TOP TECHNOLOGY NEWS

It might not fool the dedicated (or even slightly attentive) thief, but for keeping your new 11-inch MacBook Air safe as you dash from the coffee-shop table to grab another little sachet of sugar, it might just do the job.

“It” is a plastic skin for Apple’s new ultra-portable laptop, which turns the computer into a passable facsimile of a paper notebook.

Fujifilm has released some new details of its forthcoming X100, the retro-styled rangefinder with the big sensor and innovative viewfinder design.

First, a recap, if you don’t remember me raving about this thing back in September. The X100 is styled after classic 35mm rangefinders, has buttons and dials for everything (including a proper aperture-ring around the lens), a 12.3MP APS-C sensor, and a 23mm (35mm equivalent) ƒ2 lens (not removable).

Here’s something you shouldn’t buy for your kids: Bicygnals. They’re lights and turn-signals for a bike, and they’ll probably be all but useless.

The Bicygnals consist of a pair of lights, one for the front and one for that back of the bike. Thumb switches on the front lamp-array control the turn signals, and a 2.4GHz wireless signal is sent to the rear lights to trigger those.

Christian Kim’s DreiX shelf brings a little bit of the fairground to your living room, in the form of three spinning, rotating cubbyholes. His concept features three boxes. The central box is fixed to the wall and the other two are joined on by a pair of metal beams, which allow them to move around the central section whilst remaining upright.

Like the joyfully “heavy” people on TV talk-shows that proclaim they’re proud and “full of life”, you too can celebrate the slab-like heft of your old, fat MacBook Pro with the Blackbox case, a solid oak sleeve that laughs at the supermodel-skinny MacBook Air. The cases, made in Golden, Colorado, are hand crafted and, like the MacBook itself, hewn from chunks of the raw material.

Despite its chunkiness, the wooden case is actually pretty light, weighing in at just 1.5-pounds (which the product page says is the same as a bottle of beer – appropriate for something made in the same town as Coors).

Engineers at the University of Cincinnati have shown that under the right conditions, ordinary paper can be as dynamic as any screen.

“Nothing looks better than paper for reading,” says research leader Andrew Steckl. “We hope to have something that would actually look like paper but behave like a computer monitor in terms of its ability to store information. We would have something that is very cheap, very fast, full-color and at the end of the day or the end of the week, you could pitch it into the trash.”

Steckl’s e-paper uses electrowetting — moving colored pigments from pixel to pixel with electronic charges — on a paper substrate.

The XShot is yet another iPhone tripod-mount, but it is also one you might actually take with you. A hard shell case covers the sides and back of the phone, and can be left in place if you’re the case-toting type. In fact, apart from a chubby little growth on the lower left side, there’s not much to distinguish the XShot from any other case.

But there’s a trick! The tripod screw is contained in a separate widget, and this clips into either the bottom or the side of the case when needed, hence that unsightly hump.

Swedish manufacturer People of Lava has finally gotten its Android TV, the Scandinavia, into stores. First seen here on Gadget Lab back in April of this year, the computer/TV hybrid is now ready for pre-order in Sweden, with a future US launch planned pending the raising of enough money to do it.

The TVs look gorgeous, made from stone as well as the usual metal and glass, and will come in 42, 47 and 55-inch sizes, all running the rather ancient Android 1.5.

Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, a 7-inch tablet powered by the Android operating system, has made its rounds with gadget reviewers, and consensus says it’s a solid but pricey device.

Reviewers at tech blogs and mainstream publications, including Wired.com, found that the Galaxy Tab offered a pleasing user experience despite some flaws. Many complained that the Galaxy Tab, priced at $600, is too expensive when pitted against Apple’s larger $500 iPad.

You should be able to crack open that smartphone, swap out a faulty chip, and put it back together.

You should be able to, but — even if you want to — you probably can’t, thanks to the way most consumer electronics are manufactured.

Unlike the cars and appliances of a previous generation, gadgets are not made to be repaired by their owners. They’re mostly designed to be used, abused and then disposed of.