Anthony Myers

No need to buy the newest must-have gadget for your Valentine's Day in 2012, but you might need some tech gift ideas for her and him, so here are some suggestions.

A company called XDModo sells a super-handy solar charger that sticks right to a window for maximum power production for your USB-enabled mobile devices. It's full-size and mini-USB compatible and produces 5V/500mA of power to its 1300 mAh internal battery pack that fully charges in 13 hours.

Tech blog Engadget is giving away five free Nokia Lumia 710 smartphones for Valentine's Day 2012, and if you want the gift deal, here's what you need to do. Go to the Engadget Web site and leave a comment on the contest page. Winners will be chosen at random, and it doesn't matter what you post in the comments. The catch is, you have to be 18, and the phones only run on the T-Mobile network, service not included. So, you get a free phone and then pony up for the data plan and contract.

Sergio Jesus Rico, an engineer from Mexico's National Polytechnic Institute, has been nominated for a prestigious 2012 world water prize for his invention of solid rain. It hydrates crops by turning water into gel with potassium polyacrylate, a chemical that can then attach directly to plant roots and water them.

iPhone 5 could boast of a 3-D interactive screen complete with eye-tracking and ambient light sensitivity, according to a new patent Apple was awarded Feb. 13. The new virtual interface takes advantage of Kinect-like motion sensors and face recognition software to follow along with where your eyes are looking. It could even do things like expand icons when your eyes move across them.

AT&T has already begun throttling unlimited plan owners who use more than two gigabytes of data per month, but only if those people are in an area where data usage is heaviest on the AT&T network, The Associated Press reported Monday.

Apple sells millions of iPads, so it's no surprise the number of accessories for the amazing tablets is seemingly as large. GoPad is a new accessory for the person who attaches themselves to their iPad and wants to take it everywhere while using it the whole time, of course.

Acer has a slew of tablets with similar names, so if you're wondering what the difference is between the Iconia Tab A200 and the Iconia Tab A500, you've come to the right place. They're both 10-inch Android powered tablets, and they have many of the same features. The A200 is brand new, however, and it's at Best Buy and other retailers for $350 for a 16 gigabyte version.

Asus and Acer have 10-inch quad-core Android tablets coming out this year, and the Transformer Prime HD and Iconia Tab A510 should both be pretty successful devices. For the Prime HD, it's success will depend on if it can take on the iPad 3, a tall order no doubt. For the Iconia Tab A510, it will more likely come down to price.

AT&T will double the cost of activating a device on their network from $18 to $36, according to a report from tech blog Android Central. An anonymous tip was sent in via the Android Central app, and it's an image of what looks to be an AT&T company computer screen with the following message.

Hyper-realistic human rendering graphics are now possible thanks to an artist who's using a new breakthrough in animation technology called separable subsurface scattering. It's a new way to achieve more realistic looking animated people, one of the hardest things to do in animation.

Every time a new expensive smartphone debuts on AT&T, new deals pop for some devices that have been out for even just a few months. That includes Android and iPhone prices, and Samsung just debuted the Galaxy Note, a $300 5.3-inch display Android monster. New releases push prices down on older phones, even as AT&T plays up the new phones' superior features.

AT&T customers who are into Microsoft-powered smartphones have a new dilemma on their hands. Namely, figuring out what the difference between the HTC Titan II LTE and HTC Titan is. They do look very similar, and the fact they have the same name and screen size doesn't help much.

Researchers from Yale found a plastic eating fungus in a tropical rain forest in 2011, and the prospect of breaking down electronic landfill waste is now very real. In fact, several types of fungus are able to break down many types of toxic chemicals, but one particular kind can eat polymer polyester polyurethane or PUR.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates opened a new $15 million visitor center at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Seattle campus Feb. 4, and now that construction is finished, the software titan can focus on his foundation's goals. That means helping people all over the world gain access to medicine and immunizations, helping small farmers in Africa and, of course, improving access to technology.

The Czech National Bank launched an iOS app that will help people tell if their cash is counterfeit or not. It's marketed to tourists who may not know what real Czech cash and coins look like. Using the camera on an iPad, iPod or iPhone, the app can tell if the security elements are in the right place or even there at all.

Once Apple releases the iPhone 5, mobile carriers in the U.S. might actually see how much sense it makes to release consumers from their expensive and constricting wireless contracts. That's because Sprint, AT&T and Verizon collectively lost more nearly $10 billion on iPhone sales over the last three months of 2011. That's the time of year they sell the most phones because of the holiday shopping season. But, because the big three pay nearly $600 to Apple per iPhone, those holiday sales ju...

HTC has announced the Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade is ready for the Sensation 4G on T-Mobile along with three other devices by the end of March. That means over the air updates should start rolling out by then, so not every Sensation 4G owner will get the upgrade right away.

Now that the all new Apple iPad 3 has a set release date of early March, the question now is will it be ethically produced by Chinese factory workers at places like Foxconn. Reports of poor working conditions in Chinese factories that make the $500 or more iPad, have forced Apple to confront the possibility it may have to intervene or at least make an effort to investigate the charges.

Both the Acer Iconia Tab A100 and BlackBerry PlayBook tablets have been out for many months, and the prices are starting to come down, so here's how they compare. In fact, both are well under $300 now, with the 16 gigabyte PlayBook going for just $200 due to a recent price cut. Beyond the comparatively low prices, the tablets are quite different.

Motorola's Droid 4 and Droid 3 are obviously very similar, but the main difference is the Droid 4 is 4G LTE capable and shaped more like the Droid Razr with cut-off corners and slightly curved edges. Both feature 4-inch qHD displays, eight megapixel cameras and sliding physical keyboards.

Google now offers $100 for people who let them track their Web browsing with a black box called the Screenwise Data Collector. It's a deal through a company called Knowledge Networks, and the Screenwise data collection program is accepting emails right now for people who want to sign up when the program launches, tech blog Ars Technica reported.

All of T-Mobile's 4G smartphones are free during their Valentine's Day 2012 sale, and that includes the Samsung Galaxy S2 and HTC Amaze 4G. Of course, you have to sign up with a new two-year contract to get that price, and you also have to buy one of the Classic or Small Business plans. Additionally, several other phones are free during the Feb. 11, one day only sale. The entire line-up of 4G-enabled devices, including the Springboard tablet, and three other non-4G phones are free on Satur...

Russian scientists successfully bored two miles into Antarctic ice to reach an ancient lake called Vostok, Feb. 8, and it's the first time one of more than 300 such Antarctic lakes has been uncovered.

Airports in the U.S. will see faster flights with new GPS navigation thanks to a bill allowing the FAA to spend about $11 billion on air traffic system upgrades. GPS guided airplanes can take off and land faster because of more precise navigation, and the FAA will now have until 2015 to come up with new arrival procedures at the 35 busiest airports in the nation, the Associated Press reported. Airplanes can take advantage of satellite-based navigation to approach landings at a steeper angle, and...

President Obama attended the White House science fair Feb. 7 and even tried out some of the gadgets including a homemade marshmallow canon he then took to firing. Obama was demonstrably amused (who wouldn't be!) as he launched marshmallows with the Extreme Marshmallow Cannon built by Joey Hudy of Phoenix, Arizona. The fair was centered around over 100 student projects from around the country, and included robots and a portable disaster relief shelter.

Anonymous hackers tried to blackmail tech company Symantec for $50,000 in January, and when Symantec failed to pay up, source codes for Symantec's software were released online, Reuters reported. Symantec's pcAnywhere and Norton Anti-virus software source code was published in a 1.27 GB Pirate Bay dump Feb. 6 after e-mail negotiations with a hacker calling himself YamaTough broke down.

Google finally launched its homemade Chrome browser for mobile devices Feb. 7, and the second most popular Web browser is now available in the Android Market for smartphones and tablets running Android 4.0. That's because Google says this is a beta launch, and once all the bugs are worked out, Chrome for Android will be available for other Android versions. For now, that means it's ready for only the Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy S smartphones and Motorola Xoom and Asus Transformer Prime tablets...

With the New York Giants Super Bowl 2012 Victory complete, all that's left to do is throw a blowout party with about a million of your closest friends. That's why the city and county of New York are throwing a ticker tape parade today to celebrate the Giants' tremendous win over the New England Patriots, and you can watch it live with a free online stream.