CES 2014 has been an orgy of “wearable” crap. Smartwatches, life-logging cameras, even 50-inch TVs can now be worn on your body. But if you’re looking for the future of personal tech, then look at the Speaker Band from Bem Wireless. If you thought teens were annoying now, with their mobile phones and tinny music, then wait until they get hold of this wrist-mounted speaker.
Arcam, the UK high-end audio company, has a little nugget to tempt audiophiles. It’s called the miniBlink, and it’s a “hi-def” Bluetooth audio adapter with a proper built-in DAC. What? Don’t fret. It just means you can beam Bluetooth audio to your stereo without it sounding crappy.
In news to be filed under L for “late to the party” Staples is finally selling the iPad Air and iPad Mini on its physical store shelves.
Phone up your local Staples, and you’ll hear a message informing you that the iPad is available both online and in the chain’s brick-and-mortar outlets. Prior to this, the tablets were only available through Staples’ online ordering service.
LAS VEGAS — It’s a bit odd to be thanked for cussing; but that’s exactly what STM Bags owner Ethan Nyquist did when I walked over to the STM table during a press event at CES. Apparently he was considerably impressed with an enthusiastic exclamation I made about STM’s bags, in response to the announcement of one of their new backpacks*. Hey, what can I say — I’m a bag junkie, and I get passionate about stuff I like.
So here then, is a prediction: STM’s new Drifter will deepen the outfit’s rep as a maker of stellar bags.
LAS VEGAS — There’re a lot of seemingly brilliant, sexy tech here at CES. razor-precise, slightly annoying miniature flying drones! A case for your iPhone that gives it weird, infra-red Superman eyes!
Wonderful. But would we really end up using this stuff? I mean, yeah, we probably would. But not every day. Probably not every month. On the other hand, TYLT’s Energi 2K — a wall charger with a USB port that also houses a battery — is the kind of brilliant idea that we imagine we’d actually want to use every day.
I’m not sure I get the whole camo thing. But it’s everywhere, it’s really popular and people can’t get enough of it. Trucks, iPhone cases, curtains, lingerie — if it exists, it probably comes in camo. (Note: If you need camouflaged lingerie, you’re probably doing it very wrong. Or very right. I’m not entirely sure at this point.)
As I’m guessing may be the case for a number of Cult of Mac readers of a certain age, the original 1987 Robocop was a formative movie for me. It was violent, full of memorable moments and quotes — and bitingly funny to boot.
LAS VEGAS — We spent a few minutes with Larry Pizzi of Currie Tech to talk about the company’s eflow bicycles. These bad boys are powered by the same battery technology that’s in your MacBook Pro, and they provide a “True hybrid” electric bicycle experience.
You can use the eflow to provide anywhere from a low to a high assist boost, which will get you up a hill and down the road at speeds of up to 20 to 30 miles an hour. You can test drive one of these, too, so head on over to the Currie Tech website to find out where.
LAS VEGAS — Rather than come out with a more casual-oriented wearable fitness tracker like everyone (and we mean everyone) else, Wahoo stuck to its athletic roots and took the more serious route of improving the heart-rate monitor strap and accompanying training software the company introduced a few years ago.
In fact, Wahoo has created three new versions of its Bluetooth HR strap. The company even tried to restructure the way athletes think about training with the new “burn or burst” approach for the Wahoo iOS app.
LAS VEGAS – Adding to the long list of companies showcasing new wearables at CES, InteraXon announced its brain-reading, stress-reducing, concentration-improving headband, Muse, is coming to a frontal lobe near you really soon.
LAS VEGAS — Seriously, everyone has a mother, but not everyone wants to live with her.
Here comes Mother, the remote sensor gadget we got to play with a bit at CES in Vegas this week. It’s a small, shmoo-shaped object that sits in your house, and tracks the sensors you can then attach to a variety of mundane objects like your toothbrush, your pill bottles, your mattress, or your refrigerator.
Mother then interacts with one of the 15 entry-level apps that come with the device to help you track what you do: how many times do you brush your teeth a day? Are you eating too much in the evening? How’s your sleep?
The initial bundle, available only at CES this week, is $222 for the Mother sensor hub and four cookies. The retail price will likely be higher when Mother hits stores.
LAS VEGAS – Not a summer goes by where I don’t hear about some local kid who drowned in the family pool while the parents were distracted. Lifeguards and common sense are the most protection against drowning, but iSwimband is an extra-layer of protection for parents monitoring multiple kids in the pool.
LAS VEGAS – Now that “selfie” has officially gone mainstream as the word of 2013, iPhone users are always looking for ways to take a better self portrait. Taking selfies with your front camera is easier, but if you want to use your iPhone’s full imaging capabilities you’ll have to do some weird hand contortions to get the shot framed and snapped. That’s where Hisy comes in.
LAS VEGAS — Think the only serious, affordable quiver of lenses available for iPhone 5/S iPhoneography are the ones from Olloclip? Nope. Wrong.
LAS VEGAS — We got a chance to hang out a bit with Daniella Hernandez at the Lenmar booth at CES in Vegas, learning more about the innovative Chug Plug, a 65W external power pack that you can use to extend the portable staying power of your MacBook.
The first-of-its-kind Chug Plug integrates into your already existing power plug set up, with your power brick attaching to the right side of the Chug Plug to both charge the external battery pack as well as use your MacBook at the same time.
When you need to leave that comfy seat near the wall plugs at the coffee shop, the Chug Plug then provides an extra two to three hours of portable power so you can continue your work or play away from the tether.
Chug Plug is available now for $159.99 at online retailers.
LAS VEGAS — It was only a matter of time before the behemoths of the fitness world jumped into the fitness-band fight; although considering Garmin has been making wrist-borne fitness gadgets for ages (in the guise of their Forerunner line) one might have expected their new Vivofit to have arrived much sooner.
LAS VEGAS — We’ve been SteelSeries fans for quite a while now, what with their stellar line up of headphones and gaming peripherals for both Mac and iOS.
The Chicago-based company just released what they’re calling the first Bluetooth-enabled official iOS 7 gaming controller, the Stratus.
We hung out with the team a bit at CES, and what we saw looks pretty damn sweet. Check it out.
Loop Attachment, the company behind the awesome Mummy cases for iOS devices, is at CES in Las Vegas this week showing off its latest product for the iPhone. It’s called the Straitjacket, and it fuses a hard plastic bumper with the silky smooth silicone that Loop Attachment is famous for.
LAS VEGAS – FLIR One debuted their all-new thermal imaging camera case at CES this week, that gives the iPhone 5 and 5s the power to pick up heat signatures up to 100 meters away from live people, animals, and pretty much anything else in your environment.
When Xbox Music finally made its debut on the iPhone last September, one of its most notable shortcomings was the lack of ability to store music locally for offline listening. But a new update that hit the App Store today rectifies that, giving subscribers the ability to enjoy their favorite playlists without a data connection.
https://youtu.be/_RenT6bTtis
LAS VEGAS — Webcams are such a thing of the past. The Canary is an Indiegogo-funded security camera and app that uses algorithms to detect abnormal movement in your home and send you an alert.
Which means, of course, that you can use the Canary not only to get notifications when there’s out-of-the-ordinary activity recorded, but also to capture video you can look at later that may not have tripped a notification.
We talked with the Canary crew at CES, as you can see in the video above.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxuacwotoQw
Terry Cavanaugh is one of the more talented developers in indie game development right now, with his famously difficult game Super Hexagon taking one of our top picks for 2012 Game Of The Year.
One of Cavanaugh’s previous games was a Metroid-like retro space platformer called VVVVVV. It’s available on Mac, and super fun, featuring a reversible gravity mechanic that makes the game one of the biggest charmers to hit the indie gaming scene in years. And now, it’s coming to the iPhone and iPad.
One of the most popular reasons to jailbreak an iPhone is BiteSMS, a jailbreak tweak that supper charges text messaging with better messaging alerts, quick reply and more. Unfortunately, ever since the iOS 7 jailbreak came along BiteSMS has been MIA, but that’s all changed with the release of BiteSMS for iOS 7, which not only updates the popular messaging app to be compatible with Apple’s latest mobile OS but also adds support for modern devices with 64-bit A7 processors.
We’ve seen famed Apple concept designer Martin Hajek’s take on Cupertino’s possibly mythical, believed-to-be-forthcoming iWatch before, but that was before iOS 7 came along. So Hajek decided to adapt his design for the post-Forstall age.
The result? The iWatch S and iWatch C, which have not only been updated to support iOS 7 (at least in Hajek’s head), but which have taken some new design cues from the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c.
Apple has opened an official online store on popular Chinese e-commerce gateway Tmall.
Run by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Tmall was launched in 2008 and hosts more than 70,000 merchants — including global brands such as Nike and Gap.
While Apple hasn’t officially commented on its Tmall store opening, an Alibaba rep has confirmed that this is an official Apple page and that it opened recently.