TOP TECHNOLOGY NEWS

The biggest names usually take the headlines at CES, but finding an up-and-coming gadget maker with interesting new products is what makes the show worthwhile.

By unveiling their own version of the Pico projector thisweek, Nextar is trying to be one those companies that catch our attention. With most of the Picos not fully living up to the hype thus far, we’re hoping they’ve come up with something good.

 Nextar’s Z10 LCOS (liquid crystal on silicon) micro projector is pocketable like the other minis and has a resolution going up to 640 x 480 pixels.

HP recently announced a cool photo printing app for the iPhone, but if a recent report is correct, the company could be worrying over an international trade transgression over the next week instead of celebrating its innovations at CES.. 

According to the Boston Globe, the company is in trouble for selling their printers in Iran through a third party distributor. HP is accused of signing a deal with the Dubai-based Redington Gulf company in 1997 in light of U.S.

It seems as if all cameras come with a custom mode for taking spy-shots of unreleased products. The name of this hypothetical setting? Blurrycam.

This latest series of pics shows the forthcoming Android version of the Openmoko FreeRunner, the open-source hardware/software combo which debuted last year in its original Linux flavor. As Google’s Android OS is also open source, the fit is perfect. The Openmoku Googlephone will also be showing off the virtual onscreen keyboard of the Android OS, something as yet untested in a consumer device.

As you can see, the Nail Brush is cleverly fashioned from a nail and a brush, a rather lovely looking combo which is both useful and punny, allowing you to dig stubborn dirt from your nails with a nail.

But the makings of the $35 brush prove to be more intriguing than the item itself:

The nail brush is made in a former school for the blind. The company now employs blind people to produce these extraordinary and functional brush items.

Amazing. Were these people blind when they began work, or are the safety standards in the German factory so poor that everyone has managed to poke out both eyes in the course of their employ?

An iPhone Nano launching at January’s Macworld Expo? You don’t say.

It’s unlikely, but a few websites are drumming up rumors about the fabled gadget. An image purporting to be a leaked photo of the iPhone Nano suggests the device is just like the original iPhone, except shorter and less wide.

Boring. Apple designers are a lot more imaginative than that, aren’t they? But while we’re in the spirit of wishing, here’s a list of features Wired.com would like to see in an iPhone Nano, if one ever sees the light of day. 

Dual-Screen Clamshell Design
In order to deserve the name "Nano," this iPhone needs to be considerably smaller than its bigger brother. It should easily slip into a pocket, to the point where one could barely even notice it.

Just what might this be? The Ephone might look like some other phone you have seen before, but it is in fact the most audacious of iClones, and differentiates itself by leaving out all the good stuff (touch screen, 3G) and stuffing the "razor sharp" case full of junk. What’s inside?

The EPhone has TV.

I was tempted just to post the picture above, naked, alone and – more importantly – defenseless against your cruel and merciless ridicule. But of course, I couldn’t. The Soaripod is just too ripe — a sweet, soft target in these slow pre-Christmas weeks. Here we go:

First, the name. While Soaripod is clearly meant to conjure a feeling of jet-set luxury, the pronunciation is Sore iPod, a hilarious marketing screw-up. The crass copy doesn’t stop there, though, and we can clearly see the inclusion of a Grocers’ Apostrophe in the phrase "Clips to 100’s of Surfaces".

Twitter is clearly all the rage now. And with plants and cats tweeting, there’s no reason machines such as a toaster shouldn’t get into the game.

Over at Instructables, Hans Scharler  has a photo guide to his twittering toaster creation.

The toaster uses an off-the-shelf IO-204 monitor and control module that allows it to be plugged to the internet without having to run a home web server.

Scharler glued a switch to the toaster’s exterior that is triggered by the slider’s movement.

Two students at a Chinese university have invented a device that detects high blood alcohol levels by inserting a middle finger directly onto a fingerprint scanner.

This development bodes well for other hand gesture controls in future car innovations. We might have an upside-down touch screen where the car is started by ‘curling your index finger towards you in a summoning motion,’ or a by flashing a simple thumbs up at scanning robot.

Here’s a handy tip for holiday shopping: load up Wired.com’s Product Reviews app on your iPhone and use it to check out our take on various products while you’re cruising the gadget section of the local Mega-Lo Mart.

Wired’s iPhone app brings you the entire database of Wired product reviews, in a slick, easy-to-browse format that looks just great on the iPhone, if we say so ourselves.