Hasta La Gadget!

One of the neat things about CES is that it gives us a chance to check in with startups we covered the previous year. In the case of, Tobii, 12 months makes a world of difference. When we met with the company last January, it had never publicly shown off its eye-tracking Gaze UI, which allowed us to navigate, zoom, select and scroll on a custom Windows 8 laptop with just our pupils and a touchpad. After playing with it, it was obvious to us the technology still needed some fine-tuning, but nonetheless Tobii promised it would have a product to sell in about a year’s time.

Fast forward 12 months: Intel now owns a 10 percent stake in the company, and Tobii recently started shipping its first piece of hardware, the REX. This small USB peripheral, just slightly thicker than a pen, attaches to the base of any computer display, allowing it to bring eye-tracking technology to any Windows 8 machine. For now, it’s only available to developers for a price of $995, but Tobii expects to ship 5,000 consumer units by the end of 2013. Happily for us, though, we got to play with it here at CES 2013. Meet us after the break to see how the technology’s grown up since we tried it out it a year ago, and stay tuned for a demo video!

Continue reading Hands-on with Tobii REX, a peripheral that brings eye-tracking to any Windows 8 PC

Filed under: Peripherals, Software

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If you’ve cancelled your home phone service, but still yearn for handsets peppered throughout the house, Ion’s Bluetooth Cordless Phone Station could fill that void. Slotting a cellphone into the base, which also functions as a charger, allows a trio of satellite handsets to make calls using the docked device via Bluetooth and DECT 6.0 tech. If design and conference calls ares on your mind, Ion’s rolled also out a saucer-shaped speakerphone system dubbed Talking Point. The glossy disc connects to smartphones via Bluetooth, packs a top-facing speaker and multiple microphones for capturing audio from several directions. Also tagging along is the Phone Station Plus, which packs stereo speakers, an LCD display and condenser mic, and allows Bluetooth-enabled cellphones to use it as a speakerphone rig. Journey past the jump for the press release, glamour shots and a handful of hands-on photos.

Continue reading Ion unveils cellphone accessories for home phone replacement, speakerphones

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Mobile

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Source: Ion (1, PDF), (2, PDF), (3, PDF)

Ion’s Air Copy has just stepped into the wireless mobile scanner arena, and it brings support for slinging scanned documents and photos as big as size A4 to Android, iOS, Windows 8 and OS X devices via WiFi. Once documents are scanned, they’re saved as high resolution 300 DPI JPEG files to the connected hardware. A free app available for the gadget gives users a real-time preview of what’s being scanned. There’s no word on pricing or availability as of yet, but you can hit the jump for the press release or take a peek at our hands on shots in the gallery.

Continue reading Ion introduces Air Copy: mobile scanner for smartphones, tablets and laptops

Filed under: Peripherals

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Source: (Ion, PDF)

Vinyl may be the format of choice for discerning audio connoisseurs, but those harboring love for both digital and analog options may have their interest piqued by Ion’s latest lineup of turntables. The iLP Lightning takes a traditional turntable, replete with RCA outputs, and adds a 30-pin dock connector that’s compatible with Cupertino’s Lightning to 30-pin adapter. Leveraging a free app, the table converts a record’s audio to MP3 files, separates it into tracks and saves it to docked iOS devices. If you’d rather not have songs sent to your iDevice of choice, the rig also includes a USB cable for routing tunes to a Mac or PC with a gratis desktop app. Ion is also serving up the Pure LP, which removes the 30-pin dock from the equation. As for availability, the iOS-compatible tables are expected this summer for $99.99 in white, red, blue, black and a woodgrain finish. Analog diehards can have some fun too with the Live LP table, which packs stereo speakers, standard RCA outputs, a natural wood finish and nothing in the way of digital conversion. Click on to the break for photos and the full press release.

Continue reading Ion reveals digital conversion turntables for iOS, PC and Mac, we go hands-on

Filed under: Misc, Peripherals, Portable Audio/Video

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Source: Ion (1, PDF), (2, PDF), (3, PDF)

Given how many of us have more than one device, it’s rare to see gear that really cares for our increasingly large gadget collections. Griffin’s solution is to produce the PowerDock 5, a USB-device toast-rack that can replenish the energy of up to five iPads simultaneously. It’s priced at $100 and will be available in Spring.

At the same time, the company is putting out a new PowerBlock plug adapter and PowerJolt car charger with Griffin’s ChargeSensor technology, which identifies the power needs of your device and meters out energy accordingly. Both will be available in the spring, the PowerBlock setting you back $30 and the PowerJolt costing $25.

Continue reading Griffin launches PowerDock 5 multi-device charging platform and ChargeSensor adapters

Filed under: Peripherals

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