How can one improve on books? According to Sony at E3 2012, what books need are a Playstation 3 console, the PS3 Eye camera, the Move motion controller and the newly announced Wonderbook.

The Wonderbook is a physical book with pages full of augmented reality (AR) markers. Using the Eye camera, the console captures interactions with the book before showing the same book transformed into an impressive enhanced pop up book on TV.

Sony already has a flagship Wonderbook title-- The Book of Spells, Continue reading...

Google is really working on augmented reality (AR) glasses-- the company just revealed Project Glass, a futuristic visor providing a Terminator-style augmented view of the world.

A fancy demo video shows the point of view of someone wearing the glasses, showing a variety of graphical overlays (weather, maps, text messages) and smartphone functionality (social network integration, voice messaging, video conferencing).

On the other hand concept designs Google shows feature what looks like an empty set of sleek metal frames with small rectangular display perching over the right eye-- unlike earlier reports of prototypes looking like a pair of Oakley Thumps sunglasses.

Taking care of house plants should not too difficult, right? Koubachi believes could be even easier-- by using a Wifi Plant Sensor to give your customers' plants a voice.

Users stick the sensor in the soil, where it measures soil moisture, temperature and light. Acting a bit like a Withings Scale for plants, it measures data (saving it on the cloud-based "Koubachi Plant Care Engine") and sends out alerts over wifi network or smartphone app to let users know when and how the plant needs care.

Koubachi Continue reading...

Tamagotchi creators Bandai have plans to turn iDevices (iPhone or iPod Touch) into robotic pets with Smartpet-- a clunky yet cute robot dog with an iPhone for a brain.

Controlling the robot is a free app, making the Smartpet to react to touchscreen gestures, voice commands or movements in front of the Facetime camera. The "pet" can learn various tricks, as well as make facial expressions, sing and even dance with other Smartpets via Bluetooth.

And when the games are over the Smartpet also doubles Continue reading...

The New York Times R&D Lab combines a reflective LCD display, a Microsoft Kinect and the NYT.com APIs and creates a "Magic Mirror" ideal for bathrooms of the future.

The result is a hi-tech take on the standard bathroom mirror-- allowing one to check the internet, schedule events and carry out other tasks while brushing their teeth or brushing their hair.

The Kinect handles the motion-based user interface, voice commands and even product recognition and information access via RFID tags.

The magic Continue reading...

It's perhaps the cruelest cut of all. Paul Allen, the forgotten Microsoft man, the lost partner, wants to set the record straight by publishing his memoir: Idea Man.

Written with best ghost writer money can buy (and thanks to his time with Microsoft, Paul Allen can afford the best), Allen gives his side of how Microsoft started. But instead rallying to the Idea Man, reviewers scathe Allen and defend Bill Gates.

One must-read review comes from the New York Times Sunday Book Review, the authoritative Continue reading...

West|280's product is admittedly rather simple-- it's an iPhone case with an added bottle cap remover. Thus, iOpener.

The product comes as a polymer alloy case with what the company describes as a "14 gauge, 304 food grade stainless steel opener". Thankfully one can retract the opener back into a slot when not in use.

In other words, it's something of a novelty for parties and the like as a (wait for it) eye opener, even if models are currently only compatible with the iPhone 3 and below (and Continue reading...

In its bid to rival Nintendo's 3DS in the handheld gaming war Sony unveils the PSP's follower, codenamed NGP (Next Generation Portable).

It features impressive specs-- a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, 5" OLED touchscreen (with 960 x 544 resolution), rear-mounted touchpad (directly behind the screen), accelerometer and gyroscope (the same technology as in the Playstation Move), GPS and front/rear facing cameras. Internet connections come from both wifi and 3G.

Games will come on what Sony describes Continue reading...