Hasta La Gadget!

Of all the consumer electronics we saw at the 2014 CES, these are our picks for the most interesting, the most important, and the most awesome.

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[CES 2014] At every edition of CES, you can be sure that there will also be an area that showcases vehicles as well as the different kinds of technology that has been incorporated within, or in this particular case of the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC), from without. We are referring to how German automaker Audi has been demonstrating Qi wireless charging capability at this year’s edition of CES.

This would place Audi alongside the ranks of Daimler, Toyota, Jeep and others who have already incorporated Qi wireless charging capability in current and future car models. Needless to say, cars are but a natural fit for wireless charging, so to have Qi wireless charging capability just about everywhere the consumer needs it makes perfect sense. The Audi phone box that debuted in 2012 has been refreshed to include Qi wireless charging capability, where the electricity in the floor of the phone box will flow to a receiver coil in the smartphone via induction. Future versions will see the very same Audi phone box provide perfect cell reception, in addition to making sure that a user’s smartphone will remain fully charged all the time. Apart from that, Audi makes use of the WLAN hotspot in the car so that it can combine the world of smartphones and tablets with the automotive world in an intelligent manner. [Press Release]

Audi Demonstrates Qi Wireless Charging At CES 2014 original content from Ubergizmo.

[CES 2014] TP-LINK has recently announced their brand new AC1750 Enterprise Dual Band WiFi Access Point with Power over Ethernet (PoE), which is the EAP320. Well, those are certainly plenty of letters and numbers to think about, so this is one of the moments where one would definitely prefer a proper naming convention. This particular Access Point (AP) from TP-LINK will support the latest 802.11ac standard, which provides up to 1750Mbps of available bandwidth alongside simultaneous 2.4GHz 450Mbps and 5GHz 1300Mbps.

Sporting the 802.11ac standard, the EAP320 is capable of supporting an impressive number of bandwidth-intensive and latency-sensitive applications while its PoE capability would pave the way for flexible deployment without the need to run additional electrical wiring. It also boasts of an intelligent centralized management system that facilitates the configuration and management of multiple APs. A solitary AP will be dynamically selected by the wireless controller which then automatically distributes the network configuration to other APs in the WLAN, doing away with the need for any kind of manual synchronization. Apart from that, Captive Portal would also let administrators control wireless access via an authentication process, while network users will first have to agree to an acceptable use policy that has been set by the network administrator, or alternatively, to enter a user ID and password that must first be validated against a database of authorized users.

TP-LINK AC1750 Enterprise Dual Band WiFi Access Point original content from Ubergizmo.

Laptop chargers, safe to say, aren’t exactly “portable” in the sense of the word. They tend to be bulky and in some cases, have pretty huge power bricks which means that you will need to bring a bag with you if you want to carry around your laptop and your charger at the same time. However wouldn’t it be cool if your laptop charger was small enough to slip into a handbag or maybe even your pocket? Well that’s pretty much the concept the folks at Finsix were trying to achieve with their portable laptop charger that they unveiled at CES 2014. Granted chargers aren’t exactly the most exciting of technology, but Finsix’s creation let’s us take a look at a problem we didn’t really think needed solving to begin with.

Through the use of technology they developed at MIT, the company managed to shrink the innards of a regular laptop charger into the gadget you can see pictured above, which upon first glance looks like a smartphone charger. What’s impressive is that the end result is a highly portable, 65-watt power adapter that also comes with a USB port that you can use to charge your smartphone, tablet, or any other USB-powered device at the same time, and given that it is a two-prong setup, it saves you the trouble of searching for a three-prong outlet, which sometimes might not be as convenient. Now the good news is that for the most part, the Finsix charger will be compatible with most laptops, save for Apple’s MacBooks.

This is because Apple does not license out its magnetic power connector for use with third party adapters, either for safety or proprietary reasons. However Finsix is hoping Apple will have a change of heart down the line. Priced at an affordable $90, the Finsix charger will be available middle of the year with pre-orders taking place in March.

Finsix Debuts Laptop Charger Small Enough To Slip Into Your Pocket original content from Ubergizmo.