News - page 21

There’s nothing quite like hunting for something misplaced to drive one crazy. If you’ve ever lost a set of keys or Bluetooth headset under a couch pillow, you know exactly what I’m talking about. And if just the thought of a scenario like that triggers a burst of panic, you’ll want to pay close attention here — because Item TrackR just might keep you from losing more stuff, along with your remaining marbles.

That’s right — instead of a case that turns your iPhone into a wallet, Wally, the latest Kickstarter project from Distil Union, sort of does the opposite. It’s a slip of leather that attaches to the back of an iPhone 4 or 5 via something called “micro-suction,” and creates a cavity with just about enough space for three of your most-used cards.

Got a “Universal” iPhone dock? Yeah, me too, and it’s pretty useless now most of my iDevices are Lightning powered. But Shapeways user nginear can help. He’s come up with an iPhone 5 adapter which will plug straight into your dock, letting you keep on using it for at least another year or so,.

The Rocksteady XS is a Bluetooth speaker with a big difference: it’s designed to be “as loud as possible.” To that end, it features a sealed design so that the sound can punch harder out of the end-mounted speakers. It’s also tough (with an aluminum shell) and cheap at just $99, making it ideal for outdoor use.

Along with Evernote’s big Penultimate announcement yesterday came another big update. Evernote Hello, the person-remembering app, is now at version 2.0. It adds two great features: business-card scanning and a tie-in with social networks.

Yes, you’ve seen both these before, but not quite as slick as this.

Dropbox’s new Albums feature, rolling out over the next few weeks, lets you share your photos and videos way more easily that you could before. Think of it as kind of a Shared Photo Stream, only anyone can use it, not just iOS6 users.

When Minecraft Pocket Edition first launched, it wasn’t anything like the desktop (and now Xbox 360) versions; it was a neutered stub of a game. But with each update, the PE version gets more and more awesome as it adds the cool features of its big brothers. This update brings wearable armor, craftable signs, new renewable resources in the form of baby livestock and makes gravel and sand follow the rules of gravity.

Unfortunately, there might also be a bug that destroys your entire world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSuJ5HOE42M&list=PLgqaIbvtBHtSwsxcRw4941vIoxMhY0DpN&index=1

A year ago I was working on a pretty large project with a buddy. We were hundreds of miles apart, but since we both had iPads, we figured, hey, no problem — collaboration will be easy.

But it wasn’t. Despite the wealth of iPad apps, none of them were quite the collaboration tool we wanted; too expensive, or lacking a particular feature, or not easy enough to use. I wish Moxtra had been around a year ago.

Steve Jobs. Bill Gates. I’ve always relished any opportunity to see either of the two information-age titans reference the other (this ultra-rare instance of the two sparring side-by-side during an All Things Digital conference still gives me goose bumps).

In this case, it was Bill Gates in his first appearance on the Stephen Colbert show last night when Colbert gingerly brought up Steve in the last moments of the conversation.

I did something really dumb in Vegas last month — I forgot my sunglasses in a Starbucks. A couple of hours after trapsing through a mall, I realized what I’d done, and panicked; they weren’t cheap. I anxiously retraced my steps, ending up back at the cafe. Some fabulous Samaritan had turned them in.

If I’d left my phone behind instead — or something else large enough for a FinderCodes tag (sunglasses aren’t) — the good guy (or girl) could have easily FedExed it to me anonymously.

For all those unilingual schmos who’ve thought they were telling some lucky foreigner “hey, I like the cut of your jib” in another tongue, but instead said something like “you chicken dance the burning planets,” I sympathize. And also laugh. To make up for the laughing, here’s a tip — a trick app to pull out next time: Sendboo. It’s a free app that automatically translates your “hey, baby” to “olá, bebê” — or into 29 other languages besides Portuguese. Fantástico.

Kanex’s new DualRole will be pretty much essential for hotel-hopping MacBook Air owners the world over. It’s a little pocket-sized box which hooks up to the MacBook’s USB 3.0 port and turns it into three ports plus an Ethernet jack.

Yes, it costs $70, but you can expense that, right?

Mextures are free 2000px x 200px images for adding textures to your iPhone photos. Mextures come from photographer Merek Davis, hence the name: Merek; textures: Mextures!

True story: Back when I was a university student, there was a local DJ called DJ Crap. He actually was pretty crappy, but nobody really cared, because DJ Crap had a signature gimmick: He used an old-style telephone handset to cue up his records. Come to think of it, this might be why his mixes never matched…

Now Numark will sell you a modern version of the same thing. It’s called the Redphone, and DJ Crap would love it.

Remember the Optimus Maximus keyboard from Art Lebedev? No, me either. But if I did I’d probably recall the LED keycaps which had two distinct functions: One, to display a tiny image on top of each key and two, to send the cost of the keyboard through the roof.

Today we bring you the e-ink keyboard, which is the same kind of thing, only way more practical.

Here’s a great idea: put this magnetic paperweight on your desk and enjoy the relaxed tranquility of knowing that your cables will never fall to the floor again.

Or try this even better idea: go grab the super-strong rare-earth magnet from one of your disused iPad cases (or even its over-engineered packaging) and tape it to the edge of your desk. Voila! (or wa-la! or viola! as forum-posting morons like to say) – you have your own free cable tidy. And better yet it won’t actually untidy your desk by cluttering up its surface.

I consider Apple’s Lightning SD card adapter to be a step backwards – the original camera connection kit not only included an SD dongle and a USB port, but it also provided them in convenient, pocketable, non-be-cabled form.

Thanks to the fine folks at Photojojo, though, you can now relive the excitement of not using a cable to plug in your SD card with the Lightning SD Reader.

I have a hate/hate relationship wireless SD cards. Hate because they never quite seem to work when I really need them to, and hate because they promise so much, and then they crash my damn camera. Again. Wait, I have another one: They also kill the battery.

The new ezSh@re from world-famous manufacturer ¹ LZeal mightn’t do anything about the first two, but it can fix that last one.

Fact: I was once taking some notes about an exhibit in a gallery/museum in Berlin and a guard told me to stop using my cellphone. It was in fact an iPod touch, but whatever – try explaining that to a German security guard when you can’t speak German.

If I’d been in Gabriele Meldaikyte’s art exhibit, though, I could have continued pinching, tapping, swiping (and giving the finger to the guard) without even touching my “phone.” How? Interactivity.

A mobile phone in the hands of your kid can be a liability. But it can also be guardian angel — it all depends on how it’s used. MobileKids is a free iPhone and Android app that enhances a phone’s guardian angel-like qualities while putting the liabilities on lockdown.

This is the Scandock, a $480 stand that turns your iPhone or Android handset into a better scanner. There are already some great scanner apps out there — here’s an iOS example, and here’s one for Android, both of which are around $5. The Scandock is almost a whopping 100 times more expensive, but claims improved results.

There are weather apps, and then there are weather apps; Nooly is, apparently, the latter. Nooly is so accurate, its press release claims, the app “is capable of predicting the exact minute it will rain or snow and can do so effectively, wherever you are, for every 0.4 square miles.” That’s pretty precise.

On our recent Cult of Mac outing CES in Las Vegas, I introduced a few of your favorite writers to TripIt the fantastic trip organizing app/service. But sometimes you just need to know a little bit about your flights, your hotel, or where to eat. Enter Travel Essentials, an iPhone app that does just that, and does it beautifully.

This is the Anti-Loneliness Bowl, and it is designed to hold your iPhone close so that you need never experience a single second of solitude, even while slurping down some cheap noodles.

In my childhood home, a Dust Donut was what we called and cake or cookie that had gotten lost down the back of the sofa or under an armchair, only to be rediscovered weeks or months later, covered in (you guessed it) a layer of dust and lint.

However, the Dust Donut we’re talking about today is a simple aftermarket weather seal for your Canon SLR lenses.