| There are so many new technologies moving into the consumer mass market and so many applications within each technology, it can make the most savvy technology-consumer dizzy. A casual search of magazines and Web sites can put the adventurous into overload almost as fast as the newest CPU’s munch ones and zeros.
Your friendly neighborhood publisher, recognizing the dangers of the technology jungle, especially for the uninitiated, wisely engaged another person (that would be me) to search out some of the more intriguing items available for this year’s giving season. I have completed my search and offer the following as some of the more useful, amusing, or amazing things I discovered. Of course this list does not even scrape the surface of the surface of the available items that probably should qualify for inclusion, and it is very subjective. Having said that, I hope you find the list useful or at least amusing.
Useful
Universal Service Bus (USB) devices are spreading like a bad cold. Some of the devices are not much better. Having said that, many if not most, are very serviceable.
From a security and practical standpoint, I stand by my recommendation that computer users back up files frequently, and keep a copy off site. USB technology facilitates that task in two very different ways.
USB Flash Drives: Flash drives continue to evolve and capacity continues to expand at an astonishing rate. A 4-gigabyte device is widely priced in the $80 to $100 range, with available capacity as high as 64-gigabytes of RAM. Price per gigabyte of storage is not linear, however, especially when pushing the high end of the capacity range. A 16-gigabyte Corsair flash drive is priced at $149 on Amazon as of this writing. Another brand sells for $130. I found a 64-gigabyte flash drive priced in excess of $5000. I think I will take a pass on that last offering.
USB Hard Drives: Other option that’s been around for several years. They just keep getting smaller physically, with smaller cost, and larger capacity. The Western Digital passport hard drives are sleek, easy to use and come in very affordable packages. The 120 GB and 250 GB versions both are very attractive. Two of these little jewels would serve admirably for offsite/onsite rotation of critical backup files.
USB Entertainment Devices have also proliferated. One that caught my eye is a portable HDTV tuner for PCs. Since HDTV is not just an option but a government mandated requirement, being able to plug in an HDTV tuner makes perfect sense. The “Viore” was priced on line for $55, and on a store shelf for a bit less than $100. I have a suspicion (but don’t know) this may be a discontinued item so if you decide to purchase one, keep that in mind.
Wireless Networking has become ubiquitous and come as standard features on laptops and small routers. Higher speed capacity and longer distances, coupled with falling prices make the available wireless routers very attractive. Boosted performance make some of these Wi-Fi routers reach a distance of a quarter of a mile or more with included antennas and no extra gadgetry required.
Fun Stuff
MP3 Players come in all shapes and sizes and often serve multiple functions. The Tok Tak MP3 player looks like nothing more than an audio jack, yet is your basic, plain vanilla MP3 player. What makes it especially fun is that it looks like the listener is walking around with an earpiece looking for a place to plug in. That vacant look on the listeners face must mean that he or she is just distracted. Well. Yes. www.techfresh.net/tag/mp3-player
Pharos has “entry level” GPS models starting at $199. These are pretty nifty looking and seem to have all the necessary capabilities for the map-challenged family navigator. www.pharosgps.com
Surefire flashlights are long on flash and light indeed. The price tag is the heftiest thing about these beauties. The E2E is a stingy 4.5 inches long and blasts out 60 Lumens of eye-dazzling brightness. If that doesn’t light up your life you can upgrade to the M6 500 Lumen eye-fryer that measures a measly 7.75 inches and weighs in at 15.9 ounces. www.surefire.com
Amazing If Not Practical
For the fun stuff that kind of warms the cockles of the science-nerds heart, the following help get the juices moving.
Rail gun anyone? BAE is has delivered a 32 Megajoule rail gun to the US Navy. It will blast out projectiles at 7 times the speed of sound, without using a grain of gun powder or other explosive. Electromagnetic guns have been the stuff of science fiction for years, and may now actually be nearing final development. Did I say final? Oh. The Navy is not happy with this offering. The Navy wants a 64-megajoule gun. LINK But doesn’t every red-blooded American Boy want one of these things in his back yard? Oh. For a definition of what the heck a joule is (a measurement of energy), try this link.
CAM-007 mini spycam: A camcorder, believe it or not, that measures just .3” by .9” by .5” that records MPEG-4 at 15 frames per second. This is about the size of a pack of chewing gum. Remember the tiny Minox still-cameras? This is about that size. Recording time is about 19 hours on a 1 gigabyte micro SD card, according to the Web site. LINK
There is simply no end to technology “toys” available in the marketplace. No small amount of it is pretty much trendy junk, but there are some serious gems out there. Does anybody have an extra megajoule they don’t need anymore?
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