At CES‘s Digital Experience, Andy talks with Built To Tylt about their funky designs for smartphones and other portable gadgets. Check their website as these guys have got some great stuff.

The Tylt Band is a smartphone car charger made of a colourful flat silicon rubber cable that is nearly impossible tangle. Micro-USB and Apple connectors are available there’s an extra standard USB socket near the base of the cable for plugging in another device.

Tylt also have two portable battery packs, the Zumo and the PowerPlant, with 1500 mAh and 5,200 mAh batteries respectively. The Zumo is intended for the emergency smartphone charging, whereas the larger PowerPlant can part charge a tablet or recharge a smartphone several times.

Finally, if you are an iPhone owner, you might be interested in Tylt’s new iPhone cases, one of which comes with a lens cover to protect the camera and another that has a built-in kickstand (kickband?) to angle the iPhone for movie watching.

Interview by Andy McCaskey of SDR News and RV News Net.

First let’s look at the problem, you want a microphone you can easily carry with you everywhere you go, so that you are ready at anytime to do an interview or record a lecture. It needs to work with your iPhone or iPod Touch and it has to sound great. The solution to this problem maybe the iRig Mic Cast

The iRig Mic Cast is a small microphone that plugs directly into the headphone jack of your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, It is small enough that it can fit easily into a pocket or purse. It is a Unidirectional microphone which minimize background noise. It produces crystal clear audio quality. There is a stereo mini jack which allows you to attach a headphone enabling real-time monitoring. There is a small switch which allows you to set the recording for close up or at a distance. It has a bumper which allows it to work with most cases. There is a small stand included so you can set the iPhone or iPod Touch on a table. Two programs are included with the iRig Mac Cast, the iRig Recorder and the VocaLive. iRig recorder is an easy to use recording an editing application. VocaLive is a multi-effects processing app for the iPhone or iPod touch great for vocal musicians.

iRig Mac Cast is coming out in early spring 2012 and will be available for $39.99 through electronic and music retailers. It is made by IK Multimedia. IK Multimedia is a music technology company that has been in business since 1996. They develop music and audio software and hardware that takes advantage of today’s technology.

Todd Cochrane spoke to Christopher Yang from Vivitek about their newest product the Qumi that uses the Pico Projector. The system can project 3D, which you can watch with active 3D glasses, or 2D up to 720P. It uses the Texas Instrument DLP processor with an HD chip set. A full projector with an LED bulb will give off from 800-1000 lumens.

This projector gives off 300 lumens and has a 2500:1 contrast ratio. It is not meant to replace a full projector, it is a great travel projector. It has a VGA, HDMI Connections, USB port, micro SD Card Input and audio-out. You can connect it to a camera, smart phone or laptop. It should be available in April or May time frame for about $499.00

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central.

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Scott Friedman presents the WOWee One (www.woweeone.com), a portable speaker that when placed down on a flat surface uses that surface to create extra bass from what is a very small portable unit designed to be used with portable playback devices such as iPods and other MP3 players.

Interview by Jeffry Powers of Geekazine and Esby Larsen of MrNetCast.com

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Lawrence Pensack presents two portable 15.4″ inch USB monitors that are designed to extend the desktop real estate of laptop computers. Monitor²Go, which is available in May, is a USB monitor that sells for $279 dollars.

The Field Monitor Pro With Keypad is available now and sells for $289, includes an integrated numeric keypad. Both monitors are DisplayLink Certified.

It is possible to daisy-chain up to 6 of these monitors for maximum high-performance portable screen real estate. Both units fold up into the shape of standard laptop computers to go into standard laptop bags and weigh about 4 pounds. They are powered with their own power adapters.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central.

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My wife and I, contributing editor Nolan, are just 4 weeks away from moving to a developing country for at least a year of humanitarian work.  So what about moving with technology?  First off what is not making the move?

1. Desktop computers and second monitors.  Nope not going to make the suitcase.  To much weight too much space.
2. Television & Players. Our 22 inch Samsung and dvd player are being given to a friend.  Will certainly miss the screen and its vivid movies.
3. Bose audio system.  This was a tough one.  Its is a small 2 speaker/1 woofer system that sounds wonderful.  I really debated taking it.  The end decision came down to trying to clear customs in entering the country.  It would probably “get lost” in transit.
4. Cell phones. No CDMA where we are going so the 6 year run with Verizon is over.  Going to try to beg out of my contract to avoid the fee since I have 5 months left on my contract.
5. Printer.  Once again to much space.  Will look for one in country.

What is going to make the trip?  Small in size items.

1. My wife and I each have a mac. They will both make the trip.  Mine, newer, will be covered by international travel insurance against theft and accidental damage.  My wife’s is 3.5 years old so we will pray over it!
2. Four portable hard drives in our carry-on luggage. All Seagate Free Agent drives.  1 drive for each computer that will be our daily back-up drive.  1 drive that serves as our clone and will be backed up once a month at the second office location. 1 drive that contains all of our home media (interpret that how you will, but no DVD’s or CD’s are going with us).
3. One desktop drive packed in a suitcase. Belongs to the organization and contains video footage (Reverse backed up to one of the portable drives).
4. Two still cameras.  One point and shoot and one DSLR.  DSLR will be insured.
5. One HD SSD video camera and cordless mic system. Getting decent video and audio will be important in this trip, but needed a small size without a huge (and thereby dangerous) investment.
6. Two iPods. One Nano and One Touch.
7. Power converters. These are heavy and will cost some extra money, but having dependable converters for stateside stuff is important.  Those easily available in country are not dependable (learned that the hard way last trip).
8. Google Voice, Magic Jack, Local Phone. Another article later on how we are able to use these for easy stateside calling later.
9. Prayer and a rabbits foot. Somehow we need all of this to not be stolen, confiscated, or taxed up the wazoo.

What is the condition of the internet over there? First off, I have left off the exact location for personal and safety reasons.  Let’s just say it is a developing country.  The internet is present but slow.  I expect upload speeds of somewhere between 56-128kb.  It seemed like a solid connection most of the time since our VOIP calls to them work well.  The pricing is either by the MB or unlimited at about $20/month.  Everything works well as long as there is power and/or the back-up power supply lasts.

So here we go.  A technology geek, hobby web-developer, going over to help people.  5 years ago there would have been zero internet.  Going now I am blessed.  Looking forward to corresponding and writing in the future from yet another technology perspective.

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Nokia announced that its is developing a portable Internet device based on the open-source Linux operating system. Designed to take advantage of the wide distribution of accessible Wi-Fi networks, the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet features a widescreen display and an on-screen keyboard, a la a PDA on steroids. The device will also be able to connect to Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones as an alternative network connection source.

The portable computer includes built-in access to Internet radio, RSS (Real Simple Syndication) news reader, and a digital media player. Weighing in at about a half-pound, the device will be available to consumers this fall.

According to Nokia’s website, “The device runs on Linux based Nokia Internet Tablet 2005 software edition which includes widely deployed desktop Linux and Open Source technologies. The maemo development platform (www.maemo.org) will provide Open Source developers and innovation houses with the tools and opportunities to collaborate with Nokia on future devices and OS releases in the Internet Tablet category.”

Dave’s Opinion
This is a good foray for Nokia: designing a portable media device without being beholden to the restrictions and costs that traditional laptops face with Microsoft Windows. The Linux operating system is generally considered more stable and flexible than Windows, and with proper installation is equally secure, and some IT experts think, more secure than Microsoft’s operating system.

Nokia 770 Internet Tablet Press Release: http://press.nokia.com/PR/200505/995802_5.html

Call for Comments
What do you think? Leave your comments below.

References
Nokia 770 Internet Tablet Press Release

Seoul-based Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. announced that it has developed a Solid State Disk (SSD) with a capacity of up to 16GB. Using two NAND-based modules, the SSD is a low power, lightweight storage media for notebook PCs and, eventually, consumer electronic devices.

The SSD has uses only five percent of the electricity required to power hard disk drives, and weights less than half of a comparably-sized disk drive. Because the SSD has no moving parts, there almost no noise or heat is emitted by the module, and it is less prone to skipping or damage from movement.

The SSD has read/write speeds of 57/32 MBps, respectively, making it fast enough for both computer and consumer electronics applications.

Dave’s Opinion
SSD modules with greater capacity are expected soon, making the memory product a serious competitor for micro-data devices. Look for the Samsung SSD, not only as USB flash memory key, but also as a replacement for portable digital music hard disks and, eventually, notebook hard disks.

Call for Comments
What do you think? Leave your comments below.

References
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.