Gadgets

You can take kids with you on vacation, but I imagine it must be pretty exhausting to drag the young’uns around the streets of Amsterdam or Paris all day long. So why not give junior their own map, so they can follow along with your touristic meanderings?

The Crumpled City Junior is just that — a kid-proof map. Based on the adults-only Crumpled City maps, which put city plans onto soft fabric instead of delicate paper, the Junior series also makes the maps kid-friendly.

Jason Freeny’s incredible sculptures are extremely creepy. This one, named the “Lego Man Anatomical Sculpt,” looks like Gunther von Hagens got loose inside a toybox.

The Anatomical Sculpt is a real oversized Lego flashlight toy, cut open and stuffed with organs sculpted from Milliput modeling clay and Apoxie Sculpt clay (an epoxy clay with a longer working time than Milliput). The various organs and bones were constructed on wire armatures and then painted.

The smartphone OS space looks a whole lot different than it did a year ago. Android has seriously stepped up to become the top dog, Symbian is a force no more, and iOS … well, not everything changes.

Gartner’s November mobile device report gives us the numbers. Android OS leads the pack with a 52.5 percent global market share, just about double the 25 percent it had last summer.

The iOS market share dropped slightly, from 16.6 to 15 percent.

Updated 11:42 am Pacific Time: AllThingsD has reported that Apple is still working on the battery life problem: “The recent iOS software update addressed many of the battery issues that some customers experienced on their iOS 5 devices. We continue to investigate a few remaining issues.”

With new reports continuously streaming in by the hour, it now seems the iOS 5.0.1 update — which was just released to address severe battery-drainage problems on devices running iOS 5 — hasn’t been a magical, instantaneous fix for everyone.

UPDATE 8:39 A.M. PST: Adobe confirmed it will cease Flash development on mobile devices.

In an abrupt about-face in its mobile software strategy, Adobe will soon cease developing its Flash Player plug-in for mobile browsers. Adobe said it would abandon mobile flash development, nudge developers to the Adobe Air platform and wholeheartedly back what had been a rival approach — HTML5.

“HTML5 is now universally supported on major mobile devices, in some cases exclusively,” Adobe VP Danny Winokur said in a clear reference to Apple’s rejection of Flash support on its dominant iOS devices: the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

It would be great if Apple’s Photo Stream — which pushes any new pictures you take to all of your devices, immediately — also worked for videos. But as video files are so big, this is unlikely to happen soon.

But fear not, handsome reader, for the answer is at hand. Video Stream for iCloud does exactly what its name promises, and syncs movies between devices via the iCloud service.

Attention prospective tablet buyers: Are you worried a new touchscreen device won’t sate your gaming lust with Angry Birds alone? Videogame retailer GameStop launched a customized tablet package on Wednesday, bundling an Android tablet (you can choose among three) with a physical gaming controller (well, sort of) and a selection of pre-installed games.

It’s not a terrible deal. The three available tablets — Acer’s 7-inch Iconia Tab, Asus’ 10-inch EeePad Transformer and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 — all come with a host of games, yet don’t cost any more than their normal prices.

Adobe has released Carousel, a suite of multi-platform apps that let you share and edit your photographs on any device you on, seamlessly. If it sounds familiar, that’s because its a lot like a pro version of Apple Photo Stream.

Carousel runs on iOS devices, as well as the Mac, with Android and Windows versions on the way.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Say what you will about Nokia’s smartphone lineup, there’s no arguing the company can coordinate an international press launch. Just mere hours ago, Nokia president Stephen Elop announced his company’s comeback products, the Lumia 710 and 800 smartphones, in London. And now here I sit in Nokia’s Northern California headquarters, enjoying some hands-on time with the new handsets to deliver my quick-and-dirty first impressions.

Tilt is a mishmash of notebook accessories, shoved surprisingly neatly into a sleek plastic box. This box then clips onto your MacBook Pro, and provides more functions than you’re likely to need.

The first is the most obvious. Tilt will tilt you computer slightly forward. Some say this makes for easier typing, some says that the increased angle causes more stress on the wrists.