by Leila Brillson on January 11, 2011 at 09:50 AM

Crushed by the lines at Lady Gaga, we stumbled aimlessly around the convention center until we noticed a group of people crowding around a small, seemingly empty stage. Was it an invisible Pico projection? A telepathic social networking demonstration? No, it was the massive, fluorescent LG booth, and the object of attraction was a small, circular vacuum cleaner with tiny spinning brushes. We bent ...
by Matthew Zuras on November 5, 2010 at 02:40 PM

The Web is teeming with the unrealized ideas of both students and established designers who set out to produce astonishing renderings and prototypes for unusual products. Unfortunately, due to the lack of time, money, or technology, many of those products never move from the planning stages to the mass market. But that doesn't mean we can't salivate over their creations, nevertheless.
Last ...
by Evan Shamoon on October 11, 2010 at 02:35 PM

What it is:
The robot cleaning revolution apparently has arrived. Years after the first Roombas were introduced into homes around the world, Neato stepped up to the plate with its impressive XV-11. Now, just a few months later, Evolution Robotics has launched its own proprietary floor-cleaning robot, the Mint, and it has some solid sweeping skills of its own.
Why it's different:
In some ways, ...
by Caleb Johnson on November 30, 2009 at 04:30 PM

When an Israeli family recently left their vacuuming robot to tidy up, they received more than just a clean house. According to Bot Junkie, Efi Frida found a deadly viper wrapped around the brushes of the Roomba 560 that she and her husband had purchased to help with household chores. The startling discovery happened when Frida returned home to find the robot angrily beeping and getting stuck. ...
by Evan Shamoon on November 3, 2009 at 06:04 PM

Dyson Limited Edition DC25 Blueprint (Homebody, Under $1000)
Vacuum cleaners are like eyeglasses and headphones -- when you buy one, it's worth paying for quality (particularly if you live with a dog and/or significant other that sheds regularly). And once you use a "serious" vacuum cleaner, it's tough to go back. Dyson's Limited Edition DC25 Blueprint ($529.99) is arguably the nicest ...
by Evan Shamoon on August 10, 2009 at 12:29 PM

What it is: Those who still think a vacuum's a vacuum have yet to encounter Dyson. The funky-looking, English-engineered line of bag-less, suctioning masterpieces is a far cry from the clunkers lining the shelves of Bed, Bath & Beyond. (You'll even find several in modern art museums around the world.) The DC22 Motorhead is the newest addition to the line of Dyson canister models. It takes ...
by Laura June on April 13, 2009 at 07:12 AM

South Korean telecom firm KTF has just announced a cleaning robot which can be controlled by a 3G cellphone. The robot -- called the CW100 -- was built in collaboration with Microbot, and is a "smart" vacuum (much like a Roomba). The CW100 uses an onboard video camera to send live images of what it's "seeing" to the mobile phone, and the user can then remotely control it using the keypad. The ...
by Donald Melanson on March 18, 2009 at 09:17 AM

You may think that the world's most expensive vacuum would be a Dyson or some other high-tech cleaning contraption, but that's apparently not the case, at least according to the vacuum authority that is the Guinness Book of World Records. No, the world's most expensive vacuum is apparently this otherwise ordinary Electrolux, which has been adorned with 3,730 Swarovski crystals by Polish designer ...
by Darren Murph on December 9, 2008 at 08:21 AM

Note to Roomba owners -- shut that bad boy off before leaving the house and arming the alarm system. In what we can only imagine was a pretty comical scene, a runaway Roomba in a Denmark home tripped the motion sensors after it acted on its itch to suck up a few pints of dust and debris while its owners were out on the town. Once the alarm was tripped, authorities were automatically phoned in to ...
by Darren Murph on August 26, 2008 at 12:39 PM

For Roomba hacking extraordinaire longjie0723, it's just another day in the office. Grasping for one more way to control the circular vacuum with something video game-related, he keyed in on the Wii Balance Board. Granted, he's already had success controlling the Roomba with a Wiimote, so we assume that whipping this one up was a lesson in simplicity. We still can't really understand why this ...
by Darren Murph on June 6, 2008 at 07:02 AM

We were beginning to wonder if the Roomba hacking community had been sucked dry of ideas, but leave it to longjie0723 to give us hope yet. This Roomba hacker (yeah, he also rigged his up for Wiimote control) managed to solder 448 yellow LEDs onto a board and program said devices to move in such a way that a Pac-Man-type image is seen. C'mon, who hasn't dreamed of having that ghost-inhaler work ...
by Ryan Rayhill on November 16, 2007 at 12:47 PM

While we suspect quick-fix cosmetic treatments like microdermabrasion and Botox are popular largely because people enjoy saying the words microdermabrasion and Botox, we know it's also true that such treatments do in fact make people look different (though not always younger) and that they are more widespread today than they have ever been.
Though there are still many ...
by Tom Conlon on September 7, 2007 at 11:16 AM

If you aren't a regular visitor to Tech Digest's excellent 'YouTube Video of the Day' column, well then you're probably much more productive than we are. But, hey, it's Friday and it's a slow news day, so we couldn't help but share this awesomely stupid clip of a man whose vacuum cleaner sounds a lot like Han Solo's number one homeboy, Chewie. It's uncanny, really. Steak knives that sound like ...