travel

JumpStart Dual USB charger sports an integrated rechargeable battery

It’s a sad fact of life, really.


Hitachi stuffs 320GB into world’s fastest 7mm hard drive

Well look at that: it’s the world’s first 320GB hard disk drive to spin at 7,200 RPM in a 7-mm high package — take that Seagate . The 2.5-inch Serial ATA 3Gbps Travelstar Z7K320 features a 1,334Mbps max transfer rate assisted by a 16MB cache. The HDD draws 1.8 watts during read/write operations and 0.8 watts on lower-power idle while humming along at 23dB when idle or 24dB when seeking.


Microsoft Research toys with the cosmos… using forefinger and thumb (video)

We’ve always been suckers for Minority Report tech, and Microsoft Research’s latest attempt is not to be missed.


Inhabitat’s Week in Green: electric cars, solar planes, and really sweet lights

This week several ultra-efficient transportation stories got Inhabitat’s engines running as we watched a custom built Daihatsu Mira EV travel a record-breaking 623 miles on a single charge.


OpenWays makes your smartphone a hotel room key, provides a different kind of ‘unlock’

For years now, hotel chains have been toying with alternative ways to letting patrons check-in, access their room and run up their bill with all-too-convenient in-room services.


OpenWays makes your smartphone a hotel room key, provides a different kind of ‘unlock’

For years now, hotel chains have been toying with alternative ways to letting patrons check-in, access their room and run up their bill with all-too-convenient in-room services. Marriott began testing smartphone check-ins way back in 2006, and select boutique locations (like The Plaza Hotel in New York and Boston’s Nine Zero) have relied on RFID, iris scanners, biometric identifiers and all sorts of whiz-bang entry methods in order to make getting past a lock that much easier (or harder, depending on perspective). This month, InterContinental Hotels Group announced that they would soon be trialing OpenWays at Chicago’s Holiday Inn Express Houston Downtown Convention Center, enabling iPhone owners to fire up an app and watch their room door open in a magical sort of way