TechLore - Geeks on Gizmos

Apple Readying To Announce New iPhone?

Gizmos For Geeks — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:22:00 GMT

On the back of the recent announcement, from Apple, regarding the flatter but more "depthy" version of iOS, Internet rumors abound that the company may be preparing to announce one or more new iPhone product(s).

This kind of speculation does the rounds on an almost annual basis but this time the rumors are supported by the likes of Reuters and Stuff. Whether there will be an iPhone 5S before a full-blown 6 is not yet known but it does sound as if another new physical display size is likely to appear - with a possible 5.7" display reportedly in the works. Whatever the speculation we can be pretty sure a new iPhone will be announced at some point and our best guess (wish list!) of features is likely to include: a 12 megapixel camera, an A7 processor, NFC, and longer battery life.

Apple iPhone sales "remain resilient" against other brands, according to a Tech Trader Daily report, including Windows Phone 8 which IB Times are reporting has seen sales growth, in British smartphone sales from February to April 2013, of "up 4.4% on the same period last year".

What features would you like to see in a new iPhone from Apple?

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Original Link: Apple Readying To Announce New iPhone?.

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Book Review: The Modern Web, Multi-Device Web Development with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript

Gizmos For Geeks — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:30:26 GMT

Peter Gasston follows up his CSS3 book ("The Book of CSS3") with this more encompassing subject on web development.

While I hardly need to restate a statistic that has been beaten to death in the past few years, mobile platforms are not only growing but outstripping traditional desktop computers in some parts of the world and in some industries. However, that doesn't mean that all web development needs to be solely targeted at small screen devices. For that reason, adaptive and responsive web design has arisen to avoid the original method of building separate websites for desktops and mobile devices. And as the author opines (and I agree), with the increasing variety in screen sizes, trying to build a set of fixed-width pages, even adaptive ones is a "fool's errand".

So what is the "modern Web"? Is it HTML5? Is HTML5 merely HTML + CSS3 + JavaScript? Actually, no; the reality is even more amazing. Just take a look at the platform that is HTML5 to see the huge array of web browser technologies that exist today.

What does The Modern Web cover? Not every subject under the HTML5 umbrella, but it does hit all of the higher profile technologies. For example, new CSS3 layouts, device-responsive CSS, what modern JavaScript can do, SVG graphics and multimedia, web APIs and more.

And who is the target audience for this title? I can see both web developers as well as technical leaders reading this book. While web developers can learn about what they can do with these newer technologies, they'll probably need other resources to dig deeply into any given area. A technical leader on the other hand, a project manager for example, could read about what's possible without digging into every bracket and semicolon in the examples.

At under 250 pages, it does not take the 'teach with an in-depth project' approach, but does include single examples including code of most features and/or techniques.

If you've dealt with HTML since the early 90s, one only needs to look at this book's table of contents to see how much the field of web technology has grown and advanced. When you take a step back and consider how far it's come, it's inspiring. And with what's available today versus even a few years ago, I'm even motivated to revamp all of my websites!

I'm developing a bit of an addiction to No Starch books! However, there is one thing that I'd like No Starch Press to change - adding in some whitespace between paragraphs. It just comes across too densely on the page and doesn't give your eyes or your brain a break or nice 'stopping' points. This goes for bulleted lists as well.

I really appreciated that this book which was released at the end of April had inclusions and edits up to as late as March 2013. However, as with any cutting-edge technology, you still need to keep up with changes outside of dead-tree media. Still, all in all, The Modern Web is an excellent book.

You can pick up a copy of The Modern Web for just over $20 at Amazon.com.

This article was written and published by Gizmos for Geeks.
Original Link: Book Review: The Modern Web, Multi-Device Web Development with HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript.

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3 Amazing Gadgets for your Home

Gizmos For Geeks — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 20:18:00 GMT

Our homes are our castles and, it's fair to say that we love to fill our castles with technology and gadgetry. While there is a myriad array of gadgets out there that you can get today, today we figured we'd give you a quick look at three (3) that we feel are particularly cool.

The Floor Plan Light Switch

While only a concept idea, the contemporary-styled Floor Plan Light Switch by Taewon Hwang lets you control the lighting in your home from a single switch, with each room in the home represented on the floor plan shaped light switch.

How many times have you left a light on upstairs just as you're rushing out the door for work and don't have time to switch it off? No more running back upstairs or the other side of the house to turn it off to save on electricity. Here's to this being produced!

Hi-Can Bed

Considering how much of our time we spend in bed, why not have an epic bed like the amazing Hi-Can bed? This luxurious and endlessly stylish new take on the 4-poster bed is a great choice for a contemporary, modern style property and, fear not, it has plenty going on to keep the technology lovers happy.

Its gadgetry includes remote controlled blinds, a built-in HD projector and a high spec audio system. Italian designed and ultra-modern in style, it isn't cheap and will set you back about $55,000. You also get an adjustable mattress, built-in multimedia PC. Safe to say, getting out of bed in the morning just got a whole lot harder!

LiGo BlueWave Mobile Hub

Here's the problem - you've got near-zero cell signal in your house. But you've got one or more traditional handsets (cordless is also fine). If you got a LiGo BlueWave Mobile Hub, you could route those incoming mobile cell calls through to the handsets, and if you have multiple ones, then they would all ring. Now you don't have to walk around the house all day with your cell. Just leaving it charging near the LiGo.

The opposite is also true - you can make calls from your traditional handsets wherever in the house and route them out as cell phone calls. The BlueWave connects to up to 3 cell phones via Bluetooth. You don't need a landline, but it doesn't matter if you have one; you'll still be able to route calls from the handset via the landline connection.

So no more trying to find that perfect sweet spot in your house where your cell works and trying not to move your body or head too much!

The LiGo BlueWave costs £100 (US$150) and consider this: you can also kill off your landline and use your cell exclusively, so in the long run, you could save money. The BlueWave is pretty easy to set up. Take a look at the video below:

Find out more about the BlueWave at LiGo Cordless Phones.

This article was written and published by Gizmos for Geeks.
Original Link: 3 Amazing Gadgets for your Home.

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6 Awesome Android Apps for Gadget Geeks

Gizmos For Geeks — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 13:45:15 GMT

The app world for Android (and iPhones/iPads) is ever-changing, so don't be too annoyed that this is still yet another list of apps. This list is on the practical side of life, so you should find at least one in here that'll be of some use to you. Personally, I use ColorNote myself at least daily.

1. ColorNote Notepad Notes

Here is a free app that will help you become more organized. You can color code your notes (or lists) to keep track of them more easily. There are widgets to display them in your launcher and reminders can be configured to remind you either once or on a recurring basis.

2. ThickButtons Keyboard

Do you do a lot of typing on your mobile device? If so, you may like this keyboard app best out of the all the rest. It is a touch keyboard that thinks for you. When you hit a key, the nifty keyboard on this app will calculate which keys you are likely to use next and shrink down all of the other keys so that your choices will be larger in size and easier to use.

3. FlightTrack

This is definitely an app you should have if you travel frequently for business or pleasure. It helps you to track your flights and perform rerouting if there are any cancellations or delays in your travels. Another nice feature is that it gives you a weather report for your destination so you will know what to expect when you arrive.

4. Genieo Personal Magazine

You can create your own personal newspaper with this app. The headlines and items that you choose to have featured will appear side by side just as though you are reading a newspaper. This is a great way to keep up with current events. Another great option is Zite.

5. PrinterShare Premium Key

With this inexpensive app, you can print to a Bluetooth-enabled or wireless printer directly from your Android device without the need for a PC.

6. Swiss Army Knife

Here is another free app that can come in very handy if you find yourself in need of certain tools such as a flashlight, ruler, level, stopwatch or compass.

With any or all of the apps mentioned above, you can make your Android device even more of the smartphone it already is.

Simon Phillips runs Touch Logic and is a UK app developer specializing in apps for small businesses.

This article was written and published by Gizmos for Geeks.
Original Link: 6 Awesome Android Apps for Gadget Geeks.

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Review: Spy Tec Inventio-HD 720P Video Sunglasses

Gizmos For Geeks — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 04:55:09 GMT

New York City-based spy shop, Spy Tec, decided to enter the field of 'spy glasses' and build their own, the Inventio-HD video sunglasses. Here's our detailed review.

Overview

The Inventio-HD glasses appear to be mid-ranged plastic-framed sunglasses in the style that you might see a mountain biker or perhaps a golfer or skier wearing, but not quite as stylish. But style is not the primary function of this gadget. You'll notice the arms and frames are distinctly thicker than most sunglasses you'll find today, but the electronics has to hide somewhere. On the bright side, they are not as ridiculously thick as the original MP3 sunglasses that Oakley put out years ago.

On the underside of one of the arms is a micro USB port and on the side of that same arm is a multi-function button that turns it on and off and stops and starts video recording. There's no button on the other side, but given the symmetry, there could easily be one in the future, and I'm all for splitting up functions especially when a single button requires more complex sequences.

Fit, Weight and Lenses

I'll go over the feel, fit and lenses quickly. They fit my small head comfortably without being too snug. There's a little bit of outward flex for the bigger faces out there, and the overall weight is good, so you can quickly forget you're wearing them. Made of a tough plastic, they feel like you can toss them around without them suffering too much damage.

On the down side, the lenses are not on par with decent $150 sunglasses from a well-known lens maker. It's fairly obvious the second you put them on. But remember that you're not buying these because they're great sunglasses! Another note on the lenses: I got dark lenses in my sample, not the amber ones featured on Amazon and Spy Tec's site. You can optionally get polarized blue or clear lenses for $12 a pair.

Video and Audio Quality

Video quality was easily the aspect of the Inventio that I was most interested in. I was not expecting much at all, having been disappointed in the past with other gadgets that fell into the spy cam category. I was pleasantly surprised. No, you're not going to use this footage to win an Oscar, but you're going to get some surprisingly steady 30 fps video at a nice resolution (720p). Spy Tec describes the Inventio as having advanced video stabilization and a high ISO to reduce video shaking, so those aren't idle boasts.

For example, take a look at this video I shot where I was riding shotgun for a small stretch of road, and trust me, I was not trying very hard to keep my head still, yet you don't feel too seasick after watching this, right? I cut out the audio, because the engine noise just created a low rumble that drowned out what we were saying, plus it was just mundane family chatter!

On the audio front, I found the audio (mono) more than satisfactory for any conversation occurring near the sunglasses. What the mic picked up fell off quickly the further away you were.

Software and Other Features

I didn't bother testing the included software, and although there was a driver on there for Windows, my XP system figured out the hardware well enough for me to just open up an Explorer window and copy/play the AVI videos directly. Nothing complex in there.

As a side note, there is just so many hardware vendors out there making video products and then creating their own software to go along with them. Typically that software is sub-par. I feel a better idea would be to work with the better open-source video software projects. Help make those applications kick butt, and bundle those with your products.

The Inventio does have one additional feature above and beyond merely recording video and that is playback to a TV or other monitor with RCA AV jacks without needing a computer. I tested it out and found what seems to be a bug where it would start playing and stop after about 8 seconds. I really like this feature, but this bug needs fixing and it also needs some buttons to allow you to do things like pause, and skip backwards and forwards (what if you had a few dozen videos?).

Suggested Improvements

One thing that's sorely needed are audio cues (sounds or strings of beeps) so you'll know what mode you just entered. For example, to start or stop recording, you need to press and hold the side button and watch for changes in the indicator LED light (color and/or flashes). That means taking the sunglasses off to watch the LED light that's on the inside of one of the arms. What would be better and enable you to take better video that doesn't require as much editing at the starts and ends of videos, is to have audio cues so you don't have to take the glasses off.

Spy Tec did tell me that their next version will have a toggle switch instead of the red/green LED, so they're already aware and working on this.

On the storage front, let's say you're out on that weekend warrior bike ride and manage to get past an hour of riding without falling over, then that 8 GB of storage isn't going to seem very large. I have 3 suggestions for that - increase the onboard storage, include a micro SD card and provide an option for changing the video format. I found that the AVI video captured took up approximately 270 MB for 2 minutes of video.

To be a true spy cam, the camera itself needs to be better hidden. It's pretty obvious there's a hole right smack in the center of the sunglasses!

Conclusion

To be honest, I'm always skeptical of these James Bond-esque type devices, but I found the Inventio's video quality to be excellent given the usage, and let's be honest, that is its most important feature. I can also see some neat non-spy applications, like say recording my kid playing a soccer game without having to lug and hold a videocam.

The Inventio is $130, and that is comparable to other spy cam type devices that I've seen that don't compare in the video quality department. I feel that if Spy Tec continues to work on this product, you could very soon have a a tough time deciding between this and traditional ~$100 videocams (like the Flip, etc.).

(The standard disclaimer: Gizmos for Geeks received a complimentary review copy of this product, but has no fiduciary relationship with the vendor.)

This article was written and published by Gizmos for Geeks.
Original Link: Review: Spy Tec Inventio-HD 720P Video Sunglasses.

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Review: Doxie One portable scanner

Gizmos For Geeks — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 04:31:33 GMT

I love the Doxie One. Paperless nirvana, here I come. I've dreamed of a paperless and more importantly, an electronic document repository, for a long time, but that has been mostly a dream as I've dreaded having to haul my papers over to my clunky all-in-one printer-scanner, then scan papers 1 or a few at a time.

I've used the Doxie One for the past 4 weeks and with a few exceptions that I'll talk about, I love it. If your goal is to go paperless and stay that way, I can highly recommend the Doxie One as an essential component of your paperless toolbox.

In the Box

The Doxie One comes in a minimal of packaging (no blister packs thankfully), with a power adapter, a USB cable, 2 GB SD card, and a cleaning and calibration kit. Apparent took a page from the Apple playbook and minimized the number of features and buttons to only the essential. In this case of this product, that works perfectly.

Kudos also to Apparent for not wasting money and materials on including a CD, but instead pointing users to where they can download the latest and greatest version. They also did a nice job on the quick start guide - bright graphics with a minimal of words, but again, works well for this product.

The Hardware

Apparent Corp released their latest model to their Doxie line of personal scanners, the Doxie One (~ $150) late last year, the other models being the slightly cheaper Doxie U that's geared to students and teachers (~ $120), the original Doxie (~ $150) and the top-of-the-line Doxie Go (~ $200). I'll cover some of the differences later.

The Doxie One is a svelte 10.5″ long, 2.2″ wide, 1.7″ tall and weighs less than 1 lb (take a look at the photo for an idea of its size). For power, you can either plug in the power adapter or throw in 4 Ni-MH AAA batteries. This is one of those features where the Doxie wins over my printer - portability.

Scanning is a simple matter of inserting your pages one at a time face up into the scanner. It grabs it and scans it at 300 DPI (dots per inch). That is the maximum resolution that it scans at, and while I initially thought this was a serious limitation, after scanning in a number of documents, I didn't feel that I was lacking any detail on those copies. The other 2 Doxie models also let you scan at 600 DPI.

The most challenging aspect of using the Doxie was inserting the papers in evenly. I found myself wishing on more than one occasion that there was a physical guide that would make it near impossible for me to screw up lining up the page. However, even if you're off by a few degrees like I was a lot, if your page has typical margins, you'll still capture what's there; it'll just look a little skewed. While this may not bother some people, I couldn't stand it! Perhaps when I get tired of scanning in 100s of pages, I'll change my tune.

One quirk I found that turned out to be a hidden feature if you will was with legal paper. While looking through the product comparison page on the Doxie website, it says the Doxie One can't handle legal-sized paper (8.5″ x 14″), but I figured it was wide enough, why not? Sure enough, I had no problem scanning those in and then importing them in via the application.

As I mentioned, one of the big selling points of the Doxie is its portability. Imagine the scenario where you have boxes and filing cabinets worth of documents to scan in and all you have is a flatbed scanner either by itself or built into your all-in-one printer. Well you would need to take documents over in bunches to your printer and scan them in or worse yet, take the printer or scanner over to the filing cabinet while probably needing to maintain a connection to a computer to store the scanned docs.

In my case, I know that using my printer means scanning one or a few pages at a time, then immediately 'processing' that scan on my computer using the scanner application (choosing the resolution, file format, where to save the file, etc.). What I feel Doxie does to great effect is decouple the physical scanning from the electronic processing. You can scan in hundreds of pages today, and process them another day.

Wi-Fi

Speaking of portability and thinking about doing away with wires too, wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to pull move the SD card over to your computer or to plug the Doxie in? Oh but you can - just plug in an Eye-Fi WiFi SD card. That's an SD card with built-in 802.11 wireless networking that may be configured to automatically upload files to your target of choosing. Just imagine pointing it directly to your computer with your Doxie app!

Although Apparent only sells a Wi-Fi combo with the Doxie Go model, there's nothing stopping you from buying an Eye-Fi card to plug into your Doxie One.

The Software

The software that Doxie offers along with their scanners is a bulky 100+ MB download, but that's mainly due to the extensive language and OCR support. Available for Windows and Macs, there's no Linux version in the cards that we know about. Once you've imported all of your scans from your SD card into the application, you can do a number of things.

Since each page is a separate file, an important feature is the ability to group those pages together using the 'Staple' function. From there, you can save or send those pages as a group. For example, you'll most likely want to save them as a PDF file (saving as JPEG or PNG will result in the same # of files as you had to start with).

Before you save the files though, you can adjust the scan if you want to tweak it or you don't like the quality. To that end, you can adjust the contrast, brightness, saturation, rotate it to any angle (see my earlier point about feeding in papers at an off-angle), and crop it. By the way, the nitpicker in me still didn't like that those white pages that I fed in off-angle might still have some black in the corner even after adjusting the rotation so the text on the page was even.

OCR

Another important feature for going paperless is the ability to find documents in your repository when you need them. And how do you find them? Search. To that end, the Doxie application has OCR (optical character recognition) functionality built in. You can save your documents as PDFs with or without OCR.

It recognized pages with typed up characters amazingly well, while the OCR was pretty much a failure for handwritten pages. (Incidentally, if you want handwritten pages with incredible text recognition, pick up a Livescribe smartpen. We reviewed an early model (the Pulse) a few years ago and simply loved it. Another must-have product!) In defense of Doxie, the Livescribe's advantage is that it also has a recording of how you wrote those characters which is why its recognition is so good.

And in a nice twist of one advantage leading to another advantage, PDFs saved with black and white OCR are actually smaller than just a raw PDF. That's due to the fact that storing text takes up much less room than having to store where the dots are one the page. And the text seems even clearer, so for the vast majority of cases, store your typed up docs as PDF with B&W OCR! You can also adjust how you'd like Doxie to save the OCR in the PDF, for example whether it should just add another layer to the PDF or replace the text it recognized with its own font.

I found that sending or saving as anything (PDF/BMP/PNG) took time and the dialog box prevented me from doing anything else in the application. Saving needs to be put in the background or into a queue so that it doesn't interfere with your efficiency.

Within the software application, you need to add the apps you want to 'connect to'. For example, if you want to send scanned docs to Evernote or Dropbox, you need to tell the Doxie app how to connect. For example, with Dropbox, it's a matter of telling it what folder to add docs to, and with Evernote, you need to tell it where the evernote.exe program is. I did discover a minor glitch with sending to Evernote where I had to rename the file within Doxie so that it didn't have any spaces.

Although I understand why Doxie decided to break up the target send to locations into 'cloud' and 'local', it's a blurry distinction. For example, Evernote isn't listed in the 'Cloud Apps' because technically what you're doing is send it to the local application before it gets synced up to the cloud. For that reason, I'd much prefer a one-stop shop if you will of targets. Other cloud options included the usual suspects like Tumblr, Flickr, Google Docs and even Basecamp.

You could also choose to send it up to Doxie's very own cloud storage which is free with your Doxie purchase.

Closing Thoughts

There is no question that you can very effectively go paperless today. The tools exist - the hardware, the software and the storage. Doxie has created some compelling products to get you there. While there is still some polishing that should be done, mainly in the feature and user interface aspects of the software, you can go paperless right now and not worry about having to revisit the documents you've already scanned in and filed.

One other suggestion I'd give Apparent is to create some 'best practices' videos on how to use their software in an efficient manner with a particular target. For example, what's the best way to use Doxie with Evernote? Or Doxie + Google Docs/Drive? Sure, there are dozens of ways, but while the power users will always figure out the best system for themselves and completely understand what's going on, most users just want something that works without having to worry too much about the inner-workings.

(The standard disclaimer: Gizmos for Geeks received a complimentary review copy of this product, but has no fiduciary relationship with the vendor.)

This article was written and published by Gizmos for Geeks.
Original Link: Review: Doxie One portable scanner.

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