Gadget Ogling: Wrist-Saving Keyboards, Resource-Saving Smartphones and New Angles on Reality

Welcome to another edition of Gadget Dreams and Nightmares, the column that discards the minnows of terrible new gadget announcements in the hopes of landing the catch of the day in the form of a world-changing gizmo.

Hooking my attention this week are a flashy ergonomic keyboard, a modular smartphone, a wide-angle virtual reality helmet, and a complex game controller.

Be advised: These are not formal reviews, -- they relate only to

Lexus announces that it’s made a real hoverboard you can ride

In the race for a real hoverboard that you, the happy consumer, can actually get your hands on and ride, Lexus may be the emerging winner.

In this video, the subsidiary of Toyota says that they have made a real, rideable hoverboard. It’s called SLIDE, and this skateboard-size hoverboard is the

You can now use Facebook Messenger without a Facebook account

Facebook is opening up its messaging platform to anyone.

The social networking giant today announced that users in the U.S., Canada, Peru and Venezuela can now use Facebook Messenger even if they don’t have a Facebook account.

Previously, Facebook required that users log-in with their Facebook credentials in order to use Messenger.

Now, though, you can sign up for Messenger with a name, phone number, and photo.

Facebook created Messenger in 2011 and briefly allowed non-Facebook users to

Microsoft debuts new Windows 10 ‘Hero’ default desktop image

This is a far cry from the rolling green hill many of us grew up with on our desktops. Microsoft’s updated operating system will come with a new “hero” desktop image, the default option when Windows 10 is first installed. The company debuted the image today in advance of

Programmers are copying security flaws into your software, researchers warn

Many software developers are cribbing code, and its flaws, that someone else created. And the problem is only getting harder to keep up with.

Security researchers say that many software flaws are
 simply copied by programmers from other sources.

 It's easy to assume that hackers work way above our pay grade. Electronic intruders must be able to exploit vulnerabilities in the software we use because they're evil geniuses, right?

That may be the case in some very sophisticated attacks, experts say, but in others, not so much. Programmers -- the people who create the software -- don't write all their code from scratch, instead borrowing freely from others' work. The problem: they're not vetting the code for security problems.

Working more as code assemblers than as writers, programmers are sourcing about 80 percent to 90 percent of the code in any

The US Army is getting hoverbikes

Malloy Aeronautics, a UK-based company, has been slowly and publicly developing a hoverbike over the last few years — it even used Kickstarter to raise funds. But it looks like the project is now headed in a new direction, because the US Department of Defense just announced a deal with Malloy to develop the

Samsung makes big trucks transparent in the name of road safety

Art Lebedev's Transparentius is brought to life in new Samsung prototype

Back in 2009, Russian design house Art Lebedev introduced the dramatically titled Transparentius concept for improving road safety. It was remarkably simple: put a camera on the front of large, slow-moving trucks and connect it to

Microsoft CEO says 'magical things' and 'tough choices' are ahead

'Our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.'

Microsoft is becoming a company of laser focus under Satya Nadella, and today the CEO emailed staff with a new mission statement and outlook for the 2016 fiscal year. Nadella's message, obtained by GeekWire, is optimistic but also straightforward and honest, and he acknowledges that Microsoft will face difficult decisions in the coming months. "Our mission is to

iPhone 7 UK release date, specs & new features rumours: Force Touch to make new iPhone thicker than iPhone 6

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus arrived in September, but now that we're well into 2015 it's no surprise that chatter about what's next for Apple's smartphone is getting louder and clearer. Here's everything we know about the iPhone 7 release date, specs, new features and design rumours and bring you the latest iPhone 7 speculation to help you

No more Powerbank, Oukitel’s New Smartphone coming With 10,000 mAh Battery

 Oukitel: The smartphone that could last a week thanks to a 10,000mAh battery

The Chinese have a way of introducing features in gadgets that can lead the industry by storm. Oukitel, a Chinese smartphone maker, has unveiled a prototype smartphone with an insane 10,000 mAh battery.

Oukitel claims to deliver

Gadget Ogling: Equalized Eardrums, Holographic Pyramids and Live-Streaming Ovens

Welcome to Gadget Dreams and Nightmares, the column that plays until it finds the Royal Flush of new gadget announcements and discards the 9-highs of terrible ones.

In the cards this week are a gizmo for fine-tuned audio, a display that renders 2D images as 3D holograms, a smart oven, and a bread

iPhone 6S will have 1080p slo-mo selfie camera and LED flash, reveals iOS 9 preview

CODE discovered in the first developer preview of iOS 9 has revealed some MAJOR upgrades to the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus camera.

Apple is rumoured to be hard at work on the successor to its hugely successful iPhone 6

Apple is rumoured to be hard at work on the successor to its hugely successful iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

The next Apple smartphone, which will be launched in the UK on September 18th – a fact revealed by the recent catastrophic Vodafone leak, boasts some significant updates to the

REVEALED: The Windows 10 smartwatch Microsoft was building BEFORE the Apple Watch

THESE leaked images reveal Microsoft's answer to the Apple Watch – and it looks awesome.

The Nokia design team was quietly working on a colourful wearable for Microsoft

The colourful square-faced smartwatch was being developed by the Nokia design team before Apple announced its first

Japan Plans to Explore Martian Moons With Asteroid-Probing Tech

Countries are scrambling to get to Mars in a good ol’ fashioned space race. But focus might be shifting to the red planet’s two moons. According to reports,

iOS 9: iPhone will now track sexual activity

As part of new 'reproductive health' tracking, they can track when exactly you had sex and whether they used protection

Apple's iPhone will now let people track exactly how often, when and how they have sex.

As part of new "reproductive health" tracking features, Apple has added an option for "Sexual Activity". When users click on it,

You'll soon get 10TB SSDs thanks to new memory tech

SSDs and other flash memory devices will soon get cheaper and larger thanks to big announcements from Toshiba and Intel. Both companies revealed new "3D NAND" memory chips that are stacked in layers to pack in more data, unlike single-plane chips currently used. Toshiba said that it's created the world's first

'Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain' is a tale of revenge

In Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, a human bomb sank the dreams and private military corporation of Big Boss, the central figure in Konami's stealth franchise. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain continues where we saw the Boss last: hospitalized and disfigured by the bomb blast. The soldier has lost an arm in the chaos and his body has been invaded by over 100 foreign bodies -- a mixture of human teeth and shrapnel -- but the incident seems to have

Get tailor-made headphone audio with this little device

Audio snobs may already be boasting their high-end audio equipment, be it portable headphone amps or a special chip inside their smartphones, but these are no good if your ears have slight hearing loss. Even if you deem your ears to be pitch perfect, chances are your left and right ears have different sensitivity to certain frequencies. The solution?

Microsoft officially launches 1TB Xbox One console

As expected, Microsoft has officially launched an Xbox One with double the storage of the original, complete with a controller that finally packs a 3.5mm stereo jack. The 1TB console will start shipping to retailers on June 16th in the US and other "select markets," according to Redmond. As rumored, the price will be $399, and even better, the standard 500MB Xbox One will permanently keep its $349 discounted price. Finally, Microsoft revealed that the

Apple's Swift programming language is going open source

Last year, Apple introduced Swift, its very own programming language, which was focused on making it easier to build apps. Now, in a bid to make it more

The Best Unsung Features of Windows 10

There are things about working with large companies that can be really frustrating. For instance, when both Windows Vista and Windows 8 were coming to market, a number of us pointed out that things needed to be fixed before the product was released, but we were ignored, with catastrophic results.

This time, however, Windows 10 is looking better than

Menlo Security Emerges From Stealth With $25M And Plan To Defeat Malware

Menlo Security, a company with a unique plan to battle malware, emerged from stealth today and also announced $25M in Series B funding.

The idea is an intriguing one. Many security problems emanate from malware, which can give hackers a path into a system where they can

Sneak peek of Windows 10 build 10136 shows Office 95 running just fine, thank you

As Windows 10 hurtles toward its July 29 release date, a sneak peek at the next official builds shows this state-of-the-art operating system running—yes—Office 95. That's how backward-compatible the OS will be, bragged Microsoft's Gabe Aul on Twitter. Most likely your copy of Office 95 went

Wi-Fi That Charges Your Gadgets Is Closer Than You Think

IT’S EASY TO take Wi-Fi for granted (as long as you have the password). But what if it did more than facilitate your Pinterest habit? What if instead of just connecting your devices to the Internet, it charged them as well, no wires required?

That’s the promise of new research from a team at the University of Washington, which has developed what it’s calling a “power over Wi-Fi” system that can recharge batteries through