Hasta La Gadget!

Looking for a reason to get excited by Device Stage, the new visual interface Microsoft’s adding to Windows 7? Look no further than the Sony Walkman NWZ-S738F, a horribly named but really clever gizmo–at least when attached to the right computer, that is. Take a close look at the screen shot above (or click it for the larger version) and you’ll see that the device description banner at the top of the window gives you a quick status update–I’ve got 5.45 free GB of space and my battery is fully charged. In my eyes, that’s a pretty important bit of data, and a very convenient spot to learn that. Now take a look at what happens when you simply mouse over the Walkman’s taskbar icon:

Hovering your mouse over the music player’s icon yields an image of the device, with three icons in the lower window frame. I’ve hovered my mouse over the right one, which yields information about the device’s storage capacity. The middle one is battery life, and the left icon sets up sync. I’ve tested the Canon MP980 and the Nokia N95 8GB, and neither has added this level of interactivity to simple mouse gestures. Neat!

Yet more funky functionality, after the jump.