WOW-keys Keyboard Uses The iPhone As A Touchpad

This odd keyboard features a prominent iPhone dock on the right side in place of a numeric keypad. It has a set of special iPhone-specific hotkeys that allow you to enter data into the iPhone and control music playback and you can use the keyboard on a Mac or PC as well as use it to type directly onto your iPhone. Finally, this weird chimera lets you use the iPhone’s screen as a touchpad for the PC. Weird, wild stuff.

The keyboard will cost $99 and will be available May 24. I’m not sure how they’ll pull off a lot of this – looks like a lot of apps on the iPhone itself – but it’s a fascinating concept.

Lake Forest, Calif.-April 28, 2011-CompuExpert, a division of Digital Interactive Systems Corp., today announced the WOW-keys, a full-size QWERTY keyboard for the iPhone® that also serves as a docking device for syncing and charging. Created by Omnio Technologies, the WOW-keys provides the ideal bridge between your iphone and PC or Mac® computer.

The iPhone is portable and powerful, but entering or extracting a lot of data can be awkward and time-consuming,” says said Ammar Adra, president of CompuExpert. “The WOW-keys gives your smartphone access to the power and multitasking capabilities of the computer, and lets your computer take advantage of many of the cool iPhone apps.”

With its laptop-style soft keys, the WOW-keys allows you to input text comfortably and efficiently into your iPhone, or input commands from the iPhone to the computer via the touchpad. Swap between modes quickly with the touch of a button, and execute common tasks via 12 iPhone hotkeys. The WOW-keys charges your device via USB, and also syncs with iTunes®. The keyboard can also be used with an iPod®, and it supports Windows, Mac and iOS 4.x operating systems.

The WOW-keys is expected to be available at retail on May 24, 2011 at a suggested price of $99.99.

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The Military Mosquito Countermeasure

Mosquitoes can be quite problematic, especially during the summer months. It always pays to come prepared by dealing with mosquitoes early before it becomes a problem. You can never get a better deal than using what the military uses to handle their mosquito problem. Presenting, the Military Mosquito Countermeasure, a device to deal with that pesky pest the military way.

With a military sounding name to it, the Military Mosquito Countermeasure is simply, a mosquito repelling device to most of us civilians. But its military grade protection may be something that would be quite useful. This device tested by the the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and is proven to be 95 percent effective in repelling mosquitoes. It uses a mat doused with d-cis/trans allethrin, a synthetic version of a naturally occurring insecticide found in chrysanthemum, to repel those pests.

A butane fueled heater vaporizes the repellent to create a 15 feet by 15 feet zone around a user where mosquitoes as well as other pesky biting insects wouldn’t dare cross. The Military Mosquito Countermeasure is available at Hammacher Schlemmer for US$35. Repellent mat refills are also available separately for US$25 a set.

Hammacher Schlemmer

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Toshiba Releases SD Card that Never Erases

Toshiba has announced a new SD that has a very interesting feature: It allows users to store up to 1GB of files, but the contents cannot be erased or modified in any way. The Toshiba Write-Once Card, which looks just like any other storage card, cannott be formatted either. It is meant to keep filess from accidental (or intentional) erasures.

Toshiba says the Write-Once Card is ideal for government offices and businesses worldwide. It has already started offering it to Japan with an open-price model.

crunchgear.com

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Motorola Atrix review

A killer smartphone, a decent laptop and powerful media hub

After blowing us away at CES,the Motorola Atrix gained the coveted top spot in the T3 Hot 100. It’s the latest in a line of successful devices from Motorola, including the first Honeycomb tablet the Motorola Xoom (check out our review here) and the rugged Motorola Defy.

But it’s the Atrix that is Motorola’s crown jewels. First and foremost this is powerful, dualcore smartphone. Add a series of docks, however to the USB and HDMI connections and it comes a multimedia hub, or even a 11.6-inch laptop. You can also transform” it into an alarm clock.

Motorola Atrix: Android 2.2

Solid and well built, the Atrix 2.2 and exudes a restrained air of competence and power, a bit like a top-class bodyguard. It dresses all in black like one, too  It runs Android (2.2) - Froyo - overlaid with Motoblur, offering excellent Twitter and Facebook integration and useful Motorola widgets.

The four-inch, 960x540 touchscreen is responsive, bright, with bold colours. There’s less fine detail than on the iPhone 4, but the slightly larger size and very pure whites do go some way towards making up for that.

The speaker on the back ridge musters an excellent volume level. Quality is also good, if not exceptional, through the 3.5mm output. The 5-megapixel camera capture 720p movies, they’re a little soft and although colours are bright, the colour balance notivably shifted a couple of times depending on the light, although this could be because of our sample was early.

Motorola Atrix: Performance



The dualcore Tegra 2 processor never feels slow. You can quickly swap between open browser windows, maps, games and video playback without it batting an eyelid. At the moment there aren’t many games or apps that make the most of the extra processing oomph, although it handles Samuari II Vengeance very well, with smooth motion and bold graphics.



Dock the Atrix in the Lapdock or HDMI-connected Multimedia Dock (see below for more information about the individual docks), select the Webtop mode and things get seriously next-gen. On the bigger screen, app shortcuts are arranged along the bottom. You can also add bookmarks or web apps; settings are accessed in the top corner.



If you prefer something more familiar, Mobile View displays a mini version of the Atrix’s home screen. There, you can click any app as normal and use phone features including calls – a pop-up box indicates an incoming call and you get decent call quality through the mic and speaker – contacts and mail. It’s easy enough, even if it’s unsurprisingly not as slick as a proper laptop OS. If a smartphone screen isn't big enough, you can even play Angry Birds.

You can read and edit email attachments using Quick Office, access web-based apps such as Google Docs and Sugar Sync and, if your business uses Citrix, you can remotely access a full Windows desktop, so you can open and use PowerPoint and Word documents – a very simple yet powerful feature. You can copy and paste elements from Citrix to Webtop, save to the phones memory where you can access it via the File Manger or transfer to USB.



The docks also give you a full-screen Firefox browser. This works a treat on both our 42-inch TV and Moto’s 11.6-inch Lapdock, streaming T3.com, YouTube and BBC iPlayer at speed over the N Wi-Fi. Motorola’s slick Entertainment Centre also makes a good fist of showcasing your phone’s media files.

Motorola Atrix: Multimedia Dock in detail

The HD Multimedia Dock includes Dual HDMI mini and micro USB connections let you dock the Atrix and connect the dock to your flatscreen via mini HDMI Three USB ports let you add accessories like a mouse or by a USB key for saving and accessing data. To get the best of it you really need a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, otherwise you have to use left and right virtual keys and move around the 4-inch screen.



Display Settings adjust automatically. The max resolution we could watch on a 42-inch TV was 1280x720p at 60Hz, picture quality is pretty good though and it plays back audio through your TV. Big-screen options make this a more inclusive way of sharing phone content, perhaps killing the All-In-One?

To get the best from the Multimedia Dock you need the mouse and keyboard. Motorola’s wireless mouse is solid, comfortable and works on a variety of surfaces. We could even use it from ten feet across our kitchen, at an angle. The keyboard is light enough to use comfortably on your lap, but the keys remain a good size for prolonged typing. Dedicated music, SMS, contacts and browser keys work in Mobile View mode.



Motorola Atrix: Lapdock



So to the Lapdock. This has a flap at the back for your Atrix, this restricts how far the screen can go back and it would be better if it docked below the keyboard and became the touchpad, but maybe that’s a few incarnations away yet. Everything looks bright and clear enough on the 11.6-inch, 1366x768 screen and the keys are a good size, with a decent travel. It’s not as slick as a Windows or OS X laptop, but it is a very cool bit of kit


Motorola Atrix: Verdict



The Atrix is a great phone if you can ignore its slightly ropey camera. Arguably only business users will make full use of the Lapdock, but the HD Multimedia Dock is an excellent alternative to Apple’s iPhone/AirPlay/Apple TV system
for getting your phone’s content on a big screen and hi-fi. It’s not as neat and seamless, but the quality is comparable and it’s cheaper.

Motorola Atrix launch date: Soon from Orange

Motorola Atrix price:  Phone TBC, HD Multimedia Dock, free with £40 a month contract, £50 as a kit with mouse and keyboard. Lapdock £299; Bedside Dock; bundled with the phone.

orange.co.uk

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Samsung Galaxy S2 review

Samsung's shines with the second-generation Galaxy S II

 

We first saw the Android Samsung Galaxy S2 (GT-I9100) mobile phone at MWC earlier this year and it was love at first sight. The successor to the Samsung Galaxy S includes a gorgeous next-gen 4.2inch AMOLED screen in a slimmer body.



Well, the handset finally landed on T3’s doorstep a few days ago, and we can confirm this is more than a fleeting attraction. Samsung is seriously challenging HTC for the Android crown.

Samsung Galaxy S2: Build



Pick up the phone and the first thing you notice is how light it is – it’s just 116g. Measuring 8.49mm, it’s incredibly slim in comparison to 9.9mm for the original Galaxy S; 9.3mm for the Apple iPhone 4 and 8.7mm for the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc

While the Galaxy S2 will certainly fit into the tightest jeans pocket, the compromise is build quality - the body just feels cheap and uninspiring. Things don't improve when you remove the wafer thin back to insert a sim - we’d be seriously worried about snapping it.

Controls are limited to volume on one side, power on the other, MHL port, which serves a dual purpose of charging via USB and outputting to HDMI, and a 3.5mm jack on the top, Samsung includes a range of streaming options including DLNA.


Samsung Galaxy S2: Screen



The highlight of S2 is the 4.3-inch 800x480 screen, which incorporates Super AMOLED Plus technology. Colours are eye popping and blues and greens literally jump out of the screen at you. Off-angle viewing is excellent too - the first phone we’ve seen to match the iPhone 4.



A larger screen sizes means that the phone is bulky, but it’s a joy for movies. When playing back our test HD movie clips, detail is sharp and action smooth. We found that whites aren’t as pure or bright as those on the iPhone 4, although blacks seem darker and colours are bolder and warmer. It handles action smoothly too.


Samsung Galaxy S2: Android



Running Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread), you get seven homescreens customisable with widgets and shortcuts. Swipe down to quickly activate WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and Auto Rotation settings. Phone, Contact, Messaging and Application settings along the bottom are static when you are browsing the homescreens. Like other Android phones, press down to customise with Shortcuts, Folders, Wallpaper and numerous Samsung widgets.



Samsung’s overlayed Android with its TouchWiz UI which is functional and adds some neat features, including four hubs: Music (see below), Games, Readers and Social Hub, which acts as a portal to Kobo bookstore and Magazines via Zinio.



Social Hub syncs social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, to IM accounts including Google Talk; and MySpace and Linked-in. It’s functional, syncing your contacts, but we prefer HTC Sense. In addition Sony Ericsson’s Xperia skin is slightly easier to use, for example here you can only organize the Applications via grid or list and to create App Folders you make the folder first before dragging items onto it.


Samsung Galaxy S2: Processor



The Galaxy S2 has a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor. In use the phone feels incredibly quick – one of the fastest smartphones we’ve used, whether you’re browsing a web page or swapping between applications it never feels slow. During our tests it loads web pages over WiFi quicker than the iPhone 4 - loading a content-rich website like T3.com in just 15 seconds.



This isn’t a Nvidia Tegra 2 chip, so we couldn't download  games designed specifically for this (such as Samurai II: Vengence THD), but there are a decent selection of games to play. We defy anyone to not enjoy Shrek Karting with the 3-axis gyroscope, and it ably handles speedy gameplay.


Samsung Galaxy S2: Camera



Samsung has boosted the camera resolution from 5-megapixels to 8-megapixels, instead of a dedicated shutter; you tap the virtual shutter, which is fairly quick if not quite as nippy as the offering on the iPhone 4.



There are plenty of manual controls. Adjust the ISO from 100-800, choose from five white balance settings and choose between three metering settings. Samsung has also included Smile Shot, Beauty, Action, Cartoon and Panorama scene modes. Alongside auto focus, Macro mode captures sharp shots to around 10cm and there’s an effective Face Detection mode.



Still results are pleasing, the S2 is pretty good at controlling noise, and we’d like them to be a little sharper, colours are very natural. The S2 shoots HD video at 720p and 1080p at 30fps and results are pleasing; it’s smooth, with natural colours, perhaps lacking a little definition.


Samsung Galaxy S2: Music


Music Hub lets you browse and buy tracks from 7Digital, downloading directly to your phone, expect to pay around 99p. It’s very well laid out with Featured, Genres, My Music and My page icons along the top.



Confusingly there’s also a Music Player, the interface is very similar, although can create playlists here. We’ve no complaints about the sound quality, when you plug some headphones into the 3.5mm jack, and here you can access nine Equalizer modes and some Sound Effects, including the useful Bass enhancement and Wide.


Samsung Galaxy S2: Other features,



Samsung’s included motion controls. Hold an app down then move the phone left or right to scroll through the homescreens and reposition it. Elsewhere hold two fingers on the screen and move towards you and away from you to zoom in and out. We're not sure how useful these are - to us they felt awkward, but maybe with more time with the phone  you will become more familiar with them.



Polaris Office lets you create and edit Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents. In portrait mode we did find the keyboard a bit cramped and frequently tapped the wrong keys and the predictive text isn’t as impressive as the iPhone 4. Alternatively the Swipe keyboard detects words as you drag your fingers over the keys, it works pretty well, although frequently didn’t recognize our choices, although this probably has more to do with us hitting the wrong keys. In landscape mode typing is far easier.



Elsewher you get Exchange Activesync, and Kies Air for accessing phone content over WiFi from a PC


Samsung Galaxy S2: Battery



With WiFi on, maximum brightness, moderate browsing, some video and photos we got into our second day. One of the most useful features is Task Manager, where you can view and kill active applications and clear the RAM, and you can enable Power Saving Mode to cut in when the power gets to 50%


Samsung Galaxy S2: Verdict


Our main complaint about the S2 is the build. It’s doesn’t feel premium and considering it will set you back close to £500 on pre-order, this isn’t good enough.



From the HTC Incredible S to the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, there have been some great Android handsets this year; however none have been fantastic, until now. Combining top-notch connectivity with one of the best screens available on a smartphone, backed by a powerful dual-core and good camera, the Samsung Galaxy  S2 is quite simply a fantastic phone, we just wish the Korean giant had produced a handset with build closer to the feel of a top-end HTC or Apple handset.


Samsung Galaxy S2 launch date: May

Samsung Galaxy S price: TBC, pre-order for £499-£529

Samsung Galaxy S2 Specs:

• OS: Android 2.3 Gingerbread
• Processor: XMM960 + 1GHZ dual-core processor
• Storage: 8GB+16GB/32GB, micro SD card
• Screen: 4.27inch 480X800 Super AMOLED Plus
• Battery: TBC
• Connectivity: 3.5mm, N WiFi,HSDPA 21Mbps, aGPS,Bluetooth 3.0, MHL
• Camera: 8-megapixel/2-megapixel LED flash
• Video: 1080p 30fps
• Talk time: 300 minutes
• Dimensions: 125x66x8.49mm/116g

http://www.samsung.com/uk

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Android app news: Gtalk video chat for Android now official

Gingerbread phones to get video chat via Gtalk.

Android will gets its very own FaceTime competitor with the official confirmation from Google that the next minor update to the OS will contain a major new piece of functionality.

Gtalk video chat, the prospect of which we reported on earlier this week was confirmed by Google's Mobile Blog as an official part of Android 2.3.4, which is coming to all Gingerbread phones, starting with Google's own Samsung Nexus S.

The useful IM app will now allow completely free voice and video calls over Wi-Fi or 3G to any other device using the software, that includes Android 2.3 phones and anyone using the Chat functionality within Google Mail.



Android already has an Android video chat option with Qik video. The free app allows video calls across platforms, meaning iPhone and Android users can stay in touch with each other via video.

It's also thought that Skype video calling will be coming to Android phones also, but we hope that Google rolls this out to all Android phones as only a select few handsets are currently running Gingerbread



CNN

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Toshiba launches Regza Tablet AT300

Toshiba unveiled a new Tablet called Regza AT300 that runs Android 3.0 Honeycomb and 10.1 inch LCD display with LED backlight. The tablet weighs 765 gms and is able to use the apps designed for the Regza TVs.

Specifications:

•    Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS
•    10.1-inch LCD “Adaptive Display” for better contrast under sunlight (1,280×800 resolution)

•    LED backlight
•    1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2
•    1GB RAM, 16GB internal memory
•    IEEE 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
•    5MP rear camera, 2MP front camera
•    HDMI, SD, miniUSB, USB
•   “REGZA Apps Connect”  function
•    7 hours Battery life

The “REGZA Apps Connect” feature lets the Toshiba Regza tablet without difficulty unite with other Regza devices including HDTVs, media players, laptops and smartphones.

The adaptive display feature automatically adjusts the colour and brightness of the display according to the ambience.

The thing that sets it apart from the rest of the tablets is that it also glass free viewing of the screen with a resolution of 1,280 x 800.This tablet is going to hit the Japanese market first in June carrying a price tag of $730.

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Huawei Ideos X3 Smartphone to be Launched

A fresh ultra slim smartphone has been introduced by the Huawei – IDEOS X3 which touts to be the slimmest 3.2-inch smartphone powered by Android 2.3 Gingerbread. The interface is user friendly and hence provides easy and smooth navigation. This smartphone will be first shipped into the Japanese market at a cost of $200.

Features:

•    Android 2.3 O.S
•    3.2-inch HVGA capacitive touchscreen
•    resolution of 320 x 480 pixels
•    Qualcomm MSM7227 CPU (600 MHz)
•    256MB of RAM
•    3.2 megapixel autofocus camera
•    front-facing camera
•    Bluetooth
•    Wi-Fi b/g/n
•    Music Player
•    Video Player
•    3G

The Huawei smartphone is intuitive and power efficient. The HOTA (Handset Over-the-Air and Online Upgrade) provides easy up gradation of OS. Huawei Ideos X3 comes 4 colours namely – blue, red, silver and black.

The Huawei IDEOS X3 comes with varied standard applications that allow users to by far manage their information and impeccably sync their various social communication channels.

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Sophisticated HP EliteBook 2560p and 2760p Laptops

HP is currently working towards the release of two laptops EliteBook 2560p and 2760p. Both of these have a display screen of 12.1 inch. These are designed as a change to the existing models namely 2540p and 2740p. 

Both the new EliteBooks offers various processor types - 1.4GHz Core i5, 1.6GHz Core i7 and 2.7GHz Core i7 processor. Further has a USB 3.0 along with a display port. In case if you want to extend your RAM then you can do it up to 16GB and a blue ray device.

Elitebook 2560p laptop comes in a traditional design fashion. The 2760p display model is rotary and offers an LED backlit, 1366×768 display and an optional 1440 × 900 resolution. The prices of these highly advanced featured laptops are yet to be revealed.

The pricing and the date of released not yet disclosed. So no word on that.

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