With everyone at the Consumer Electronics Show drooling over giant flat screen TVs and miniature tablet-shaped supercomputers, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at a common consumer device that we STILL haven’t gotten right after a hundred years or so: the alarm clock. You...

I’m having some difficulty understanding how retailers think they are going to stay in business. Case in point: I traveled across Chicago tonight to Best Buy looking for two simple items that they should logically carry. One was a desktop tripod for a cell phone making it easier to take...

I’ll just come right out and admit it: This gadget seduced me. You could set the retail package on a pedestal in the MoMA and it would blend right in. It is a work of art. I opened up it up, stuck it in my ear and it just started working. It talked me through the process of pairing with...

That funny looking symbol on my new business card is a QR code. Lately these little beasties have been cropping up on everything from T-shirts to magazine ads. The QR (Quick Response) code is a two-dimensional bar code that can store contact info, URLs, even paragraphs of text. Although they...