The best gifts are the ones that aren’t obvious. Oh you’re going to get your sister another pair of earrings? Nah. This time you should go for a set that were 3D printed instead. In order to wow your family and everyone on your list this year, here’s are some magical presents that came out of a printer.
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It’s Thanksgiving in the States and tomorrow is the biggest shopping day of the year. In fact stores will be open tonight so you can elbow your way into a scrum of bargain hunters and frotteurists. I’m here to tell you it’s a sucker’s game, at least when it comes to consumer electronics and computer hardware.
3D printing is all the rage and it’s hard to know just where to start. If you have a budding manufacturing magnate on your Christmas list we’ve got a few fun things for them to check out. One word of advice? Don’t buy cheap 3D printers. I’ve tested a few so far and a number of the “cheap” open source models and some of the models you find at Office Depot are unusable at best. It hurts me to say this but there is really a race to the bottom when it comes to 3D printing right now. Things may be expensive, but like any early-adopter you should save your pennies and pick the right model for the job.
First, I’d recommend the Makerbot Replicator 2X, an “experimental” Makerbot that can print using corn-starch-based PLA and plastic ABS. 
Being able to print in both materials is vitally important if you want to make high quality items and each material has its different qualities. For example, you can print translucent objects with PLA but not ABS and ABS objects are far more resilient than PLA objects.
At $2,799 it’s not a cheap toy, but if you’ve been planning to jump into 3D printing there’s no time like the present. I actually make a little money using MakeXYZ, a market for 3D printed objects. By printing things for other people you can actually pay for the ‘bot and the printing material in a few months.
Want to spend a little less? Take a look at the Afinia H series, a $1,599 printer with a smaller build plate than the Makerbot but, in some ways, superior resolution. I tested the rugged little Afinia and came away impressed. You can order the printers here.
One of my favorite products of 2013 was the Makerbot Digitizer. It’s a $1,400 3D scanner that can scan in almost any object. I reviewed it here calling it close to magic, which is the truth.
Don’t want to spend too much? 3D Systems has released the Sense scanner, a $399 model that requires you to move the scanner around an object in 3D space. They’re beginning to ship now and we’ll have a full review shortly, but that’s the gist of it.
Finally, you could probably use some filament. While Makerbot sells their own excellent filament, I’ve had good luck with Monoprice. You may have to mess around with the spool holder for your printer – Monoprice’s spools don’t fit the stock Makerbot spool holder – but you will save about $25 off of Makerbot’s prices.
Be sure to leave plenty of room under the tree for your printers – these things aren’t tiny – and enjoy entering the amazing 21st century.
If you listen closely, you can hear it: the eye of the console storm. We are between technologies and the big hardware makers know it. It’s a move from an optical-disk-based, high-heat standalone device. To paraphrase William Gibson: the future is here, it’s just unevenly distributed and its on that uneasy plane the new $399 PS4 firmly sits.
This new console is, arguably, the last console to be released before a number of massive shifts in the industry will force sweeping changes to hardware and software. Onlive, though a failure, offered the promise of a cloud-based graphics system that could entertain without heavy hardware. Steam has convinced gamers they don’t need disks. 4K, while still a whimsical feature, is the future, and toys like the Ouya and Oculus Rift point to a leaner gaming business model and new interfaces. In short, the PS4 is the best of last generation’s consoles and, as such, deserves to be looked at as Sony’s last stand and the doorway to an amazing future.
At first glance you can see a certain PC pedigree in the angular lines and large case. There are two hidden buttons – touch-sensitive shards of plastic, really – that turn the console on and eject the well-hidden Blu-ray disk drive.
It has 8GB of GDDR5 RAM and a 500GB hard drive that will store games and video content. There is no external storage – presumably 500GB will be enough and if it isn’t you’re going to be juggling the 30+GB games that you download. There is a single HDMI port on the back next to an optical audio port as well as an “AUX” port for the optional $60 PS4 camera.
The controller is rounder and I’d say a bit more comfortable than the PS3 controller and puts it more in line with the soft edges of the 360/Xbox One controller. There is no power brick and you can, if you wish, simply swap out the HDMI and power cable from the PS3 and plug it into the PS4.
The controller itself includes a number of interesting features. First there is a built-in gyroscope and Eye-compatible light that allows for some very Wii-like interaction features. It also includes dual rumble motors and a small speaker that can transmit audio as necessary. Battery life has been strong although I haven’t fully tested the controllers in the short time I’ve had the console. The PS4 itself includes a wired headset for in-game chat and cables to charge the controllers.
You will notice a Share button on the controller which represents Sony’s move to grab a more social gamer. The console records the last fifteen minutes of gameplay and clicking share lets you post screenshots to Facebook or Twitter or edit and upload video to Facebook. This active social interaction comes into play on the dashboard where you find shared snippets by your friends. This is an amazing discovery engine and will probably drive the further adoption of downloaded content.
If you have a PS Vita you can use it as a remote screen, playing games right on the small screen while you use the TV for other purposes. It worked fine but I’d worry that relegating a Vita to a second screen isn’t a good use of the PS4′s resources. The PS4 iOS and Android apps, designed to allow you to control various aspects of gameplay as well as social networking – were also barely baked.
Sadly my initial experience was marred by some problems. Long load and install times were common. Major parts of the interface – the store, for example, are actually rendered WebGL – and sometimes slows down in graphically rich environments. Application switching, especially out of games and into the dashboard, is far quicker than the previous generation but you still sometimes need to quit games to perform other actions.
This is a brand new device and, for the most part, I’m very optimistic. The games are gorgeous (if a bit trite) and everything is surprisingly smooth. One of the best features, especially for parents like myself, is an option to play any game without a lengthy update. The PS4 disables online play if you don’t update, but you can at least get a few licks in before you wait 45 minutes for the server to respond.
PlayStation Plus is another improvement to the experience. For $49 a year this feature enables many of the online-gaming features including multiplayer gaming and special game discounts. It’s an obvious play to create an Xbox Live-like feature but it definitely improves on the catch-as-catch-can attitude towards online gaming of the previous generation.
Does the PS4 need a video store, music service (called Music Unlimited), and a web browser? Not really, but they don’t hurt. I suspect there are so many places people go to get video and music now that the PS4 is not a dedicated source anymore. However, the PS4 does not support DLNA streaming which should give folks with large audio and video collections pause. Sony could improve this in the future but as it stands it’s an inconvenience.
The launch titles available for PS4, including Call Of Duty: Ghosts, Battlefield 4, and the unique platformer called Knack, all look amazing on the PS4′s hardware. Previous gen consoles, while smooth and detail rich, are no match for the amazingly life-like lighting effects, motion, and environment details. Make no mistake: this is really next-gen stuff.
The included title, Playroom, shows off many of the PS4′s capabilities but is more a demo than a full game. To play it you waggle the controller around, flicking little augmented-reality characters in an on-screen representation of your living room. It’s very cute, but not a serious contender for game of the year.
This isn’t a game review so I’ll reserve passing detailed judgment on the titles. Sadly the introductory titles are interesting at best and poor at worst. Knack is a cute game featuring a Rayman-esque robot that grows as he battles trolls. The story is odd and not particularly compelling but the gameplay is smooth and the graphics are whimsical yet surprisingly detailed. All of these games are proofs of concept, titles that offer promise of things ahead. Are they the enough to amuse the casual fan? No, and there is no reason to update unless you’re looking for console-agnostic titles like Battlefield. These titles look great on the PS4 but they also look fine on the PS3 (and Xbox 360 and PC).
My list of PS4 negatives is very short. The fact that DNLA is now missing is a big deal. The launch titles are poor. The store is bogged down and installation isn’t nearly as fast as it needs to be. These can and will be remedied and if they’re not then Sony will have to decide how to react to the backlash.
You also can’t play PS3 games on the PS4, a sad state of affairs for many who don’t want to spend $60 updating their collections. There is some hope, however, for owners of very recent PS3 games. For $10 you can download “updates” to these titles on the PS4 that require the PS3 disk to run. So far few major games – most notably GTA V are compatible with this service. There is also some talk of live streaming of PS3 games but there is no promise that ownership of a PS3 disk will get you access to the stream. In short, this console slams an iron curtain on the past.
You’re also going to be disappointed in the pricing. The $60 PS4 camera adds quite a bit to the $399 price tag as will another controller and a few games. While the console is $100 less than the Xbox One, the price is deceiving especially given the previous problem of backwards compatibility. In short, you can’t open the box and play without dropping at least another $60 for a launch title.
None of these bad points are particularly egregious but they add up to one clear thing – the PS4 isn’t quite ready and won’t be until some of the standout titles like Watch Dogs and Infamous: Second Son reach stores. That’s no reason to avoid this console, just a reason to wait a few weeks (or months) for the platform to mature.
In the same way that the PS3 massively improved on the PS2 so does the PS4 improve upon the last generation. The graphics are stellar, the media offerings quite complete thanks to Sony’s partnerships, and the controls and hardware are quite usable. PC gamers will definitely see plenty to love on this powerful platform.
Sony knows how to make a nice console. The design is understated and lacks the glossy bulbosity of the PS3. It is almost completely quiet and dissipates heat nicely, even in a confined space. It is the closest you’re going to get to a powerful PC in your living room and until devices like the Steambox hit the shelves I dare say this is about as good as it gets.
My prediction is that the PS4 (and the Xbox One) will go strong for about five years and peter out – and be replaced by the turn of the decade. This console has to tide over the console gamer for years and it will be a tough slog. 4K TV will become commercially popular and, because the console doesn’t support 60fps 4K playback, there will be another console after this one. The PS4 will also be the last console with an optical drive (much to the chagrin of GameStop execs, I’m sure). The console will sell well once the titles match its capabilities.
As it stands, today, however, it’s inherently difficult to recommend that you rush out and purchase a PS4 this season – but that shouldn’t stop you. It’s a solid platform that is dedicated primarily to gaming. There are few distractions – no TV interaction, few voice controls – and the entire device shows a dedication to gaming that isn’t present in competing consoles. The graphics, thanks to a powerful graphics processor, are stunning and everything looks better. The potential for greatness is right there in that angular black box. Sony and its partners just have to fulfill it.
Who is the PS4 for? It’s for die-hard Sony gamers. It’s for fans of major franchises who want PC-quality graphics in the living room. It’s for first-time PlayStation users who are looking for the state of the art. It’s not for the casual gamer – yet – and it’s not for the title-specific gamer who is, say, looking for something massively engrossing not available elsewhere. In that respect even a well-stocked iPad or Android tablet beats the PS4, at least in terms of game selection and playability. Sony has polished the PlayStation experience to a high shine and it’s clear that they knew exactly where to tweak the PS3 to make a true next-gen console. Now they have to figure out how to make it a compelling game platform in a world where most gaming is done on a 4-inch screen and not a 4-foot TV.
We are at the eye of a storm. It took a decade for the console to reach this quiet place and I suspect the next generation will bring us back into a storm of wild change. Until then, the release of the PS4 is a breather on the road to the next-next-gen and it’s a welcome one.
The days are getting shorter, friends, and that can only mean one thing: winter is coming, and so too are the holidays. We here at TechCrunch like to think of ourselves as a gaggle of technological bon vivants, so we’re starting our Gift Guide a little early this year.
First up: my picks for the digitally savvy bookworms and writers in your life. For whatever reason, these people just can’t tear themselves away from their endeavors – after all, the lure of taking in or laying down words can be too much to resist, so why fight it?
Our own John Biggs offered his in-depth impressions of the 7-inch Kindle Fire HDX some weeks ago (TL;DR he likes it quite a bit), but when it comes to earnestly consuming media, I happen to prefer the next size up.
Part of that is because of a handsome 8.9-inch display running at 2560 x 1600 that lends itself equally well to both video playback and devouring ebooks. And it certainly doesn’t hurt that the 8.9-inch HDX feels like one of the nicest Android tablets in recent memory, either. It’s clad in a soft-touch plastic finish, noticeably lighter than the model that came before it, and is just a hair slimmer than the 7-inch version we already reviewed.
Throw in a surprisingly competitive spec sheet to drive everything (there’s a 2.2 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 chipset and 2GB of RAM humming away in there) and features like Mayday to help troubleshoot issues on the fly and you’ve got a package that’s capable of dealing with just about anything you throw at it. Just know that by buying into the vast Amazon ecosystem, you’re also limiting yourself when it comes to the selection of apps you can install without additional cajoling.
If Amazon has the best honest-to-goodness tablet for immersing yourself in tomes, surely it stands to reason that its e-readers are on top of the heap, right? That’s long been the case and Amazon dutifully churns out updated models pretty frequently, but Barnes & Noble isn’t ready to wave the white flag just yet. Case in point: it just pushed the new Nook Glowlight onto store shelves in time to give the folks at Amazon another run for their money
With the new Glowlight, BN traded the dreary blacks and grays for a more buoyant white finish… sort of like the one Kindles use to have in the early days. It’s awfully light, too (which is a very good thing), and while the redesigned body looks just a bit dopey, the rounded edges and wider bezels mean it’s more comfortable to hold. To top it all off, the Glowlight’s e-Ink display has been configured in such a way that the mildly annoying “black flash” of a screen refresh that usually occurs every few page turns is almost completely gone.
Meanwhile, the new Paperwhite looks nearly identical to the model that came before it – the only big visual difference is that Amazon managed to fix most of the uneven lighting issues that plagued the first one. Most of Amazon’s innovation here is on the software front, as users can now
In the end there are more than enough reasons to justify whichever direction you take. If the thought of ads on your e-reader is just too much to bear and you prefer a cleaner, more handsome UI, consider the Nook. On the other hand, if you’re already somehow locked into the Amazon ecosystem, the newest Kindle Paperwhite comes out ahead once again.
What happens when the time to read has passed and you’re itching to let the words building up inside of you out? The Livescribe 3 is a smartpen that aims to help you tap your metaphorically lexical keg by automatically transmitting a copy of whatever you write to a smartphone or tablet that’s connected via Bluetooth 4.0.
But let’s back up a minute. The first thing you’ll probably notice about the Livescribe 3 is that it’s actually much more like a pen than the unrepentantly geeky models that came before it – to hear CEO Gilles Bouchard tell it, the team that designed this thing went through scads of iterations before settling on a final design.
The only bummer? Thanks to the inconsistent proliferation of Bluetooth 4.0 across Android devices, only iPhone and iPad users will be able to watch their words magically make the leap from paper to app for now.
I have a confession to make – between dashing off paper after paper in college and blogging for years, the actual act of putting pen to paper and scrawling out words for any considerable period of time seems alien to me. No, all of my writing these days results from the furious pounding of keys, and Scrivener is an invaluable tool for when idle thoughts give way to bigger concepts that need to be written about.
That’s because Scrivener isn’t just a text editor. It’s just as much an organizing system that helps to track, highlight, and organize all the little snippets, references, and half-formed ideas that ultimately give way to a larger work. Sure, minimalist writing interfaces like Draft and iA Writer seem to be all the rage (and I’m awfully fond of them, too), but I’d like them to wrangle and display the sheer amount of stuff that Scrivener can. And better yet, it’s available for OS X and Windows users.
Every year around this time we post our TC gift guides. This long, storied tradition began at CrunchGear when we attempted to do 300 reviews in three months (it didn’t work) and this year we’re focusing our energy on creating some fun gift guides based on the gear we’ve seen in Fly Or Die, flagship phones and hardware, and gizmos we play with during the coming months.
You can read our Gift Guide posts right here and request reviews or topics by emailing me at john@techcrunch.com. Happy Holiday season and here’s to a great 2014.
Late-night TV commercial stalwarts Neat may seem a little chintzy at first blush, but rest assured that their products – essentially very simple document scanners – are surprisingly good. Their latest version, the $499 NeatConnect, is a completely wireless scanning solution that lets you scan documents to services like Dropbox, Evernote, Box, Skydrive, and Google Drive. You can also scan documents into Neat’s own cloud solution, NeatCloud.
Neat scanners are good for a few things. First, they’re great for moving from a paper filing system to an online storage solution. To use the scanner you simply put documents, receipts, or business cards into the right slots (they’re marked on the front) and press scan. In this new iteration you can select where you want to send the documents by tapping on a small business-card sized touchscreen. It’s here that you set up your various accounts as well, including email accounts, Evernote, and Dropbox.
Users of Neat will remember the love/hate relationship with the Neat desktop app. This app held documents in a big bundle, ensuring that your anger knew no bounds when all of your business cards got mashed in with your tax documents. To be fair the optical character recognition did make it easy for you to search through documents with a few keystrokes but it definitely felt less than user-friendly.
The first thing you’ll notice about the NeatConnect is that it only needs a single power cable. You don’t have to connect the device to a computer but it does have a USB port and an SD card slot to use it as a TWAIN/Image Capturedevice or to store data right to an SD card. All of the setup is done on the screen by way of a surprisingly usable onscreen keyboard. It connects to your Wi-Fi network automatically (I did notice a few issues latching on to a WPA connection but those were intermittent). All of the settings – color/black and white, dual-sided scanning, and DPI, are selectable from the screen.
The NeatConnect is clearly expensive because of the hardware built in. The small screen is actually a tiny mobile computer that handles scanning and transmission wirelessly. The UI is as simple as can be – big buttons set the destination and the various settings – and everything can be managed from the device itself, thereby allowing you to put the Neat anywhere. Scanning is very quick and uploading on a good Wi-Fi connection takes a few seconds.
How well does it read documents? I’d give its OCR abilities about a B+. As evidenced from the above business card most of the important stuff is there. Names and phone numbers tend to pop up without problems but unique fonts will mess things up. Luckily the images are stored alongside the text so you can edit them as necessary. As long as your receipts are placed in a separate folder the app will collate them, add up the expenses (when it can read them) and include receipt images. I also use the app to store receipts and simply drag them onto the desktop or our expense manager when I need them. It’s a great solution to a surprisingly annoying problem.
Where Neat excels is at creating expense reports. To build one you simply move your receipts to a folder, name it, and run the report. The result is usually an accurate representation of the receipts inside complete with a total as well as an easy-to-read collation of your receipts. You can also just pull receipts out of the cloud and upload them to your device.
NeatCloud also bears a bit of attention. This solution allows you to store almost anything on Neat’s servers and you can even email items to the cloud and search other services like Evernote when you search in the cloud app. You get three months of NeatCloud access when you buy the scanner and the annual plan costs $60 up front or $6 a month. Because you can upload stuff right to Evernote and Dropbox, however, NeatCloud is a “nice-to-have” rather than a “need-to-have.” It depends on your own preference.
Why is the NeatConnect important? It does one thing and it does that thing surprisingly well. It is a single purpose device, to be sure, but if you have a lot of paper there is no easier way to scan and store it without fuss. There aren’t a lot of devices that can make that claim. Neat has been doing one thing – scanning documents – for years, and the NeatConnect is a nearly perfect home or small office scanner. It doesn’t scan negatives and I wouldn’t run precious family heirlooms through it but it will definitely help reduce your paper clutter and streamline your expense process immensely.
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