hardware - page 8

We’ve seen a handful of tablet cases — especially for the iPad — that aim to turn your slate into a MacBook Air lookalike. But the ClamBook  from ClamCase is the first solution we’ve seen that’s designed for the iPhone and Android smartphones, and it promises to “change the way you view smartphones.”

Built from sleek aluminum, the ClamBook is incredibly thin and light. It comes to life when you hook it up to your smartphone to see its content on the widescreen display, which is accompanied by a full-size QWERTY keyboard and a multitouch trackpad.

My first decision is easy when heading out on an outdoor adventure: Take the iPhone with me? Oh, you betcha. The next one is much more difficult. Since the iPhone requires a boost in both protection and juice when playing Indiana Jones, I’m forced to choose between slipping on a battery case and worrying about my iPhone shattering on a rock, or (painstakingly) wrapping it in a rubber case and hoping it doesn’t run out of power.

But Mophie’s new $130 iPhone 4/S battery pack — sort of a cross between a tank and a tanker — says “COMPROMISE IS FOR THE WEAK.” And also, the poor.

If you’re a mobile gamer, then you already know the pangs of those on-screen controls. That’s why any serious gamer heads straight for some form of bluetooth controller to get his/her game on. Snakebyte (Sunflex), a company that makes gaming-related peripherals, has announced their plans to sell a new bluetooth gaming controller for Android and iOS. The idroid:con looks to differentiate itself from other bluetooth conrtollers by being the first to have five different functions and come with no app obligation.

AT&T has unleashed its 4G LTE fury upon the city of Cleveland, and its citizens are ready to Rock ‘n’ Roll. It continues to be a slow rollout for AT&T, but every little bit counts if you’re a customer. If you’ve already jumped ship over to Verizon, then you probably won’t care, but if you’re still an AT&T faithful living in Cleveland, you’ll know be able to enjoy:

Sonos has updated their Controller app on Android and iOS in preparation for the June 19th launch of the Sonos SUB. The Sonos SUB is the latest addition to their top-notch wireless audio system and adds that ground shaking bass you’ve been looking for. The SUB works with all amplified components: CONNECT:AMP/ZP120/ZP100; PLAY:5/ZonePlayer S:5; PLAY:3 and features:

Tivoli, maker of fine old-fashioned radios with new-fashioned guts, has finally got with the game and added Bluetooth to its classic Model One and PAL lines. So now, in addition to beautiful, warm-sounding (mono) radio and music piped in over the wire, you can also hijack grandma’s favorite program wirelessly.

Sprint has just announced the availability of the HTC Bluetooth music adaptor for wirelessly streaming music from your phone through your car stereo speakers. It’s a fairly expensive adaptor at $59.99 and considering it plugs into a 3.5mm aux port, it’ll leave you wondering “why not just buy a cheap aux cable?”

If I was to ask you what kind of product is the PlugBook, what would you say? If you guessed that it’s a power adapter in the shape of a book, then congratulations! You just won today’s Cult of Mac Cup Of Awesomeness, which means you can go have a drink alone in your local bar.

Imagine that you could buy a tiny USB-powered box that detected your motion like Microsoft’s Kinect, only instead of watching you jump around a room, it watched your hands and fingers. Imagine that the box was sensitive enough to track the tip of a pencil tracing out letters in a 1cm square of space, and to turn that into accurate handwriting on the screen.

Amazingly, that box is available for preorder right now. It’s called the Leap, and it works with your Mac.

The unfortunate reality of trying to replace cable with video subscription services such as Netflix or Hulu is that, well… they kind of suck. Okay, so that’s my opinion and it’s completely possible that you’re happy with the Walmart bargain bin selection of movies Netflix has to offer, or being last to find out that The Island was just purgatory and the whole point of LOST was, well… pointless. There’s many reasons why I’ve been unable to cut cable out of my life, and if I’m going to be paying for it every month — I might as well get my money’s worth. That’s where the Slingbox SOLO comes in.

Available in different sounding flavors, the Vox amPlug (about $40) is a teensy bit of amp that plugs right into your guitar. Add to that your favorite headphones, and you’re ready to jam-out from wherever you sit.

Take a look at your desk. Now, find a cable. Chances are that it is tangled up with another cable, and even if it isn’t, then it is probably tied to itself in knots. What if you had a set of commonly used cables that were impossible to tangle? Aviiq’s Ready Clips will provide you with this courtesy, and they throw in pen-like clips to sweeten the deal.

The Notebook Case from CPeel is a plastic keyboard case for the iPad that’s designed to transform your tablet into a mini MacBook for €85 (approx. $111). It adds a full QWERTY keyboard that includes 13 function keys and connects to your iPad via Bluetooth.

But it’s not only its looks that make this case desirable. It also features an integrated 4,000 mAh Lithium-ion battery and a built-in USB port, which allow you to charge almost any device via a USB cable while you’re on the go.

There are probably a thousand different flash-diffusing accessories out there that claim to transform your DSLR Speedlite’s sickly beam of photons into one that’s more soft’n’dreamy. Problem is, many portable diffusers are tricky to use, don’t work well, or both.

But the Gary Fong Lightsphere Collapsible ($60), though it looks a little too much like a flash’s top hat, is surprisingly effective at softly lighting all that surrounds it.

It looks like Square has yet another competitor in the mobile payments arena. Global payment leader VeriFone has announced SAIL, a credit card reader much like Square’s, that will attach to a number of mobile devices. While VeriFone may have a little catching up to do, they have the advantage of an extensive network with a commanding percentage of retail transactions passing through their service.

Speculating about future Apple products is really hard to do well. That doesn’t keep everyone from trying. Even grizzled Apple-watching veterans often fail catastrophically with each new Apple announcement.

The reason it’s difficult is that “evidence,” which would normally be the best tool for predicting things, doesn’t work in Apple’s case.

The best criteria are strategic and cultural analyses. But even these are not perfectly reliable.

If you’ve struggled to accurately guess in the past what Apple will announce, don’t feel bad. Even Apple executives themselves don’t know until often very late in the game.

Here’s why predicting Apple products is so hard.

In a mobile industry that’s simply booming, there’s only two phone vendors reaping the majority of the benefits: Samsung and Apple. In Q1 of 2012, Apple and Samsung combined for 99% of mobile phone vendor profits — the remaining 1% belonged to HTC. Independently, Apple holds the lion’s share of profits with an incredible 73% of operating profits thanks to carrier premiums for the iPhone 4S. Samsung, while leading in mobile phone shipments, only grabbed 26% operating profits — which isn’t really that bad considering every other carrier (other than HTC) managed to face significant losses.

Back in March, Amazon offered up certified refurbished Amazon Kindle Fires for an amazing $139. It was only a 24-hour deal but sold out in half the time. Well, the deal is back, and yes, it’s another 24-hour deal. It’s already about half-way through the deal but they still appear in stock so you might want to take this opportunity to pick up a nice little tablet for cheap.

The Gary Fong Puffer ($22) has one function: diffuse your popup flash’s harsh light, making it softer, more eye-pleasing, and eminently more usable. It mostly delivers on that promise, but will it cure my distain for actually using popup flash? Doubtful.

According to the latest report from the International Data Corporation, Samsung has ousted both Apple and Nokia to aquire the top spot in both smartphone and total mobile phone shipments for the first quarter of 2012. This marks the first time since the inception of IDC’s Mobile Phone Tracker that Nokia did not lead the global market in total mobile phone shipments. That’s quite a testament to Samsung’s tremendous growth over the past year, which according to the IDC, was nearly triple in the smartphone category.

Take a look under your desk at that power-strip. My guess is that, even though it is probably overloaded with another power-strip plugged into it, there are at least a couple of spare sockets. It’s not that you don’t need them — it’s that you can use them thanks to all the awkward-shaped adapters jammed into it. If only you could bend and twist your power-strip to get better access to its hard-to-reach holes…

When it comes to our mobile devices and the operating systems we use, we can sometimes be a bit defensive and downright vile. We’re usually quick to make a joke or two at the expense of one another, but in the end, we’re all human, and most of us are surprisingly close friends who frequently kick back and enjoy a cold beer together (even if some of us accidentally leave our prototypes behind). That’s why this next invention will have tech-loving beer connoisseurs foaming at the mouth (literally).

Let’s say you like music. And parties. In fact, let’s say you like partying and music so much, you flit around from house to house, grooving away each night, mesmerising your friends with your iPhone’s fabulous playlists. Sound like you? Then you’ll probably go nuts over Monster’s dock-equipped, super-portable, no-fuss Clarity HD Model One speakers.

Monster really zeroed in on designing this set as a portable party. Each cabinet has a top carrying handle, and the right speaker sports a recessed 30-pin iPod/iPhone dock with a power button and volume knob nestled nearby. If you forget your iDevice at home, there are three other input options to choose from.

If you’re fed up with all the “who copied who,” “this one’s suing this one” nonsense currently consuming the mobile ecosystem, MIT has the solution for you. Raise your Switzerland flag with an affordable wooden DIY cellphone kit. No one will mistake your 9-volt powered laser-cut plywood for an iDevice or Android so you won’t have to worry about any impending patent litigation. All kidding aside, this little do-it-yourself kit is only in the prototype phase and is a far cry from the smartphones we’re used to using.

You know how many tech companies strive to make our experience of their products easier and more transparent so that — in the case of things like the iPad — the product disappears and lets us enjoy whatever it is that it does?

Koss didn’t get that memo, and has launched Striva, an “initiative” which takes something as simple as a headphone and makes it as complicated as an old-school router.