There are many reasons why people love their smartphones. They provide a seamless blend of communication and computing, are easy to use, and always with you. However, there are times when simple cell phones are still useful, especially when it comes to battery life.
The Nokia 105 was presented at the 2013 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, and it’s their most affordable phone up to date. It costs only €15 (~$20 USD) and it was intended for the first-time cell phone buyers. It comes with a bright screen, clear menus, and features like an FM radio, multiple alarm clocks, a dust and splash-proof keypad, as well as a flashlight.
Its most important feature is that it can last up to 35 days on a single charge – though it’s not clear how much of that is talk time and how much is standby time. This phone is definitely something useful to have as a backup device, in case of an emergency.
This unique ball turns the beautiful game into the energy-generating game. Made by a small company called Uncharted Play, the Soccket is a football that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy. In other words, you get electricity simply by playing with it.
As you roll and bounce Soccket around, a pendulum inside it cranks a small generator, which in turn is connected to a small battery. I wouldn’t be surprised if a typical hand-cranked generator can convert energy more efficiently, but of course that’s not as fun to use as the Soccket.
The Soccket weighs 17 oz., just 1 oz. heavier than a normal football. Aside from its power generating capability, the Soccket is also water-resistant, is airless and will never deflate.
Pledge at least $89 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a Soccket. As of now, the electricity stored within the ball can only be used by one device – the complementary LED lamp. But Uncharted Play did say that they’ll come up with more complementary gadgets as well as a USB adapter if Soccket reaches its goal on Kickstarter. Can you imagine if all kinds of sporting balls in the world had a generator inside? We would hate ball games. Just kidding.
There were a lot of people who were excited when prepaid wireless carrier Leap Wireless, who operates the Cricket Wireless mobile phone brand, announced that it would be offering the iPhone 5. I think a bunch of people forgot that carriers like AT&T and Verizon offer big subsidies to get people to purchase the phones and sign up for new contracts. A network like Cricket Wireless that offers no subsidies requires you to pay for the entire device up front.
In the case of Leap Wireless and Cricket Wireless, that meant users needed to pay at least $500 for an iPhone 5. Many of the customers who shop prepaid carriers are looking for no contract and budget phones. It never seemed likely to me that they’d be willing to cough up $500 for a smartphone. It appears I was correct because Leap has announced that it believes it may end up with $100 million worth of unsold iPhones by the middle of 2013.
The company says that it is on pace to sell only half the number of iPhones that it committed to sell during the first year of its Apple contract. That contract is set to end in June and the poor sales comes despite the fact that Apple previously allowed the wireless carrier to sell the iPhone at a reduced price when compared to unlocked iPhones. Leap’s inability to sell the iPhone could make some of the national carriers such as Verizon and AT&T seriously reconsider their plans to reduce any subsidies on smartphones.
Just like many of you, I dread dropping my phone. It happens from time to time, but I’ve never had a drop damage my phone. That being said, there’s no way that my phone could survive a 6,000-foot drop, or could it?
The people behind mentalKase have developed a case that’s supposed to be capable of surviving a drop from up to 6,000 feet – that’s more than a mile, folks.
The styling of the mentalKase isn’t that hot, but the foam rubber that it’s made of is ideal for protecting electronics. This means that you could probably throw your phone around and it would never be a problem, if you can get used to the size and bulk of the case.
With less than a day of funding left in this Kickstarter project, and more than $40,000 in funding missing, this case will probably not be funded by Kickstarter, but it might be released for retail nonetheless. You’ll have to pledge $45 for an iPhone 4/4S case or $50 for an iPhone 5 case.
Waking up has always been a difficult process for me, and I have to say that I haven’t found an easy way to wake up until now. The only real workaround is to get a good night’s rest. That being said, if you have the same difficulty getting out of bed as I do, there’s an app for that!
The ZenAwake app tries to wake you up in a gentler way than traditional alarm clocks, by starting the wake-up process 10 minutes before you’ve set your alarm. It starts as a gentle chime that increases in frequency over time. This is supposed to wake you up gradually, instead of just jarring you awake like most alarms.
The app uses The Golden Ratio to gradually increase the frequency of its chimes, which they claim will help wake you up more naturally. It’s definitely something people should try, especially if you’re very grumpy in the mornings like me.
The ZenAwake app is available for $1.99 at the iTunes app store and it seems like they are developing an Android version as well.
A week ago, we learned about the Mycestro, a pointing device that, despite its unusual form, only has a humble goal: to replace your mouse. The Ego! Smartmouse on the other hand is quite the opposite. It looks like a traditional mouse, but it is much more than that. The question is, do we need a mouse that’s this smart?
Made by Laura Sapiens, the Ego! – no, no, no signore, it’s Ego! Put some life into it! – is a Bluetooth mouse that can be used both on a flat surface as well as on air. You can also use the Ego! to control your HTPC or other Bluetooth media players. It can also be used as a wireless flash drive. It can also be used to as a gesture-based gaming controller. It can also remember and automatically input your passwords for you. It can also vibrate to alert you of an appointment or a new email. If Old Spice were to design a mouse, they’d probably come up with an Ego! Except the Old Spice mouse would have a six-pack.
In order to perform all those tasks, the Ego! runs on Linux, has a 400MHz ARM9 CPU, a flash memory capacity of either 2GB or 4GB, a VGA camera, a touch sensor (in place of a scroll wheel), an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a compass, a vibration motor and an optical mouse sensor. It’s got nothing on my mouse though! My Logitizzech M305,000 is covered in luxurious duct tape and has a special right-click button – 60% of the time, it works every time.
Here’s another look at the non-mouse features of this mouse:
Laura Sapiens is currently raising funds for the Ego! Smartmouse on Kickstarter. Pledge at least £70 (~$106 USD) to get one.
But back to my original question: how many people need a mouse this smart? The gestures for managing windows for example – is that actually faster than just using the mouse the normal way? How often do you need to move a file and yourself as well to another workstation? Will the VGA camera be good for anything else other than that gimmicky pairing method?
I’m not saying the Ego! is a bad mouse. I’m just not that convinced that it should exist. Partly because it’s making my mouse feel bad.
If you’re an iPhone 5 owner who prefers those bumper cases that only cover the edges of the smartphone, XGear has a new offering called the Fortress 2. The case wraps all the way around the edges of the iPhone 5 and has a sliding door that opens allowing you to charge and sync the device without any problems. The bumper case also leaves all of the controls uncovered for easy access.
The Fortress 2 is CNC machined from a solid block of aluminum and shouldn’t interfere with the antenna or disrupt your signal strength. Possibly the best feature of this case for fans of frosty adult beverages is that it has a built-in bottle opener on the top right corner. That means while you’re drunk texting your ex, you’ll be able to pop open a fresh beer to keep the buzz going.
The Fortress 2 is made in the USA and is available for $99.99(USD). It is offered in multiple colors including light blue, dark blue, red, bare aluminum, matte black, purple, and pink. For an additional $10 you can get the case with their Banshee Tempered Glass Screen Protector.
I’m always looking for better ways to wake up, but other than the jarring loud alarm that wakes me up every morning, I haven’t found a decent solution to my problem. This app might do the trick.
The Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock app is available for iPhone, and it monitors your movement during sleep using the iPhone’s accelerometer. Then, it finds the optimal time to wake you up during a 30 minute window that ends right at the time that you set your alarm.
The goal of this is to wake you at the optimal time to minimize the sleep inertia caused from jarring yourself awake at the wrong point in your sleep cycle. This is because people move differently during the phases of their sleep. During the lightest sleep phase, you move the most and that’s when Sleep Cycle wakes you up.
This seems like a definite improvement over some of the other alarm apps and solutions I’ve come across. The fact that it monitors your sleep using the iPhone itself is also pretty cool. You can get Sleep Cycle for $0.99 at iTunes.
If you’re incredibly rich and happen to be in the market for a bizarre and expensive case for your iPhone 5, Brikk has you covered. The company has just announced its new Haven series of iPhone 5 cases, made from gold or other precious metals.
These artisan-made cases have a minimal design with two halves that slip over the phone for edge and back protection, but they are not made from ordinary materials. These cases can be had in yellow or pink gold in addition to platinum.
These aren’t plated, they’re solid metals and cost somewhere between $11,610-$14,235(USD) each. The versions of the case made from gold have 75g of the precious metal while the platinum version has 100g of metal.
If these cases aren’t ostentatious enough for you, the manufacturer will also produce customized versions encrusted with diamonds and other precious stones.
Those rich enough to afford these cases can rest assured that at least a portion of their money is being put to a decent use. Each case purchased will result in the funding of one metric ton of rice for the world’s hungry. Though if you’ve got the money, you could just skip the case and buy about 30 metric tons of rice for the same amount of money. Or maybe a metric ton of steak and lobster.
As we already know LEGO robots can do all sorts of things, both useful and useless. This particular build falls into that latter category – unless you consider solving the completing the silly Tamago Egg app to be a good expense of time and energy.
For those of you unfamiliar with Tamago, it’s a smartphone app that simply involves tapping on the screen in order to crack open a virtual egg and see what’s inside. Oh, did I happen to mention you need to tap it 1 million times? This sounds like a job for a robot!
That’s exactly what LEGO NXT builder Jan Gerritsen created with his motorized Mindstorms NXT contraption, designed with a single purpose – to endlessly tap on the screen of his smartphone so he can finally see what’s inside the egg. Here, check it out:
If that Britney/will.i.am jam has to be stuck in my head, you have to deal with it too. I like how there’s a second iPhone sitting there whose sole purpose is to time the other one.
Anyhow, according to Jan’s math, the generally useless ‘bot will need 37 hours to tap 1 million times, and crack open the Tamago Egg once and for all. It’s not quite done yet, but while we wait, Jan recommends that we drink beer and eat some M&Ms. I couldn’t agree with him more.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
