TOP TECHNOLOGY NEWS

Lootiful’s retro-tastic iPad case will make your iPad 2 look just like a first-gen Nintendo Game Boy. The polycarbonate snap-on back plate turns your sleek, modern tablet into the taste-wasteland of beige, gray purple and yellow that was all the rage back in 1989.

While the case isn’t yet ready for sale, Lootiful already sells a smaller version for the iPhone 4 for a reasonable $18.

A software update is supposed to deliver the latest and greatest features to your device. It’s not supposed to cripple your device. And yet that’s exactly what happened to a number of customers who received the most recent update to their Droid X phones.

In early June, Verizon began rolling out Android operating system version 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) to the Droid X, which previously ran Android 2.2 (Froyo).

What does one do with one’s tired old HDD-based iPod now that it has been replaced with an iPhone, iPod Touch or teeny, tiny iPod Nano? If you haven’t succumbed to peer pressure, and you still like to keep the tar level in your lungs topped up, you could make a cigarette case.

That’s what Marianne Wilson did with her old broken white iPod. Despite being a non-smoker, Marianne saw that the iPod’s empty shell was the perfect size for a handful of snouts, so she hollowed it out and installed some smokes in place of the electronic guts.

A quick peek under the hood of Apple’s new MacBook Air reveals the company’s diligent efforts to squeeze in its brand-new Thunderbolt technology.

Gadget repair site iFixit dissected the new laptop to look at its chip board, which includes an Intel Core i5 processor and an integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics chip. The chip layout opens space for an Intel platform controller hub with Thunderbolt technology.

“Shifting to integrated graphics on the processor freed up a lot of room on the board — enough for Apple to add the sizeable Thunderbolt-capable Platform Controller Hub,” iFixit explained in a press release.

As society adopts mobile devices further and our ADD increases, “read it later” has practically become a part of our modern lexicon. Instapaper made it famous, but there’s another app in town that wants in on the territory.

Catch Clipper lets readers digest information on their own time. It’s a button that administrators can embed on their websites, so that those using the Catch Notes app can copy an article’s text and, you guessed it, read it later.

Sony is betting you’ll buy one of its upcoming tablets for one big reason: They look like nothing you’ve seen before.

Codenamed the “S1″ and “S2″ for now, Sony’s two unreleased Android tablets depart from the usual square, flat slabs we’ve seen so far in 2011. Instead, the S2 design comes as a dual-screen, clamshell device, while the S1 is similar to many current tablets with one significant deviation — its funky, wedge-shaped form factor, which tapers from one end to the other.

Despite Hollywood’s continued onslaught of 3-D films hitting the big screen, not many people are buying 3-D TVs.

Whose fault is that? Panasonic’s marketing director Andrew Denham blames Hollywood for making such bad 3-D movies.

“Hollywood damaged 3-D by rushing so many badly converted films out in Avatar’s wake,” Denham said at the recent Intellect Consumer Electronics 2011 show. “What we need now is the next level, the next Avatar.

Cold-brewing is yet another way to make a great cup of coffee. The idea is that the long, slow process, without heating, gives coffee with less bitterness and acidity than conventional hot-water methods. Of course, you probably won’t want to drink it to warm you up on a miserable winter morning, but for making iced-coffee, it’s ideal.

The easiest (and classic New Orleans way) is to just mix up a pack of grounds with cold water and leave it at room temperature for 12 hours.

Konstantin Slawinski’s little silicone widget could soon become one of the most useful gadgets in your kitchen (or in the back yard, if you have a grill). It’s a rubber hinge with two holes into which you slot any utensils you might have to hand, instantly turning them into a pair of one-handed tongs.

A fork and spoon can become salad servers, a pair of table knives can be used to flip burgers or any other frying food, and two chopsticks can be handily joined for those who lack either dexterity or the willingness to learn anything new.

Summer is officially here, in the Northern Hemisphere at least, and with it comes puncture season. Here in Barcelona, Spain, the lack of rain from May onwards means the streets build up a tire-killing collection of sharp detritus, from the remains of broken beer bottles to shards of smashed car headlamps.

Taking a trip of more than a few kilometers without a spare tube, pump and tools is foolish.