I've just spent an entertaining few minutes talking to Allan Tee
on Talk Radio Europe about an assortment of gadgets.
Today’s choices were:
Motorola X Style mobile phone
This is effectively the Mark III Moto X flagship smartphone,
available as the ‘Pure’ in the USA and the ‘Style’ elsewhere. It has a 5.7-inch HD screen and will run on the Android
operating system. Motorola says over three-quarters of the front of the phone
is screen, which means there’s not much wasted space around the edges. It’s equipped
with a 1.8GHz hexa-core processor, 3GB of RAM, a 3,000mAh battery, and up to
64GB of built-in storage which can also be expanded.
There are a couple of really noteworthy things: not only
does it have a battery that’s theoretically capable of lasting all day but it
comes with a fast charger that will give it around 10 hours of battery life
from just 15 minutes of charge. And it has a 21-megapixel camera sensor, which
the company says will make it ‘best in class’. It’s also customisable: if you
order the phone online you can choose from a range of colours and materials.
Pricing without a connection ('SIM-free') is expected to be £359 in the UK, that’s
around €500. Availability is expected early September.
BedJet v2 air-conditioning for your bed
This isn’t just about cooling you down or warming you up; it’s about helping you sleep better.
Apparently one of the problems with getting a good night’s
sleep is that your core body temperature changes during the night. If you wake
up in the middle of the night to kick the covers off, you’re less likely to
feel refreshed when you get up in the morning.
So, when you get your BedJet, you tell it your gender, your
age and a little bit about your body type – it then monitors the temperature in
bed and adjusts it throughout the night. It can replace your
electric blanket in the winter and saves you getting out of bed to change
the thermostat in the room or to open the windows.
Essentially it’s a box that lives under (or next to) your
bed and quietly blows air through your bedding. It’s got a remote control but
the really clever stuff happens when you connect it to your mobile phone or
tablet.
BedJet v2 is expected to sell at $500 (£320 / €450) but it’s currently
on offer for much less if you order via crowd-funding site kickstarter.com. The
company says it should ship in time for Christmas this year.
Touchjet Wave, turning a TV into a touchscreen computer
This is another piece of add-on technology to enhance what
you’ve already got.
There’s a little arm that clips on top of your TV, a bit
like a desk lamp, and a little box that plugs into an HDMI socket on the back.
Connect it to the mains and you’re good to go.
When you switch it on, it powers up with the Android
operating system and can link up with your home WiFi, like a giant tablet
computer.
That little clip-on arm has an infrared eye to see where you
touch the screen, so it’ll respond to your touch like a tablet, which means you
can listen to music, download films, play games, do your social networking and
browse the internet.
The company reckons they’ll ship the Wave from March 2016,
with pricing at the moment from $149 if you include shipping (around £100 /
€135).
Hoverkraft, a construction game that hovers
This was announced at the 2014 New York Toy Fair but has
taken a while to make it into the UK.
The basic idea is similar to Jenga, where you try to build a
tower of wooden blocks, or even building a castle from a pack of playing cards.
This new game uses magnets to make the playing board hover.
The overall base is around 10 inches square, with a separate playing area that
hovers above it and is tethered in place. You then need to stack 3D plastic
pieces on the hovering board, a bit like the computer game Tetris, but in real
life.
Price is £29.99 (€43).
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