• Selling Your Old GPS Device? Be Careful -- It Might Still Have Your Address
• New GPS Devices Improve on Graphics, Arrival Time Calculations
• This GPS Device Tracks Your Dog, Kids, and Interns (Video)
• DASH Product Page

• Switched Laptop Guide 2008
• Best Laptops Under $500

• Just Tell Me What to Get: 42-inch Plasma
• Just Tell Me What to Get: Bedroom HDTV
• Camera Posts at Switched

What if your car's tires could do more than hug those turns, but also tell you when they might be about to blow? Researchers at Purdue University have created just such a round tube, full of sensors and a chip that they claim will warn drivers ahead of time if the rubber starts to shred. Hey, even a few seconds advance warning could save a big blowout from being a big car wreck, right?

Though they still haven't secured a patent on the new technology, researchers say race cars will be the first to use it. Of course, that would put an end to exciting videos like this.

In the meantime, drive safely.

(In the photo above are Gary Krutz, director of Purdue's Electrohydraulic Center, and graduate research assistants Timu Gallien and Alyssa Brune, with one of the experimental tires. Photo courtesy of Purdue News Service.)

From Reuters.

Related Links:

• Honda Testing Clean Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car
  
• Nissan Saving Pedestrians' Lives
• Featherweight Plastic Rims Roll Closer to Production

• T-Mobile Finally Getting High Speed 3G?
• Make Cell Calls Over Wi-Fi and Save Minutes
• T-Mobile Launches First 3G Phone

Gallery: Public Phones and Phone Booths of the World

• AT&T CEO Says High-Speed 3G iphone Coming Next Year
• AT&T Recalling Some Black Jacks
• Verizon Wireless To Let You Use Any Phone On Its Network

Now that Skype and Logitech have unveiled upgrades to their video calling software, it's time to start videocalling over the Internet in High-Definition. With the QuickCam Pro 9000 and its snazzy Carl Zeiss lens, travelers can finally make those 30--frames-per--second calls to their buddies (or significant others) and do lightning-fast karate moves with no frozen frames! It's small and compact, which makes it ideal for the traveler's laptop. And even though it shoots and displays in state-of-the-art HD, the QuickCamPro 9000 is virtually dummy-proof, since it has built-in face-tracking technoloogy to keep you focused in the center of the frame. It's a steal at $99.

From Logitech

Anybody with a lot of gadgets has a lot of cables, which can get tangled and unsightly without too much effort. The clutter-averse gadget head or neat-freak in your life will find the ingeniously-designed Cable Turtles to be useful. The doughnut-shaped rubber Cable Turtles flip inside out to reveal a central pole that is used to wrap your power cord around. When you're done wrapping, you just flip the cover back over and presto, the cable is safely tucked away for storage, or significantly shortened, if you just want less cord clutter. Since they start at $9 (for the smallest model), Cable Turtles are an excellent stocking stuffer.

From Cable Turtles

Hype Check: Amazon Kindle

Last week, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled the Kindle, a new electronic book reader that has quickly become one of the hottest gifts of the holiday season (in fact, the device's first run sold out in a mere 5 and a half hours!). We got our hands on one and have been busy browsing, buying, downloading and reading e-books, -magazines, -newspapers, and blogs for the past week so we could report our findings back to you. But is the Amazon Kindle really the iPod of books? Will this new instantly-iconic gadget make a book-lover or info-hound in your life happy this year? Read on to see what found.


What it is: The first electronic book-reading device from Amazon.com, which lets you read your choice of more than 90,000 books, as well as dozens of magazines, newspapers, and blogs, on a 6-inch sized screen. Like the recently upgraded Sony Reader, the Amazon Kindle uses E-Ink, a new type of display that has eschews the typical LCD screen's harsh backlight for a glare-free, book-like experience.

How it works: The Kindle has built-in high-speed 3G network access, so it lets you browse for and download books directly into the device, either by scrolling through genre categories and lists or by searching by author or title (using the included QWERTY keyboard). Book downloads take less than a minute, while newspaper, magazine, and blog subscriptions are downloaded automatically as soon as something new is published. As for reading, you click on the title of a book or article you want to read, then scroll through pages by pressing "next" and "back" buttons on the right and left sides, respectively, of the screen. Maneuvering around content is easy enough since books, magazines, and newspapers are divided into easy to scan chapters, sections, and headlines. Text size can be adjusted to one of six different settings.

Why it's different: E-readers have a bad name because the versions that came out in the late '90s irritated the eyes and never really took off, but the Kindle is part of the new generation of e-readers that uses easy-on-the-eyes E-Ink. The real differentiator, though, for the Kindle, is its ability to let you browse for and download content directly into the device (using a cell phone network, no less). And you just use the same Amazon account you use to buy books and other items on your desktop, so it's oddly reminiscent of that other all-encompassing e-tailer eco-system, iTunes. (The Kindle's wireless service, by the way, is free.) Also, unlike other e-readers, the Kindle is the first to get real newspapers (New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Le Monde), magazines (Time, Atlantic Monthly, Reader's Digest), and even blogs into the e-edition mix.

What we like: Downloads of books are fast (usually around a minute per title). You can try a sample out before you buy for free. Prices for new hardcovers are often more than half what you'd pay for a physical book (about $9.99 a pop). Adjustable text sizes means young and old alike will be able to embrace the future with this thing. The "next" [page] button runs two-thirds of the length of the Kindle's right side, meaning don't have to fumble for the right button to turn a page. E-Ink is truly readable. And, if you don't know what a word means, you can just look it up using the included dictionary! (You can also look up topics with the built-in Wikipedia entries).

What we don't: If you're a big browser and shopper, you'll probably spend more time looking for new books and wearing the battery down than reading. (We got only about a day and a half of battery life with heavy browsing and shopping, but about six days with occasionally 10-15 minute reads and the thing otherwise just lying in our backpack.) Even though it offers 90,000 books, the Kindle Bookstore was surprisingly lacking in many titles we wanted, including anything but the latest book by Jonathan Franzen, travel guides, graphic novels, and even certain new translations of Russian novels we were in hot pursuit for!. Yes, you can basically get the New York Times bestseller list and lots of intriguing and obscure fare, but the Kindle bookstore is far from comprehensive - for now. And we fully expect more than the handful of magazines and newspapers to be offered in the near future. And what's with charging 99 cents to read otherwise free blogs?


Should you get the Sony Reader or the Kindle? Which one is better and how are they different? Well, the Sony Reader is by far the better designed gadget from a looks and heft perspective - it's about half as thin, about three ounces thinner, and comes in a much more attractive leather case. It also offers a screen that we found to be clearer, a silver body that felt solid versus the Kindle's relatively cheap white plastic body, and faster page-turning. But the Sony Reader doesn't have any of the wireless capability that lets you shop on the fly - you have to buy your eBooks on your computer first and then transfer them manually via USB to the Reader. The Reader is also less expensive. We recommend the Reader to anyone who prefers long-form books over magazines, newspapers and up-to-the-minute news stories - it's simply a more pleasurable experience to read with and you can find plenty of books on the Sony Connect store. But anyone who likes their newspapers and magazines as much as they like their books will want the Kindle, without a doubt.

Does the Kindle live up to the hype? Ultimately, yes. We've been using the Kindle for a little over a week now and we have been more or less blown away. We spent almost a whole night downloading books, blogs, newspaper articles and browsing for titles - pretty much the same way we spent all night loading up our iPods with iTunes the first time we gave it a spin. The truth is, this device is a Godsend to anyone who likes daily newspapers or magazines and doesn't want to carry them all around, or anybody who simply likes to read several books at once. And truthfully, we found the newspaper reading experience on the Kindle to be far superior to both real newspapers and newspaper headlines on the Web - the Kindle is lighter than a PC, less awkward to hold than a newspaper (and yet just as portable), and offers the easiest way to scroll through to the articles you actually want to read. It also offers some hope to the increasingly beleaguered print newspaper and magazine industries, not to mention one of the first ways to actually monetize a blog via readers. (Yes, we complained about having to pay for blogs above, but honestly, it's great to be able to catch up on your favorite Internet news sources while on a plane or somewhere else where there's no Internet connection - a convenience we're happy to pay 99 cents a month for!)

Is this a good gift? Since it doesn't require a computer for downloading and the wireless service is included in the price, most definitely yes. The book lover and info-hound in your life will love you for it!

Price and where to get it: $399, from Amazon.

For more great gift ideas, check out the Switched Holiday Gift Guide.

Gallery: Amazon Kindle, Up Close

Audio-Technica is known for making audiophile-approved products at reasonable prices. Now, noise-canceling headphones can run high, price-wise (like, $300), but Audio-Technica's ATH-ANC7 Noise Canceling Headphones can be had for as little as $120 . And the good news is your frequent-flier audio-buff, uncle (or whomever) will really appreciate the sound these babies can make (and the sound they can hide while, say, in a noisy airplane cabin).

These bad boys are even surprisingly compact, for over-the-ear cans. The cable detaches and the 'phones fold flat for easy storage in the included carrying case. Meanwhile, a=a single AAA battery will keep the active noise cancellation technology running for 40 hours.

Sensors detect and remove 85 percent background noise such as engine drones on a plane, background chatter at the office, or even the sound of hyper ctive children in your living room. You can even ditch the cable and use them to cancel out sound without plugging them into an iPod or portable DVD player.

From Audio-Technica

If your shopping list includes a frequent traveler who needs a new laptop and who also happens to be a bit of a klutz, consider the just-released Panasonic Toughbook 7 series. Toughbooks are rugged notebooks built to withstand all of the tortures the average person could throw at them. Knock them off a table, right on the LCD, and it wont crack. Spill your morning coffee in them and the darn things survive.

They even comes in three different flavors, all of which start with the same battery-sipping but powerful Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM, magnesium alloy casing, shock mounted hard drive, and 3G cellular data radio (so users can surf the Web at high-speeds).

The Y7 (starts at $2,400) is the 14-inch standard bearer, with a five hour battery life. The W7 is the ultra portable 12-inch laptop that weighs in under seven pounds, and has a seven hour battery life, making it ideal for the always-mobile and always-connected on your shopping list, as long as you don't mind dropping a minimum of $2,100 on them. Then there is the T7, a rugged tablet that comes in at the same price as the W7. The T7 drops the built in optical drive (for CDs and DVDs) of the Y7 and W7, adds a touch screen, and gets its battery life up to a jaw dropping nine hours.

Unless someone backs up over these with their SUV, the Toughbooks should be pretty indestructible -- even for the biggest of klutzes.

From Panasonic