Looking for a quick and simple way to locate a wireless access point without having to wear a light-up shirt? In this modern hour of virtual offices, high-travel days and “working” remotely, being able to secure online access to keep up with your emails and latest web news while you’re on the go is becoming more of an issue. Not that we don’t love our highly portable laptops, but there’s something uniquely frustrating about sitting at a coffee shop hoping to get caught up over a cup of chai tea and only being able to find 5 wireless networks, all of which are asking for a password.
So save yourself the trouble of circling for a parking spot, paying $5 for flavored water, and elbowing your way through crowds only to be digitally shut out — try the WiFi Walker, an all in one 802.11b/g WiFi finder and USB adapter. The backlit LCM display shows detailed information about the list of wireless hotspots in range — including name, signal strength, encryption, SSID, security status and AP number — so you can easily suss out whether or not there are open signals for use wherever you are. The USB Adapter is also prepared to plug directly into your laptop for charging (no batteries, just juice!) and will double as a wireless adapter in case you’re working with a laptop that didn’t come with a wireless card (hey, it happens). The packaging is both sleek and durable — no cheap plastics used here — though we really wish they would’ve added a loop to the business end so it could be tethered to something while not in use.
Check out the video to see the Walker at work:
And then there’s the WiFi Seeker, a boiled-down version of the Walker — no big display, just a series of sweeping LED lights (sort of like the EMF detectors you see on ghost hunting shows) that can detect wireless access points within 300 feet. Just press the big blue button and wait for the red lights to stop sweeping and remain lit — if the red lights don’t stop, you’re in a dead zone, if only 1 or 2 bars stay lit things look shaky, but 3 or 4 bars means you’re good to go. Plus they definitely thought about mobility and threw a thick key ring on the end, making it easy to attach to your cluster of keys or travel case for regular use on the fly.
If you’re ready to buy one of your own (or add to someone’s gift list), WiFi Walker starts at $59.95, and the Seeker’s a bargain at $14.95, both available directly from wifiseeker.com (just look for the “Buy Now” button in the top right corner).
Jeff Hawkins, founder of Palm Computing, just can’t catch a break these days. First the Treo gets generally slammed by the public for failing to be as sexy and modern as its competitors in the handheld device arena, and then he releases “the most exciting project [he's] ever worked on” the same day Microsoft goes media-nuclear with The Surface. Still, this may not just be poor PR and production — the kids might be on to something by failing to do virtual backflips over the new Palm Foleo.
First, let’s be clear: this IS NOT a laptop. Sure, it’s masquerading as a slim little lappy, but don’t get confused — the Foleo is merely a companion device to the Treo. Maybe merely is a little harsh; it does run a Linux-based OS with a 10-inch display (because who isn’t sick of staring at tiny screens) and full-sized keyboard that lets you sync up with your Treo to view/send emails and edit documents. Representatives are quick to point out that the Foleo is light (2.5 lbs), boasts 5 hours of battery life, comes with a Wi-Fi connection, and is expected to also work with BlackBerry devices and the new iPhone. Unfortunately, when you strip away the oohs and aahs of a simple design and easy plug-and-play functionality, what’ve you got?
For $500, and without some really revolutionary advances, it’s tough to get too excited over this smartphone extension. Sorry, Jeff.
I was listening to Bubba The Love Sponge on Sirius Satellite Radio today and to prep up for their Friday morning show all the guys in the studio were hitting cans of Big Ox. I don’t think that the guys over at TheBigOx.com intended on radio personalities using their product to wake up in the morning but it did seem to do the trick.
For all intents and proposes The Big Ox is oxygen in a can. Each can contains 89% pure oxygen as apposed to the wimpy 21% we normally breathe from day to day and comes in four tasty flavors Tropical Breeze, Mountain Mint, Polar Rush and Citrus Blast.
If you are exercising, training, or just need a pick me up during your high paced day you can grab yourself a 2 pack of 4.4gram cans for just $23.98 at TheBigOx.com
Pioneer will be selling the latest HD Blu-ray players for just $300 in the United States starting next month, giving consumers an opportunity to adopt the new technology at very affordable prices.
The BDC-2202 drive will be capable of reading regular Blu-ray at 5x and dual layer at 2x along with the ability to read and write to both DVDs and CDs. One downside to the drive is its inability to burn actual Blu-ray discs, which might leave some strung in confusion.
I’m still not playing favorites with an HD content format - I’m still poised and waiting to see what happens in the war of the formats, to see who comes out on top. That said, I won’t be purchasing a player until they drop under the $200 mark.
Bright and early (at 1AM in the morning), Canon announced the new “prosumer” Powershot S5 IS which replaces the previous highly successful S3 IS.
The new S5 IS sports a 2.5-inch swiveling LCD display, 8 Mega-Pixels (a nice bump over the previous 6MP models), and integration of the enhanced Digic III image processor, which facilitates the introduction of face-detection auto focus and exposure modes.
This release is well worth the upgrade for current owners of previous S1, S2 or S3 Powershot models and perfect for those wanting a camera which puts them in total control, without having to take a leap for a Digital-SLR (DSLR).
It is expected in mid-July, and will be retailing for a cool $499.99.
According to Engadget, Sony is prepping new LCD TVs and projectors which will be available to the open market later this year.
On the projector front, two new front projector models, the VPL-AW10 and the VPL-AW15 will feature 6000:1 and 12000:1 contrast ratios, 1300 lumens of brightness, and 1080/24p input via HDMI. Perfect for any home theatre.
On the LCD front, there are 5 new models in the works:
All of the listed televisions above will support high-definition 720p playback, and include Bravia Theatre Sync for sending remote control data, three HDMI inputs, and integrated tuners.
These updates are much needed for Sony as Samsung recently announced their new range of LCDs which are now available. In my view, Sony and Samsung both lead the race in LCD TVs, I expect to see this trend keep up over the next few years.
Wireless USB has been a talking point for many over the past few years, is it now possible? Technology and gadget company Gefen have proven us all right (or wrong) and shown wireless USB in-fact can be done.
Their Wireless USB Hub will retail for $399.00, and promises a 60 foot operating range along with data transfer speeds of us to 70Mbps. You will be able to connect 4 USB devices at once to the hub.
This is something many, including myself, have been wanting for a while now. I’m not too sure how well this will stand up under daily use, though the technology itself is exciting and very innovative.
Samsungs latest announcement should have left Apple fans around the globe in suspense due to what could be made from their latest 16GB NAND flash memory drives they are now starting to mass produce.
The drives support 30MB/s transfer rates and 4-bit error correcting code, and Samsung is the first company in the world to go after the higher capacity NAND flash memory division and produce drives of this size. I’m glad they are the company who are doing it as Samsung has been known to produce top quality products over the years.
Expect to see this memory in action in future iPod nano’s, and possibly newer model Apple iPhone’s further down the track.
Jeep has an interesting new attention getter that they use at auto trade shows. The Jeep waterfall is a 54 foot wide display that uses around 1,000 gallons of water with 3,000 unique valves to create a screen like display. The water show allows Jeep to scan in all kinds of images and display them in a manner very similar to an inkjet printer.
I was listening to 
Jeep has an interesting new attention getter that they use at auto trade shows. The Jeep waterfall is a 54 foot wide display that uses around 1,000 gallons of water with 3,000 unique valves to create a screen like display. The water show allows Jeep to scan in all kinds of images and display them in a manner very similar to an inkjet printer.