Gadgets Blog » gadget of the week

iPod Nano Watch Breaks Kickstart.com Funding Record

brock — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 18:07:18 +0000

It’s tough to be an entrepreneur these days with costs being so high in the global marketplace. From this problem, sites such as Kickstarter.com were developed that allowed people to donate to projects they felt worthy of funding.

You may only get $10 or $20 per person, but thousands of people donate, and people have received thousands of dollars for their projects, from inventions to movies. Recently, someone’s idea to create an iPod Nano watch earned $600,000 in 20 hours, which shattered records for Kickstarter.com.

The idea came from a former Nike creative director who had experience in developing watches for the mega shoe corporation. He got the idea when Steve Jobs commented that the new Nano was so small that it can easily be worn, so the iPod Nano watch was born.

The watch doesn’t actually come equipped with a Nano; instead, it’s a wristband that people can attach their Nano to when they go out. He developed two types. One allows people to take the Nano in and out at their leisure, and the second becomes a permanent dock for the Nano.

The project had more than 9,000 people that donated at least $25. The developer plans on processing the orders and then using the money to create a broader marketing and communications campaign. It can’t hurt that news outlets are picking up on this story for its record-breaking feat. It definitely gives the project even more free publicity.

Kickstarter.com has thousands of projects that people can fund depending on their particular interests. For many entrepreneurs, the Web site acts as a gauge of public interest in a product. If people are donating and commenting on your project, then it’s a good bet that it will meet with some success in the marketplace.

If not, well, better luck next time. People are always looking for new ways to do everyday tasks, so while one project may fail miserably, another can be a big success. While I have never donated to a project on the Web site, I do feel that sites like this are important. In a world where your credit score counts more than your ideas, alternative funding is important to consider.

Image Source: flickr.com/photos/pmtorrone/4973898937

Samsung NX100: Solid Features for a Solid Price

Dan Evans — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 18:40:39 +0000

This fall, my parents surprised me with an exceptional gift just before my return to college. While I had owned a digital camera before, the unit they gave to me now was above and beyond anything I had previously expected out of a camera. Modern point-and-shoot digital cameras are stunning with their wide array of features and incredible photo quality. For an aspiring photographer, they make an excellent entry point into a lifelong hobby. But if you’re interested in acquiring a tool with a little more power behind it, where should you turn?

One possible answer is today’s gadget, the Samsung NX100 digital camera. The device is what Samsung has dubbed a “compact system camera.” Essentially, this line of cameras represents a middle-ground market for photography, great for users who want something more than a point-and-shoot but who aren’t ready to shell out upwards of $1,000 for a high-end device. With 14 megapixels and a keen autofocus feature, the NX100 has all the makings of a great intermediate camera.

It gets better, though. The NX100 has two distinct modes of operation when first taken out of the box. It can function as a pocketable point-and-shoot camera, or it can be attached to the added 20–50 mm camera lens to the front for more powerful use. Samsung has packaged this additional lens with the camera, and the ability to expand to other lenses is another attractive option.

To top it all off, Samsung has found a way to price the NX100 far below what its rival companies are retailing. Listed at $499, this is easily one of the greatest steals on the electronics market, in any capacity. With incredible functionality, easy-to-use features and the potential for growth, this is a great device. If you’re looking for a great Christmas gift for a loved one, be sure to include this on your research list!

Image Source: flickr.com/photos/jonathansin/5162038788

Samsung SSD Hard Drive Reaches for New Heights

Dan Evans — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:53:05 +0000

It’s remarkable to think about how much computers have changed, even in my own short lifetime. Growing up with the family desktops, I recall upgrading from 8 to 16MB of RAM on an old IBM machine.

There were the programs run in MS-DOS, there were the bulky tube-based monitors and trips to the Apple 2-E computer labs at my grade school to play Oregon Trail.

All of these memories were of machines that boasted less power than is in my current telephone. It’s the remarkable thing about technology, the rate at which it progresses. Size and power leap upwards in exponential jumps.

While you can certainly find an external hard drive larger in size than Samsung’s new SSD Solid State, you’re not likely to find one boasting the same kind of specifications.

Capable of holding a staggering 512 GB of information, Samsung has introduced a new technology into the mix that makes data transfer and retrieval faster than one can easily fathom. It has a read speed of 250 mb/second and a write speed of 220 MB/second. To put that into perspective, you’d be able to rip two full DVD movies (about 8GB of media) to the drive in less than a minute.

This remarkable feat is accomplished through what Samsung calls a synchronous interface. This technology (which replaces the obviously-named asynchronous interface found on most SSD drives) enables the drive to access more of its memory at any given time.

While this new interface takes up more power from the computer (which can be a drag on a laptop), the drive also has the option to go into power-saving mode, which reduces the drive’s efficiency but also provides a feature that has been missing from external hard drives for some time now. This unique combination of power-saving and high-speed technology has been a long time coming.

With this sheer volume of information capable of being moved from one locale to the other, Samsung rightfully believes there is a revolution in hard drive technology on the horizon. While it’s hard to say for now just how much this type of technology will be adopted by their competitors, it’s certainly a step in the right direction for hardware design. An aggressive push in development is afoot in the realm of personal computers.

Image Source: flickr.com/photos/goo/526471185

Anatoly Unitsky Brings Us the Mass Transit of the Future

Dan Evans — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 17:03:49 +0000

Early last week, I took a deviation from my normal summer work routine for something exciting: classes in Microsoft Access taught by an expert training firm in Downtown Los Angeles. Typically, my commute to work is fairly simple. I live close to my job, so it’s easy to bicycle there in the morning. But for the long commute into Downtown Los Angeles, I was instead faced with what must be one of the most nightmarish commutes in the country. A drive that typically takes twenty five minutes was extended to nearly an hour and a half, forcing me to leave for the classes a staggering two hours before they began.

The obvious solution is that of mass transportation. While Los Angeles does boast the Metrolink, a train service from the Inland Empire that connects with the subway system, Anatoly Unitsky sees an entirely different version of rail transit. While trains are relatively inexpensive to operate, the sunk costs of constructing a rail network are incredibly high, as much as $350 million per mile of track. Unitsky’s solution is called String Rail, and it looks like some sort of bizarre combination between a chairlift and a monorail.

The technology is innovative to say the least. The track consists of two steel rails, suspended in the air by taught cables between a series of support poles. The original article over at Gizmag explains the technology as thus:

The UST uses steel or concrete rails, reinforced by hundreds of high-tension wires running through the middle of the rail, suspended above the ground on towers approximately 30 m apart. Unlike roads or rail systems, it can traverse mountains and other rough terrain in a straight line, and it’s equally adept at crossing shallow waters, desert or forest, with minimal environmental impact at the ground level.

Optimal height for a UTS support tower would be around 5-6 m above ground – or 10-20 m where the underlying terrain is very rough. If money is no object, there’s no reason why support towers couldn’t be increased to as much as 100 m high or more.

The efficiency of this technology is quite a marvel. With the ability to stand above other developments that already exist, the String Rail system could be built without interfering with existing infrastructure. It’s also able to traverse a variety of terrain with ease. While some of the numbers cited in the article are suspect (especially given no working unit has been constructed yet), this is certainly a potential opportunity to reinvent mass transportation as we know it.

Image Source: flickr.com/photos/danielepesaresi/2934218773

The Amazon Kindle: Upgrades & Improvements

Dan Evans — Mon, 10 May 2010 17:10:40 +0000

I’d like to first of all wish everyone a happy Mother’s Day for yesterday. Prior to the holiday itself, I’d been writing several gift guides for some nifty gadgets that could be great for the special occasion. And although it’s a day late, today’s Gadget of the Week would have made an excellent addition to the listed ideas. The Amazon Kindle, however, is a great gift not just for Mom, but for anyone, including yourself! While the much-hyped iPad stands to potentially intrude on Amazon’s share of the e-reader market, a recent update to the main Kindle software looks to jump-start hopes of an improved Kindle in the next year.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Kindle and the idea of electronic readers in the first place, here’s a crash course. Released by Internet distributor Amazon, the Kindle is tuned into the website for distribution of a wide variety of books. These files, which range in price but are generally less expensive than their physical counterparts, are then downloaded to the internal hard drive. The second generation of the Kindle then added some great new features, including 3G wireless Internet access as well as a fantastic Wikipedia integration, giving any Kindle user access to the online encyclopedia.

While the Kindle isn’t as flashy as the iPad, Amazon recently introduced a new software update, Kindle 2.5, which introduces a number of small improvements that the Kindle has been needing for some time now. Chief among them is the new password-protection for the device, preventing unauthorized users from breaking into your e-book stash or using the device should you lose it. Other updates are somewhat minor, but do open some additional possibilities for the Kindle: social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook are integrated so that you can post updates to your profiles with the press of a button. If you’re looking to share a particular passage with your network, this is straightforward and easy.

While the future of the Kindle itself may be in a bit of jeopardy due to the emergence of the tablet market, Amazon is attempting to keep one of their flagship products at the forefront of the market. Just as the iPod revolutionized the way people listen to music, the Kindle has largely in part changed the way many people read books. It’s likely that, with their next rendition of this ground-breaking gadget, Apple will really swing for the fences and release a quality product with even more widespread appeal than it already has.

Gadget of the Week: Sonin 10300 Multi-Measure Combo

Dan Evans — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:32:59 +0000

Over the last several weeks, we’ve gradually been exploring the realm of gadgets outside of the typical norm. Whether these gadgets have been located in the kitchen or office, the beauty of such tools is in their ease of use and how simply they make mundane tasks a breeze. Such is the case with today’s gadget, which doesn’t have much use outside of hardcore construction. However, the Sonin 10300 Multi-Measure has a variety of applications providing easy and intuitive features intended to help you take your tape measure into the 21st century.

The Multi-Measure pro has several different uses that make it versatile during a construction process. First and foremost, with its two unit design, the Multi-Measure pro takes the place of an ordinary tape measure to give quick distance read-outs up to 250 feet. These electronic measurements are given by moving the two units a ways away from each other and can be programmed to display in feet, inches, or a fraction of the two, as well as decimal feet, yards and meters. This easy-to-use process can eliminate the need for a second person during measurement, and its electronic length will put ordinary measurement devices to shame.

Built out of sturdy yellow plastic, the Sonin 10300 Multi-Measure Pro is designed to last, with a protective casing and hardy buttons designed to take the amount of punishment that is typical on a hefty construction job. The interface itself functions much like a digital watch, with one button used to switch modes of measurement while another button is dedicated to initiating the measuring process. Tracking and validating functions are combined with a working memory to beef up the features on this unit, although you’ll likely spend most of your time in its default mode, as opposed to the other modes like surface area and volume measuring.

If you’re a fan of tools, as any gadget aficionado should be, the Sonin 10300 is an excellent addition that provides both technological innovations as well as practical application to solve what has been a long-standing issue in construction. Without the need for a second person during simple tasks, your flexibility will vastly improve. Soon, one will be able to move furniture in a single bound, find the appropriate picture for a wall, and other fantastic feats by oneself. While the Sonin 10300 Multi-Measure won’t transform your everyday life in the normal sense, it will make such efforts far easier and will pay off when you need it most.

Gadget of the Week: Novation Launchpad

Dan Evans — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 17:10:30 +0000

It’s no secret that there’s a special spot in my heart saved for awesome musical gadgets. Around two weeks ago I wrote article for smarter outlining everything that you need to make dance music. Recently, however, my entire musical world was literally turned on its head when a friend introduced me to today’s Gadget of the Week: the Novation Launchpad. With an aesthetic design rivaling that of Apple’s line of sleek gadgets, today’s item packs bright multi colored lights into a multi-function surface compatible with Ableton Live, the premier computer software for live DJ-ing.

While the Novation Launchpad, on its surface, appears to be nothing more than another MIDI controller, it’s the dynamic relationship between the software and hardware that makes this gadget such an asset for musicians. The Launchpad was developed in cooperation between Novation and Ableton, meaning that the device itself has functionality tied to specific aspects of the program. While the bulk of the unit is an 8×8 grid of buttons, lighting up in different neon colors to designate their function at that given moment, additional buttons along the top of the device allow the user to easily switch between modes on the fly. With just a few simple button presses, you can edit volume, panning, program new notes, and edit parameters on audio sends.

The unit itself is compact and operates via a USB port on either a Mac or PC computer. While it can be a great tool for using Ableton in a studio setting, the proper time and place is during a live performance. With just a laptop and the Launchpad, it’s straightforward to jump from place to place in the performance, triggering drum and synth loops with just the press of a button. This is great for more complex pieces, as performing some of the same functions with a mouse simply isn’t feasible in Ableton.

If you’re interested in electronic music, the Launchpad is a must-have. At only $199, the features stemming from this product will open up new avenues in your musical repertoire. If you don’t already have a copy of Ableton, it can be purchased in a convenient bundle with additional features tailored directly towards the Launchpad. With it’s good looks and better specs, the Launchpad is a professional-grade tool available for even a starving college student like myself. And if you’re still not impressed, check out the Launchpad in action!

Gadget of the Week: Splinter Cell Conviction

Dan Evans — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:05:58 +0000

Gamers and Tom Clancy fans everywhere can finally rejoice: Sam Fisher is back in a blaze of silent and lethal glory.

This Tuesday marks the release of Splinter Cell Conviction, the latest entry into one of the most innovative video game franchises in recent memory. Ever since the release of the original Splinter Cell on the XBox, the folks at UbiSoft have utilized the Tom Clancy brandname to create some fo the most gripping and intense gameplay on the market. While games like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto specialize in the realm of over-the-top violence, the thrills to be found in the Splinter Cell series are of an entirely different breed. The name of the game is stealth, as you step into the shoes of a highly trained NSA agent capable of all sorts of daring infiltration and covert operations.

The latest entry in the series, due out this Tuesday, expands upon that formula with innovations that are technically and thematically impressive. “Projection Storytelling” is amongst the most interesting. While not altering the gameplay in any way, Fisher’s thoughts and objectives appear on objects in the environment itself. There’s no glaring mood-breaking text glaring across the screen. This unique approach to plot development will be interesting to explore throughout the intense twists and turns Conviction has planned for us. The plot is supposed to hinge upon Fisher’s family and an underground organization.

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Far more exciting; however, are the changes to the realistic stealth combat. In the past, the most frustrating aspect of the game was the gun-play. If you botched a particularly risky portion of the sneaking, Fisher was almost defenseless from the automatic weapons of his opponents. Now, Splinter Cell is bringing lethal gunplay into the picture with “Mark and Execute” tokens. If you’re successful i offing a foe with your hands (no small task, either!), you’re granted with the ability to “mark” an enemy for execution. If you have multiple tokens, multiple enemies can be marked at once. With the push of a button, Fisher delivers a clean kill to all marked enemies, which can be combined with other hand-to-hand, aneuvers to rack up some impressively lethal secret-agent shenanigans.

Look for Splinter Cell: Conviction to be on shelves this Tuesday. While it’s still early in the going, it should be a solid contender for Game of the Year awards from a variety of publications. And be sure to check out some of the demo footage from around the web. If it doesn’t sell you on the game, nothing will!

Gadget of the Week: the iPad and Why It Matters

Dan Evans — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 17:13:44 +0000

Surprised? You shouldn’t be.

At this point in time it would be endlessly redundant to discuss the hype building up to the release of this, Apple’s newest foray into the world of tablets. There have been press conferences, Internet flame wars, and countless borad stereotypes of who will be first in line to get their hands on one. It’s all moot now, though. It’s here. The iPad is here.

So now what? Reviews have poured in from around the Internet, detailing every in and out like the folks over at Engadget did. Yes, the iPad is good. It has a gorgeous screen, Apple’s iconic minimalist design, a bevy of intuitive features, applications that can do all sorts of things, compatibility with the iPhone, strong battery life, and so on and so forth. It does everything Apple promised it would. It even comes bearing the signature Apple price tag. But what does this all mean? Comparing the iPad to other forms of computers almost seems counterintuitive. Is it a computer? Yes, but it’s not like any other computer.

Herein is the true beauty of what the iPad does for computing. This is, in so many ways, the most significant development in computing we’ve seen since the widespread use of the laptop and wireless internet. With other manufacturers rushing to create tablets akin to Apple’s child, it’s clear that this is a game changer.

But there’s more at stake here than shifts in supply and demand of computers. The iPad represents a new way to use a computer. The hands-on interaction is something that will be present in computers of all shapes in sizes. While a keyboard is excellent for precise typing and speedy wordprocessing, the iPad’s touchscreen provides an interface that can be used for all other types of activities. Through the development of applications, the iPad can be a book, displaying pages in high-definition on it’s vivid screen. The iPad can be a video player. The iPad can be a glorious new way to surf the Internet, touching links to open them, making hand gestures to move forwards and backwards. Touchscreen technology is still relatively young in terms of personal computing. The iPad is the first gadget to take those innovations and make something new of them.

So what happens next? It won’t be immediate, and it doesn’t mean that you need to go buy one right now, but the relationship between computer and user is going to change. The immense portability of the iPad, with 10 hours of battery life, makes it far more convenient than an ordinary laptop. Apple has successfully launched a new era: the tablet era, and it’s going to stick around for a while.

At the time of writing, I jump from the ever-wonderful Smarter WordPress to my Facebook, where a friend has sent me an invitation to “Join this Group for a FREE APPLE iPAD!” If only.

Image Source: flickr.com/photos/myuibe/4310110236

Gadget Review: The New Lego King’s Castle

Dan Evans — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 17:36:32 +0000

I will do my best to contain my joy at getting to review something as wonderful as Lego King’s Castle, but it will be a difficult task. Lego blocks remain one of the most glorious staples of my childhood. The small bricks provided hours of entertainment as my brother and I constructed whatever complex system the bricks were originally intended for, be it a Mayan temple, a space ship, or a racecar. Then the bricks would meet their ultimate destination: the large bin of Lego blocks, where they were recommissioned for whatever imaginative fancy we envisioned. The sublime beauty of Legos is in their versatility. There are no limits upon their potential.

The Lego Castle series is one of the longest-running themes in the Lego kingdom, and with good reason as well. In 1978, Lego first introduced the castle pieces, with bricks designed especially for the ramparts, towers, and dungeons. Along with the building bricks, pieces shaped like medieval war machines were included, featuring siege equipment and elements of the fantastical, such as dragons and trolls. Under this wide thematic Umbrella, Lego introduced a number of different Lego Series, bearing names such as the Forestmen and the Black Knights. For 2010, Lego is preparing to unveil the latest entry, the Kingdoms series.

Unlike the last few Castles, the new Kingdoms series will move away from some of the fantasy elements that had been present since the early 1990s. Instead of trolls, dwarves, and dragons, there will be a focus on traditional medieval building, with plenty of castles and knights to go around. The King’s Castle piece in particular looks impressive, with stone-grey blocks building a set of two towers and a drawbridge. A catapult affixed to the tower will be able to shoot projectiles at any encroaching armies. While the set won’t be out until June or July of this year, there is certainly plenty of potential for fun with these castles.

If you simply can’t wait til this summer, there are still plenty of Lego Castle options available from the 2009 run. There’s some great fantasy pieces as well, with the Troll’s Mountain Fortress and Troll Battleship having some excellent designs with lots of unique pieces included. If you’re looking for a great toy for your kids or grandkids, it’s hard to top a good Lego castle. Make sure to find a set with a solid number of pieces, usually more than 500, and let imagination do the rest.

Image Source: flickr.com/photos/billward/3393269071