Griffin has a great range of accessories for all kinds of smartphones, MP3 players and tablets, so it’s no surprise that they’ve a few additions to their product range here at CES. This year they’re announcing a two in-car mounts, some power solutions and a mount for air travellers.
First up, if you have a car that has an aux port (3.5 mm socket), then the WindowsSeat 3 Handsfree is the windshield or dashboard mount for your vehicle. It comes with combined aux cable and microphone that that can be used to make handsfree phone calls and stream music/navigation commands through the car speakers. WindowSeat’s mounting cradle holds iPods or iPhones in most shell- or skin-type cases, as well as a similar sized MP3 players and smartphones, including popular models from BlackBerry, HTC, Motorola, and Samsung. Price is $39.99 and available now.
If you don’t have an aux jack, the AirCurve Window Mount is the alternative. This windshield mount is designed as an acoustic amplifier which can raise the volume by as much as 25 dB without any batteries or cables. Designed for the iPhone 4 / 4S, simply put the smartphone in speakerphone mode and chat away. Price is also $39.99 and available now.
Griffin’s PowerBlock range has been updated with new models – PowerBlock Reserve, $59.99, a wall charger for iPod and iPhone that can be plugged into any AC wall outlet to provide a quick boost of power that also has a built-in rechargeable 2,000 mAh lithium-ion battery pack for charging on the go. The PowerBlock Reserve Universal, $49.99, is the same concept but quickly charges any USB device. Both models charge their own batteries at the same time they’re charging connected devices, which is often not the case with competing models. A row of LEDs serve as a power gauge, indicating how much charge is left.
Finally, Griffin is bringing a new product to the market in Q2 of 2012 with a Tray Table Latch Mount. Specifically for the air and rail traveller, the mount is designed to be compatible with 90% of the world’s airline and commuter rail tray table latches and holds your eReader, tablet or smartphone at eye level for comfortable viewing. Very handy.
Pop round to Griffin in North Hall, Booth 5212 at CES 2012 in Las Vegas to see all their latest goodies or you can checked out the dedicated CES section of their website.
More time is spent reading with children but parents are finding modern life tiring and stressful, according to research commissioned by 
Admittedly I’m coming in late to the party. I had all sorts of excuses – I already have a MacBook Pro, as well as the latest generation of iPod Touch. Why would I need an iPod with a giant screen to run mostly the same apps I can already run on my iPod?
When it comes to ebook readers, I think it’s fairly safe to say that there are three main contenders in the market – Amazon with the Kindle, 
Jeffrey and Esbjorn hear what Doug Atkinson of 
Todd and Tom get together with Jerry Cimadomo and Greg Stetson of 
Pandigital
The tablet has a 9″ full colour touch-screen LCD display which when coupled with Android allows a huge range of applications to be downloaded and enjoyed by the customer, including surfing the web, viewing photos, watching movies and many other activities (although it cannot access the Android Market). It also makes the Multimedia Novel perfect for reading ebooks, colour magazines and children’s stories.
There’s no doubt that ebook readers are very much du jour, and Sony are keen to be part of that trend with the recent additions of the 
Reviewed here is the Pocket Edition (PRS-350), which is the smaller of the two models, with a 5″ touch screen. Overall, it’s about 14.5 cm tall, 10.5 cm wide and only 9 mm deep. At this size it can go in a (big) coat pocket and fits easily into most handbags. As you can see from the pictures, it comes in silver, but pink and black are also available. It’s also very light at only 155 g.
In use, the Pocket Reader is straightforward. Pressing the home button takes you to a screen which shows your current reading material. Having a touch screen means that most navigation can be done with by tapping on the screen, either with your finger or the included stylus, which slides into a silo on the righthand side. The device never responds quite as fast, as say, a PDA or mobile phone, but I think it’s just the nature of ebooks readers at the moment.
One cool feature was that double-tapping on a word brings up a dictionary and show the possible meanings of the word. Great for when you come across a word that you aren’t familiar with.
