Latest Gadgets

Magneat wrangles your cables back to tidiness

Matthew Bolton — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:00:31 +0000

We like gadgets, here at Latest Gadgets. They’re sort of our raison d’être. I have our slogan – Life needs gadgets – tattooed on an unusual part of my body. Try to guess which bit; I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

This obsession means we also like to look out for things that make gadgets better. A useful peripheral for our computer, maybe. A fancy tripod for our camera, perhaps. Definitely not iPod skins though – this most pointless of money spinner is the technological equivalent of buying an expensive, designer t-shirt and then taking it down to a cheap printer and replacing the pattern with an image of your distorted, manically-grinning face.

Today’s add-on is Magneat. Explained simply, this is a little magnetic button that keeps dangly things like headphones cables from iPods, MP3 players, mobile phones and the like under control. The little nub fixes to your clothes magnetically, meaning no holes in your precious Armani/face shirt, and has space for you to wrap the cord around it, before locking it in the slot on top.

In the words of the creators, the aim here is to “banish cable chaos”, which seems like an awfully strong phrase to use for a loose headphones cable, but we take their point that catching the wire on things (including your own oafish sausage fingers) is pretty annoying.

The single most obvious drawback with Magneat is that, despite its minimalist design, it’ll make you look like a bit of a tool. We’re hoping to get one to try out, but I don’t think I’d just wear it on a jumper or something (although it doesn’t look too bad on someone who’s running, but you can get away with all sorts when exercising, as you make everyone around feel guilty for their laziness). Having said that, I could definitely see myself popping one of these on the inside pocket of my coat or jacket and enjoying the smug satisfaction I would get from my newfound personal organisation.

“Magneat is the brainchild of Preggioni, an Icelandic design team with their ear to the ground …,” according to the press release. This probably explains why they keep getting their headphones caught on things. At least they’re doing something about it.

A Magneat will set you back £7.99 for standard versions, or more for special editions. You can find them here at Firebox.

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Freecom’s World first USB 3.0 external HDD

Daniel Bettridge — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:00:44 +0000

Once upon you would have had to knock up a few extra shelves to house your growing collection of movies, music and important documents; but thankfully with the increasing digitisation of our day to day lives, you can now fit an entire library’s worth of information onto the smallest hard drives and storage devices. The problem is however that with ever-increasing file sizes the standard USB 2.0 connection is seeming a little slow, and can even make a spot of DIY carpentry look like a speedy alternative when faced with transferring something like a particularly hefty HD movie.

Thankfully though there’s an upgrade on the horizon with USB 3.0 offering a predicted tenfold increase over the file transfer speeds of our current connections. We’ve previously reported on the first PCI-E card to offer the upgrade to 3.0 and now comes the world’s first external hard drive to offer this super-charged technology. The Hard Drive XS 3.0 comes from Freecom, an award-winning manufacturer of external hard drives and portable storage devices. Using USB 3.0 Freecom claim that their new drive offers transfer speeds of approximately 130 MB/s, significantly faster than existing solutions, enabling users to back up and upload information in a matter of seconds. Measuring only 3.5 inches it’s also one of the smallest desktop drives on the market and weighing in at just 860 grams it’s ideal for those that want to carry their data on the move. But don’t let it’s size fool you. With storage capacities of up to 2TB, the Hard Drive XS 3.0 can hold up to to 400,000 MP3’s, more than 1.3 million digital photos, 400 full DVDs or 2,000 movies; and with the ability to transfer a 5GB movie in just 38 seconds you can backup your data in no time at all.

It even looks good and priced at just £99.99 for the 1TB model it’s good value to. Just a shame then that we’ll have to wait until mid-November for its European release.

Panasonic’s DMP-BDT300 enters 3D Blu-ray market

Daniel Bettridge — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:00:27 +0000

We’ve already reported on how Samsung were first out of the blocks with their 3D Blu-ray player, but as you might expect their competitors have not been far behind and so it comes as no surprise to see Panasonic enter the fray with the launch of their very own player.

The DMP-BDT300 will be the company’s first Full HD 3D Blu-ray player as the home entertainment giants jostle to provide us with an increasingly immersive entertainment experience. Panasonic boast that their player features the brand new, exclusively developed UniPhier LSI chip, which helps to process the large volume of Full HD 3D movies. This new UniPhier enables the player to output Full HD images in 1920×1080 resolutions in the so-called frame-sequential method. With this method, the images for left and right eye are displayed in alteration in order to create 3D images, which all sounds pretty impressive.

As you might expect Pansonic promises unrivalled picture quality whether you’re watching movies in all three dimensions or the customary two dimensional output that we’ll one day get nostalgic about. Like seemingly all modern players though, Panasonic have furnished the device with a wireless connection with which you can access a world of apps and widgets to keep you constantly connected with the outside world. It’s a strange idea that seems at odds against the totally immersive home cinema experience that they’re pedalling, and one which I imagine will rely heavily on the type of content they’ve got up their digital sleeves, but for those with the set up the ability to stream content direct from your home network will be appealing.

Whether Panasonic will trump Samsung in the battle for your living room remains to be seen, but we can only welcome the competition and hope that more players will come on the market to drive down what will undoubtedly be an expensive piece of kit.

Sanyo Xacti VPC-CS1: ‘World’s smallest’ HD camcorder

Beth Precious — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:00:43 +0000

Tomorrow (5^th March) sees the UK launch of the world’s tiniest full HD camcorder. Just 27mm thick at its widest point, the Sanyo Xacti VPC-CS1 has been designed with a slim sensor module and superslim lens so it’s small enough to slide easily into your pocket and take wherever you go.

The new model promises to be thinner and lighter than any other HD camcorder on the market, but don’t let its size fool you – the diminutive exterior is packed full of features. It shoots full 1080i HD footage, has a 10x advanced zoom and adjusts automatically to the conditions to give you top quality images whether you’re out in the sun or dancing the night away.

Still shots are captured by a 3-megapixel image sensor then enhanced and recorded as 8-megapixel quality. The fold out 2.7inch TFT LCD screen can be tilted 285 degrees to capture any angle and the familiar-looking pistol grip chassis is easy to keep steady. Both the video and still shot modes have image stabiliser and face recognition features.

There are three ways to record sound: you can capture everything to create atmosphere, or focus in on noises and speech in the direction that the camera is pointing. You can also set it to change as the camera zooms in on a subject, to focus on the specific sounds around them.

Footage is shot in MPEG4 format, supported by Windows OS and Windows 7 and compatible with YouTube and the social networking sites. It has a 50MB internal memory and works with SD, SDHC and SDXC memory cards. It can also be used with Eye-Fi SD cards for easy wireless transfers to the internet, and there’s a mini HDMI port for top quality TV playback – although you have to buy the cable for this separately.

This is a stylish offering, available in silver or magenta, and sure to be a hit with both sexes – and all ages as it promises to be simple enough to appeal to everyone from teens to grandparents. And at around £249 it is well placed to tempt a broad group of buyers, so expect to see it coming out of a pocket near you soon.

Online TV: You saw, we saw, SeeSaw?

Hannah Braime — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:00:13 +0000

SeeSaw is a new online streaming service designed for UK audiences. Released in February, it brings together content from the BBC, Channel 4 and Channel 5 so viewers have a wider selection of programmes all on the same website.

It’s a simple idea and this simplicity extends beyond the concept to its function. Although the service is competing with many others on the web – some legal, most illegal – it is this simplicity that sets it apart from the crowd.

The site has a user-friendly interface, uncluttered by advertisements or text. Viewers can select programmes by channel, genre or using a search function.

The home page features programme selections, centred around topics such as ‘money, money, money’ (The Secret Millionaire, Cash and a documentary about Bernie Madoff) and ‘Home is Where the Heart Is’ (Property Ladder, Up Your Street, Kirsty’s Homemade Home and others). It also showcases the programmes other SeeSaw users have been watching so you can browse the most popular choices.

Once you’ve selected the programme you want to watch, a summary of all available episodes helps you choose those you haven’t seen yet without giving too much away about their content. Every episode starts with one or two adverts, something you’ll find on 4oD but not on the BBC iPlayer. You can’t fast forward or skip through these but they do give you just long enough to make a cup of tea before you settle down to watch your chosen show.

Even the viewing options have been stripped down for maximum ease of use. The only functions to choose from when streaming a programme are full screen, volume and lighting. The first two are the only things you really need when watching online, while the latter is an extra quirk for those who choose not to opt for full-screen mode. With this feature, you have the option to dim the screen brightness around the programme box when watching – a nifty device that produces a vaguely cinematic effect, even without the full screen.

The streaming is very fast and, unlike, other services online, I got through several programmes without a single hitch. For viewers in a family setting, there are also parental controls, which enable older members of the family to protect unsuitable content with a pin number.

Having the programmes from all three channels amalgamated into one service is definitely more convenient than watching them separately. The website is simple, easy to use and it works well. Although SeeSaw is still a new venture, it certainly has the potential to become a hit in the future.

Codeorgan.com, site and sound

Dominic Smith — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:00:43 +0000

This is a very weird and slightly wonderful online gadget-type-thing that you’re either going to love or hate with all of the passion in your hardened techie heart. To put it simply, Codeorgan is nothing more, and nothing less than an intriguing Flash application that turns any web page into music.

The site analyses the text in the body of any supplied URL address (your favourite gadget resource for example), and follows its unique algorithm to render that page into a piece of music. It starts off by choosing a drum pattern, then moves on to picking up a synth style and a key based on the contents of the chosen site, then within a matter of seconds it’ll play the associated music via the ‘Play This Website’ option.

Yes! Of course it’s much more complex than that. Before the unique sounds can be generated and all of the above occurs, Codeorgan must scan the page and remove all of the characters not in the musical scale (from A to G)…naturally. Then, it analyses the remaining ones to find the most commonly used “note” before the page is translated in to that specific note’s major pentatonic scale (a musical scale with five pitches per octave, FYI), it’s a minor scale if there is an an uneven number of characters left.

It’s also worth mentioning that there are ten synth effects available as part of the Codeorgan program and from those, one is chosen based upon the total number of characters used on the page that you choose. Also, the beats are determined based upon the ratio of characters versus the ones that are musical notes (don’t panic, remember scales A and G?). Okay, I’ve tried, but thankfully, you won’t have to think about that when making sweet (ish…) music using this nifty app.

You will be most happy to know that the 45 seconds CO generated for Latestgadgets.co.uk sounds like a jazz-infected electro beast. The only real downside to this clever idea is the fact that there’s only so much computer generated synth-generated mayhem and programmed beats that any one person can take. Oh, you’re not surprised? Well then, Codeorgan is definitely the web-based gadget of the moment for you.

After analysing your chosen site, of course, you have the option of sharing your results on the usual platforms of Facebook and Twitter.

Codeorgan is developed by UK-based company DLKW. For more information visit http://www.codeorgan.com.

HTC & LG to be first to ship WM7 phones

Andrew Rafter — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:00:49 +0000

Many of us had written off Microsoft in the mobile phone market, but last week Microsoft unveiled at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, a new operating system and a fresh approach to the mobile platform that could — for the first time in a very long time — give Apple and Google something to worry about.

Gone is the infuriating menu system, the uninspiring design, the endless bugs; the new-look Windows Phone makes all of that seem like a bad dream.

The new Windows Phone interface draws heavily on that of the Zune, the Microsoft personal media player that has never made it to this side of the Atlantic, but is present on the Xbox360. The new Windows Phone interface has big, bold, over-sized graphics that jump out of the screen and dominate the page, and the whole navigation system feels fresh and lively.

Contacts are cleverly arranged with a one-click access and are arranged in order of “importance”, from those friends and family you interact with most appearing further up the page, and those you contact infrequently pushed down the virtual pecking order

It’s a dynamic user experience that will change over time, in real time, depending on the ebb and flow of your daily life. There’s even a “What’s New” section, which pulls in social-networking updates from your contacts, straight from sites such as Facebook. At the moment there’s no Twitter support yet — a glaring omission — but expect this to be rectified by the time the first Windows Phones launch at the end of the year.

Pictures are cleverly handled too, in their own virtual gallery with plenty of linking to and from photo-sharing and social-networking profiles. The Music + Video hub is where users will go to sync songs and movie files, while the Games hub is going to excite a lot of people — it syncs your Xbox Live gaming profile with the phone, complete with avatar and gaming points.

Microsoft recognises that mobile gaming has been one of the iPhone’s biggest successes, so expect to see Windows Phone becoming the closest thing we’re going to get to a handheld Xbox 360.

Microsoft is keen to balance the demands of users’ business and personal lives with the Windows Mobile OS, so it has an Office hub, that’s synced to the cloud, and can be used to open and edit documents. There’s push email support too, of course, through Microsoft Exchange.

Microsoft is expected to launch their new OS later this year and HTC and LG are reportedly going to be the first manufactures to take advantage of the new OS.

HTC Smart – a wallet friendly smartphone

Shem Pennant — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:00:03 +0000

A few years ago the “boom” sector of the mobile phone industry was touted as the low-end market. Companies such as Nokia poured development and marketing resources into cheap, simple handsets for markets such as India and Africa. “Less” was going to be the next big growth opportunity. The launch of iPhone changed all that. Not the first smartphone, or even necessarily the best (especially in its original incarnation) the iPhone shifted the mobile phone industry’s focus back on the high end and prompted the multi-touch screen, app store gold rush we are in the middle of right now. However, this is shift in focus has left a gap in the market for low to mid-end consumers for an affordable smartphone – a gap HTC are hoping to fill with the HTC Smart – an affordable and easy to use smartphone.

I’ve never found smartphones hard to use, but then again I work for a gadget blog and have installed Linux on my old 3G iPod so I may not be the best judge. I do however find them expensive, so was interest to see what the HTC would offer. Unfortunately pricing data was not available at this moment in time. Running Qualcomm’s Brew Mobile Platform and launching in the UK, Ireland and Germany in April 2010 the HTC Smart will focus on widgets, browsing and connectivity.

“More and more people are craving advanced mobile phone experiences with email, web browsing and social networking but the cost and complexity often represent a significant obstacle for many. The HTC Smart introduces this functionality in an intuitive phone that is affordable,” said Peter Chou, chief executive officer, HTC Corporation. “With the HTC Smart, HTC and Telefónica share a similar vision for bringing easy-to-use, affordable smartphone experience to the masses.”

The HTC smart runs what it calls “widgets” which look and sound like what the rest of us call apps that allows access to contacts, photos music etc. HTC Friend Stream seems like a mobile version of Brizzly, and allows you to integrate social networking streams like Twitter, Flickr, Facebook into one simple flow of updates, images and links. Other than that standard smartphone features like Internet, music and email are all thrown in. It may not be the most exciting smartphone on the market, but with a solid feature set and (hopefully) competitive pricing it doesn’t have to be.

HD-FOX T2 – Humax’s first Freeview HD PVR

Beth Precious — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 09:00:16 +0000

If you want to experience the thrill of high definition television but don’t want to spend wads of cash on a cable or satellite subscription, try the new Freeview HD box from Humax. It’s the first HD set-top box in the UK, and likely to be a trendsetter as demand grows for the pin-sharp detail and vibrant colours of high definition programmes.

For a one-off payment of around £179, Humax’s HD-FOX T2 gives you the usual 50 standard definition channels and 24 radio stations, plus the two existing free HD channels from the BBC and ITV in 1080p full HD. You can also use it to view photos and videos, listen to MP3 players, and set up home networking via its Ethernet port.

Freeview boxes tend to be refreshingly easy to use and this one is no exception. Taking just minutes to set up, the instructions are clear enough for even the most dedicated technophobe to get right first time. Automatic channel updates mean that once it is set up, it pretty much looks after itself, and no subscription means that you can forget about it once it’s installed.

However, for all the positives, there are drawbacks. You only get two extra channels and, when you consider that the price of a standard Freeview box starts at about £20, the extra cost makes those two channels very expensive indeed. But the good news is that more free HD channels are expected, with Channel 4 and S4C Wales being added imminently and others sure to follow in due course.

The other downside is the level of HD coverage at the moment. Right now, you are only able to pick it up if you live around London or in the Granada region, made up of Lancashire, Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Cheshire and North Staffordshire. However, Glasgow, Newcastle, Leeds, Birmingham and Cardiff are due to be added by the end of March; check your local area before you splash your cash by clicking on www.freeview.co.uk/availability.

Overall, the HD-FOX T2 is an ideal choice for anyone who is curious about the benefits of HD but wary of getting tied into a long-term contract. It is also a good option for those in rental properties who are not allowed to install cable or a satellite dish. And although there are only two HD channels at the moment, more will follow, and at least the existing two will keep you entertained throughout a summer of sport.

Lumigon’s T1 & S1 Android-powered phones

Simon Jablonski — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 09:00:08 +0000

What is the tech-head’s paradox? I hear you cry. Well, it’s a gadget that does everything. For, like Alexander weeping that there are no more lands to conquer, if one has something that does everything, one does not need any more gadgets. Lumigon may not have quite smashed this paradigm, but they have made a brave effort.

Made with some fine craftsmanship from materials such as steel, aluminium and scratch-free glass, the S1 and T1 models also come packed with a remarkable range of helpful features. It can be used as a universal remote control allowing you to control various appliances in your house, an FM receiver and transmitter, an HDMI desk station enabling you to use the phone as a source for HDTV or regular television so you can see pictures or movies. It can be used as a browser device with Lumigon’s new bluetooth keyboard.

The main difference between the T1 and S1 is that the T1 has a keyboard that can be exposed by sliding the screen up and the S1 is touch-screen. Later this year we can expect the E1, which impassioned Lumigon founder Lars Graveson describes as, “the most beautiful phone I have ever seen during my entire 10 year career in mobile business.” And Mr Gravesen should probably stay securely sealed in his office, less he should stumble upon some variety of nature or a pretty girl and collapse under a gush of poetic fervour.

Having been two years in development, the T1 and S1 are handsome phones, though, and this is likely to be their biggest selling point. A great deal is going to be made of it being Scandinavian, possibly phrases like “ergonomic design” will be tossed around. The design is stylish enough to stand up for itself, though. Their two tone visage possesses the kind of retro charm that may last till mid-way through the decade if not beyond, before we get bored of minimalism once again and grapple for a phone covered in giant pink flowers and its own detachable satellite dish.

Spec-wise, the phones run on Google’s latest operating system, Android 2.1 and Lumigon’s own P-GUI software implementation for added user-friendliness. For speed freaks, it contains Freescale’s i.MX51 processor, usually reserved for applications requiring an advanced HMI.

In an already over-crowded phone market, it will be interesting to see whether Lumigon’s creations will be able to make themselves heard over the super-brands like Nokia, Blackberry and iPhone. The S1 and T1 are sufficiently smart and crammed with enough impressive hardware to put their competition to shame, but the question remains is the phone market open enough to accommodate a new brand?