TOP TECHNOLOGY NEWS

Look out Angry Birds, there may soon be another suite of addictive smartphone games battling for gamers’ attention. Global electronics giant Sony is said to be planning its own game-playing smartphone release, to be debuted at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona come February.

It’s only been about two months since Sony CFO Masaru Kato hinted at the company’s continued push into mobile gaming, but according to Bloomberg mobile development sources, that push will bring the gaming phone as well as an updated version of the company’s previous mobile gaming product, the PSP (Playstation Portable).

Your office chair isn’t doing you any favors. It might feel comforting to sink into its leathery depths, or to suspend yourself on a futuristic, breathable netting, but your back knows otherwise, and all that lounging will eventually trouble your spine. Standing desks are great, if you like varicose veins, so what can you do?

Try the Wigli, a Dutch stool which, well, wiggles. It has a three-legged milking-stool design, and the round seat wobbles. This offers support for your office-bloated body, but you have to steady yourself with those rarely-used muscles in your lower back and abdomen, which strengthens your core and stops you getting back pain.

The Verizon iPhone 4 might look exactly the same as the AT&T iPhone, but it isn’t: small hardware changes mean that even Apple’s own Bumper cases won’t fit.

To accommodate the CDMA radio required by Verizon’s network, the iPhone’s external antenna has been redesigned. This, in turn, has required the mute switch to be moved a few millimeters down the side of the iPhone, towards the volume buttons.

Stephen McGloughlin took a look at current CNC machines and saw complex and hard-to-make devices that costs thousands of dollars to buy. So he decided to make his own.

CNC machines are computer-controlled mills that allow you to accurately cut parts and components to make pretty much anything, from simple models to complex engines. McGloughlin opted for a machine which uses a Dremel for cutting, controlled by stepper motors.

LAS VEGAS — Quirky’s Perch is an all-in-one speaker and charger for your phone. It comes in two parts: the dock, which stays put on your nightstand, side-table or desk, and the Bluetooth speaker, which charges on the dock but can be taken with you in a bag, a big pocket or just to the bathroom so you don’t miss any of your audiobook.

LAS VEGAS — Apple accessory maker Griffin has announced a nifty new dongle which connects your iPhone wirelessly to your car’s brain. The CarTrip is an OBD-II hardware interface connects to the iPhone via Bluetooth.

OBD-II (On-Board Diagnostic System) is a standard interface for hooking up diagnostic computers to cars.

As the new year was rung in, iPhone alarms remained curiously silent.

Apple has confirmed an iOS bug that left the iPhone without functioning alarms on the first of January. Multiple tests on the iPhone alarm showed that it failed to go off when the digital calendar rolled over from Dec. 31, 2010 to Jan 1, 2011.

Apple spokesperson Natalie Harrison told Macworld that the the bug had been officially recognized, and would fix itself on Jan.

Boxwave’s keyboard case for the iPhone 4 looks to be just about perfect for the person who loves their iPhone, but still pines for the hard keys of their BlackBerry. They’ll also need big pockets – not because the case is particularly expensive, but because it adds quite a bit of thickness to the already chunky iPhone.

Michael Calore, Annaliza Savage, Ken Denmead, Jim Merithew and Chuck Squatriglia contributed to this story.

This gorgeous old-style radio is actually a DIY kit, made from cardboard. The faux-wood case hides a hybrid of the modern and the ancient. The radio stage uses vacuum tubes to receive and produce the sound, whereupon it is sent to an IC, or Integrated Circuit.

The Franzis Tube Radio kit comes with all the parts, knobs and dials you’ll need to build it (although the PDF instructions are only in Dutch or German), and the product page says that this is a world tuner, suitable for cruising the long-bouncing airwaves at night, ham-radio-style.