Hasta La Gadget!

Whenever we hear the words Portable Drums, we think of the traditional drum kit with its stand and heavy drum-sets  Kevin Depape (seen on Yanko Design) goes one step further into the world of electronic drum sets. He introduces a portable yet very high tech drum kit called the Y-Drum portable drums. These drums are designed to be for everyone, starting from beginners to folks with good drumming skills. In fact just about anyone who wants to have more fun with percussion drumming should be able to enjoy the Y-Drum portable drum – at least, that’s the idea.

In theory, you simply build your own set with the pads available in the kit virtually anywhere you feel like drumming. Or for a conventional setup, follow the instructions included in the box pack (if it was an actual product). Also included in the case is a charger and cordless headphones. Hook up your favorite computer or smartphone that needs to have the Roland’s application installed on it and connect via Bluetooth to the Y-Drum kit (the main “box”), which is itself connected to the laptop via USB. This functionality is quite handy as you do not have to deal with wires getting in your way while playing. Simply start playing your favorite drum tunes and say good bye to air drumming.  At this point, this is just a concept, but would you like it to become a product? How would you use it?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: HTC Infographic Hints At Audio Quality Improvements, Sonos Playbar Available For Pre-Order For $700,

This week the developer of Instapaper, Mr. Marco Arment, has created a rather intriguing mock-up of what the “iPhone Plus” would look like, using specifications, tips, and rumors to push the idea of this device as close to reality as possible. The device itself would work as an in-between aside the iPhone 5 and the iPad mini, filling in the perceived “gap” left at the moment where no iOS device currently exists. The iPhone Plus (or iPhone+ or iPhone Math) would work with a 4.94-inch display and a lovely 640 x 1136 pixel (264 PPI) resolution.

While the resolution here isn’t as sharp as the iPhone 5 (or 4 or 4S), you’ll find that it’s quite a bit sharper than the iPad mini and the original iPad (and iPad 2). The original iPad worked with a 132 PPI resolution, the iPad mini has 163 PPI to its name, and the iPhone 5 (and 4/4S) work with 326 PPI. It would therefor make sense that the iPhone Math would represent the same seemingly odd move that the iPad mini made with its resolution less of that of the iPad 3 (and 4), the current iPad coming out to 264 PPI across its own highest-end display.

The image you see first in this post shows what Arment notes is the iPhone 5, iPhone Plus, iPad mini, and iPad 4. This device would, mind you, have a larger display than the Samsung Galaxy S III (taller, but thinner), and would still come in smaller than the current hero Galaxy Note (that being the Samsung Galaxy Note II). Another bit of logic Arment offered this week was the math that John Gruber inflicted on the public back before the iPad mini was released, essentially predicting that because displays are made on a large sheet and cut down to size.

Because of that fact, the iPad mini was predicted to use the same sheet the iPhone 3GS used, this allowing the same amount of pixels to fit on the display of a full-sized iPad display on a smaller sheet cut to size for the iPad mini. The iPhone 3GS was 3.5-inchs and 480 × 320 pixels, while the iPad mini did end up being 7.9-inches and 1024 × 768 pixels (a .05 difference in inches from what was predicted.) The math still works if you take the sheet of display used for the Retina iPad models (3 and 4) and kept the iPhone 5 display size ratio, sizing it up to 640 × 1136 pixel resolution, this across 4.94-inches of display.

With this device you’ll once again have a display size that allows developers to not have to re-size their apps as its the same aspect ratio as the iPhone 5, made with the same sheet of display technology the iPad uses now, this keeping costs down and production swift. Sound like a deal to you? Now we’ve just got to reconcile the fact that the original iPhone display which was “perfect” for the human hand and one-handed use will be dashed once more – the humanity of it all!

iPhone Plus mock-up offers real 4.94-inch display vision is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Keyboards are more or less the same and it’s quite hard to “improve” on it, apart from ergonomics which some might disregard over features like macro buttons, mechanical keys and etc., which basically means that it really boils down to the preference of the user. However wouldn’t it be somewhat of a novel idea of the keys on our keyboards were actually dynamic in the sense that they could change depending on what we are typing or what kind of software we are running? If you said yes to that, then this concept keyboard with e-ink keycaps might be worth taking a look at, and could leave you actually wanting the product to be made.

This concept was cooked up by designers Maxim Mezentsev and Aleksander Suhih who envisioned a keyboard featuring e-ink keycaps that would change depending on the situation at hand. For example if you were surfing on a foreign website like a Japanese or Korean website, maybe the keys could change to Japanese or Korean characters, and switch back again to English later. Or maybe it can even be mapped out to show Photoshop keyboard shortcuts or display symbols that one might not typically find of normal keyboards. It’s a pretty novel idea but it has some potential – what say you?

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Google made a lot of people excited about the future when the company showed off a concept video for the Project Glass computer. A month after that, a some of us wet our already wet pants some more when the Leap controller was unveiled. And now we have the Meta, which as far as I can tell is a combination of those two products.

According to its press release[PDF], Meta was founded by Meron Gribetz in December 2012 with help from Columbia University Professor Steven Feiner, a computer scientist who specializes in wearable computing, 3D user interfaces and augmented reality, among other things. Most of the company’s 15 employees are also from Columbia University, including Gribetz himself. Whereas Google seems to prefer the use of voice commands for their wearable computer, Meta is putting its money on gesture control, hence the need for a 3D camera.

Like Google, Meta has yet to reveal concrete details about their product. So which future would you rather have? The one where everyone’s talking to the air or the one where we’re all waggling our arms about? Just kidding. The future will obviously contain a lot of both. And people bumping into things.

[via Meta via Geeky Gadgets]

Are flexible displays the holy grail when it comes to portable consumer electronics such as the smartphone? I suppose you could say so, and Samsung did take a step in the right direction where flexible displays are concerned at the recently concluded CES 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Well, here is a concept that will run along the same line of thought – the iFlex flexPhone concept, being the creation of the de Poorter Design studio in Milan.

The whole idea of the iFlex flexPhone concept is to illustrate the future possibilities offered by such new flexible displays, where both sides of the rigid flexPhone aluminum case will remain connected to the central silicone part via a deformable inlay, in order for the device to assume and maintain any desired angle while supporting new usage patterns. The phone sports a magnetic lock to keep everything in place during the closed position so that it will offer adequate protection for the display from scratches and bumps.

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