Hasta La Gadget!

One of the final stages of the Moto X packaging in a Texas factory.

(Credit: Eric Mack/CNET)

This week, Crave’s Eric Mack toured the Texas factory where the Motorola Moto X is made. It’s the first smartphone ever to be assembled in the US, and so far, demand for the device seems to be decent. Is this the start of an American tech-production renaissance?

Making devices like smartphones in America means paying higher wages to workers. That can make production costs a little higher than manufacturing overseas. This translates to either a bigger price tag for consumers, or a cut somewhere in the hardware features to keep costs down.

If the Moto X turns out to be as profitable as Motorola is hoping, it could encourage more gadget manufacturing on American shores, rather than in plants in China as is the current norm. Still, the question remains as to whether buyers are willing to compromise, especially if it means shelling out more money.

Last year, a Crave poll found that 25 percent out of 764 respondents activel… [Read more]

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For a while Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei was in contention to purchase Nokia’s hardware business. That’s the same hardware business that Microsoft itself ended up purchasing in a bid to get its own smartphone hardware manufacturing operation. In the past, Microsoft hardware partners have taken issue with Microsoft stepping into the hardware realm. That was […]

We are used to leaks of unannounced smartphones turning up around here, and often those leaks come courtesy of someone in China at the manufacturing level. A leaked photograph of what is reportedly a HTC One smartphone that is gold in color has turned up. The photo originally came from a Chinese web forum called […]

We took a closer look at two second generation styli from Wacom yesterday, and here we are with yet another offering from the folks over at Wacom in the form of the Wacom Bamboo Pad. This is no ordinary tablet from Wacom, as it will feature support for navigation gestures in addition to its bread and butter, which happen to be drawing and handwriting capabilities. The moment you plug a Wacom Bamboo Pad into your Windows 8 or Windows 7-powered computer, the Bamboo Pad would be able to serve up an authentic and more natural navigation experience right on the spot.

Wacom would see it as an insult if one were to just describe the Bamboo Pad as a yet another touch pad in the market, as it does far more than that. Folks who have a penchant to throw in a personal signature, a drawing or some handwritten comments to their documents are able to enjoy the Wacom Bamboo Pad in a whole new way. It does not matter if you are proverbially chained to your desk for long hours on end, the Bamboo Pad’s ultra-slim form factor would pave the way for a comfortable user experience even through the entire day.

If one were to compare the Bamboo Pad to a standard computer mouse, the Bamboo Pad offers natural feeling multi-touch gestures, especially when you are using Windows 8. Not only that, communication would end up to be even more visual oriented and fun as well, as you can throw in snippets of your own personality such as adding sketches, drawings or handwriting with the included stylus.

How about Mac users? Windows 7 and Windows 8 users just need to plug in the Bamboo Pad in order to activate the device, but Apple computer owners running on MacOS 10.7 or later will first need to install a driver that can be downloaded via the Wacom support website. The Wacom Bamboo Pad would arrive in wired and wireless versions, retailing for $49 and $79, respectively.

Press Release
[ Wacom Bamboo Pad sports navigation gestures this time around copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Google Creative Lab has announced the launch of a new project aimed specifically at the little Raspberry Pi developer board. The product is called Coder and let users easily transform the Raspberry Pi into a basic web server with a web-based development environment. The tool was created by Google’s Jason Striegel, Jeff Baxter, and a […]