Over the past few years, pico projectors stuffed into smartphones and tablets have seemed like novel concepts with little real world application—yet. But the little projectors may finally evolve from novel to practical, especially with DLP’s latest pico chip architecture breakthrough. More »
Plastic Logic may have bowed out of building its own e-readers, but that’s not stopping the company from making its presence felt at CES. It’s teaming up with Intel and Queen’s University on the PaperTab, a 10.7-inch tablet concept built around a flexible, e-paper touchscreen. The prototype runs a Sandy Bridge-era Core i5 processor that lets it stand on its own, but it’s ultimately designed to work as part of a team: position awareness lets multiple PaperTabs join together to share a work area, and tapping one tablet with content can send it to a waiting document in another. The bendy nature isn’t just for durability and a paper-like feel, either, as readers can flip through pages just by bending the relevant side. A fuller reveal is planned for January 8th, but you can get an initial sense of how the plastic slate works through the video after the break.
Gallery: Intel and Plastic Logic PaperTab
Source: Queen’s University
A few weeks ago, reports trickled down from the mount that Acer was prepping a $100 7-inch tablet with specs that were juuuussssssst decent enough to be usable. The Iconia B1-A71 seems to fit the bill. Except, well, for the bill. More »
[CES 2013] Solid State Drives (SSDs) are becoming more common by the day, and it doesn’t look like the trend is going to stop. At CES 2013, SanDisk has announced the launch of two more SSDs: the Ultra Plus SSD and X110 SSD. While the latter is for OEMs to create new faster and slimmer devices, the Ultra Plus SSD is designed for consumers who want a high performance drive.
The Ultra Plus SSD delivers up to 530MB/sec sequential read and up to 445MB/sec sequential write speeds, so if you’re looking for a huge performance boost on your PC, you can’t go wrong with picking up one of these SATA 3.0 bad boys. The SanDisk Ultra Plus SSD is available now in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB capacities, and priced at $74.99, $109.99, and $219.99 respectively.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Asus Transformer Book TX300CA, ASUS Transformer AiO Merges Desktop And Tablet,
[CES 2013] If you’re a fan of camping or exploring and you would like to cut down on the amount of devices you carry with you, you’re in luck. Garmin has just announced the launch of its new Oregon (600/600t and 650/650t) GPS devices. More than just a GPS, the Oregon features a built-in 8MP autofocus camera for you to capture memories, landmarks, or interesting events that occur on your trips. The Garmin Oregon also has a multi-touch display that can work with most gloves, and reflective display technology which makes your maps visible regardless of whether you’re standing in bright sunlight or under the shade.
And as expected, the Oregon features GPS + GLONASS, pre-loaded TOPO US 100K maps, worldwide basemap with shaded relief and a faster processor. Users can also share their waypoints, routes, tracks with the BaseCamp software, and to other Oregon 600-series units as well. The new Garmin Oregon units are expected to be available in Q1 2013 and will have a suggested retail price of $399.99 (600), $479.99 (600t), $479.99 (650) $549.99 (650t).
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You know what they say, right? You can never have too many fitness trackers. After coming out with two health monitors back in September, Fitbit is back with a third product, the Flex — a waterproof wristband seemingly designed to compete with the Jawbone Up. (In PR speak: “Fitbit understands that one tracker does not fit all.”) Like other Fitbit devices, it counts calories, steps taken and distance covered (but not flights climbed). It then automatically sends that data to a personalized website over Bluetooth. You can record your food intake, too, but you’ll have to do it manually using either the website or one of the company’s mobile apps.
The Flex tracks your sleep quality as well, but the approach here differs from other Fitbit products: whereas the Fitbit One and Fitbit Zip have a key you can press to enter sleep mode, the Flex has no buttons at all, so your only recourse for logging sleep is to use the app or website. We have to say, that sounds like a bit like a case of form over function: the Up can detect when you’re sleeping, as can the pricey new Basis band. The good news is that the battery life seems decent: Fitbit says the Flex can last between five and seven days on a charge, and that’s despite having a Bluetooth 4.0 radio inside. For comparison’s sake, the Jawbone up is rated for up to 10 days but then again, you have to plug it in every time you want to sync, and the cap covering the charging piece is easy to lose. So, that’s something to keep in mind. In any case, if you prefer the wristband form factor and want something less expensive than the Up, the Flex costs $100 and is up for pre-order today, with shipments expected to begin sometime in the Spring.
Filed under: Wearables
SanDisk is coming to CES with the aim of democratizing solid-state drives, and its new Ultra Plus (X110 for PC builders) just might do the trick. The 2.5-inch drive (not yet pictured here) musters 530MB/s peak read speeds and 445MB/s writes, like many higher-end SSDs, but promises to ditch some of the premium we commonly associate with that breakneck pace. The 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities on offer will cost just $75, $110 and $220 — low enough that we could see them easily slotting in as a fast boot drive or a full-fledged replacement in a laptop. Anyone looking for a quick storage pick-me-up should already find the Ultra Plus waiting at Amazon, Microcenter and Newegg.
Continue reading SanDisk releases Ultra Plus and X110 SSDs with speed on a budget
Filed under: Storage
Source: SanDisk
Xpal’s SpareOne disaster-ready cellphone was one of the most intriguing devices we saw at last year’s CES. Using a huge capacitor, the stripped-down GSM handset promised a 15-year battery life from the charge of a single AA Energizer battery. While the call quality was basic, it could certainly be the sort of unit that you could stow in a first aid kit or car trunk for emergencies. Now the company has returned with the SpareOnePlus, which adds location-based data, readable with a smartphone app, which is good for keeping track of your loved ones on the go. Xpal has also tried to address one of our biggest gripes with the original by adding audio feedback, reading out the number that you’re dialing and telling you who’s calling — although we’re still wondering why they couldn’t stretch to a screen. Bundled in the package is also a waterproof bag that promises to keep your essentials dry for 30 minutes under one meter of water. The only sting in this tail is that this extra technology (and bag) comes at a price — which has increased from $50 to $99 and is expected to be available “early 2013.”
Gallery: Spare One Plus Hands-on at CES 2013
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
It’s no secret that the GPS business has faced an uphill battle these past few years. Thanks to smartphones there’s less of a reason to invest in a standalone navigator, and while GPS companies have been selling mapping apps of their own, that doesn’t quite make up for plunging device sales, now does it? Well, Magellan has an interesting solution: the firm just announced the smartGPS, a dashboard navigation device that’s designed to work in tandem with an iOS / Android app.
Naturally, both the smartGPS and the app have turn-by-turn navigation, so you can use either when you’re in need of directions. But really, the device does so much more than that. Thanks to Magellan’s new cloud service, all of your data — recent destinations, etc. — will get pushed across your various devices, including the navigator and mobile devices with the mobile app installed. (There’s also a website where you can manage all of this.) By default, this syncing happens over your home WiFi network, but if you already left the house and are out of range, the smartGPS will instead use Bluetooth to talk to your phone. So what does this all mean? For starters, if you search for a restaurant on your phone, you can send it to your navigator so that you don’t have to enter the address manually (and we all know how annoying that is). What’s more, the navigator and app both have Yelp reviews and Foursquare offers built in, so if you wanted you could peruse reviews of cafes on your phone and then push the directions to the device.
As an aside, it’s neat to see user reviews built into a personal navigator, which isn’t exactly a typical feature. It also seems pretty well-implemented: there are big, yellow stars indicating the overall rating, so you needn’t worry about having to drive and read a two-paragraph write-up at the same time. By default, the driving map takes up the whole screen, so you can keep those Foursquare offers hidden if you find them distracting. The smartGPS will be available in March (price TBA) with applications for both iOS and Android. (Note: these won’t take the place of Magellan’s existing apps.) Turn-by-turn navigation will be a premium feature — an in-app upgrade. That’s all she wrote for now, but if you want to see the whole setup in action, we’ve got a demo video embedded just after the break.
Filed under: GPS
You may not have heard of Audience, but its sound processor may be powering your smartphone right now. With design-wins like the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, Galaxy S3, RAZRi and other high-profile smartphones, Audience makes your voice sound better for those who listen to you on the phone. The company builds Voice Processors that help filter out background noise, even in relatively noisy places like busy restaurants and bars. (more…)
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