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Archive for January, 2011

Altec Lansing InMotion Air

Posted by KL Tech Muse at 8:15 PM on January 29, 2011

Altec Lansing has developed a speaker system that allows you to play the music on Bluetooth enabled devices through out your house. Using Bluetooth only the system has a range of 33 ft. If you attach the wireless adapter to a computer then the range extends up to 300 ft depending on how many walls you have. Enough so that you can have the adapter in one room and the sound playing outside near your pool.

This is CD quality sound and doesn’t distort even if you crank the volume up. It uses apt-x control technology and Waves Maxx to over come the tinny sound that Bluetooth speakers tend to have. Producing a superior sound to other devices in the same price range. The Altec Lansing InMotion Air remote control works various audio libraries including Windows Media and iTunes. The controls are mounted on top of device and it is designed to look good no matter where it is. It runs on a rechargeable lithium-ion battery. The Altec Lansing InMotion Air should be available in February 2011 exclusively at Radio Shack.

Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDR News.

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Desktop Embedded Wireless Charging by WiPower

Posted by KL Tech Muse at 8:12 PM on January 29, 2011

Esbjorn Larsen took a look at a booth that was showing wireless charging pads and cases. This booth was partnership between multiple companies including Qualcomm Duracell Everwin and Gill Industry Their final product will be called WiPower. Each company plays a part in the development and distribution of the product. This shows how many companies end up getting involve just to get a product to market. Also why sometimes there are delays.

I believe that Qualcom is working on the wireless technology involve, Duracell the battery technology, Everwin the manufacturing process and Gill is a leader in innovative furniture production. They are looking to inbed the technology directly into desktops. I kind of wonder what they were doing at CES. I suspect they were looking for potential retail partners, but it wasn’t clear. The mats themselves looked potentially interesting. It would be nice to get rid of all the wiring and cables. However I don’t want to replace a bunch of cables with a bunch of pads.

I hope these pads and cases can be used with multiple manufacture’s devices, or I can have one large pad for my desk. I suspect these devices will not be out this year. When they do come out they will probably be at a different price point.

Interview by Esbjorn Larsen of MrNetCast.com.

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Barnes & Noble Nook Color

Posted by KL Tech Muse at 8:07 PM on January 29, 2011

Nook colorAndy McCaskey visited the Barnes & Noble booth and took a look at the Nook Color. The Nook Color was created with content with a lot of color in mind, like magazine and children’s books. It is wifi enabled and has about 8 hours of continuous reading under wifi. It is a full color touch screen, it uses Vividview technology and has over 16 million colors on the display. The screen is 7 inch with a resolution of 1024 x 600. The screen is crisp and clear with 169 pixels per inch. It is backlit and the screen is coated to release glare.

You can also use the Nook to listen to audio books or music with the installed audio player. There are 8GB of memory enough for up to 6000 books and has a microSD slot and can extend up to 32GB of memory. The Nook color also includes some extras such as Pandora, Quickoffice and some games. It runs on the Android platform. The reviews of the Color Nook for the most part have been positive and the Nook line was Barnes & Noble’s best selling line in 2010.

It has gotten a lot of rewards including the CES 2011 People’s Choice Award for Last Gadget Standing. I took a look at the Barnes & Noble Nook Color at the local Best Buy and I was impressed. The screen seemed to be responsive to my touch. It was bright and the colors were crisp and clear. It is definitely worth a look.

Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDR News

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Big C’s Dino-Lite Digital Microscope Camera

Posted by Andrew at 8:04 PM on January 29, 2011

Jeffrey hooks up with Joseph Kane to get the latest developments at BigC, the distributor of the Dino-Lite digital microscope camera. It connects to a PC or laptop via USB and this year’s models are evolutionary with improved optics.

The camera can focus from infinity right down to almost no distance at all and as the distance is reduced, the magnification increases. The video gives a good demonstration of this, going from a shot down a hallway to magnified view of a watch mechanism at around 215x magnification. Impressive.

There are loads of different models aimed at different tasks and activities and these are all on the website.

The model on show is $499 but other ‘scopes start from around $200.

Interview by Jeffrey Powers of The Geekazine Podcast.

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Zoodles Child-Safe Play App

Posted by Andrew at 8:02 PM on January 29, 2011

Jeffrey interviews Mark Williamson, CEO of Zoodles, which makes software that gives a “kid mode” to devices such as PCs, tablets and smartphones. As I suspect most parents will testify, children are always keen to get their hands on Mommmy’s or Daddy’s latest toy. The “kid mode” creates a walled-garden (or sand-pit) that includes lots of child-friendly educational games and activities, such as painting, and prevents the child from accessing other software on the phone. I’ve had a look at the Zoodles website and there are plenty of games for different age ranges, including games from Lego and Disney.

Recently, Zoodles has been focussing on Android but there are versions for iOS, Mac and PC. The basic version is free, though there is a Premium membership that gives more control over the software.

I’ll be trying this out with my 3 year old – any chance of a WebOS version?

Interview by Jeffrey Powers of The Geekazine Podcast.

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Finis SwiMP3.1G Bone Conduction MP3 Player

Posted by KL Tech Muse at 11:33 PM on January 28, 2011

If you swim a lot you know how difficult it is to find earphones that you can use while swimming. Sticking earbuds in your ear produce a muffle sound and can be dangerous. However swimming for a long time without music is boring. The Finis SwiMP3.1G offer a unique solution to this situation.

The SwiMP3.1G use bone conduction to transfer the sound through the cheekbone into the ear. The device secures snuggly to the goggle strap and lays on the cheekbone. The music or sound from the mp3 player then goes from the cheekbone to the ear. Because the sound doesn’t have to go through the water it is much clearer than normal earbuds. It has 1GB of storage enough for about 250 songs or 15 hours of music.

The company Finis has been around since 1993 and was founded by John Mix and Olympic Gold Medal Swimmer Pablo Morales. They have done a lot of working to improve a swimmers efficiency in the water and also their enjoyment. The SwiMP3.1G is the latest of these inovations.

Interview by Esby Larsen of  MrNetCast.com

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Autolinq: Android in the Car

Posted by KL Tech Muse at 11:27 PM on January 28, 2011

Autolinq is an open end to end information and entertainment platform that is based on the Android platform. Autolinq is an OEM productthat will be installed in cars and is produced by a German company Continental Inc. It will allow the user to have continual contact with their car. Providing them information about the car even if they are not in the car.

The system is designed with safety in mind and only apps that are safe to use in a car can be installed. Autolinq is also a secure platform any data that is provided will go over a secure network to protect it from hackers. One of the application shown shows the speed and location of the vehicle and sends that information back to a computer. That way a parent can keep track of a young driver.

Another application will tell you if there is something wrong with the engine and what the problem is. You can also schedule an appointment to get the car fix through the same application. A third application that was shown is one that warns you when you are low on gas and where the nearest gas station is.

These are just a few of the apps that could be installed in the system based on what the user and final seller wants. The expected price of a system that uses this product will be close to that of a high end automotive entertainment system. Since this is an OEM product, they will produce the platform but will depend on third parties to install it in various vehicles. Once the platform is completed it will be interested to see how many actually get in to vehicles.

Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDR News.

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DLNA For The iPad And More

Posted by Alan Buckingham at 10:26 PM on January 28, 2011

Jeffrey stops by the DLNA booth, but before we get to that, if you want to understand what DLNA is, the we recommend you visit their Wikipedia page.  They are showing off some cool devices with that act as DLNA servers, such a home media server, Droid X, laptops, TV’s, Blu-ray players, and an iPad.  Their new iPad app allows user to stream content from a server or upload content to a server.  With over 200 companies manufacturing DLNA-compatibles devices (and more coming) it could become the defacto standard for media content.  For more information you can visit the DLNA website.

Interview by Jeffrey Powers of The Geekazine Podcast.

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LG SmartTVs and SmartTV Upgrader

Posted by Andrew at 10:22 PM on January 28, 2011

Jeffrey talks to Mark of LuckyGoldstar, sorry, LG about their foray into connected devices and smart TVs during 2011. Mark reckons that there are four key principles for smart TVs.

  • first, premium content providers and LG has over 20 including NetFlix, Vudu, Hulu, Amazon, NHL, NBA;
  • second, apps and LG will be launching its online apps store with over 200 apps from the likes of CNN and Comedy Central (and Tech Podcast);
  • third, include a fully functioning web-browser with Flash, just like LG’s;
  • and finally, make sure it’s DLNA-certified so that existing local content can be played, as LG’s TVs will.

Existing owners will be able to upgrade their TVs using LG’s new SmartTV Upgrader that brings all the features of LG’s 2011 TVs to a dumb TV. The SmartTV will work with any TV with an HDMI output, not just LG’s and of course, it’s wireless. Although it comes with a remote control, to make typing easier, apps for iOS and Android devices will control the SmartTV unit as well. That’s cool.

Jeffrey gets a demo of the user interface in the video so check it out if you are interested. Looks to be a smooth implementation.

Shipping in Q2 for $129.

Interview by Jeffrey Powers of The Geekazine Podcast.

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The Success of the D-Link Boxee Box

Posted by Andrew at 10:19 PM on January 28, 2011

Andy McCaskey chats to Joe from D-Link about their Boxee Box, which has been selling very well since it launched back in November. Key to the success is the Boxee Box’s ability to play content from a wide variety of sources, whether it’s the Internet, local storage or a USB memory stick.

Andy questions the delay in delivering the product and Joe explains that D-Link moved away from the Atom processor for performance but that necessitated changes to the software. Joe reckons that the success of the platform is because of the wide range of codecs, the flexibility of the platform, the involvement of D-Link with the community and the on-going refreshes to the software.

Andy thinks that part of the success can be due to the great remote which has simple controls on one side and a qwerty keyboard on the other side, making it much easier to enter text. It’s also an RF (radio-frequency) remote, not IR (infra-red) so you don’t need line of site between your remote and the Box.

Production of the Boxee Box is at full capacity to meet the demand in the US and abroad.  It’s on-sale now for $199.

Warning – there’s a TV playing in the background of the video and some of the pictures wouldn’t be entirely safe for children. It is Las Vegas, y’know.

Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDR News.

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