To be quite frank, CES this year was so tame that we kinda thought our beloved Crapgadget series would have to go on hiatus. We needn’t have worried. This latest batch of technological breakthroughs includes the regular team starters we know and love — a mangled animal-emulating USB hub and a heart-shaped Bluetooth dongle — but also some new recruits from way out of left field. We’ve got those crazy awesome finger lights above and a starfish-shaped quad-band cellphone that apparently manages to fit in a camera and space for dual SIMs, but the true winner has to be the camera-shaped spy camera. Working off the classic spy trick of double- and triple-bluffing, this pinhole camera is embedded inside what looks like a poor (really poor) man’s point and shoot compact camera, which we suppose is the last place anyone would look for a spy cam. Hey, maybe there’s something to this idea after all. Anyhow, get clicking then come back here and vote, won’t ya?

Read – Party rats finger lights
Read – Heart-shaped USB Bluetooth dongle
Read – Doggie 4-port USB hub
Read – Starfish GSM cellphone
Read – Camera-shaped spy camera

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Crapgadget: ‘Just because you can doesn’t mean you should’ edition originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In case you hadn’t noticed, there was some trouble brewing in the NVIDIA camp. After ages of reigning atop the land of stereoscopic 3D playback on the PC, NVIDIA is finally being confronted with a real, bona fide standard for 3D, with zero GPUs capable of meeting it. The current NVIDIA 3D Vision-compatible cards pump out the necessary pixels over DisplayPort or dual DVI plugs, while the official spec for 3D TVs is an HDMI 1.4 plug that accepts data from both frames at once. We were in doubt there for a moment, but it turns out NVIDIA’s cards upgrade to 1.4 just fine, and all 3D Vision customers will be getting this as a free upgrade later this spring. NVIDIA will also be offering this 3DTV Play software in a standalone version for $40 to folks who don’t want to bother with NVIDIA’s 3D Vision stuff at all (with HDMI 1.4 you can just use the stereoscopic glasses that come with your fancy new 3D TV, no need for NVIDIA’s setup). NVIDIA is naturally hitting all the high points of the 1.4 spec, with 1080p24, 720p60 (the official gaming spec), and 720p50. The cards will also support 3D Blu-ray. So, just about time to splurge big on that home theater PC? We don’t know… is it just us, or does that guy and his couch look a little lonely?

NVIDIA’s 3DTV Play finally solves the HDMI 1.4 gap for 3D Vision originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Reuters – Adjusting and even selectively loosening U.S. sanctions against countries like Iran and Cuba can serve foreign policy goals by encouraging democratic change through greater Internet freedom and other means, a U.S. Treasury official said on Monday.

Originally posted here:
Smart sanctions can support democratic change: U.S.
(Reuters)

InfoWorld – Startup People Power this week is introducing a wireless application development platform that is centered on home deployments and the green technology market, but also can be applied to commercial offices.

Excerpt from:
People Power pushes ‘green’ wireless apps
(InfoWorld)

AP – Communications regulators on Tuesday will unveil a sweeping proposal to overhaul U.S. broadband policy. Their aim: to bring affordable, high-speed Internet connections to all Americans and make access much faster for people who already have broadband.

Read more from the original source:
FCC set to unveil sweeping national broadband plan
(AP)