Clarity outs Amplified Captioned Telephone

We have yet to live in a future where everything is voice controlled, just like how the Star Trek movies work. You know, there is just something that I don’t quite get in Star Trek, why address the computer as, well, “computer”? “Computer, do this..” and “Computer, do that..”, instead of giving it a name that would make it more personal. Imagine if the name itself was just one syllable long – you would be able to fire off commands faster than ever, and that microsecond could mean the difference between life and death, especially when it comes to a high tech space age. Thing is, we have yet to arrive in such a century – at least not now, so we will just have to be content with far less mature products like Clarity’s Amplified Captioned Telephone.

Basically, the Amplified Captioned Telephone by Clarity intends to help out those who have hearing difficulties in order to better understand what is being said over the phone. Using the same kind of technology that Japanese company NTT DoCoMo’s Hanashite Hon’yaku app employs, it boasts of speech-to-text software which is capable of translating calls between people who speak different languages. The Amplified Captioned Telephone will target seniors, and whenever it detects an active call, the screen will switch to show off a text transcription of the conversation so that one can keep up. The Amplified Captioned Telephone will retail for $229, and it seems to be a US-only device at time of publishing.

Brolly Rain Umbrella

We all love our modern day devices, and if you were to remove a smartphone from the hands of a teenager, university student or yuppie, it would be as though you chopped off one of their arms, and they will walk around in a dazed state, wondering just how the heck they are able to tell the rest of the world on what they had for lunch, and horror of horrors, are unable to keep in touch with friends whom they will meet every weekday on campus anyway. Well, the moment where most of us will tuck away our smartphones safely into our pockets when the heavens open up and pour should be familiar to many, but with the $19.95 Brolly Rain Umbrella, that need not be the case at all.

The Brolly Rain Umbrella is proud to be the most comfortable, fashion forward and fun compact rain umbrella ever released. Apart from ensuring that you remain nice and dry, it comes with a rather unique grip that ensures you will continue to be able to as well as e-mail in the rain, something which is a whole lot more difficult, if not impossible, to do with a standard issue umbrella. It will come in blue and black shades, so girls, so sorry that there is no Hello Kitty version of it in the pipeline.

GammaTech Durabook TA10 Tablet

Do you think that you are a clumsy person, and tend to avoid purchasing the higher endmobile consumer electronics devices simply because you know that you are an accident waiting to happen, and woe to you when you break the 10th display on your smartphone because you stumbled and let the handset slip, sending it tumbling onto the concrete floor with a heart wrenching crunch. Well, this has made you far more wary on how you spend your money, and you avoid tablets like the plague. What if I told you that there is salvation on the horizon? This is where the GammaTech Durabook TA10 tablet comes in, where it is touted to be the latest rugged tablet which was specially designed and engineered for demanding applications such as those found in the utility industry.

The GammaTech Durabook TA10 will occupy the high-end side of things where tablets are concerned, and it boasts of a 10.4” display with a high performance CPU, carry an ultra-high brightness LCD display, and runs on an Intel Ivy Bridge processor.

Jen Chen, GammaTech president, said, “We are delighted to be able to introduce our new Durabook TA10 rugged tablet at DistribuTECH, the utility industry’s leading smart-grid conference and exposition. This new tablet makes perfect sense for utility workers out in the field with its ultra-high screen brightness for easy viewing. Its ruggedness and durability stand up to virtually any harsh environment. Its mobility factor is enhanced with Bluetooth and Intel WiFi wireless connectivity as well as an optional internal GPS function.”

Expect the 10.4” XGA TFT LCD display with LED backlight to work well under any lighting conditions, where the resistive multi-touch panel with tempered glass will be ideal for the viewing of drawings, files, and web pages. A couple of six-cell battery packs offer longer battery life on the move, and just to make sure you have an easy time with in-the-field identification and tracking purposes, the Durabook TA10 will feature an optional UHF RFID reader and Barcode scanner. Other optional accessories include a handle, hand strap, and docking station.

I wonder how the executives over at Panasonic are feeling with their Toughbook receiving some, well, tough competition with the $2,300 GammaTech Durabook TA10 rugged tablet.

Toshiba Canvio Basics 3.0 portable hard drive

Having a portable hard drive these days is nothing new, and if you were to carry one around with you, it would most probably come in a rather large capacity. Well, there are a fair number of companies out there that do churn out their share of portable hard drives, with Western Digital being one of them, but today we will concentrate on what Toshiba has in store. The Toshiba Canvio Basics 3.0 range has just been expanded, where the highest end model is now capable of toting around up to 2TB of your favorite digital memories as well as any other files. Apart from that, Toshiba also has something a little bit extra special for the masses, which is a 2TB Canvio Special Edition portable hard drive.

Egreat rolls out Android 4.0 TV STICK H5

So you have more or less run out of stuff to watch on telly, and you are bored with your collection of Blu-ray discs which are starting to gather dust. Well, here we are with an alternative which you might want to consider – the Android 4.0 TV STICK H5 from Egreat of China. Yes sir, this is another PC-on-a-stick model that Egreat hopes to be able to spread its wings to all countries worldwide.

Just what kind of hardware specifications does the Android 4.0 TV STICK H5 pack underneath the hood? First of all, it will plug itself into any available HDMI port on your TV, where the dual-core 1GHz Cortex A9 processor will be able to chug along just fine, where it is aided by 1GB RAM, and will carry 4GB of storage space for a slew of apps and content for you to enjoy on your big screen TV. Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is the operating system of choice here, and the Android 4.0 TV STICK H5 will also play a host of video and audio files while delivering support for a range of online TV channels. Your ears will also appreciate the integrated FLAC lossless compression music player, while Full HD video transmission via HDMI ensures you will always be able to enjoy mind blowing visuals. No idea on pricing just yet, but TV Sticks do seem to have a place in our future.

Odor and VOC Eliminating Air Purifier

The world is getting more and more polluted by the day, and for those of us at home, we might want to think more than just twice about vacuuming the floor and carpets just once a week – it might require more than that, considering the amount of dust and pollutants that you cannot see in the air. Well, the $149.95 Odor and VOC Eliminating Air Purifierwould definitely come in handy, as this air purifier will rely on patented filter technology in order to remove odors and airborne volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

One ought to take note that the nano-scale material in the filter, should it be laid out flat, would end up with the surface area of not one, but two badminton courts. This would go a long way in enabling it to capture over 99% micron-sized organic particles in a room. The purifier itself works hard by breaking down molecules which will carry odor or bear VOCs, and the toxic airborne chemicals which are emitted by many common household synthetics such as carpets, varnishes, and cleaning agents. Not only that, there is also a colored LED which delivers an indicator of air quality at a glance.

SafeSound announces Airbudz

SafeSound Products might not be a name that resonates with many of you out there, but just for the record, they are the designer of innovative accessories for active consumers, and have just announced the availability of Airbudz. Just what the heck is Airbudz? Well, they are the first-ever alternative earbud solution in the market that will let ambient noise in, so that you can hear what else is going on around you without remaining restricted to your own world. Of course, some folks out there might dispute SafeSound’s assertion here at being the “world’s first” (we ourselves are wary of that kind of claim always), so leave a comment if you know some other company that beat SafeSound to it, otherwise forever hold your peace.

The Best Electric Knife Sharpener

Hammacher has had its fair share of “the best” series of appliances, and here we are with yet another one today, where it will grace the kitchen counter. After all, where else would you store your knives, no? The $219.95 Best Electric Knife Sharpener is on our list of gizmos to cover for today, where it is said to produce the sharpest, most resilient edges. After all, during testing, knife blades were dulled through the running of them along cement blocks up to 100 times before testing commenced.

The blades that had gone through the Best Electric Knife Sharpener were said to chop spaghetti squash with little effort, as well as slice smoothly through sheets of paper – perhaps even putting a shade of green on Wolverine’s face along the way. As for serrated knives sharpened using this bad boy, they were cut easily through cardboard, whereas lesser knife sharpener models were unable to sharpen any toothed blades. It is said that the Electric Knife Sharpener picked up the “Best” moniker because it relied on 100% diamond abrasives and stropping discs in order to grind and polish an edge while restoring its original sharpness, and best of all is, taking a mere 10 seconds to do so. A built-in magnet will help catch knife blade shavings for an easy cleanup process afterwards, and this has proven to be one of the quietest models.

SOUL Electronics offers Party in a Box

I am quite sure that all of you readers who grew up in the late 1970s and early 1980s would have had fond memories of boomboxes as you hung out with the rest of your mates, generally subjecting yourself to corny music (in retrospect, as always) and even more outrageous fashion. That happens all the time to me, no worries, but in this day and age, if you were to dust off the best boombox of yesteryear and have an ample supply of D batteries, it will still not be able to get the party started with this iPod and MP3 generation. Taking more than a year of research and development, SOUL Electronics is pleased to announce the portable, wireless entertainment system known as “Party in a Box P910”.

Touted to offer superior performance that is second to none, the $999.99 Party in a Box P910 is said to be the first of its kind that boasts of a variety of functions that have been rolled into one sleek package, and will comprise of an all-inclusive indoor/outdoor portable sound system with Bluetooth, Aux input, Apple dock and HDMI connectivity, now how about that to keep up with the times?

Lan Kennedy-Davis, CEO of SOUL Electronics, USA, said, “We [SOUL] want to take partying to another level so we invented a sophisticated system jam-packed with features that you cannot find in one single audio system anywhere, and you can take it with you in your car, to the beach, poolside, basketball court, fraternity house or the next party. The Party in a Box P910 is the first of its kind, and we are confident it will blow away all your party guests. It is also a surround sound home theatre audio system. The sound is so crisp that you will likely hear words in a movie that you have never heard before if the movie is played through the Party in a Box.”

You know what? It sounds too much like a dream, and the only real way of finding out whether it works as depicted would be to purchase one and give it a go.