Magic Ring Allows You to Control Every Gadget Remotely, No Buttons Needed

I couldn't believe it either, but this ring—called Yubi-nya—will allow you to remote control any device just using your fingers. And yes, it has the shape of a cat face. For good reason, I'm sure.

According to researcher Saori Noda—who works for Denso Corporation, a big automotive electronics supplier in Japan—they are "working to make it smaller and less noticeable." This doesn't explain why they decided to make it the shape of a big honkin' cat face, but sounds good enough to us.

The device can detect tiny electrical currents going around the body. To work, it generates a current that goes into the index finger. When you press your finger and thumb together, the ring detects a closed circuit and interprets it as a signal, sending a device a control order wirelessly.

According to Noda, this could be used to control any kind of device without touching it, including phones, music players, cars,and whatever you can imagine

Olympus Calls a Truce in the Megapixel War

Olympus has decided to stop all of the childish marketing gimmicks and step out of the now meaningless megapixel race. In a recent interview, manager of Olympus Imaging's SLR planning department stated:

Twelve megapixels is, I think, enough for covering most applications most customers need...we have no intention to compete in the megapixel wars for E-System.

He's referring to cameras like the $700 Olympus E-620, which like most cameras, could benefit a lot more from an engineering focus on low-light performance and color reproduction than just some extra megapixels.

Now if only we can explain that more megapixels isn't always better to every consumer at best buy picking out a camera from an endless line of point and shoots. [ZDNET via bbGadgets]

Microsoft Notebook Cooling Base Could Be Cooler

Microsoft has decided to conquer the exciting world of notebook accessories! And their first product in this "new notebook accessories category" is the Notebook Cooling Case!

Suitable for both desks and laps and said to fit all laptops, the Cooling Case is 1.16 inches thick, but it still manages to squeeze a USB-powered fan into the design! The Cooling Case will be available this July for $30 in both white and black!

Microsoft, I did my best to get excited about this thing...it's just so typical Chinese OEM! [Microsoft]

Microsoft Arc Mouse Special Edition Colors Salute Vegetables, Nature

Microsfot's collapsible Arc Mouse will be available this month in frost white, eggplant purple, deep olive green and marine blue for $50. Nice, but I do prefer my colors marketed under one umbrella theme. [Microsoft]

Honeywell Touchscreen Thermostat and Portable Remote Review

With two products, a touchscreen thermostat and a wireless portable thermostat remote, Honeywell has changed how I control my heating and cooling forever. In a good way.

The system I have here consists of those two parts: a touchscreen, full color thermostat that takes the place of your current thermostat called the Prestige, and a black and white wireless thermostat remote called the Portable Comfort Control.

The Portable Comfort Control is what's the most revolutionary about this package. It's about the size of two Wiimotes, it's touchscreen and can basically take the place of the thermostat from anywhere in the house. You can set both heating and cooling temp for as many zones as your house has, as well as read the current temperature from the thermostat, the remote itself or an outside sensor.

It works perfectly. Its backlit touchscreen lights up when pressed, and is responsive enough that you can actually control it without letting a bunch of expletives fly at how lousy the screen is. It reaches every corner of my three-story house, even with multiple floors and walls and doors in the way. Basically, it lets me turn on the heat from the ground floor without having to run up two flights of stairs. Every house needs one.

The Prestige, which is the color touchscreen thermostat, works just as well. The touchscreen is bright and responsive as well as intuitive—something even simpler thermostats are not. It too can sync up with an outside sensor to display the current outside temperature, and does everything that a thermostat is supposed to do (schedule, hold, etc).

Installation was pretty easy. Ours was done by a professional Honeywell installer, but with enough knowledge Gizmodo readers should be able to do it themselves. The entire process, from hooking up the thermostat to syncing the remote to drilling in the outside sensor, took only about an hour.

New iPod Shuffle Moves Buttons to Headphones, Adds Text to Speech

Apple has quietly released a new iPod Shuffle design that mimics the original's pack of gum aesthetics. It costs $80, holds 4GB of songs, uses inline controls and boasts text-to-speech.

• 4GB or 1,000 Songs
• Silver or black color options, stainless steel clip
• Controls have been moved to the earbud line
• "VoiceOver" Text to speech artist and track names and battery life in 14 languages
• 10 hours of playback (Down from 12 hours in previous gen)
• The 1GB, 2nd gen iPod shuffle is still around for $50

So what do you think? Is this design better than the last iPod Shuffle? Personally, I really dislike that the new form costs users 2 hours of battery life.

CUPERTINO, Calif., March 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today introduced the all-new iPod® shuffle, the world's smallest music player at nearly half of the size of the previous model, and the first music player that talks to you. The revolutionary new VoiceOver feature enables iPod shuffle to speak your song titles, artists and playlist names. The third generation iPod shuffle is significantly smaller than a AA battery, holds up to 1,000 songs and is easier to use with all of the controls conveniently located on the earphone cord. With the press of a button, you can play, pause, adjust volume, switch playlists and hear the name of the song and artist. iPod shuffle features a gorgeous new aluminum design with a built-in stainless steel clip that makes it ultra-wearable.

"Imagine your music player talking to you, telling you your song titles, artists and playlist names," said Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of iPod and iPhone™ Product Marketing. "The amazingly small new iPod shuffle takes a revolutionary approach to how you listen to your music by talking to you, also making it the first iPod shuffle with playlists."

iPod shuffle is based on Apple's incredibly popular shuffle feature, which randomly selects songs from your music library. And now, when you can't remember the name of a song or an artist playing, with the press of a button iPod shuffle tells you the name of the song and artist. iPod shuffle can even tell you status information, such as battery life. With the ability to hold up to 1,000 songs and the VoiceOver feature, you can now easily switch between multiple playlists on your iPod shuffle. iPod shuffle can speak 14 languages including English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

The new iPod shuffle comes in silver or black and features a sleek and ultra-wearable design with a built-in stainless steel clip. iPod shuffle is the smallest music player in the world and is incredibly easy to clip to almost anything and take with you everywhere you go. iPod shuffle features up to 10 hours of battery life.*

Pricing & Availability

The third generation 4GB iPod shuffle is now shipping and comes in silver or black for a suggested price of $79 (US) through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. iPod shuffle comes with the Apple Earphones with Remote and the iPod shuffle USB cable. iPod shuffle requires a Mac® with a USB 2.0 port, Mac OS® X v10.4.11 or later and iTunes® 8.1 or later; or a Windows PC with a USB 2.0 port and Windows Vista, Windows XP Home or Professional (Service Pack 3) or later and iTunes 8.1.

*Battery life and number of charge cycles vary by use and settings. Seewww.apple.com/batteries for more information. Song capacity is based on four minutes per song and 128-Kbps AAC encoding; in 256-Kbps AAC format, song capacity is up to 500 songs; actual capacity varies by encoding method and bit rate.

Yamaha Deus Ex Machina future concept motorcycle

Jake Loniak, a student of Art Center Pasadena has crammed the combination of motorcycle and tech-skeleton into an awesome looking Yamaha branded Deus Ex Machina. Jake has beyond his wild imagination to design this concept. The vehicle will be powered by ultra-capacitors and doped nano-phoshpate batteries. It is controlled using 36 pneumatic muscles with two linear actuators set along a spine consisting of seven artificial vertebrae. Even the helmet is pneumatically attached.

The motorcycle would be able to accelerate from 0 to 60 in just 3 seconds.

Jake believes that this vehicle can achieve a top speed of 75 mph. The recharge time of this vehicle is 15 minutes and cycle time is of 1 hour. The qualities are more than the qualities found in hybrid cars.

Yamaha Deus Ex Machina is an "electric, single passenger, vertically parking, wearable motorcycle,

Can't wait this vehicle to come on roads…!!