Archive for the 'Gadgets' Category

If you want to play your guitar where you please, you have two choices: play an acoustic guitar, or lug a heavy, bulky amp around with your electric guitar that you’ll then need to find an outlet to plug in. Given those two choices, choosing an electric might not seem to make much sense. But not all amps are bulky and restrictive.

This Marshall MS2 Portable 2-Watt Mini Guitar Practice Amplifier is the perfect mini amp for the guitarist on the go. It’s small and portable, easily fitting in your guitar bag, and it can run either off an outlet’s power or from a 9 volt battery. This lets you use it just about anywhere. So if you don’t want to use an acoustic guitar just out of necessity, this amp makes your electric a whole lot more portable.

If you’re looking to do some drawing on the computer rather than on a piece of paper, you probably find using a mouse or trackpad to be restrictive to the point of making the entire task impossible. After a lifetime of learning to draw using a pen, having to completely relearn the art is not a fun or easy task. So why do it? What you need is a tablet.

Wacom is the first name in tablets, producing some of the best peripherals available. The Wacom Bamboo Fun Small Tablet is the perfect tablet to get you started. It works on both Macs and PCs, and it doubles as a mousepad and a tablet. It lets you draw on your computer just like as if you were using a pen and paper. It comes loaded with a bunch of great multimedia software that’ll get you started, but it works with major software such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Why reinvent the wheel? Stick with the pen.

Computers, once relegated to the office, are finally making their way into living rooms as media center PCs. These computers aren’t meant to deal with spreadsheets or things of that nature. Instead, they’re designed to store and play back all of your digital media, from movies to TV shows recorded off the air to your music collection. With almost all our media being stored digitally these days, the day has finally come for PCs in the living room.

That means, however, that we need to upgrade our remote controls. You use a keyboard for your computer in your office, so why not one for your computer in your living room? The Logitech diNovo Mini Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard for Home Theater PCs is meant for just that. Wireless and small, it’s designed to sit on your coffee table and not look like an errant piece of office equipment. Instead, it will help you search through shows on your DVR schedule, your movie listings, and your music collection. It’s a peripheral that’s worked wonders for the PC elsewhere for many years, so why not bring it into your living room now as well? It’s time.

Somewhere between laptops and smartphones are ultra-mobile PCs, known to those familiar with them as UMPCs. These hybrid devices contain the power of a small laptop in a smaller design, allowing you to toss it in your bag and carry it around without getting weighed down.

One of the more popular UMPCs is the Samsung NP-Q1U/P01 Q1 Ultra Premium 7″ Ultra Mobile Personal Computer. It’s a legitimate Windows XP computer, featuring a 1.33GHz Intel Pentium processor, 1GB of RAM, an 80GB Hard Drive, wireless internet connectivity, and two webcams (one on the front and one on the back). Rather than a keyboard that folds out like a laptop; it has a keyboard on either side of the screen, letting you type with your thumbs while you hold it. It has a touchscreen, letting you manipulate it that way as well, and it’s nice and light so you can really bring it everywhere. If you want something a little smaller than a laptop but more powerful than a smartphone, this is the device for you.

The iPhone 3G is out, as I’m sure you’re well aware, and it’s insanely popular. There are waits all over the place to get it, and it’s in short supply. That’s obviously because it’s a great piece of technology, but it’s not without its faults. The biggest complaint about Apple’s latest golden object? The battery life. It’s just not that great, and if you use it a lot you’ll barely make it through the day without recharging it.

If you’ve taken the plunge on a new iPhone 3G and want to ensure that you don’t get bitten by mediocre battery life, simply grab one of these Kensington 33442 Mini Battery Pack and Charger for iPhone and iPod. It plugs into the bottom of your iPhone and provides another full charge to it, letting you go twice as long before going home to re-juice fully. Just toss it in your bag and forget about it until you need it. When you’ve used it, just charge it up again. It’s easy and it’s sure to save you some major headaches.

Air conditioning is one of those things that, in the middle of summer, is nearly impossible to live without. Who can sleep when it’s 100 degrees outside and you’re sticking to your sheets? No one. The problem: you need a clear window to install an air conditioner. That means if you live in a first floor apartment with bars on the windows, in a basement, or in some other freak apartment with strange windows, you’re out of luck.

Or are you? This Amcor AF9000E Portable Air Conditioner will keep your apartment cool without requiring space for a bulky window unit. You can roll it around to where you need it, bringing it with you from the bedroom to the kitchen to the living room, ensuring that you never sweat in your own home again. You just need to empty the condensation it pulls from the air every so often to keep it running, which is a small price to pay for sweet, sweet comfort.

The NY Post published a great article the other day about perfect beach gizmos. We thought it was a fun idea, so we came up with our own list, and also threw in the ones mentioned in the NYP article. We hope you enjoy.

It’s summer. That means it’s time to slather on some suntan lotion, pack a lunch and head to the beach for a day of relaxation. But sitting on the beach all day with nothing to do can get a little tedious. So we’ve compiled a list of cool gadgets that fit perfectly for a day of laying out on the sand.

Having an iPod with you is a no brainer, but there’s always a lingering fear that you’ll accidently get it wet. The Atlantic Ego Ice Waterproof iPod Speaker System makes sure your iPod stays dry and protected. It’s tough Polycarbonate body is spill-proof, shatter-proof, waterproof, resistant to sea or pool water corrosion and it floats.

The days of baking in the sun for hours and hours on end with little or no sun protection is a thing of the past. That’s why the Oregon Scientific UV888 Personal UV Monitor is an important tool against the threat of skin cancer. You just set the monitor to your skin type and it will calculate how long you should sit out under the rays before the damage starts to set in. This bad boy will even update as the UV rays change throughout the day. Just set it once at the start of the day and you are good to go.

As your day progresses, it’s never fun having to get up and head to the boardwalk to grab a bite to eat. Why risk losing that great spot you carefully picked out earlier in the day? The Picnic Time 614-00-125 Activo Insulated Tote is roomy enough to pack in a few sandwiches, some drinks, and some snacks…with room to spare! Oh and it’s waterproof and insulated, too, so you don’t have to worry about your food getting wet or going bad.

After a few hours of listening to tunes on your iPod or reading a book, you might get a little bored. Why not grab a Cobalt Blue Nintendo DS Lite, by far the coolest portable gaming system on the market? There’s an amazing selection of games you can pick up for the DS, ensuring that you always have something different to play. It’s also lighter and thinner than the previous DS model, so it won’t take up much room in your tote bag. As the sun moves throughout the day, you can even adjust the screen brightness to cut down on the glare, allowing you to play games without constantly having to squint.

Of course, you’re going to want to remember your day at the beach by taking photos of you and your friends. With a regular digital camera there’s always the fear that it’s going to get dropped or fall into the water. Well, the Olympus Stylus 1030 puts those fears to rest. Not only is it shockproof, freezeproof and crushproof, it’s also waterproof. You can snap photos as deep as 33 feet underwater! And at 10.1 megapixels it’s great for taking vivid, hi res pics of ocean life.

If you want a bit more than a digital camera to capture your vacation, the Sanyo VPC-E1BL Xacti E1 Waterproof Camcorder is another fantastic product. Not only can you take 6 megapixel photos with it, you can also record 640×480 resolution video for up to an hour and 20 minutes. However, be aware that you can’t take this camcorder in water deeper than 5 feet.

Finally, if you have kids, you don’t want to have their day of fun in the sun ruined by pesky bug bites. Stinger Insect Repelling Waterproof Wristbands are colorful, long-lasting, little wristbands your kids can slip on so they don’t have to worry about getting bitten. They contain the the essential oils of citronella, geraniol and lemongrass and are DEET-free, so you no nasty toxic chemicals are involved.

Regular old remote controls, with their many physical buttons and rectangular shape, made sense at one point. In a world with simple VCRs and 30 channels of cable, you didn’t need anything more than that. But now, when people have a dozen different devices hooked up to their televisions and over 1,000 channels to flip through, we need something a little more sophisticated to make using it all easy and convenient.

The new Logitech Harmony Remote 1000 Advanced Universal Remote can handle even the most complicated home theater setups with aplomb. Rather than a vast array of buttons, it’s got a 3.5-inch touchscreen. It’ll control all of your devices, up to 15 at a time, and it supports over 175,000 different models, ensuring that it’ll work with your entire setup. Using macros, you can set a single button to turn on your TV, your receiver, and your Blu-ray player, routing everything properly through each other to watch a movie. It makes using your setup easier, making you wonder why you ever dealt with buttons before.

Rachelle Friedman’s Keynote at Downtown Digital

Digital Downtown is a harbinger of all things tech. Held in the lovely Winter Garden lobby at the World Financial Center, tech industry leaders such as Toshiba, LG, Hitachi, Sharp and Pioneer just to name a few were there to show off their wares and what they had in stock for the future.

Digital Downtown was brought to us by North American publishing, Martin Porter and Associates and The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). The CEA is perhaps best known for being the organizer of the highly regarded, International Consumer Electronic Show (CES) annually in Las Vegas.

Kicking off the festivities was J&R co-founder and CEO, Rachelle Friedman who delivered a touching keynote speech. She talked about how J&R was able to persevere and bounce back after the horrific terrorist attacks on 9-11. The luminous presence of J&R in downtown Manhattan can make people forget that it was once just a 300 sq ft storefront that sold Vinyl LP’s. J&R has grown tremendously over the years, and while the storefront has ballooned to 300,000 sq ft, the enjoyable shopping experience has remained the same. At its heart, J&R is still and will always be a Mom and Pop shop that delivers a one-stop shopping hub for consumer electronics with customer service and support that is second to none.

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Will there be a 3G iPhone? Will it have GPS? Will there be a new type of Ultra Mobile Tablet, a double sized iPhone with touch pad typing and video conferencing? Will you be able to login to your home or office Mac from your phone? Will there be some sort of integrated TV / iTunes home and mobile entertainment service which will give you everything you want to see and hear anywhere you are on any device you have? (Well, ok, nobody’s predicting that). Predictions have been flying and by the end of the day, we’ll all know, but how do you become the first on you block or in your office to find out?

Apple CEO, Steve Jobs will be making the keynote address today at 1pm EDT/10am PDT today, kicking off WWDC08, Apple’s four day developer conference at Moscone Center, San Francisco.

There will be no live video or audio coverage, so where do you tune in to be among the first to know what Steve Jobs announces today?

Scribble - live blogging coverage of WWDC08 Is aggregating Live bloggers on a new, perhaps powerful tool made just for events like this. You can view the postings in helpful reverse chronological order by logging in using a Facebook or openID login.

Summize’s page tracking WWDC or Apple or iPhone or Steve Jobs might prove to be a good place to read. It should contain tweets from those live tweeting in the WWDC audience, as well as those watching other news sources.

Or Leo Laport & friends will be gathering everything he can together at TWIT.TV.