Gizmo Watch

Sometimes, there isn’t much you can add to portability. With the Hang It On hard drive encloser, you get to sling your portable hard drive on the screen and carry it around. Not that it is helpful, ‘coz we’re talking about a sub-5-pound device that would fit into your pocket anyway. So much flair for redundancy these days!

What’s Innovative: As a first attempt, the hanging hard drive encloser is most definitely innovative. We have reservations against the usability aspect of this, though. The Hang It On is eye-catchy, but lacks substance.

A lucky photographer has caught an Estonia-made Hummer. Well, a replica actually! This Hummer has an all-metal (steel?) skin and doesn’t look half as intimidating as the original brute. However, the intricate sheet metal work makes sure the eyeballs aren’t driven away.

What’s Innovative: This miniature Hummer, as the picture suggests, is perhaps not more than 30cms off the ground. Discounting the plastic(ky) headlamps and a sub-standard rear view mirror, the design looks quite seamless.

The scratch and spin control on the iPod had us drooling over it when it first made its appearance. And, it took quite a while for somebody to realize that a DJ turntable can be mod-built into the player. This DJ iPod Turntable concept clubs a couple of iPods together with a DJ machine. Since the music library is already available, all you need to do is scratch and spin, and impress your party pals.

Ergonomic mouse designs haven’t established a niche for themselves so far, despite the obvious benefits. One of the reasons is the availability of alternate input methods like the scroll pad on a laptop. And desktops are slowly fading out, too. So, when we first laid our eyes on the Handshoe mouse, we had second thoughts. However, further exploration showed us that the mouse offered great strain-relief and comfort qualities. The mouse is designed with contours that lend support to the palm. It comes in three size and color options to suit user requirements.

Most of you would remember the unsightly flying creatures with scary teeth in the final sequel of Jurassic Park. Named the Pterodactyl, this pterosaur (first invertebrate with flying capabilities) has inspired a Paleontologist, an engineer and two students to design an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with similar traits. The Pterodrone walks, flies, sails, squeezes through narrow passages and even lands on balconies, pretty much like the real one. A robotic spy place, this UAV also relies on smell, sound, vision, etc. to collect real-time data.

Imagine a world where you could carry the TV around in your pocket. Apparently, the day is not far when you would find your imagination bearing fruit, since scientists are already working on a flexible display that you can carry around like a debit card. Bendy (appropriately named!) would be fabricated with organic molecules that offer innumerable viewing angles by virtue of their light emitting properties. The display would be less than one millimeter in thickness.

What’s Innovative: The Bendy goes flatter than the flattest display. And in doing so, it redefines 3D display and screen portability. Interestingly, these screens would offer equivalent or better viewing capabilities than the existing displays. The Bendy doesn’t use traditional image display methods like the obsolete CRT or the recent Plasma technology. Instead, organic molecules create the flexible image.

Amazon has developed the successor to its hugely popular e-book reader, though the makers had denied any claims of sending another into the market any soon. We know the sneaky geeks really give anyone a chance to cook beneath the hood - the lads at Boy Genius Report have leaked images of a Kindle that seems to be the number two. The Kindle 2 looks good and is easy to use, apart from having a larger screen, the buttons have been kept smaller than the previous version to avoid accidental page flipping and the reader can be controlled with a joystick, which replaces the scroll wheel. The Kindle 2 doesn’t need a charger, it can directly be charged through a miniUSB cable.

Price and Availability: there is no information on either the dates of availability or pricing yet.

A speaker, amplifier, transmitter/receiver and an iPod dock rolled into one neat package, the PDX-50 from Yamaha is quite an interesting gizmo. If you look at it holistically, that is! The dock connector is designed to play music wirelessly with the help of a remote controller. Bluetooth-enabled, the PDX-50 also plays the radio over the 2.4GHz band. The most interesting feature of course is the wide array of iPod attaching units, ranging from vehicle stands and sideways docks to ring-shaped charging units.

Pricing & Availability: The Yamaha PDX-50 will be available in Japan starting December for a price tag of 30,000 Yen ($285).

An Acer Aspire One netbook finds itself transformed into a UMPC. This bloke takes his netbook, screws the keyboard out, and fuses the bottom half of the device to the top half. His Aspire One also gets a cool 8.9-inch touchscreen. The modified UMPC retains the original configuration, viz. the 1.6GHz Intel Atom, 1.5GB memory, 8GB SSD and Ubuntu OS. Quite evidently, the flipping around of the lower half makes it a lot easier to use the cam and the touch display.

Cowon has unveiled A3’s heir - the O2 portable media player. The O2 shows little signs of establishing itself as a trend-setter, but has enough features to help consumers get over their bigger brand hangover. It incorporates a 4.3-inch touchscreen, offers storage variations from 8GB to 32GB, has a T-DMB Digital tuner, SD/SHC slot for memory expansion, and a dictionary to boot. As a music player, the O2 offers 18 hours of non-stop audio, voice recording and 8 hours of video. A wide range of popular formats are supported, including OGG FLAC, Apple Lossless and Monkey Audio. The gadget comes in black, white and pink.

Pricing and Availability:The Cowon O2 PMP will be available from November this year at a retail price of €289.99 ($400) for the basic 8GB version and €365.99 ($505) for the higher 32GB variant.

It is always surprising when a brand talks about its UMPC without mentioning portability and convenience. For a change, Panasonic has decided to showcase ruggedness and durability in the Toughbook CF-U1. True to its name, the device wears a magnesium-alloy skin and a design built for the extremes. Intel Atom forms the backbone of the CF-U1, which operates on Windows XP or Vista. Features include 1GB memory, 5.6inch WSVGA LCD touch display with LED-backlight, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, 16GB SSD, a back-lit QWERTY pad and 9 hours of battery life.

Pricing and Availability: The Toughbook CF-U1 retails for approx $2500.

Sony has released the NS-1 series laptop, which has been specifically designed and targeted at home users, in that it is specifically designed for those who like easy access to multimedia. The laptop runs on the Intel Core 2 Duo T5800 processor, uses 4GB RAM, is connected to an X-black LCD widescreen display, has a hard disk capacity of 320GB, a Motion-Eye webcam, a Blu-ray combo drive, “Draft-N” wireless networking and uses Windows Vista as its operating system.

Pricing and Availability:
Not disclosed yet.

3D display systems could see a revolution in the making, thanks to Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), which has collaborated with Victor Company of Japan to develop a 72-inch 3D display that does not need special 3D glasses and can be viewed with the naked eye. The new technology makes it possible for multiple projectors to project images on the screen from the back. On doing so, it enables 3D representation. The coolest thing about the display has to be the fact that each projector provides a pixel count of 100 million or more. The optical system, alignment of the projectors, and also the way light behaves creates images that are almost lifelike.

Price and Availability: It is still in the prototype stage and shall be developed soon. Commercial manufacturing may begin in 2011.

With E-readers, the problem has always been the artificial feel to the device. You can’t thumb through the pages, make notes, and most importantly, hold it the way you would in the case of a real book. Sony intends to change all of these aspects and has succeeded to a large extent. The Sony PRS-700 E-reader is sized like a regular novel, has an “intuitive” flip feature, and a virtual keyboard and stylus for making notes. With the flip feature, users can run their fingers over the screen to move to the next leaf. The 6-inch touch display makes a huge impact with its resolution and contrast, while the LED reading light beefs up the feature range. The memory offered allows for the content of 350 e-books and expansion is possible through an SD/memory stick duo. Formats supported include Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word and BBeB.

If those XL-sized fingers of yours have given you sores while gaming and forced you to tearfully bid farewell to this hobby, the Zeemote joystick could offer some respite. Designed specifically for mobile phone gamers, the Bluetooth-enabled controller offers you a “console-style gaming experience.” Ergonomically designed to snuggle into your closed palm, the Zeemote is ultra-light at 47g and measures just 95×35x20mm. The wireless controller is compatible with a wide range of mobile phones from all leading manufacturers.

Pricing and Availability: The Zeemote is retailing at a special price of €19.90 on Movistar, an online store.