Hasta La Gadget!

Meet the Hex3 JaJa stylus, a pressure-sensitive drawing tool for the iPad (and other tablets, too) that transmits information to the device via sound waves, eschewing the need for a Bluetooth connection. It’s only one of a recent crop of pressure-sensitive styli for the iPad, but its unique, quirky design provides both its big advantages and its most significant flaws.

Short Version

The JaJa is a capable little accessory that works surprisingly well, given its strange operating mechanism. If you’re used to a Wacom tablet, you’ll probably find this a weak substitute for professional work, but hobbyists and even people looking to do basic illustrations will find much to like about the little guy.

Pros:

• Long-lasting battery life, around 40-80 hours on a single AAA.
• Pinpoint accuracy thanks to unique tip design.

Cons:

• Clicks audibly and regularly, like some kind of underwater creature. I didn’t find it too annoying, but you might.
• Skips on occasion.

Long Version

All I want is a pressure-sensitive iPad stylus that works consistently and reliably. I don’t even care if it works with a wide variety of apps – so long as it’s compatible with one that I enjoy using. The JaJa fits those admittedly limited needs, thanks to a design that makes it easy to set up, fun to use. It does occasionally frustrate, but not enough to mar the overall experience. Would I still rather have a Wacom Cintiq or a ModBook Pro? Of course, but spending $90 instead of $2,000 sure helps to make the JaJa look a lot better by comparison.

For setup, you install a AAA battery (one isn’t supplied, unfortunately), and then turn it on with a 5 second press of one of its two buttons. Then you calibrate pressure levels, both minimum and max, in order to tailor it to your drawing style. That’s a nice touch, and one that I actually find myself taking time to get just right. Others don’t offer that level of customization, which is definitely a point in the JaJa’s favor.

The stylus does offer a bit of frustration at times, due to some occasional skipping and also a startup process that seems hit or miss at times. But it works very well most of the time, and better than a lot of other styli I’ve tried that aren’t even pressure-sensitive. I’m also a fan of the replaceable battery, which allows you to use either rechargeable or alkaline AAAs instead of worrying about a proprietary charger.

App compatibility varies, but once you find the correct setting, it’s easy to switch on detection of the JaJa pen. You can’t use it while playing audio out of the iPad’s speaker, but streaming via Bluetooth or AirPlay doesn’t affect anything. My favorite app for using with the JaJa was Autodesk’s SketchBook Pro, and it works well to vary pencil and brush strokes with that app. Another standout is Procreate, for those with more painterly dispositions. The drawing below in the gallery is one of my hasty, amateurish sketches, but it shows what you can do with the JaJa in just a few minutes that would’ve taken considerably longer with your finger or without the JaJa’s 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity.

In short, the JaJa is a solid buy for avid doodlers looking for something to supplement their existing iPad, without switching to a Windows 8 device with pressure-sensitive pen tech or Galaxy Note 10.1. It’s not perfect, but a lot of what ails it seems like it could be fixed on the software side, and even as-is, it provides a very enjoyable experience for the tablet user who also wants a little more artistic power than the average stylus can provide.

Truckers of the world! No matter how many times you try it, no matter how much you duck inside your cabin as get through it, no matter how strongly you believe the warning signs don’t apply to you, your vehicle is never going to be able to survive an encounter with Durham’s 11-foot 8-inch tall bridge. More »

For those unaware, Windows 8 went on sale today. If all goes well, millions upon millions of Wintel users will be switching the latest OS in the coming months, and there’s a giant in Mountain View that’s severely concerned about the future of your searches. You see, Microsoft has done a fine job of pushing Internet Explorer and Bing into Windows 8, leaving Google loyalists nowhere to turn. Until now. After the break, you’ll enjoy a lighthearted video from the masterminds at Google, explaining precisely how to Get Your Google Back. It’s as simple as visiting getyourgoogleback.com on your Windows 8 machine, and then installing both Chrome and the Google Search app. Oh, and bonus points for “Aw yeah.”

Continue reading Get Your Google Back: a hilarious video meant for Windows 8 converts

Filed under: Internet, Microsoft, Google

Get Your Google Back: a hilarious video meant for Windows 8 converts originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Oct 2012 12:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You’ve never seen baseball like this. While HD and slow-motion replays have become old hat for MLB broadcasts, this post-season, FOX Sports is determined to document this year’s action in unprecedented detail—capturing at-bats by the microsecond. And this pair of ultra-high-speed Phantom cameras is how they’ll do it. More »

The folks at Google Maps have revealed a completely naturalized iteration of their global land environment this week with new terrain, color gradations to depict vegetation, and labels for lovely natural land formations of all kinds. This update makes that 3D globe you’ve got in your closet look all the more useless as you’re now able to see the mountains, coast over the plains, and see where the densest forests in the world are. Google has shown this Maps update in a collection of great examples including Brazil and Columbia (with the African Basin) and Southern Asia – now covered with luscious vegetation.

The Google Maps overhead view of the world is coming closer and closer to the real way we’d see such a place from space. Of course like any map worth its salt, we get more than that – markers and human-made borders galore. Google Maps also continues to connect with Google Earth – Google’s most ambitious planet-reproducing space-photo project in existence today.

First what you’re going to see above is Southern Asia before this new Natural Geography update created a real-world look at the landscape. Below is the same area with the addition of the trees, mountains, desert areas, and even snow capped mountains. The seas of course end up staying largely the same – perhaps in a future update we’ll see depth levels.

The next example shows a bit of green surrounding the areas in Venezuela, Columbia, and Peru that Google had been working with beofre this big update. Now we see the whole of the Amazon Basin with not only the fabulous sea of green that depicts it, but a label as well. Google has opted to take a traditional map approach with the name, spreading it across in a bit of a bowed line to show that it’s the general area that it’s labeling.

You’ll be able to see these changes in your browser window now and in your Android app sooner than later – can’t wait!

[via Google]

Google Maps gets Natural Geography update with colorful terrain is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
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