Around The Home

Netgear has announced its 3DHD Wireless Home Theater Networking Kit, a set of high-performance 802.11n wireless adapters designed to transmit HD and 3D HD video throughout your home. The 3DHD kit, which received a CES 2011 Innovations Award, delivers multiple jitter-free 1080p high-definition video streams without additional wiring or cabling. Each 3DHD adapter can be connected to a home theater device with a network port, and features four transmitters and four receivers for 4x4 MIMO connectivity. Read More

You still have to do your own laundry and cooking, but LG promises its new THINQ technology will make it easier and more economical to manage your home appliances. LG is showing off its latest smart refrigerators, stoves, and washers at CES 2011 and the appliances are loaded with energy-saving, diagnostic, and customization features. You will even to be able to monitor and control your appliances using your smartphone or tablet. Read More

Back at Tokyo Make Meeting earlier this year, there was a fun demonstration showing us what kind of things might be possible if we connected various electrical devices around the home to the Internet, using a system called Trangram. Since the event, we've spoken with Hirotaka Hatayama, who has been working on this project together with his partner, Mr. Kinukawa. Read More

Putting up outdoor Christmas lights is a hassle, especially if you end up doing it in the winter. It’s enough of a hassle that many people just put them up once and then leave them, but then they’re stuck with out-of-season lights on their house for the rest of the year. A Canadian company, however, has what it thinks is the solution to this problem in the form of LiteLocker. The lights used in the system stand out on display at Christmas time, but fold up and get hidden behind a protective cover once the New Year’s Eve hangover wears off. Read More

Using a hand saw is nobody’s idea of a good time, but one inventor is trying to at least make it a little easier. John Zimmerman, a software developer by trade, has created what he calls the Recoil Saw. Essentially, it’s just a saw – various types of saws, actually – with one or more spring-loaded impact bars attached to the blade. At the end of each stroke, the spring compresses as the bar hits the material being sawed, then releases that energy back into the following return stroke. The idea is that users can pretty much just bounce their way through cutting jobs, as opposed to having to purposefully stop and start between every stroke. Zimmerman, who admits he’s probably not the most unbiased tester, said that he has found it cuts twice as fast as a regular saw. Read More

We do like our robotic vacuum cleaners here at Gizmag, but most of those that we have featured so far have, for good reason, followed a similar short and squat design. Dutch designer Dave Hakkens has opted to turn his back on this familiar shape and the household cleaner environment in which such a device might be found, in favor of a fairly large, industrial-strength ball for cleaning up public spaces. Read More

We've all been on one side of this dilemma: either facing a move into an unfurnished property and wishing for temporary rental furniture to tide us over, or surveying unwieldy furniture for transport and wondering why we ever bought so much? Enter Casulo, an intelligent mobile bedroom furniture design which hopes to deliver a quick-fix for short-term rental. Read More

The Internet allows us to connect with friends in every corner of the world, but sometimes a physical, tangible link in the communication can make its absence felt. A nightstand with embedded printer and scanner, John Kestner's Tableau puts a physical experience in networking with family and friends, and makes viewing and sharing photos via Twitter as simple and natural as opening and closing a drawer. Read More

Years of progress in making phones smaller and more portable have all been dismissed in one stroke by Japanese gadget and novelty company Hashy-Topin. Phone x Phone is a clever iPhone dock/charger unit designed to transform your iPhone into a plain ol' regular fixed-line telephone. Because you didn't really want to be that mobile anyway, did you? Read More