SpotCoolStuff

When the world’s highest climbing cable car brings you to the highest mountain in the Alps you know you are in for an amazing view . But maybe not this amazing. The scene from the summit of Aiguilles de Chamonix, a jagged mountain high in the middle of the Mont Blanc massif, is the single most spectacular in the whole of the Alps. It might be the best mountain view that doesn’t involve hiking, flying or driving available anywhere. Here’s how to make the trip: click image to open full... Read Full Story

The Dhoni has been a central feature of life in the Maldives for nearly as long as there’s been a recorded history of people living there. Traditionally, Dhonis were small sailing vessel built from coconut palm wood. Today, a Dhoni (pronounced: “doh-nee”) comes in a variety of sizes and is as likely to be powered by an engine as it is by the gentle trade winds that grace the Maldives. Travel around that archipelago of tropical islands south of India and you’ll see Dhonis everywhere. People... Read Full Story

Is it a tablet? Or is it a phone? That’s the tagline on billboards advertising the new Samsung Galaxy Note . When the company selling a product expresses uncertainly about what exactly their product is, you know you are dealing with something different. Indeed, the Samsung Note seems like a new hybrid product that’s both an oversized phone and an undersized tablet. The phonelet weighs 6.3 ounces (178 grams) and has a 5.3-inch display—more than the largest smartphone and less than the... Read Full Story

Since returning from the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show the question we’ve been asked most is: What was the coolest thing you saw? After some contemplation, we’ve settled on our answer: Liquipel . It’s a nanotechnology service that waterproofs electronic gadgets without adding any weight to a device or any altering it in any discernible way. Futurists have long recognized the potential of nanotechnology—the study of manipulating matter on an atomic or molecular level—to... Read Full Story

The Crooked Forest is a place we could almost have listed in our review of travel places that look like Dr. Seuss illustrations if weren’t tinged with such creepiness. The forest is more like the sort of place a band of weary heroes would have to traverse towards the end of a dark fairy tale. Or maybe it would work best for a scene in a mystery novel. That would be apropos since the trees here are in themselves a mystery. Here’s what is known: • Sometime in the early 1930s... Read Full Story

The Griffin Twenty audio amplifier for the Airport Express is named such because it is offers a speaker output of twenty watts per channel. But it could be named that because the Griffin Twenty can bring new life to your twenty-year-old speakers. To Old Wired Speakers" /> To Old Wired Speakers" /> To Old Wired Speakers" title="Griffin Twenty | old speaker wires" width="575" height="133" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-4550" /> You know the sort of unpowered speakers we’re talking... Read Full Story

Where was this when we were in college? A refrigerator that can chill a can of beer from room temperature to ice cold in about four-and-a-half minutes. The ‘fridge is the Ultra-Capacity French Door Refrigerator from LG . Its fast cooling drawer is called the “Blast Chiller.” And the refrigerator can not only quickly chill liquids in aluminum cans. The Blast Chiller will also turn a warm one liter glass bottle of liquid cold in about eight minutes. The fast chilling is... Read Full Story

The most surreal moment at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show —and the competition for that honor is stiff—is surely Justin Bieber introducing the mRobo, a toy robot from the Vietnam based company Tosy. So what does the teen pop idol have to do with Vietnamese robots? Vietnamese Entertainment Robot" /> Vietnamese Entertainment Robot" /> Vietnamese Entertainment Robot" title="Justin Bieber unveils the Topsy mRobo robot" width="300" height="312" class="alignright size-full wp-image-4519... Read Full Story

“Thinner and Brighter” could be the unofficial moto of the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show . One tech company taking that to an extreme is China-based Huawei (pronounced “Wah-Way”). At CES, they unveiled the Ascend P1 S, the world’s thinnest smartphone. The Huawei Ascend P1 S is 6.68mm (0.26 inches) thick. That’s about the same thickness as a pencil! But the cool thing about the Ascend P1 S is that it doesn’t seem to be super-thin for the sake of being so. The device feels very... Read Full Story

The “swinging ‘60s” might be so last millennium, but partying like Mad Men’s purveyor of cool, Don Draper, is about as current as it gets. In honor of the new season of the cool AMC show Mad Men , here’s your guide to a retro night out in New York City, from kitschy New York bars to lounges specializing in Old Fashioneds and Mint Juleps: Mad Men Style" /> Mad Men Style" /> Mad Men Style" border="0" title="A New York City Night Out, Mad Men Style" /> Mad Men Style" /> Mad Men Style" /> Mad... Read Full Story