Gadgets

Don't want to wait for the Samsung Galaxy S4 to hit stores? Then perhaps you'll be tempted by a new purple-hued version of Samsung's hit handset from last year, the Galaxy S3. Sprint announced it will sell a special Amethyst Purple GS3, as well as the older Pebble Blue and Marble White models, for $99.99.

Of course that discount applies only to customers who bring their service and phone number from other carriers, or existing subscribers who add another line. That lops $99.99 off the Galaxy S3's unsubsidized $549.99 price. You also have … Read more

Isn't it tedious to crack open your morning eggs, beat them, and then scramble them? It's messy and taxing enough to make your life look like a bad infomercial GIF.

Fortunately you can now scramble eggs in their shell, and it doesn't involve spinning them in a shirt or plastic tubes like those tricks on YouTube.

A company called Hikari Tec Hong Kong recently showed off an egg-spinning machine that helps scramble the whites and yolks without breaking the shell. Once spun enough, and after some boiling, the contents of the egg come out of the shell as a semisolid, creamy pudding. Check out the demo below. … Read more

Sous vide cooking is a relatively new phenomenon and even newer for the home market. While professional restaurants have been cooking food in a water bath for quite some time (say, pulling out a steak and giving it a quick sear before plating), the home kitchen has not until recently joined in on the party. Recent advancements are making the method of cooking food in a precisely controlled heated water bath an easy reality for home consumers.

The Viante Home Products CUC-09SV Sous Vide Cooker is a countertop appliance that will further the prospects of this exciting cooking method becoming … Read more

When I pour a beer, I'm always aiming to minimize the mound of foam on top. Apparently, there are people who covet that foam, who can't get enough. Those are the same people who can't wait to buy the $40 Sonic Hour, a new gadget that ramps up the foam factor at the push of a button.

Sonic Hour appears to be the work of the same people who created the Professional Beer Foam Making Mug. They've just gone a little more high-tech this time. While the mug used a little hammer to physically excite the beer bubbles, Sonic Hour uses the power of ultrasonic oscillation.… Read more

Loyal BlackBerry keyboard addicts may not have long to wait. Reportedly, a leaked memo from Canadian carrier Rogers pins the launch date for BlackBerry's Q10 phone as April 30. … Read more

The Nokia Lumia 920 is now the best-selling handset running Microsoft's Windows Phone software. At least that's what specialty Windows Phone application advertising firm AdDuplex says.

Indeed according to AdDuplex, and reported by Windows Phone Central, the Lumia 920 enjoys 14 percent of the entire Windows Phone market. That may not sound like much, but Nokia will be glad to learn its Lumia 800 also grabbed a 14 percent slice of the pie. And right behind that sits older Lumia devices such as the 710 (13 percent), Lumia 610 (11 percent), 820 (8 percent), and 620 (7 percent). … Read more

The home computing revolution of the 1980s and '90s was defined by a battle between two titans: Apple and Microsoft. After its IPO and the introduction of the Macintosh, Apple was riding high.

The company started losing the PC market in the '90s, though. Microsoft released Windows 3.0 as a cheaper alternative to the Macintosh in 1990, but it was the release of Windows 95, which brought a comparable GUI (graphical user interface) to PCs, that really hurt Apple. And Apple also suffered from a lack of vision, owing to the absence of its visionary leader, Steve Jobs, from … Read more

DALLAS -- Samsung has opened a new front in its battle for smartphone supremacy: the storefront.

The Korean electronics giant plans to set up mini Samsung stores inside all U.S. Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile venues within the next couple of months -- just in time for the Galaxy S4 launch. The "Samsung Experience Shops," which start rolling out Monday, will be in 500 big-box Best Buy stores and all 410 Best Buy Mobile locations by early May. Best Buy's remaining 550 large-format Best Buy stores will feature the shops by early June.

A larger … Read more

As covered in my introduction, I've been living with four different activity trackers as part of an ongoing test. It's time for a close-up of how one of them works: the Nike FuelBand. The tracker has managed to be both my favorite and least favorite of the devices.

The FuelBand is a simple, lightweight device (about 1 oz.) that you wear around your wrist. I found it fairly comfortable, quickly forgetting I had it on, even when typing.

The band costs $150 and is available in three slightly adjustable sizes. Data can be synced via a … Read more