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Tag Archives: tablets

So It’s Come To This: A Roomba For Cleaning Your Smart Devices’ Screens

By David Ponce on 02/07/13 • 2 Comments

atomee-s-2-590x421

Did you ever think you’d see the day we got lazy enough, as a species, to invent a tiny robot whose only task it is to clean the surfaces of our smartphones and tablets? Because, what, wiping is too hard now? Don’t get us wrong, we think the AutoMee S is pretty awesome, but only in a “look at that cute thing moving about on my iPad” sort of way. And we suspect that it’s been created precisely because of its cuteness, especially considering it’s being launched in the Japanese market by Takara Tomy. And we all know Japan likes its kawaii. The AutoMee S measures “67 × 73 × 38mm, weighs 82 grams and is powered by a single AA battery which is good for three hours of cleaning.” It takes 4 minutes to clean an average smartphone and twice as long for a tablet. Like a Roomba, it has edge sensors to prevent it falling off the device, and is programmed to move in random patterns, eventually covering every bit of the surface in its allotted time.

It’s going to hit the market on March 28, in Japan, for 1575 Yen ($ 17) a piece.

atomee-s-3

[ Product Page ] VIA [ NewLaunches ]

Your Monitor, Now With 100% More Tablet

By David Ponce on 11/14/12 • Leave a comment!

Data: sometimes you can never get enough of it. But tripling up on your monitors is not the only way you can fit more of it in front of your face. After all, the stuff on those three monitors still comes from the same computer. But with this versatile VESA 100-MR067 LCD Display Tablet Stand, you can attach any 7-12 inch tablet on a triple-jointed swivelling arm and position it anywhere you want. The arm itself securely attaches to the mounts on the back of a VESA compliant display, which is pretty much any modern monitor these days. The contraption does weigh 4.4lbs, plus the weight of the tablet, so make sure that the base is wide enough to support the additional heft. Still, you should be fine and feasting on Tweets, stock quotes… weather reports… or whatever it is that’s on a tablet that’s so darn crucial that you need to attach it to your monitor.

It’s 6,480 Yen, or about $82.

Hit the jump for a bunch of pictures and the links.

… Continue Reading

Wooden Toy Tablet Teaches Kids About Tech

By David Ponce on 09/06/12 • Leave a comment!

Depending on how spoiled your child is, this will either be appreciated and used as a fun teaching toy, as it’s intended, or just be thrown right back in your face for not being “the real thing”. We’re hoping your three year old doesn’t fall in the latter category. The Tinker Tablet is a wooden tablet, made to look like an iPad or something, but with no electronic components. Instead, there’s a wooden puzzle inside that looks like a circuit board, and whose pieces represent different components of a mobile device. What’s interesting is that these pieces can be assembled into a “cellphone”, teaching your tot from a very early age that objects like mobile phones aren’t magical pieces of plastic, but are instead a collection of separate parts that work together to form a functioning device.

When not assembled into a cellphone, the pieces fit into the tablet base, and a dry erase board slides over them to not only secure them in place, but allow the kid to draw… kind of like what people do with actual tablets. It could be a fun, interactive teaching tool that will get the little one’s tech appetite sharpened from a very early age. Currently on Kickstarter, the Tinker Tablet can be yours with a $50 pledge.

[ Project Page ]

Pressure Sensitive Stylus For iPad 3 Would Have Steve Jobs’ Disapproval

By David Ponce on 03/07/12 • 1 Comment

By David Ponce

It was well known that Steve didn’t like styluses (is it stylii?), so he might not have taken kindly to the offering from Ten One Designs, codenamed Blue Tiger. It’s pressure sensitive and works in conjunction with an application that has some features that people might actually want, you know, in a tablet. For example, it has palm rejection, which means you can take handwritten notes on the iPad with your hand resting directly on the surface without disturbing anything. It connects using Bluetooth 4.0.

Of course, the success of something like this will depend on how many developers decide to code for the stylus. Ten One designs is handing out SDK’s, so hopefully by the time this is released, there will be more than their own application to go along with it. Photoshop maybe? Here’s hoping.

No word on price or availability date.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Engadget ]

MEEP! Tablet Is Exactly The Tablet Your Kids Don’t Want

By David Ponce on 02/23/12 • 2 Comments

By David Ponce

Let’s start with the name. “MEEP!” Really, Oregon Scientific? MEEP?? Well, ok, they’re kids right? What do they know?… Well, here’s the thing. Kids are funny. For one thing, they’re going to go to school, and they’ll see all their classmates toting iPads around. Because that’s what parents are buying their kids: iPads. So they’re gonna go to school, and what do you think they’re gonna want? A MEEP! tablet? Let’s get real. It doesn’t matter that “it runs on Android 4.0, features a 7-inch Neonode zForce touchscreen display encased in toughened housing with a silicon rubber sleeve, and is Wi-Fi-enabled.” It doesn’t matter that parents might be happy that it features controls that can remotely block whatever it is the kids want to be looking at. Nor does it matter that it’s supposed to retail for $149, sometime in August.

No… Sure, some parents will be sensible and will buy this with thoughts of cost savings and greater control and oversight… but these parents’ lives will be miserable because kids will use it as much as cats use overpriced cat beds.

Or maybe it’ll be a hit among the 6+ year old club. What do we now about kids?

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Gizmag ]

GoPad, For When You Need Your Tablet On The Go

By David Ponce on 02/13/12 • Leave a comment!

By David Ponce

We’re a little torn between wanting to ridicule and like the above gadget. It’s a tablet attachment that lets you use it, well, as pictured. On the go. As in, we imagine, walking down the street. Looking like a complete moron. But the thing is, it’s also somewhat neat from a usability standpoint. See, the tablet, once attached, pivots around that rounded metal frame and instantly becomes portable, like a satchel. Just swing it to your side and walk comfortably, or swing it back to the front, swivel, and use. It makes more sense if you watch the video on their homepage, which can’t be embedded, unfortunately. But the point is that, yes, you look like a tool. But if you don’t mind that, the GoPad is pretty cool.

It’s $89 and the first production run ships mid-March. It’s iPad 2 only at the moment, but the company says they’re working on models for other tablets.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ IBTimes ]

Flote Stand For Tablets Would Make Us Happy

By David Ponce on 12/14/11 • 1 Comment

By David Ponce

This product initially reads like one of those things only a really lazy person would get. “What, you can’t even hold your own darn tablet? What’s wrong with you?” But then you watch the video and realize that there’s tons of situations where you’d be well served by it. It’s called the Flote, and it “is a machined-metal floor stand designed to securely hold a wide variety of tablets like the iPad or e-readers like the Kindle in virtually any position so you can use them hands-free for prolonged periods of time.” Yeah, we realize it still sounds like something completely useless; put it on your lap, right? Well, watch the video, it’s pretty nifty. Sure, putting the reader on your lap is fine but…sad as this may sound, tilting your head downwards for a while can, yeah… hurt your neck.

Screw all that, it’s just awesome because it’s awesome not to have to hold stuff. Come on, people, since when do we need to justify this?

The price on the other hand? Well, it’s on Kickstarter right now and you can pre-order for, ahem, $245. Yeah… The project is about one third funded so who knows… maybe the Flote will see the light of day.

[ Flote Kickstarter Project ]

Wacom Bamboo Capture Multi-touch Tablet Reviewed, Verdict: Loaded Bargain.

By Ian Chiu on 11/25/11 • Leave a comment!

There are two types of technology advancements that make headlines; new things that no one has ever seen before and breakthroughs in price that generate novel ways to implement existing technology. The Wacom Bamboo Capture tablet is the latter, thanks to its groundbreaking low price. At under $80, this will be the first tablet that many aspiring artists can afford. Most pressure sensitive graphics tablets start well over $500 and that price can keep people using pen and canvas. The combination of software and hardware package with the Create is impressive.

Somehow, Wacom has managed to stuff high end graphics tablet features in this inexpensive package. The tablet responds to both the included pen and finger touch. It can detect up to 1024 distinct levels of pen pressure for dark or light strokes on the fly. It has 4 buttons that are programmable but unfortunately not application aware. The big value-add shows up in the software that’s included with the tablet. Besides the custom Wacom that’s included, you also get Adobe Photoshop Elements 8. The list of software and features goes on. If you’re interested in what else is included or how it performed, check out the review at Everything USB.

[Wacom Bamboo Capture Review @ Everything USB]

Atmel’s maXStylus Will Supercharge Android Tablets

By David Ponce on 11/10/11 • 2 Comments

By David Ponce

Apple may have invented the market and is certainly hogging the lion’s share of it… but that hasn’t stopped the competition from trying to forge inroads. There’s a bunch of Android tablets on the market currently, and while many of these feature styluses (or is it stylii?), things should get kicked up a couple of notches with the forthcoming inclusion of Atmel’s maXStylus controller. Steve Jobs would call using a stylus horsecrap, but there are situations that demand its precision, familiarity and comfort: drawing, writing notes and complex equations are a couple of examples. With the maxStylus mXTS100 you’ll be able to use a 1mm tip stylus with an accuracy of +/- 0.25mm, excellent palm rejection, 256 pressure points sensing, 140Hz refresh rate and more importantly simultaneous finger/stylus input for image and text manipulation (a functionality Atmel calls multiSense). The maxTouch and maxStylus controllers are able to discern between your flesh and the tip of a stylus and open the door to an efficient workflow that feels both natural and precise.

The technology is being demoed to a few leading manufacturers (read Samsung) and should start seeing market inclusion in Q1 2012.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Xataka ]

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