Gadgets posts

People looking to pick up their iPads in a couple days just got some good news. Apple has made its camera connection kit available for pre-order. Coming in at a staggering $29, the connection kit consists of two plastic devices which insert into your iPad’s dock port. One device has a SD card reader on the end and the other has a USB capture device for people wanting to plug their cameras in directly. The connection kit supports all standard photo formats including RAW. I’ve been looking forward to this day for a while so I won’t have to carry my laptop around with me to small client shoots. Next week, I’ll…

It seems as tho technology researchers are getting bored and slapping a LCD screen on everything. Yesterday I wrote about the screen on your microwave that plays YouTube videos, (which seems like a good idea to me) and now they have gone and put a digital screen on your milk jug. In theory I guess this is a good idea and will keep you from drinking spoiled milk but what’s next? A small LCD screen on our cutlery to tell us if its completely sanitized or not? How does the jug actually work? Its pretty simple. It contains a sensor in the bottom and measures the acidity level of the milk and as the pH level drops,…

What’s the problem with netbooks and other portable devices these days? For starters, you can’t type on them unless you have the hands of a five-year-old. Sadly, many of us are not blessed with small hands. That said, the iWEB 2.0 Laptop Concept would laugh at all those other laptops that try to serve you a tiny keyboard. The iWEB 2.0 features a slick design (and we don’t mind the Transformers wallpaper either) that just makes us think of fancy things when we see it — businessy and eloquent. The main highlight, however, is the fold-out keyboard. It allows the user to have access to a full-sized keyboard…

We’ve all been stuck in a situation using our laptops in a Wi-Fi hotspot only to look at our battery life and see 5% left. In a panic, we quickly scan the area for an electrical outlet only to realize you are outdoors or forgot your plug at home. RCA has introduced this amazing technology that will power your portable device using USB. The only thing you need, is to be able to connect to Wi-Fi and it will turn that signal into power for your device. Imagine charging your laptop, cellphone or MP3 player on the go. Just leave a charged RCA AirPower in your pocket and never have to worry again. Pricing has yet to…

One of the newest and SIMPLEST gadgets out there for your Smartphone, is the MoviePeg iPhone dock. Coming in an vast array of colors, it will allow your iPhone to situate almost any way you can imagine. Just like My Applecore, this is one of those inventions that we shake our head at thinking, “Someone is getting super rich of something as simple as that. Why didn’t I think of it?”. For those of us who use our iPhone as our alarm clock, now we can actually prop it up on our nightstand instead of it getting lost in our bed. Thanks to the MoviePeg, you can take away that contraption you built using duct tape and…

What do you get when you have a cheap but powerful device that was created to do simple tasks and a bunch of hardcore hackers that are determined to undermine those limitations? You get something more than you bargained for. You get the LeapFrog Didj. The Didj is a gaming system released by LeapFrog that is intended to be a kiddy version of the PSP, aimed at children aged 6-10. One of those teach-your-kid-math-and-english things. It even goes as far to offer dedicated games that can be purchased. But the hackers have pretty much taken over the platform by gaining access to the root by soldering two wires…

Yesterday The Apple Blog announced that the new iPad was going to be offering 30,000 free eBooks. The thing is, the free books are all hosted at Project Gutenberg (and have been for years) so any device with a web browser can access these eBooks, even a Blackberry. The headline, “iPad to Offer 30,000 Free e-Books at Launch” actually downplays their generosity. In point of fact, you can go read the 30,000 books RIGHT NOW on whatever machine you are reading this article! Apple’s offer is so downright selfless that you don’t even need to buy the iPad, you can still get the 30,000 books anway by clicking…

Customers of AT&T will soon be able to buy into an option that makes the phone work the way it’s supposed to, for the one-time low price of $150. It’s called the Microcell–just set up this little baby wherever you happen to be–it supports up to 4 phones at a time and it taps into an existing DSL or Cable connection, becoming its own AT&T mini-tower. (DSL or cable connection not included, AT&T subscription also not included). This has been in limited rollout for a few months in Raleigh, NC and one or two other cities, but it’s being made available nationally now, and you can almost hear the…

A true gentleman – a man who respects the finer things – realizes the value of slowing it down. Taking time out. Maybe have the manservant fix a beverage. Maybe take the Segway out to the patio. Maybe type an email. Maybe type it slowly. For this gentleman, designer Erik Campbell has developed a keyboard. What Campbell has designed is a jellyfish new take on the concept of the ‘chorded’ keyboard – chorded referring to music. Like you strum guitar strings in concert with each other, so too do you press the five buttons on Campbell’s keyboard to produce different characters. Frankly, I found 150…

iPhones? Wii’s? Bet you think those are pretty fancy, right? Well, when it comes to sheer wow factor, those technologies have little on Skinput, which lets you control things by simply pressing different parts of your skin. Your skin! The system, which was developed by researchers from Carnegie Mellon and Microsoft, turns the human body into an interface. But rather than using electrical impulses, which is how the iPhone and other touch screens work, it actually measures the movement of sound made by tapping different parts of the arm or hand. But in addition to measuring acoustic waves, the…