Hasta La Gadget!

Peanut butter and jelly. Gin and tonic. Peaches and cream. Some strange combinations make perfect sense paired, but how about the mouse and the PC gamepad? Those two items are what a Hong Kong peripheral manufacturer decided to combine, and the result was the Shogun Bros. Chameleon X-1 — a gaming mouse you can flip to find twelve buttons and two miniature analog sticks on the bottom. It works as a gamepad, sure enough, and functions as a one-handed multimedia remote too. But is it any good? We’ve used it as our primary peripheral for over a week, and after the break, we’ll tell you.

Continue reading Shogun Bros. Chameleon X-1 review: the mouse that’s a gamepad, too

Shogun Bros. Chameleon X-1 review: the mouse that’s a gamepad, too originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Jan 2011 12:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With a fantastic Bluetooth headset on the market and a pumpin’ portable speaker to blast out jams, how could Jawbone improve their product lineup? Well, we still think a stereo headset might be swell… but that’s not what the company delivered today. No, this is the Jawbone Era, the world’s first Bluetooth earpiece with a built-in accelerometer for motion-sensing apps, and plenty more improvements where that came from. There’s a new version of the company’s NoiseAssassin noise-canceling algorithms that adjusts inbound volume and equalization to let you hear better, an extra-large 10mm cone speaker with a larger range of frequencies, two processors, more memory, and an hour of extra battery life compared to the Jawbone Icon, to be specific. With only two motions currently recognized — a double-tap to begin / end / switch calls and a rapid shake to pair — the accelerometer’s a bit of a gimmick for now, but Jawbone suggests more gestures are probably on the way. In the meanwhile, the other advancements might make the Era worth the price of entry — which is $130, by the by.

We’ve spent about five hours with the headset already, listening to music and taking calls, and while the accelerometer seems almost wasted at present, there’s no discounting that new 10mm driver and the audio it can pump out. While no substitute for a set of quality dedicated earbuds, it sounded worlds better than the Jawbone Icon’s tiny, tinny drum, and playing Pandora tracks we no longer felt an overpowering desire to take it out of our ear — making a cyborg existence all the more bearable, we suppose. We’ll bring you a full review soon, but if you’re already sold, you’ll find four different Era designs on sale at Jawbone’s online store… oh, right about now. PR after the break.

Continue reading Jawbone Era sticks an accelerometer in your noise-canceling headset, we go hands-on

Jawbone Era sticks an accelerometer in your noise-canceling headset, we go hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Jan 2011 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple’s proprietary dock connector may keep would-be peripheral manufacturers at bay, but if you want to build your own iOS companion devices, there’s another way. You might have noticed that the Square credit card reader uses Apple’s 3.5mm headset jack to transmit power and data at once, and gadgeteers at the University of Michigan are busy open-sourcing the same technique for all the DIY contraptions you can dream of. Project HiJack has already figured out how to pull 7.4 milliwatts out of a 22kHz audio tone, and built a series of prototype boards (including working EKG, temperature, humidity and motion sensors) that transmit data to and from an iOS app at up to 8.82 kbaud — using just $2.34 worth of electronic components. See the basic principles at work in the video above, and — as soon as the team updates Google Code — find out how to build your own at the links below.

iPhone headset socket hijacked to power DIY peripherals (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Jan 2011 02:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The scariest looking peripheral at CES 2011? Possibly. But for those looking to gain a split-second edge on the competition, the N-Control Avenger just may be the solution Xbox 360 gamers have been looking for. Announced just a couple of months ago, the company was here in Las Vegas to actually demonstrate a fully functional model. But simply, it straps onto your first-party 360 controller, adding triggers, straps, cables and all sorts of other contraptions that aim to give you improved alternatives to pressing buttons (while freeing your thumbs up to more accurately operate the analog joysticks). Enough talk — hop on past the break to see how exactly this $60 shell gets down to business.

Continue reading N-Control Avenger Xbox 360 attachment gets a CES overview (video)

N-Control Avenger Xbox 360 attachment gets a CES overview (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 08:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Cris, who can’t seem to find a latex-free mouse that he needs to prevent allergic reactions. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

“I work in an office environment for ten hours a day in front of a computer where my right hand spends most of it’s time on my wireless Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer 2.0. It’s a mouse I’ve loved, but there’s an issue. I have discovered that I’m allergic to the rubber latex used in the mouse. Although I have not had a tough time finding posts online from people complaining of the same problem, I have had a very difficult time finding a solution. I need a latex-free mouse, preferably with similar features to the Intellimouse I love so much. It’s easy to find many things in a latex-free variety; obviously mice aren’t in that group. Thanks!”

So, any suggestions for Cris? Quite a few folks are allergic to latex rubber, and it’s borderline impossible to believe that no latex-free mouse lives in a world chock full of options. If you’ve managed to uncover a gem that fits the bill (or a particular keyboard, while we’re on the subject), drop a hint in comments below.

Ask Engadget: best latex-free mouse and keyboard solution? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 22:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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