TOP TECHNOLOGY NEWS

A young girl, dead 150 years, looks over Ground Zero, and pictures of the grisly scene are brought into focus within the bone and metal cavern of her tiny head. The skull, once part of a medical doctor’s anatomical kit, has found new life as one of Wayne Martin Belger’s startling pinhole cameras.

“Third Eye” honors the girl, he says, though maybe it’s more a testament to Belger’s artistic brio: he’s planning on crafting a camera that features an AIDS patient’s infected blood pulsing through visible tubes. Whatever he’s up to, he’s just getting started.

Relics, old brass, aircraft-grade aluminum: found art that’s finding a use.

Sony executives stopped a wee bit short of ritual suicide
Tuesday as they owned up to manufacturing glitches that have resulted in the recall of 9.6 million laptop batteries worldwide. “We would like to take this opportunity to apologize for the worries,” Sony Corporate Executive
Officer Yutaka Nakagawa said at Tokyo news conference, before bowing to the audience in a movement the Associated Press characterized as a woefully short of the deep, soul-baring bends other Japanese executives have offered in apologizing for corporate boo-boos.

H2O Audio’s "Outdoor" case for the iPod nano at right and its waterproof case for the 80-GB iPod proving its seaworthiness. (photo by Sean Captain)

Call it a Bluetooth rival or a replacement, but cell phone manufacturer Nokia has unveiled its own short-range wireless technology, dubbed "Wibree." Like Bluetooth, it has a 30-foot link range and operates at 2.4GHz, but its small size and low energy consumption make it a solution for wireless keyboards and mice as well as smaller, low-power devices such as heart-rate monitors and wristwatches where Bluetooth isn't well suited.

Moixa Energy, a London-based company that designs and delivers environmentally friendly technologies, has come up with an alternative rechargeable battery, the USBCell. You just pop the top and plug the battery into a USB port. Currently, the USBCell is only available in an AA battery, but AAA, 9-volt and handset formats are in the works. The batteries can be purchased for £12.99 each from the Moixa Energy site, and though they’re currently only being sold in the U.K., you can register on an interest list to be alerted when they become available elsewhere.

If you want more storage than can be offered by a USB flash drive in something more toteable than an external hard drive, Formac has the solution for you. It's mini drives come in 60GB, 80GB and 120GB models in a 129mm x 92mm x 22mm portable package. And they don't require external power adapters, so they lighten your load. The drives are available now, priced between £70 and £160.

Plextor has announced what it claims to be the "world's smallest" external DVD burner. Weighing in at just 250g and measuring 137.1mm x 143.1mm x 15.9mm, the PX-608CU is as svelte and portable as the lightest laptop. And because it's USB 2.0-bus powered, you don't have to carry around another adapter. The drive supports dual-layer DVD burning at up to 4x, single-layer DVD burning at up to 8x and CD-R/RW burning at 24x speed.

The Kestrel 4000 is a mini weather monitor that can measure every major environmental condition, including Barometric Pressure, Altitude, Density Altitude, Temperature, Humidity, Wind Speed, Wind Chill, Dew Point, Wet Bulb, and Heat Index. It can recall and graph up to 2,000 measurements. Best of all, it fits in your pocket. A gizmo even the most luddite outdoorsman could love.

The array of iPod accessories never ceases to amaze us. Take the OhMiBod, for instance, which promises "a whole new way to plug 'n play." We certainly don't doubt the manufacturer's claim that it's the ""the first insertable vibrator that moves to the beat from the iPod." You just plug the OhMiBod into your iPod or other music player and it vibrates to the rhythm of the music. Guess you'll want to compile your sexiest playlist for this one.

If you're squeamish about the guy next to you in the men's room talking to you, wait until the urinal starts yapping. The Wizmark Urinal Communicator is a disposable drain cover, fitted with electronics, that detects someone approaching and then plays a pre-recorded audio announcement. The device also has a display for text or images. The inventor, Dr. Richard Deutsch, envisions his invention being used to play everything from PSAs to, appropriately enough, beer commercials.