Razer has updated its Orochi gaming mouse with a new, more powerful sensor that provides better accuracy, as well as offering about double the battery life of its predecessor. You can grab the device now for the gamer on your gift list and get it in time for Christmas. The device is priced at $69.99 for those in the US, and €69.99 for those on the other side of the pond.
The Orochi can be connected two ways: wirelessly via Bluetooth 3.0, or wired for those who need a slightly more archaic connection method. The device runs a new, more precise laser, which Razer touts as the most powerful laser available in a mobile mouse. The laser sensor is a 6,400dpi 4G unit that “promises to take out the competition with deadly accuracy.”
For those who choose to use the Orochia via a Bluetooth connection, the unit is powered by two AA batteries. You can expect to get about 30 hours of continuous use, which is double the life of the previous iteration. The battery rating equals about three months of conventional usage, according to the press release.
RazerGuy Robert Krakoff offered this statement. “We want our dedicated fans to keep the ability to game at the high level they demand when they leave their home. Companies including Razer make mobile gaming laptops for that and, with those, there needs to be a mobile mouse solution. The Razer Orochi answers that need. We believe we’ve ushered in a new era of mobile gaming with the extreme performance and portability of our Blade laptop and Orochi gaming mouse.”
If you decided to go small by getting an iPad mini but find yourself needing to do some serious work (like blogging, for instance), Belkin may have just the accessory: the Portable Keyboard Case. The removable chiclet-style keyboard marries up wirelessly with the 7.7-inch tab via Bluetooth and has “well spaced keys for its size,” including custom iPad shortcuts, according to the peripheral maker. The battery lasts a whopping 155 hours between charges, and when the Starbucks staff finally kick you out, you can fold all your kit up into the built-in folio, complete with a camera-lens cutout. If that sounds like your cup of chai latté tea, hit the PR after the break.
Hot on the heels of its HiRise for iMac release, the Mac-only accessory maker known as Twelve South is outing a similar riser for MacBook products. Engineered to hoist MacBooks from 11 to 15 inches up off of one’s table, the HiRise for MacBook is a sleek, polished stand that serves a purpose much like the mStand from Rain Design. For avid MacBook users looking for a more ergonomic way to work, this is easily one of the best solutions out there. Unlike most rivals, Twelve South’s offering is adjustable, allowing you to raise and lower your MacBook’s keyboard and display to match the height of your eyes (or perhaps a nearby monitor). In our testing, we found the build quality to be exceptional, and it’s most certainly a piece that you’d be pleased to have sitting alongside your other work peripherals. It’s a bit heavy for travel — but then again, you can’t have that base being light enough to tip over — but those still interested can nab one at the source link for $69.99.
A new Smart Dock for the Samsung Galaxy Note II has surfaced, turning the stylus-toting smartphone into a mini desktop setup with plentiful connectivity for a display and wired peripherals. Listed at Samsung US’ site as well as at UK retailer Clove, the $99.99 accessory has three USB ports and a full-sized HDMI output, squirting up to 1080p Full HD onto a TV or monitor.
There’s also a 3.5mm stereo audio output, for hooking up a set of speakers, and a microUSB input for charging the phone and powering the Smart Dock itself. The Note II can be used as normal when docked in place – including for making phone calls – and if you’ve a flip cover fitted you won’t need to remove it in order to slot it in.
So, you could use the Smart Dock to turn your Note II into a desktop computer replacement, with a full-sized keyboard and mouse to navigate via Android – and all the usual Android apps – on a large display. Alternatively, it could form the hub of a media system, hooked up to your TV and with external storage plugged into the USB ports.
Meanwhile, it folds up for easy transport, so you could feasibly drop it into your bag wherever you go. Clove says UK availability isn’t confirmed yet, nor pricing, and while it’s available for preorder on Samsung US’ webstore, there’s no estimated shipping date. More on the Note II in our full review.
For all that we’re told to live digitally in the cloud, there are still plenty of people who rely on handwritten notes in a Moleskine or similar to keep their lives in order. Livescribe wants to build a bridge between paper and digital, and the new Livescribe Sky WiFi smartpen is its latest attempt: a digital pen that can record all of your handwriting and sketches, as well as audio, and upload it wirelessly to the ever-popular Evernote. New sharing features, and the promise of toolkits for integrating the smartpen with iPhone and Android apps, gild the deal, but do we really need a pen that can squirt ink onto the internet? Read on for the full SlashGear review.
Hardware
At first glance, the Livescribe Sky looks just like a fat pen: perhaps something you’d give a child to more easily grip as they learned to write. Inside, though, there’s a lot going on. Livescribe says that, while externally the design is pretty much identical to its previous Echo model – bar a slightly different color scheme for the lower half – on the inside it’s almost entirely different.
The replaceable nib sits next to a small camera that faces down at the page, tracking what you’re writing. All you get in the way of physical controls is a power button, which sits by a monochrome, single-line OLED display, a microphone, and a small speaker. A 3.5mm audio jack is on the top, which also doubles as a microphone input, and there’s a microUSB port for hooking up your computer or recharging the internal battery.
In the hand, the Sky takes some getting used to versus regular pens. The thickness of the barrel feels strange, oversized, and the taper – which gets broader up toward the top half – can feel unnatural. That can end up making your handwriting in initial notes somewhat more untidy than usual, though you do get used to the feel of it over time. The lid – which slides in firmly to cover both the nib and the camera lens – can be a little tricky to remove, too, and is easily lost since there’s nowhere on the phone to clip it when you’re writing.
With so few controls on the pen itself, actually taking advantage of the Sky’s functionality relies on the specially printed paper notebooks. The pages in these are covered in a unique pattern of microdots, which the camera in the tip can track; each page has a different layout of dots, meaning the record of each note is unique, and – as long as it’s turned on – the SmartPen always knows where it’s pointing.
That’s the case for writing and sketching, but it also means Livescribe can print controls onto the paper and have the Sky recognize those. You get the usual buttons for menu navigation, record/pause/stop, jump forward/backward a few seconds in playback, media position, playback speed, and volume/mute printed along the bottom of the page, and tapping them with the nib triggers the appropriate function. At the back of the notebook there’s a scientific calculator – results are shown on the smartpen’s display – and buttons to set the time and date. It’s all very responsive, with no lag from when you tap.
However, the Sky version gets a new page of wireless controls, printed on the inside front cover of the notebook and – for those with pre-Sky notebooks – sticky labels printed with the same buttons. There’s a big WiFi setup section, with buttons to scan for networks, scroll through the list of results on the smartpen’s screen, and then select it, plus a QWERTY keyboard to enter the password; you also get buttons to turn WiFi on/off, trigger a firmware check, and sync with the cloud. A new block of WiFi Share controls will, eventually, allow you to fire off select notes via email (to yourself), to Google Drive, to Facebook, and to Dropbox, though those features won’t be available until Q1 2013.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to connect to WiFi connections that require you to log in via a webpage (such as is often the case in hotels or cafes). Instead, Livescribe recommends either using the mobile hotspot feature on your phone or laptop, or synchronizing notes via the free Livescribe Helper Application, which pulls them off the smartpen over a USB connection.
Three versions of Sky will be offered, a 2GB for $169.95/£159.99, a 4GB for $199.95/£179.99, and an 8GB for $249.95/£224.99. They store around 200 hours, 400 hours, or 800 hours of audio respectively; the 8GB model also comes with a leather smartpen folio and a one-year subscription to Evernote Premium. All versions get 500MB of dedicated Evernote upload allowance. Livescribe will continue to sell the Echo smartpen as an entry-level model, though it lacks wireless and still demands the old Livescribe Desktop app.
Livescribe Sky WiFi smartpen demo:
Software, Evernote, and Sharing
Ditching the Livescribe Desktop software is arguably the best news about the new Sky smartpen. The old app was functional but didn’t make sharing notes straightforward, particularly if they had audio attached. By switching to Evernote, however, Livescribe has sidestepped needing to handle management software, and the cloud-based notebook service’s own sharing tools – together with some HTML5 magic – mean collaborating with notes is far easier.
When you first set the Sky smartpen up, running through Livescribe’s online guide, you associate it with your Evernote account (or set up a new one). A new notebook is created in Evernote, and any new scribblings you make are automatically filed in there. Evernote already has clients for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and other platforms, or you can access notes via the browser view.
Most of the time you can leave the smartpen to its own devices when it comes to synchronizing. It’s triggered when you come back within range of a previously-saved WiFi network (though we occasionally had problems with the odd wireless network not being auto-resumed, and had to manually search, select, and connect to it, though the Sky smartpen did save the password), and – if a connection is present while you’re actually writing – notes are automatically uploaded when you press the “stop” button to end audio recording. The #1 shortcut button on the top of some notebook pages is also set to trigger a manual sync by default, and there’s another button to do the same printed as part of the WiFi controls layout.
Upload speed itself will obviously depend on how fast your data connection is. Text-only notes are gone in seconds, while audio comes in at between 7.2MB to 35.6MB per hour depending on quality and whether it was recorded in mono through the Sky’s integrated microphone, or in stereo via the optional microphone accessory Livescribe offers. Uploads continue while you’re taking notes, but are paused if you start recording more audio.
Once they’re safely stored in Evernote, you can use most of the service’s regular tools with them. They can be tagged though you can’t change the titles as otherwise Livescribe will lose track of which notebook page relates and you won’t be able to sync any amendments later on; notes with audio recordings are clearly flagged up in the collated list, as well as pulled out into a separate section for easier review. Evernote can even pull up search results from handwritten text, though the accuracy of that obviously depends on your penmanship. We had mixed results, though if you try to get into the habit of writing titles and subtitles in block text, it makes digging through notes with search more consistent.
Evernote also has integrated sharing tools, and coupled with Livescribe’s new HTML5 player it’s incredibly easy to pass notes on to others. If you send an email, the recipient sees an image of the note which, if they click on it, opens up the new player in their browser. A media control bar operates audio playback – the text goes from grey to green as it tracks along with the recording – or you can click on any point in the notes to jump the audio to that specific place. There are easy buttons to flip between pages, along with controls to skip forward or backward in 10 second increments. Any HTML5-compliant browser should be able to view the pages, too, including those on your iOS or Android phone.
You can see a demo of a shared Livescribe note here [opens in new window].
In the Pen Pipeline
Adding wireless to the Sky smartpen is just the start of Livescribe’s ambitions, however. The company is hoping to turn the digital stylus into a platform, not just a product, with multiple partnerships simmering away for launch over the next few quarters.
Arguably most useful will be the extra sharing options Livescribe is cooking up. Pencast PDF is due in Q1 2013, embedding notes – complete with audio – into PDFs that can be opened up in Adobe Reader 10 (or newer). Considering the HTML5 player requires a web connection, that will clear the way for offline playback; it also adds another level of security, since there’s no way to password protect a shared HTML5 note sent from Evernote. As long as someone has the URL, they can play back your recording; Livescribe tells us that updated security settings to address that are coming in the next important feature release.
Also worth remembering is that a shared note isn’t a fixed, immutable thing: if you subsequently add to a page you’ve shared with somebody, they’ll be able to see the sync’d additions by clicking the original link they were sent. There’s no apparently way to limit them to the state of the note at any one, fixed point in time; nor any way to “unshare” that note. In short, don’t add any extra jottings to a note that you might not want anybody it was shared with to subsequently read.
Also being worked on is transcription. Liverscribe is collaborating with Vision Objects on technology to convert handwritten notes into text, and with other developers on the same for audio recordings, though releases for both haven’t been pinned down to anything other than “in the future.”
Before then will be SDKs for iOS and Android, allowing third-party developers to integrate Sky smartpen functionality into their apps. The iOS SDK will arrive in Q4 2012, with the Android version following on in Q1 2013; Livescribe sees huge potential in linking handwritten notes with digital content, for instance.
The company has come up with a few demo apps – not for public release, sadly – such as one which allows handwritten annotations to be appended to PDF documents shown on-screen, by jotting them down on a physical notebook. There’s also a collaborative whiteboard app, which permits up to thirty people to remotely work on a single virtual whiteboard, each making notes on their Livescribe pad. Exactly when we’ll see the first such apps is unclear, and Livescribe isn’t talking about specific developers it’s working with.
Battery
Livescribe quotes 11-12 hours of recording audio with wireless turned off, or 4-5 hours if the WiFi is on. That obviously increases considerably if you’re only taking handwritten notes, not recording audio at all, and an imminent firmware update is expected to squeeze even more runtime out of the smartpen.
In practice, we managed nearly two weeks of intermittent use – with WiFi always on, but turning the Sky smartpen off in-between bouts of note taking – and the battery gage dropped by half. That’s with a couple of pages of notes per day, perhaps a third of which had audio recordings as well.
Wrap-Up
Livescribe’s smartpens always made sense for personal note taking, but they also demanded some extra degree of organization in use: remembering to plug them into your computer to sync, and then sharing them via the company’s awkward homegrown sharing system if you ever wanted to review them from elsewhere. Packaging up the Sky smartpen with WiFi and Evernote support addresses each of those problems neatly: now, all you need do is flip the pen on when you get home and your notes are not only pulled straight to the cloud, but distributed to all your Evernote-sync’d devices.
You can read notes on your phone, on your tablet, via the browser on your computer at work, and anywhere else Evernote is accessible. That will get even better when integration with other cloud services is added at the start of next year. Plus, Livescribe’s HTML5 player means showing other people your notes needn’t be the headache it has been so far.
Some still can’t grasp the value of a digitally-enabled pen, and it’s true, there are many who can take notes on their smartphone or tablet screen just as quickly as they can handwrite. For those who want their sketches to be included, however, or who still enjoy the feel of a physical pen nib on physical paper, Livescribe offers the best of that tactile experience with the convenience of digital backup and sharing. The inclusion of wireless to streamline that process only makes it more appealing.
Microsoft vowed that its Touch Mouse would get Windows 8 support in time for the software’s big release day, and it’s being very true to its word by posting the relevant update with less than a week to go. Mouse and Keyboard Center 2.0 saves time for those not graced with a touchscreen by introducing multi-touch swipes that bring up Windows 8’s Charm bar, switch between active apps and invoke Semantic Zoom. Will the Touch Mouse update trick you into thinking you have a Surface? No, but it’s certainly much easier on the wallet.
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.
FAVI has unveiled a new and very small keyboard that uses Bluetooth to connect to a bunch of different gadgets that are on the market right now. The company says that the keyboard is designed with familiar Android buttons and is perfect for connecting to your favorite Tablet such as the Kindle Fire and others that support Bluetooth keyboards. The keyboard also has integrated media control keys.
The keyboard is sized to hold in your palm and supports thumb typing. It also has a track pad on the right side allowing you to control a pointer, and it has buttons on the left side for left and right mouse clicks. This might be the perfect HTPC keyboard for connecting to your little Android mini PC that plugs into the HDMI port of your TV, assuming it has integrated Bluetooth.
If you want to use the keyboard with a device that doesn’t have integrated Bluetooth, you can still do that thanks to the included USB Bluetooth receiver. The only caveat is that your device has to have a full-sized USB port. FAVI specifically calls out support for the Kindle Fire HD, Google Nexus 7, iPad, Samsung Galaxy, as well as numerous PCs and Mac computers.
The little keyboard features backlit keys for easy use in the dark. The little track pad also supports tap to click and page scrolling. The track pad end of the keyboard has an integrated red laser pointer and the keyboard has PowerPoint slide buttons. The Bluetooth keyboard has a range of 50 feet and is available now for $49.99.
Another day, another Logitech peripheral, and today’s is the Logitech Bluetooth Illuminated Keyboard K810, which as the name suggests shines some light while taking your typing wireless. Promising support for pairing with up to three devices simultaneously via Bluetooth, the K810 keyboard supports not only Windows 8 – with the shortcuts you’d expect – but iOS and Android devices, in case you want to quickly batter out an email on your iPad.
The chassis is brushed aluminum – Logitech is particularly pleased by the fact that it’s real metal, not plastic made to look like metal – and the key backlighting is dynamically adjusted based on the ambient light in the room. We’ve seen that before, but Logitech also throws in a sensor that tracks whether your hands are nearby and shuts off the backlight so as to save power when you’re not actually typing.
Recharging is via USB, and the keyboard can be used while plugged in. Logitech says it will run for around ten days of average use on a single charge.
The Logitech Bluetooth Illuminated Keyboard K810 is set to go on sale in the US this month, and in Europe come November. It will be priced at $99.99 and €99.99 receptively.
Logitech has outed a new trio of peripherals for Windows 8, including a twinset of finger-friendly mice and a standalone touchpad. The Logitech Touch Mouse T620 and Zone Touch Mouse T400 each include stroke-sensitive surfaces for easier navigating around your Windows 8 PC, while the Logitech Wireless Rechargeable Touchpad T650 has a glass top plate for you to flick the new Microsoft gestures around.
The Touch Mouse T620 has a full touch surface, including around the edges of the peripheral, with laser tracking. It has a dedicated shortcut to the Windows 8 start screen, and uses Logitech’s Unifying Receiver; battery life is up to six months with two AA batteries, or you can ditch one of the batteries for a lighter mouse, and get up to three months runtime.
Touch Mouse T620 demo:
As for the Zone Touch Mouse T400, as the name implies the touch-responsiveness is limited to certain portions of the peripheral. In fact, the zone is limited to where the scroll-wheel might normally be expected to find, with a rubberized, textured surface. The same Unifying Receiver is used, and battery life is up to 18 months.
Zone Touch Mouse T400 demo:
Like Apple’s Magic Trackpad of 2010, Logitech’s Touchpad T650 pulls the touch-sensitive square normally found in a laptop’s wrist rest out onto the desktop as a standalone peripheral. It supports thirteen Windows 8 gestures, and can be recharged via USB; a full charge is good for up to a month’s use.
Touchpad T650 demo:
The Logitech Touch Mouse T620 and Logitech Zone Touch Mouse T400 are up for preorder now, priced at $69.99 and $49.99 respectively. The Logitech Wireless Rechargeable Touchpad T650 is priced at $79.99.
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.
