Toyota is hoping to help to prevent accidents with its latest addition to some of its cars, an eye-monitoring system. It includes a camera mounted on the dash near the steering wheel which constantly monitors a driver’s eyes. If it senses that the eyes are not “properly open,” the system would alert the driver. It would also sense imminent collisions, helping it decide how and when to tell the driver to wake up.

The system would first be installed on Japanese Toyotas, with no word on if or when it would make it Stateside. However, seeing as this can only benefit our cars, expect to see it soon after its Japan release. Graphic after the jump. Read more »

The wonderful iPhone Dev Team has been hard at work, and now thanks to them we have a jailbreak for the 1.1.3 firmware (the iPhone update released at Macworld).

There’s a few catches though, as always. First of all, the update can currently be performed from a Windows machine only, with the Mac version of the updater coming soon. Secondly, it requires an already jailbroken 1.1.1 or 1.1.2 iPhone.

Thanks iPhone Dev Team, keep up the good work!

Photo: http://www.tuaw.com/2008/01/24/are-one-third-of-all-iphones-destined-for-unlocking/

When you see this car, you probably think to yourself, “Man, I want one of those.” And then you find out that it’s electric. No, not hybrid. This baby uses no gas whatsoever. It can’t get much better than that, right? Wrong!

This beautiful car is promised to deliver 248 horsepower, a four second 0-60mph, and enough electricity to drive for 200 miles. And best of all, it only takes 3.5 hours to fully charge.

Watch out Ferrari  and Maserati, at $100,000 (expensive, but within reason), the Tesla Roadster will all but wipe you out.

Tesla has finally confirmed that it has received all regulatory approvals to import the first production Roadster, code-named P1, for sale. Production is slated to begin on March 17, with the first P1 going to the company chairman.

I can already see the 600,000 customers who have signed pre-orders for the car drooling excitedly. I can’t wait to finally see a Tesla car driving down the street - beautiful, fast, and efficient.

Here comes another nifty gadget from Yanko Design. Although just a concept, this Flying Stick camera seems very feasible.

The Flying Stick camera stores energy when it’s rubbed between your palms and, when released, uses that energy to fly into the air and take pictures at a set interval.

It would also have face recognition technology which would know where to focus to take the perfect pictures of you (or anybody else) from above.

I’m thinking 4 megapixels and a gigabyte or two of memory and they’ve got a seller. More pics after the jump. Read more »

Netflix has announced plans to offer a Mac version of their Watch Instantly streaming service sometime this year. Netflix executive Reed Hastings dismissed Apple’s new iTunes rental service:

“You only have 24 hours in which to complete watching the movie [on iTunes], so if you watch over two nights, you pay twice. DVD rentals advantages over VoD are ubiquity of content, ubiquity of DVD players, an early window for new releases, and lower prices.”

Watch Instantly is a Video on Demand service that, for $5 a month, allows subscribers to watch as many movies as they’d like with no other charges or fees. The system is currently heavily dependent on Windows Media copy protection mechanisms, which aren’t available on the Mac.

I think this is fantastic news, seeing as Netflix has a very comprehensive library of films (although only 6,000 are currently available through Watch Instantly, that number is bound to go up as the service really takes off) and being able to access them on a Mac allows a wider audience of people to take advantage of the program. Thank you Netflix!

Photo: http://gizmodo.com

Following hot on the heels of an OS X 10.5.2 update to Leopard announcement, it seems that the Windows Vista SP1 (Service Pack 1) might be released on February 15th. Thanks for the (day late) Valentine’s Day present, Microsoft!

Although this is just a rumor without any confirmation by Microsoft (which is simply sticking with a “Q1 release date”), it is believe that the middle of February will be when this update is released, making the 15th a likely choice.

A summary of the (extremely verbose) changelog can be found here.

The Chocolate Agency has created an e-paper snap bracelet which gives you the ability to carry an MP4 player right on your wrist and look good doing it.

The entire surface is a display which is thin, high contrast, and power efficient. It can be taken off your wrist and unwrapped so that you can view the whole screen at once. The length is adjustable via magnetic clasps that can be added or removed, allowing the device to fit on any wrist.

The best part? You don’t have to plug this baby in, or even change its batteries. The device is powered by the kinetic energy created when you move your arm around.

As this is an MP4 player, we expect it to be able to show e-books, photos, and videos. Or, you could just use it as a trendy watch. A headphone jack, however, seems to be missing. It would be nice to play music from this puppy as well. Pics after the jump. Read more »

AMD presents us with their new Radeon HD 3400 and 3600 series graphics cards. The 3400 cards are expected to cost between $50 and $65 and the 3600s will go from $80 to $100. With these prices, the new cards will be great for casual gamers and those wanting to watch HD movies on their computers.

Another nifty feature of these cards is the ability to pair them in a Hybrid Crossfire setup on an ATI motherboard, combining the power of the two cards and the onboard graphics chip for a fairly low price.

The cards include support for DirectX 10.1, PCI-Express 2.0, and the DisplayPort video interface.

The introduction of these cards is a good move on AMD’s part. The casual gamer or HD move watcher doesn’t want to shell out $400 on a video card, so a $50 to $100 card will be perfect for a weekend game or two. The graphics won’t be spectacular, but they’ll be much better than an onboard chip and will come with a reasonable price.