Hasta La Gadget!

This week we got the opportunity to take a peek at the newest Moen water distribution system for your sink, the MotionSense Touch-Free faucet. Moen’s own Maribeth Kwasniewski showed this system off with us at ShowStoppers during CES 2013, revealing the multiple ways you’re able to activate it when you get it for yourself in the very near future. The first of these is the Wave Sensor – that black dot at the top of the neck of the faucet, able to toggle the water’s flow when you move your hand over or across it.

What this wave sensor being able to “toggle” means here is that if you wave your hand over the faucet once, the water turns on, if you wave your hand over it again, the water turns off. Whichever state the water flow is in when you wave your hand over it, it’ll be the opposite when you’ve waved. If you wave once to turn the water off and walk away, the water will automatically shut off in 2 minutes.

Next is the Ready Sensor, this feature turning the water flow on when you place your hands under the faucet. This works like the sensor you’ll see it massive amounts of bathrooms in restaurants, hotels, and everywhere in between right this minute. The third way to work with this faucet is with its one handle – pull the handle out and it turns on, pull back or push forward and the water becomes hot or cold.

As for the temperature of the water when you use one of the sensors: that’s controlled by a control box that you set (under the deck, aka under your countertop) when you first install the faucet. You can set and re-set this controlled temperature but can also control the temperature above the deck with the handle as described above. This system sticks to the controlled temperature you’ve set whenever you initiate the flow of water with one of the two sensors.

This faucet starts at $399 USD and is available right this minute from a variety of retailers and online (if you know where to look). Have a peek at the rest of our CES 2013 coverage in our giant CES hub or check just the ShowStoppers hands-on posts in our ShowStoppers 2013 tag portal – it’s all good!

Moen MotionSense Touch-Free Faucet hands-on is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

These days, it seems that the art of taking down handwritten notes is dying. Why use a pen and paper when you’ve got a tablet or ultrabook in your bag that you can use to type things up instead? There is something to be said for handwritten notes, however – sometimes it’s much faster to write down something by hand, and during big shows like CES, taking along a pen and some paper ultimately cuts down on the amount of stuff you’re taking onto the show floor.

Of course, the environmentally-minded among us might be concerned with the amount of paper we use to take down these notes, but thankfully the folks at Improv Electronics have found the answer to that wasteful issue. Say hello to the Boogie Board Sync LCD eWriter, which is outfitted with a 9.7-inch pressure-sensitive LCD screen that lets you jot down notes on the fly and then share them in any number of ways. This isn’t the first Boogie Board eWriter we’ve seen, but it certainly is the largest of the bunch.

The Boogie Board Sync comes equipped with a micro SD slot, so if you’d like to stash your notes on a card and move them to your other devices later, you can certainly do that. There’s also a micro USB port for wired transfer, but if you’re a fan of going wireless, this baby also comes with support for Bluetooth. Using that Bluetooth functionality, you can send your finished note to any other Bluetooth-supported device, whether that’s a computer, smartphone, or tablet. You can also sync your Boogie Board with a second screen using Bluetooth, meaning that what you write down on the eWriter shows up on your second screen (perfect for presentations and the like). Fancy saving your note and uploading it to Evernote to refer back to later? You can do that too.

The models we saw during ShowStoppers certainly look nice, but at the moment, they’re only in the prototype stage. Though they do feel good in the hand at the present moment, we’re expecting a few things to change as we move toward the final product, which is scheduled to be released in time for 2013′s holiday season. Hopefully we’ll get to spend a bit more time with the Boogie Board Sync soon, but for now, have a look at our CES portal for much more from the show.

Boogie Board Sync 9.7 hands-on is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The past few days we’ve seen countless little Bluetooth speakers, JAMBOX look alikes, and various speakers but the new SoundMatters Dash 7 packs a powerful punch for such a small speaker. First mentioned earlier this year their ultra portable Bluetooth speaker was on display here at CES 2013 for ShowStoppers so we snagged a few photos.

The speaker boasts pristine omnidirectional sound for such a small device. It’s also bundled with an angled stand for directional listening. The stands design mimics an Apple smart case too. It weighs just over 7 ounces so is extremely lightweight, and stands only 0.75-inches tall. Essentially, it’s designed to be nestled below your smartphone or tablet without restricting the view.

As you can see from our images below, the device is impressively sleek and we can confirm it’s rather light and ultra portable. Being able to lightly toss it nearly anywhere your smartphone or iPad goes without wasting much more space makes it quite versatile compared to some of their competition. The front face has the power button and led, along with a volume up/down dedicated button for ease of use. Around to the side is a 3.5mm audio out if you opt not to use Bluetooth, as well as a sub out feature if you really want to push out some bass.

Just like the Jawbone JAMBOX the Dash 7 uses a woofer/tweeter setup for sound, as well as a floating and moving battery to improve bass response. This makes the sound much better, louder, and crisper than you’d expect from such a tiny little speaker. Colors include red, white, black, and silver and the SoundMatters Dash 7 will hit the streets in February for around $219. Pretty big price, but that brings big performance in a small package.

SoundMatters Dash 7 portable Bluetooth speaker hands-on is written by Cory Gunther & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Today at ShowStoppers during CES 2013, we’ve seen a lot of nifty gadgets, but one in particular is really impressive. The HoverCam Mini 5 is a pocketable scanning camera that plugs into your computer’s USB port, and it folds out into an overhead scanner. We ended up stopping by the company’s booth and getting a hands-on session with the new device.

The idea behind the Mini 5 is to essentially replace flatbed scanners, which are slow and obviously really large. The Mini 5 can fold up into the shape and size of a small candy bar, and unlike flatbed scanners, the Mini 5 instantly scans whatever is sitting below its camera, since it basically just takes a quick photo.

However, what’s most impressive about the Mini 5 is the detail that it can capture. Zooming in on a five dollar bill that they were using during the demo resulted in extreme detail of the print on the bill, including the fine details around the Lincoln Memorial and all the names of the states surrounding it.

You can also use the camera for live conferencing, and share what the camera is seeing with someone else. There’s also a motion detector that will automatically scan an item when it detects that movement has stopped. The Mini 5 will be available sometime in Q2 2013 at a price of $199.

HoverCam Mini 5 pocket scanning camera hands-on is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week we got the chance to not only get our hands on the TrackinPoing XactSystem precision-guided rifle system, we had a chat with the company’s President Jason Schauble as well. This system is able to turn your shooting into a digitally that’ll make you as precise a marksman as you can be. What we’re seeing here is a massive computer system mounted on top of a specialized firearm (in this case) complete with processing power and connectivity to your computers of all kinds – with this system you gain more information on your shooting accuracy than you’ll have ever dreamed possible.

With this device and system you’re able to connect to your rifle wirelessly and see what your scope sees. The system the folks at TrackingPoint are showing off here is a full-on system including ammunition, an iPad mini to connect with, and the rifle itself. Long-range marksmen are set to become much, much more advanced in the field.

The scope’s vision is shown in the gallery we’ve got below (and above) – see for yourself the system you’ll be using in the very near future. Also note that this system is able to guide the shooter with trigger weight and you’ve got systems like edge and blob detection in the unit for just about as advanced an experience as you can work with. You’ll be able to adjust for essentially all conditions – wind adjustment certainly, zoom, focus adjustment, and a series of modes are included as well.

Have a peek at our talk with the President and make sure you take a close look at the details above and below. This system is a wild bit of technology we’re not often anywhere near, so savor it as well if you’re all about firearms. Also be sure to take a peek at our CES portal as well as our ShowStoppers 2013 tag!

TrackingPoint firearms show heads-up displays aren’t just for Google Glass is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.