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The FunBox is a bedside alarm clock but it's also a widget-running Chumby , which means it'll let you check your twitter feeds, load up a track on Pandora or do other inappropriately stimulating activities right before catching some Zs. The device has just passed through the FCC and its paperwork reveals a 3.5-inch (possibly resistive) touch screen, a 454MHz processor, 1GB DDR memory, SD card slot and a USB port for an external drive. We couldn't tell you price or availability at this stage, but with top smartphones increasingly coming with night dock accessories the FunBox is hardly likely to find a guaranteed perch beside our pillow. Still awake? There's a Chumby FunBox app for that originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink Wireless Goodness | FCC | Email this | Comments

Private aerospace company SpaceX plans to develop reusable spacecraft that gently land on Earth or other planets using retrorockets, according to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. The idea is for both the space capsule and its rocket booster to be capable of propulsive landing, where after their reentry into the atmosphere using heat shields, the spacecraft would be lowered gently to a planets surface using rocket thrusters. For Musks 100% reusable spacecraft idea to become reality, theres much rigorous testing to be done. So far, SpaceX has done design work to figure out if its possible. According to Discovery , Musk said the following at the National Press Club in New York Thursday: Now, we could fail Im not saying we are certain of success here but we are going to try to do it. And we have a design that on paper doing the calculations, doing the simulations it does work. Is this really practical? It seems like such propulsive landings on Earth would require inordinate amounts of fuel comp...

We might not have chosen the above weird baby chick to pitch our autostereoscopic technology to the world, but at least it makes for some memorable imagery. The hatchling is a 3D image generated by projectors, overlayed on top of a real world object, which can be viewed by multiple people at multiple angles without the need for 3D glasses. Built-in sensors detect the viewer's positions and adjust the viewing angle accordingly. Of course, this isn't the first time we've seen this sort of technology -- heck, this isn't even the first time we've seen this sort of thing from Hitachi , but the company says it's continually getting better, with a marked depth resolution improvement over a technology shown off this time last year at CEATEC . The company is looking to implement the technology for both digital signage and entertainment purposes, eventually revolutionizing the way the world looks at 3D baby chickens. Hitachi glasses-free 3D technology lets you view weird...

Sony Ericsson announced on Friday that its Xperia ray Android smartphone is now available unlocked in the United States for $429.99. It is equipped with Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread), an 8.1-megapixel camera, a VGA front-facing camera for video chats, a 3.3-inch Reality Display with an 854 x 480-pixel resolution, 512MB of RAM, a 4GB microSD card, an aluminum frame and a 1GHz processor. The Xperia ray can be purchased from Neweggs website as well as through other online retailers. It is available in gold, black, white and pink. Sony Ericssons press announcement follows below. SONY ERICSSON UNVEILS THE XPERIA ray TO THE U.S. The Sony Ericsson Xperia ray is now available unlocked in the U.S. for $424.99. Sonys award-winning mobile imaging technology and front-facing 8.1 Megapixel camera set a new standard for low light pictures and video. Think birthday dinners at your favorite dim Italian restaurant or capturing your favorite undiscovered band at a local dive. With Sonys Reality Display an...

A new research report from Chitika Insights suggests Chrome, Firefox and Safari are eating away at Microsofts dominant share of the web browser market. Internet Explorers overall share dropped from 56% in July to 54% in August while Firefoxs market share increased from 19% to 20% and Safaris share grew one point to 9%. Between July 2010 and July 2011, however, Microsofts browser share remained steady at 56%. Googles Chrome web browser saw its share increase from 9% to 16% year-over-year at the expense of Firefox and Safari, which lost 5% and 1% of the market, respectively. Chitika said it expects Firefoxs share to increase as Mozilla continues to release frequent updates to its web browser . In addition, Internet Explorers share will stabilize from its recent losses when Microsoft releases Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 10. Read

What do users of the latest Windows 8 beta think of the nascent operating system upgrade? A good way to find out is through Twitter by investigating patterns in thousands of comments and opinions. Thats exactly what social media listening firm Mashwork did, resulting in this chart of data, taking the early pulse of opinions about Windows 8 from Twitter users between June 15 and Sept. 22 of this year. The most surprising result in this survey of 65,968 tweets is that the most highly anticipated feature of Windows 8 is its unusually short boot time. Microsoft says Windows 8 cuts the boot time of Windows 7 nearly in half. (Check out the video on this page , where a Microsoft techie shows a laptop booting Windows 8 in about 6 seconds.) As the chart says, this early buzz consists of the opinions of early adopters and developers. But will the general public be as impressed with those quick boot times? We asked Mashworks founder Jared Feldman what he thinks. In an era when getting your i...

Apple has today seeded the latest version of Lion, version 10.7.2 build 11C17 to developers, which has iCloud goodness all packed in, reports Macrumors . This version adds some updates to Lion Recovery and Find My Mac, but otherwise seems to be a maintenance update. Developers can visit the Apple Developer Center to download this latest version of Lion. Earlier today, Apple updated iTunes to 10.5 beta 9, which is being used to test iTunes Match, the cloud component of iTunes that will allow users to upload and match their songs in the cloud. There have also been some reports of emails being sent out to iCloud members earlier than intended as well. The emails, as reported by AppleInsider , are intended to welcome new users to the iCloud service. The letter gives a quick description of how iCloud works and the fact that there is no reason to sync your devices with your computer once you are using iCloud. iCloud for Lion will integrate with the various features of iCloud.com including F...

PS3 owners have been sportin' their own official gaming headset for a few weeks, and now -- after months of teasing -- Mad Catz is finally granting Xbox 360 owners a similar privilege. The company's announced that its Tritton / Microsoft co-branded Detonator Stereo USB gaming headset is available and shipping, priced at $80. Positioned as the first of a trio of its upcoming headsets -- including its wireless brethren, the stereo Devastator and Dolby 7.1 Warhead -- the Detonator keeps it to the FPS-pwning essentials. The cans are loaded with massive 50mm drivers and along its cord you'll find an inline remote for adjusting game / chat volume, voice monitoring and mic muting. Impressively, aside from its detachable boom mic, the inline controller is also removeable, allowing you plug straight into your PMP when you're done trash talkin' on Xbox Live. We're still anxiously waiting for the Warhead (scheduled to ship this holiday season), but if wired stereo is y...

We're all well aware that a new iPhone will see daylight next week . What's still a bit unclear is whether or not Apple plans on discontinuing the ol' faithful iPod classic . However, we may be getting a clue as to what fate the PMP may soon meet. The folks over at AppleInsider discovered that the link to iPod Click Wheel Games no longer appears on the App Store drop-down menu in iTunes. Since 2006, the folks in in Cupertino have been offering added entertainment for the popular mobile jukebox for $7.49 each, but only about 50 titles were available for purchase -- it's kind of hard to develop software when a third-party kit wasn't publicly released. So if you're planning on hanging onto your iPod classic for a little while, we hope you're content to keep playing Vortex, Klondike or whatever else you've already downloaded. Apple axes iPod click wheel games in iTunes, is the 'classic' model next? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Sep 2...