Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re reading this blog, there’s a good chance that you can connect to the Internet on a fairly regular basis. But even with the advent of Wi-Fi and mobile data connections, there are still many places where you won’t have access to the Internet. That’s why Google came up with a way for Gmail users to send and receive email via text messages or SMS.

The service is simply called Gmail SMS. Because calling it Esmsmail or Smsemail is just absurd. For now it’s only available in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya. Customers only need to register the mobile number that they’d like to tie to their Gmail account and they’ll be able to send and receive email from their phone.

Because it’s in the form of a text message, customers can receive Gmail SMS from practically any mobile phone. Another nice thing about it is that receiving Gmail SMS is free. Standard network charges will only apply if you want to send an email from your phone via the service. I hope Google eventually rolls out this service to more countries.

[via Google Africa via Memeburn via Emergent Futures]

Apple today officially revealed the latest addition to the iPad line, a slimmed-down new model with a 7.9-inch display called the iPad Mini. The new tablet is aimed squarely at the lower end of the market, looking to undermine Amazon’s Kindle success and to deal a blow to other small tablets, such as Google’s Nexus 7 that are significantly less expensive than the current iPad.

The new iPad mini is built to be slim and lightweight, and measures just 7.2mm thick and weighs .68 pounds – about half what the 10-incher weighs, and much easier to hold with one hand.

Under the hood, it’s similar to the iPad 2, running the same A5 dual-core chipset, and offering a 1024×768 touchscreen display at 163ppi, which is lower than “retina” density, but still looks sharper than the displays in the original iPad and iPad 2, and ensuring full backwards compatibility with existing apps.

It’s all packed into a svelte aluminum case with similar design cues to that of the recently-released iPhone 5, with a skinny bezel that helps pack more display into a smaller package. It sports Apple’s tiny, 8-pin Lightning connector to help keep things slim. It will ship with either a black or white version with an anodized aluminum case, just like the iPhone 5 too. Connectivity is 802.11 a/b/g/n wi-fi, with Bluetooth 4.0 and optional 4G LTE connectivity.

Just like its big brother, battery life is rated at 10 hours, and the mini sports a front-facing FaceTime camera at 720p resolution and a rear-facing camera that can shoot 1080p video or 5-megapixel stills. It’s also got the requisite three-axis gyro, accelerometer, compass, and ambient light sensor. The 4G LTE model also offers A-GPS.

Of course, the iPad mini ships with the recently-released iOS 6, along with all of its new bells and whistles. Of course, it can take advantage of the over 275,000 iPad apps already available through the App Store too. Also announced today was an updated version of iBooks, which supports continuous-scrolling, posting of excerpts to Facebook and Twitter, and iCloud page syncing, and support for 40 languages. The update will be available from the App Store later today.

And for those of you who take your iPad on the road, the iPad mini even supports Siri.

Pricing for the iPad mini starts at just $329 for 16GB wi-fi and $429 for the 32GB Wi-fi model and $519 for 64GB. As for the 4G LTE version, you’re looking at $459 for 16GB, $559 for 16GB, and $649 for the 32GB model.

The iPad mini will be available for pre-order starting this Friday, October 26th, and the Wi-Fi version will ship starting on November 2nd. No word yet on which countries will get the device on that date, nor the exact date for the LTE variants. You should be able to find more details on the iPad mini over on Apple’s website now.

Personally, I prefer the larger screen of the regular iPad models, and someday I’d love an even bigger tablet – maybe 15 inches. But for those of you who want something more compact, still want Apple’s massive library of iOS apps, and are looking to save on their tablet purchase, the iPad mini looks pretty nice.

While the iPad mini is what’s on most people’s minds today, if your preference is for the Android OS, and you’re on the lookout for a tablet with a big screen that won’t break the bank, you might want to check out the Nextbook Premium 10SE. The tablet has a large 9.7-inch screen and can be purchased for less than $250(USD).

That much money won’t get you the highest performance tablet on the market, but the Nextbook Premium 10SE has decent features and specifications for the price. The tablet runs Android 4.0, Adobe Flash 11 and its 9.7-inch TFT capacitive touchscreen has a resolution of 1024 x 768. The tablet has an internal rechargeable battery and 8 GB of storage. While it doesn’t support cellular data, it does have 802.11 b/g/n wi-fi connectivity.

It has integrated G sensor and a 0.3 megapixel front facing camera – just for video chat sessions. Once you run out of internal storage, the tablet has a microSD card reader for memory expansion. An additional 4 GB of its storage comes by way of an included microSD memory card.

So if you’re looking for an Android tablet on the cheap this holiday season, you can find the Nextbook Premium 10SE over at Radio Shack for $249.99.

If you have a HTPC in your living room or spend a lot of time using a tablet or smartphone and wish you had a small keyboard, check this out. A company called FAVI Entertainment has released a palm-sized keyboard that supports just about any portable device on the market including Android tablets and just about anything else with Bluetooth connectivity. The keyboard features a trackpad for pointer control as well.

Looking an awful lot like another keyboard we’ve previously featured, this on is called the FAVI Mini Bluetooth Keyboard and is designed for thumb typing. It has a full QWERTY keyboard and the keys are backlit for use in dark environments. The trackpad is on the right side of the keyboard and on the left side are buttons to control left and right mouse clicks. The trackpad also supports tap to click. The keyboard has a full assortment of media playback control hotkeys, as well as PowerPoint slide control keys. It’s even got a laser pointer built into the end.

Any device that has Bluetooth built in will be able to connect to the keyboard and computers or other devices with a USB port, but lacking integrated Bluetooth can use the included receiver. The wireless range for the keyboard is 50 feet, and it is available now for $49.99 over at Staples.

There are a number of wearable devices on the market these days which can monitor your activity when you exercise, but they’re all pretty much glorified motion sensors, which extrapolate your activity level based on movement. Now, a team of engineers from MIT is working on a new kind of wearable sensor which could not only monitor motion, but vital health statistics.

The Amiigo wearable sensor is not only capable of detecting movements and gestures, but also your heart rate, blood oxygen levels and skin temperature. All of these data points can help you monitor the effectiveness and safety of your workout routine. In addition, the Amiigo monitor is waterproof, so it can even go in the swimming pool, making it a great gadget idea for triatheletes and winter sports buffs.

The device will come with two sensor components – one worn on the wrist, the other clipped onto the shoe. A companion smartphone app will track all of your workouts and physical activities in detail, as well as enable competition and sharing with friends. A set of proprietary discrimination and machine learning algorithms can even discern exactly what sort of activities you’re partaking in and record these automatically. For instance, it could identify the difference between a bicep curl and a pull-up.

The guys behind the Amiigo also plan on offering an SDK for the device, which would allow for the creation of custom software which could leverage the data from the sensors – whether for other fitness or health applications, or even for gaming.

The Amiigo will be launching a crowdfunding campaign at the end of October, and you can sign up to be notified about it over on their website.