apple TV from the clutches of iTunes in Wired's How-To Wiki. Got extra tips? Log in and contribute.
• Apple Reluctantly Tries Out Transparency (Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:23:17 -0700)
  Long known for fanatically controlling information about its products, Apple has recently started showing signs of openness.
• Top 5 Cellphone Busts of 2008 (Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:17:00 -0700)
  We've seen a lot of gadgets this year. A lot of them have been awesome devices. And a lot of them have been miserable failures. Cellphones especially. Here's a list of the top 5 cellphone busts of 2008.
• Nokia Launches Its 5800 XpressMusic Phone (Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:24:12 -0700)
  Nokia is set to retail its new touchscreen phone, the 5800 XpressMusic, which has access to the subscription service from Nokia's online music store.
• These Mites Be Giants: Six Netbooks Tested and Rated (Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:00:00 -0700)
  We've seen a lot of netbooks over the past year. And now it looks more and more like your next laptop will be one of these bare-bones, stripped-down dynamos. Here we have a look at six of these machines that have raced the G-Lab in the past year.
• Multitouch Is Unlikely to Be a Big Hit on Notebooks (Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:03:00 -0700)
  Despite the success of the iPhone touchscreen technology in the mobile arena, laptop makers are being more cautious about multitouch and think it may not be the best choice of interface for notebook computers.
• Hack Apple TV With a Thumb Drive, Set It Free (Wed, 01 Oct 2008 05:00:00 -0700)
  A developer on Tuesday released a free patch enabling Apple TV to play virtually any multimedia file with the insertion of a thumb drive into the box. Though similar hacks for Apple TV have been released in the past, Boxee is unique in that it will soon include a social networking feature allowing friends to view and listen to each other's media.
• Smaller, Less Powerful Netbooks Likely to Become Notebooks of Choice (Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:11:00 -0700)
  While smaller and less powerful than laptops today, netbooks are the future because of their low prices and ultraportability.