TOP TECHNOLOGY NEWS

Kristian Ulrich Larsen’s “Flip” phone is deceptively named. With its three-sided construction it’s a shape-shifter for sure, but it’s definitely no Razr clamshell.

Gadget Lab favorites Yanko Design have brought us yet another piece of industrial design porn with Larsen’s tripartite concept smartphone, the Flip.

In its triangular position (seen above), the phone rests on flat surfaces elegantly, reminiscent of a bedside alarm clock at some futuristic Motel 6. But if you don’t have plans to dream of electric sheep any time soon, the Flip can shift into a slimmer version of itself, collapsing and tucking away one of its three super AMOLED screens between the outer two.

You love your Kindle, but you hate the DRM. What do you do? Well, if you like, we’ll tell you how to strip the copy-protection from your e-books, leaving a plain, vanilla e-book file in the format of your choice. This doesn’t just work for Kindle book, either. The method, detailed by Apprentice Alf, will also remove DRM from Mobipocket, Barnes and Noble, Adobe Digital Editions and Fictionwise books, making these stores much more attractive to buyers.

Giddy on the announcement of the new CDMA iPhone 4, Verizon chief financial officer Francis Shammo let slip plans to bring Apple”s iPad to his company’s network.

Speaking in an interview in New York yesterday, Shammo told Bloomberg that “Verizon will get an embedded chip in the iPad for use on its network.” Customers who want to use the iPad on Verizon’s network currently have to buy a MiFi device, which shares its 3G connection via Wi-Fi.

The Eco Printer seems to be based on an invention I came up with around 15 years ago, although as I never told anyone or did anything about it (and my invention used completely different technology), I”ll let it slide. The printer prints onto paper using a special disappearing ink that can be erased by zapping it with UV light. The idea is that you can print things for temporary use and then re-use the paper, over and over again.

It’s a nice idea, promising the advantages of paper but without the environmental costs – even recycling uses resources. But it misses the exact same thing when I was dreaming up re-printable paper back in the 1990s: Paper is useful because of what you do to it after the ink has been laid down.

LAS VEGAS — After HTC’s EVO Shift debuted at CES this week, I was able to spend a little time playing around with it. From what I’ve seen so far, it’s a solid contender for those who don’t want to carry around an oversized chunk of hardware.

Unlike its giant predecessor the EVO, the EVO Shift’s capacitive touch screen measures in at 3.6 inches with 480-by-800-pixel resolution.

LAS VEGAS — Minimalists who eschew carpets but still hate to clean their own hardwood floors now have a more minimalist robot option. The iRobot Scooba 230 is a a tiny new floor-washing robot that looks good enough to be shown off on top of the coffee-table, not just hidden underneath it.

The new Scooba, announced at CES 2011 along with a sleeker version of the carpet-cleaning Roomba, will actually clean floors better than you can.

You got a brand new Moleskine notebook or diary for Christmas. You also got a fancy new pen. And if you’re really lucky, Uncle Pete gave you just over $13 (or €10) to spend on anything you like. Generous old Uncle Pete.

Might we suggest you pick up the Pen Clip, designed for Authentics by Stefan Diez. It’s a metal tube that clips into the spine of a notebook and lets you slide in any pen, be it a write-anywhere space-pen, or a cheap-o Biro. It’s a handsome way to keep pen and paper together.

It will be useless, of course, if your pen already has a clip (clipped pens can be forced into the Moleskine’s spine, like an epidural into a human’s vertebrae, but the spine will crack after a while).

Fujifilm has posted many, many more details about the innovative new hybrid viewfinder on its upcoming X100 rangefinder-style camera. As you may remember, the viewfinder combines both a straight-through optical ‘finder and an electronic viewfinder. Further, these can be combined to overlay histograms and other info onto the optical image.

The finder operates a lot like that of a traditional rangefinder: The image comes through a lens, passes through a prism and then hits the eyepiece.

HP has quietly put together a full slate of WebOS-powered PalmPad tablet PCs that will be unveiled at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show, according to a report from FoxNews.com.

HP did not immediately return Wired.com’s call.

We’re expecting tablet-centric announcements from such tech giants as Microsoft, Samsung and Motorola, but HP’s presence in Vegas could potentially throw the entire proceedings on its collective ear.

Google’s new Nexus S smartphone went on sale Thursday at Best Buy stores for 200 bucks with a two-year contract, a move with poor timing, says an analyst.

That’s because by this time of year, the holiday season, retailers and competing manufacturers have already slashed prices for relatively new Android smartphones to between $0 and $50. (The HTC Droid Incredible, for example, is free with a two-year plan at Best Buy.)

These holiday discounts will make the $200, T-Mobile-compatible Nexus S seem like an unattractive option for the average consumer, explained Tero Kuttinen, a telecom analyst at MKM Partners.