Random gems from CES keep trickling in, like this prototype emoticon keypad snapped by Geek.com. Spotted at the Lavatelli booth, the keypad sports a 4×4 grid of bubble buttons that serve as shortcuts to various emoticons. For the truly emotional emailer the keypad should shave precious microseconds off the act of adding a happy or sad face to the end of a sentence, which could add up to at least a couple of extra minutes at the end of their life. It will be customizable too, whenever it hits the market, and as Geek.com points out, it’s a great way to use up an available USB port which we all have plenty of right?
Update: It turns out the Emoticon Keypad is NOT just a prototype but is indeed a real product and is available for purchase from BAJCA’s online store.
The basic keypad pictured to the left is just $16(€12) while more elaborate versions featuring buttons with different colors and faces, and a slick polished silver finish, will set you back a bit more at $40. (€29.90)
All of the keypads appear to be compatible with popular messaging apps like Skype or Messenger, and are even OS X friendly.
The technology exists to make most of our compact gadgets even smaller than they already are. But unfortunately there’s a point where things get too small for human hands and fingers to operate. And that’s exactly what I thought the first time I saw the Swiftpoint mouse, which has been around for a while, but only recently available in North America. It’s smaller than even the smallest of travel-friendly mice offered by the likes of Logitech, and I wondered if its compact design traded functionality and usability for portability.
But it turns out my concerns were completely unfounded, and after only a few days the Swiftpoint has not only become my travel mouse of choice, but it’s even starting to encroach on my Apple Mighty Mouse’s territory for day-to-day use. I’ll explain why in my full review after the jump.
It’s already a week later, but since it’s nigh impossible for any one site to cover everything shown at CES, we’re still digging up interesting tidbits from the show for you. This one comes courtesy of the hard working folk at the AVING network who found this strikingly designed Riplus mouse, presumably at the dadam booth.
As functionality goes it’s not going to take home any innovation awards, but that minimalist glass body with the technical bits hidden inside a black cross are really quite striking. It’s a hard sell though because I’m pretty sure that’s not a touch surface which means I can’t see any means by which one can easily scroll. But hey, they manage to keep this beauty under $2 and I’m sure they’ll sell truckloads!
If you’ve transitioned to a high-performance laptop, or like to keep your computer tower hidden away, Moneual Lab’s newest case won’t be of much use to you. But if you still prefer to have it sitting on your desk right next to your monitor, then their DSPC, or Dual Screen PC case, which they unveiled at CES will be most useful to you.
Technical details are a bit sparse on the Moneual Lab website at the moment, but as you can see the tower-style case sports a tall and slender LCD display which can be used as a second monitor to display widgets, tickers, toolbars or other apps that don’t require loads of screen real estate. I’ve no idea what the resolution is, but according to a CES press release the DSPC case will tentatively be available in Q3 of this year for ~$1,500.
The one downside to today’s ridiculously powerful graphics cards is that they require a lot of cooling to keep their GPUs running at peak efficiency. And if your tower happens to be sitting on your desk right next to your display, it just adds to the annoying white noise you have to deal with.
KFA2′s new GTX 460 though lets you stash your tower up to 100 feet away since it’s the first graphics card with built-in WHDI which wirelessly sends an uncompressed 1080P, 60Hz signal to the included WHDI receiver connected to your display. You’ll of course need a wireless mouse and keyboard to complete the setup, but it seems like a particularly great solution for an HTPC since you don’t need to have it running alongside the TV in your living room.
What it lacks in subtlety, XCM’s HDMI Capsule switcher makes up for in simple usefulness. I’m hesitant to call it a run-of-the-mill HDMI switcher though. Technically all it’s really designed to do is switch between 4 connected HDMI sources, but its frosted plastic housing hides a rainbow of surprises. Literally! The box glows either green, blue, red or yellow depending on which input is selected. So if you color coordinate it with your gear properly, you should be able to see what’s currently selected at a glance from across the room. Available from importers like Play-Asia.com for ~$30.
While it clearly has aspirations of being just another novelty USB peripheral, this slipper-themed hard drive dock looks quite useful, particularly if you’re the type who uses a stack of old hard drives like they were flash drives. Instead of requiring you to open a housing and permanently installing a drive inside, this dock allows them to easily slide in and out. As long as they’re 2.5 or 3.5-inch SATA drives that is. Larger drives or IDE models might put up a real fight.
It’s USB 3.0 compatible for speedy file transfers, and as you can see the faux red toes sticking out of one end actually serve as an ejection lever, making it easy to remove the drive. And it’s hot swappable so you can rip out a drive and slap in a new one without having to worry about disconnecting the dock from your PC. $45 from USB.Brando.com.
Isn’t it cool when the far-off technology you see in movies or on TV eventually becomes a reality? The Xbox 360′s Kinect is making those crazy gestural interfaces seen in Minority Report feasible, and now Elecom is applying some of the science fiction seen on South Park to their USB peripherals. Specifically, Dr. Mephesto’s ground-breaking research into multiple asses.
I mean that’s clearly what inspired Elecom to create this SD card reader that’s capable of holding not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4 SD cards, including the SDHC and SDXC varieties, at one time. So users of professional DSLRs that can hold and write to a couple of SD cards at one time don’t have to worry about them fighting over their old card reader’s single slot. It’s yet another one of those devices that’s readily available to buy if you live in Japan, but if you’re anywhere else you’ll need to deal with an importer and their considerable markup, like Geek Stuff 4 U who wants ~$48(¥3,980) for it.
Look out T9, another alphanumerically named typing alternative could be stealing your thunder, at least among those who winge and complain about having to use an onscreen keyboard with their portable devices. Called the Kee4 because it only has (1…2…3…4!) 4 keys it allows you to type with just one hand, making it far more portable than the full-sized QWERTY keyboards we all know and love.
Of course in order to produce 26 different letters and punctuation from just 4 keys there is a special typing technique involved which the makers of the Kee4 refer to as ‘composite keystrokes.’ Not surprisingly you’ll need to press multiple keys in a specific order to get the letter you’re after, with either a rocking or rolling keystroke as described below.
Rocking Composite Keystrokes:
If the key that was pressed second is the first to be released, that is called a ‘rocking keystroke’, since it suggests a rocking motion from one finger to the other and then back.
Rolling Composite Keystrokes:
If the key that was pressed first is also the first to be released, that makes a ‘rolling keystroke’, since it suggests a rolling movement of the hand from one finger to another.
I’ve also included a video of someone typing on the Kee4, which is still in its prototype form at this point. It doesn’t seem like it would be that hard to get used to, but your typing speed will probably be halved since it requires two keystrokes for every letter. (Maybe even quartered since you’re just using one hand too.) As for when it might be hitting the market? Well the fact that it’s still in prototype form coupled with the section on their website where they’re still looking for investors suggests it will be a while before anyone will get their hand on one.
Update: It turns out the Emoticon Keypad is NOT just a prototype but is indeed a real product and is available for purchase from BAJCA’s online store.
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