In this month's 'gadget guru' chat on TRE Talk Radio Europe I looked at some technology that had been on show at CES, the annual consumer electronics trade show in America.
Hushme voice mask
Hushme is being called the world’s first voice mask for mobile phones. It’s been created to stop mobile phone conversations from being overheard. That has two benefits: if you’re talking about something private – whether it’s personal or confidential – it prevents other people from listening in. And if you’re working in an open-plan office or even out in a public space, it makes life a little more pleasant for other people.
The device consists of a pair of Bluetooth earbuds and a mask that clips together in front of your mouth with magnets. If you’re not using it, you can leave it hanging round your neck like a large pair of headphones.
Built into the mask is acoustic insulation designed to stop your voice from getting out while still allowing your mouth to move. There’s also some kind of active voice suppression. Together, that should muffle your voice pretty effectively.
But what the company has also done – and you’ll either think this is brlliant or completely daft – is add loudspeakers to play noises that’ll mask your voice even more.
You can have something pleasant and natural, like the sound of rain or the sea, you can have animal noises and you can even have Darth Vader’s breathing or R2D2’s beeping from Star Wars.
If you want one, the company isn’t selling them yet but is planning a crowd-funding campaign later this year, with pricing expected to be around $200 (€190 / £165).
BACtrack Skyn wearable alcohol monitor
This is apparently another world first: it’s being described as the world’s first wearable alcohol monitor.
BACtrack Skyn is a kind-of bracelet that measures alcohol through your skin and synchronises with an app on your phone. Whenever you want to check, it’ll tell you how much alcohol is in your body and can also warn you when levels are starting to get a bit high. And this is all passive: you don’t need to blow into a tube or worse.
The way it works is by measuring your Transdermal Alcohol Content (TAC), which is the tiny amount of alcohol that passes through your skin when you’ve been drinking. Your TAC can then be converted into a figure for Blood Alcohol Content (BAC). That’s the figure the police talk about for drink driving.
If you’ve got an Apple Watch, there’s a version of the BACtrack Skyn that can replace your watch strap, so you don't need to wear two separate devices.
And this isn’t just about people who are curious about their alcohol consumption or who want to double-check they’ve not had too much: it also has clinical uses because it’s a practical way for doctors to keep a constant record of patients.
BACtrack Skyn will be available sometime in 2017. At the moment there’s no official idea of pricing but I’ve seen suggestions it could be around $100.
Withings hair coach
Claiming to be the world’s first smart hairbrush, this next device comes from tech company Withings and beauty specialists L’Oreal.
Inside there’s a collection of sensors including a microphone, a gyroscope and an accelerometer.
The gyroscope and accelerometer will detect how forcefully you’re brushing your hair. If you brush too hard it’ll vibrate as a warning. And the microphone is there to listen to the sound your hair makes, providing you with information about hairs breaking, split ends and frizziness. (Sadly it can't connect to iTunes for a spot of bedroom karaoke.)
The information from all the sensors is then sent to an app on your phone that analyses the way you look after your hair – it can even sense if your hair is wet or dry – and gives you a hair diagnosis of dryness, damage, breakage, tangling and so on. You can check if your hair is getting better or worse over time and can see recommendations to help with hair care.
It’s all powered by standard batteries and will be available this autumn at a price of around $200 (€190 / £165)
FLIR ONE thermal camera attachment
Back in February 2016 I mentioned a smartphone that had a built-in thermal camera. The company whose technology was inside that particular phone has now released a couple of clip-on thermal cameras, which means you don’t need to buy a new phone just for thermal imaging
Thermal imaging lets you take photos that show different temperatures as different colours, so you can use it for things like detecting heat loss around windows and doors, working out where insulation is failing, seeing if electrical equipment is getting too hot and – surely everyone’s favourite – going outside in total darkness to detect people or animals creeping about.
FLIR have announced the FLIR ONE Pro – which is a high-spec professional camera – and the new FLIR ONE, for people who haven’t used a thermal camera before. Each comes in two versions: one for the Apple iOS Lightning connector and the other for Android phones or tablets.
The new FLIR ONE is a little box that connects to the bottom of your phone and has an adjustable length connector, which means most people can plug the camera in without taking their phone out of its case. It’s even got its own built-in rechargeable battery.
There are actually two cameras in the device: there’s a thermal camera and a visible light camera, with the images combined to create a more detailed picture. It can measure temperatures between -20° to 120°C and can detect temperature differences as little as 0.1° C.
Pricing for the new FLIR ONE is from £199.99, with availability expected in the next few months.
Thursday, 19 January 2017
Tuesday, 13 December 2016
My 'Gadget Guru' list for TRE Talk Radio Europe December 2016
Here's the technology we discussed in my TRE Talk Radio Europe 'gadget guru' conversation today:
Leica Sofort instant camera
I’m old enough to remember when instant cameras were cool the first time round and Polaroid ruled the roost. These days, we can print our own photos at home, so there’s less novelty in having an instant camera, but they haven’t gone away completely. Fuji is one of the big names these days – and now Leica is after a share of the market.
The camera itself is quite a square, retro-looking design. There’s a choice of three colours: orange, white and what they call mint (pale green). It’s just under five inches wide and four inches high. It’s got the trademark Leica red dot on the front, has a built-in flash and there’s a viewfinder window rather than an electronic viewfinder. It’s also got a little mirror on the front for selfies.
However, don’t think this is entirely mechanical. There’s a little LED display on the back telling you how many photos remain in your film and letting you see the camera settings. It’s all powered by a rechargeable battery.
You can choose a special sports setting for movement, or another for portraits, there’s a timer you can use and you have three choices for setting the focus: Macro, Standard and Landscape. You can also override the automatic settings if you want to change the brightness of the picture, for example, or turn the flash off. You can buy Leica’s own film or use Fuji film instead. Developing each picture takes around 1-2 minutes.
The Leica Sofort has the equivalent of a 34mm lens (towards the wide-angle end of things but actually made by Leica themselves, so I understand), it has an f/12.7 aperture, which will help keep stuff in focus, and it offers of between 1/8th of a second to 1/400th of a second.
Pricing is £229 (around €265), which is a lot more than a similar Fuji camera, but this is as much an emotional purchase as a practical one.
Hypnolight LED lights
Twinkly lights aren’t just for Christmas but it’s very much the time of year when these things are especially popular. Hypnolight is effectively a 12 foot long string of lights (that’s over 3½ metres) with 50 separate LEDs.
What colours are they, you may ask? Pretty much any colour you want. That’s the clever thing. Each of the LEDs can shine red, green and blue – and you can mix these together. It means you get 16 million colours with 33 different patterns of making them light up.
You can also slow down the speed of the pattern or can have all the LEDs the same colour for mood lighting. They’re mains powered but are waterproof, so as long as you’re careful you can use them outside.
And as though all that wasn’t enough, you can synchronise up to four sets together for an even bigger display.
The price is £49.99, which includes the controller and the power unit.
Paulig Muki coffee-powered smart mug
This is a reusable coffee cup for takeaway coffee and, as the name suggests, it’s come from a coffee company in Finland. Paulig is the coffee supplier and 'Muki' means 'mug'.
What’s so smart? It’s got an electronic ink screen. That’s a bit like a Kindle or other eBook readers. It’s a monochrome display that only really needs power when it changes.
You buy your mug then download a free application to your phone. When you’ve done that, you can send pictures and messages to your mug. In fact, here’s the lovely thing, you can send messages to someone else’s mug if they’ve given you its unique code. So friends, family, couples, you can communicate over a distance.
The mug links to the user’s own phone via a wireless Bluetooth connection – and the power comes from the heat of the drink. As long as you’re drinking coffee (or tea), the thermal energy provides enough electricity to update the screen. That picture then stays on, even if the cup runs out of energy, until it gets updated with the next one. Each hot drink gives you enough power for around five updates, which is pretty impressive.
Paulig Muki is €59 plus postage and is available in three different colours.
Oneadaptr Flip power bank
At Christmas, you’re probably using your phone quite a bit; for photos, for Twitter, for Facebook, for messages, maybe even for talking to people.
What you need is a spare battery. So, if you’re like me, you may well carry a little power pack with you to recharge your phone. That’s all very well until the power pack needs recharging as well.
That’s where the Oneadaptr FLIP Power steps in. It combines a UK three-pin plug with a power bank. You can plug it into the mains to charge up, check the LED display to make sure it’s full, then it’s got two USB sockets for charging phones and tablets.
Fair enough – but what about carrying it around? Here’s the neat bit. The plug folds away, so the pins won’t damage anything. So you get a mains charger and a powerbank in a slim package that’ll fit in your bag. Now, the power bank is just 2000 milliamp hours, which won’t completely recharge every phone, but combined with the mains part I reckon that’s pretty neat. Price is £34.99.
And if you think just having a folding charger sounds cool, take a look at a rival product called Mu. They make a folding UK charger that’s much smaller and also a folding international charger that can be used in the UK, Europe, the USA, China and Australia. It’s the kind of design that’s so clever, it makes you smile.
Leica Sofort instant camera
I’m old enough to remember when instant cameras were cool the first time round and Polaroid ruled the roost. These days, we can print our own photos at home, so there’s less novelty in having an instant camera, but they haven’t gone away completely. Fuji is one of the big names these days – and now Leica is after a share of the market.
The camera itself is quite a square, retro-looking design. There’s a choice of three colours: orange, white and what they call mint (pale green). It’s just under five inches wide and four inches high. It’s got the trademark Leica red dot on the front, has a built-in flash and there’s a viewfinder window rather than an electronic viewfinder. It’s also got a little mirror on the front for selfies.
However, don’t think this is entirely mechanical. There’s a little LED display on the back telling you how many photos remain in your film and letting you see the camera settings. It’s all powered by a rechargeable battery.
You can choose a special sports setting for movement, or another for portraits, there’s a timer you can use and you have three choices for setting the focus: Macro, Standard and Landscape. You can also override the automatic settings if you want to change the brightness of the picture, for example, or turn the flash off. You can buy Leica’s own film or use Fuji film instead. Developing each picture takes around 1-2 minutes.
The Leica Sofort has the equivalent of a 34mm lens (towards the wide-angle end of things but actually made by Leica themselves, so I understand), it has an f/12.7 aperture, which will help keep stuff in focus, and it offers of between 1/8th of a second to 1/400th of a second.
Pricing is £229 (around €265), which is a lot more than a similar Fuji camera, but this is as much an emotional purchase as a practical one.
Hypnolight LED lights
Twinkly lights aren’t just for Christmas but it’s very much the time of year when these things are especially popular. Hypnolight is effectively a 12 foot long string of lights (that’s over 3½ metres) with 50 separate LEDs.
What colours are they, you may ask? Pretty much any colour you want. That’s the clever thing. Each of the LEDs can shine red, green and blue – and you can mix these together. It means you get 16 million colours with 33 different patterns of making them light up.
You can also slow down the speed of the pattern or can have all the LEDs the same colour for mood lighting. They’re mains powered but are waterproof, so as long as you’re careful you can use them outside.
And as though all that wasn’t enough, you can synchronise up to four sets together for an even bigger display.
The price is £49.99, which includes the controller and the power unit.
Paulig Muki coffee-powered smart mug
This is a reusable coffee cup for takeaway coffee and, as the name suggests, it’s come from a coffee company in Finland. Paulig is the coffee supplier and 'Muki' means 'mug'.
What’s so smart? It’s got an electronic ink screen. That’s a bit like a Kindle or other eBook readers. It’s a monochrome display that only really needs power when it changes.
The mug links to the user’s own phone via a wireless Bluetooth connection – and the power comes from the heat of the drink. As long as you’re drinking coffee (or tea), the thermal energy provides enough electricity to update the screen. That picture then stays on, even if the cup runs out of energy, until it gets updated with the next one. Each hot drink gives you enough power for around five updates, which is pretty impressive.
Paulig Muki is €59 plus postage and is available in three different colours.
Oneadaptr Flip power bank
At Christmas, you’re probably using your phone quite a bit; for photos, for Twitter, for Facebook, for messages, maybe even for talking to people.
What you need is a spare battery. So, if you’re like me, you may well carry a little power pack with you to recharge your phone. That’s all very well until the power pack needs recharging as well.
Fair enough – but what about carrying it around? Here’s the neat bit. The plug folds away, so the pins won’t damage anything. So you get a mains charger and a powerbank in a slim package that’ll fit in your bag. Now, the power bank is just 2000 milliamp hours, which won’t completely recharge every phone, but combined with the mains part I reckon that’s pretty neat. Price is £34.99.
And if you think just having a folding charger sounds cool, take a look at a rival product called Mu. They make a folding UK charger that’s much smaller and also a folding international charger that can be used in the UK, Europe, the USA, China and Australia. It’s the kind of design that’s so clever, it makes you smile.
Thursday, 17 November 2016
The Kodak Ektra smartphone
The first piece of technology in my November 2016 'gadget guru' conversation with Dave Hodgson on TRE Talk Radio Europe was the Kodak Ektra smartphone:
This was announced at the end of last month and is due to go on sale next month. It’s been described as a 'hybrid' because some of the controls give the same type of functionality as if you were using a Digital SLR camera. Also suggesting a 'proper' camera is the Ektra name: this was first used by Kodak back in 1941, so there’s a lot of history there... and a fair weight of expectation, too.
If you just look at the basic spec, it’s pretty impressive: on the back is a 21 megapixel camera with an f2 lens, on the front is a 13 megapixel camera for high-quality selfies, there's optical image stabilisation (which helps if you’re not very good at holding the camera rock steady), 4K video capture (which is pretty much professional standard) and Phase Detection Auto Focus. That last one, also known as PDAF, is starting to turn up on high-spec smartphones. It’s been standard on Digital SLRs for a while; it doesn’t need to use the contrast between your subject and the background to focus – and because it doesn’t need to work this out, it’s faster and is also better in low-light or on moving subjects.
The new Ektra has its own built-in camera app with a Scene Selection Dial that lets you quickly choose settings, rather like a regular camera – so instead of leaving it in automatic mode you can choose preset settings for sports, close-ups, panoramas, low light... that kind of thing. And there’s a manual mode that lets you adjust exposure, the ISO rating, focus, white balance and shutter speed. Plus, almost inevitably, there’s a dedicated shutter button. And as well as all this built-in camera stuff, there’s also built in photo editing. It’ll even produce videos in the style of an old Super 8 movie camera.
Everything runs on the Android operating system via a 2.3GHz processor with 32GB of expandable memory. SIM-free pricing in the UK is expected to be £449.
This was announced at the end of last month and is due to go on sale next month. It’s been described as a 'hybrid' because some of the controls give the same type of functionality as if you were using a Digital SLR camera. Also suggesting a 'proper' camera is the Ektra name: this was first used by Kodak back in 1941, so there’s a lot of history there... and a fair weight of expectation, too.
The new Ektra has its own built-in camera app with a Scene Selection Dial that lets you quickly choose settings, rather like a regular camera – so instead of leaving it in automatic mode you can choose preset settings for sports, close-ups, panoramas, low light... that kind of thing. And there’s a manual mode that lets you adjust exposure, the ISO rating, focus, white balance and shutter speed. Plus, almost inevitably, there’s a dedicated shutter button. And as well as all this built-in camera stuff, there’s also built in photo editing. It’ll even produce videos in the style of an old Super 8 movie camera.
Everything runs on the Android operating system via a 2.3GHz processor with 32GB of expandable memory. SIM-free pricing in the UK is expected to be £449.
Monday, 31 October 2016
Talking Culture: 31st October 2016
The guests on my Monday 31st October Rocket FM Lewes 'Talking Culture' radio show were all writers: Emily Elgar, Beth Miller, Umi Sinha and Catherine Smith.
Music playlist:
The Beatles: Paperback Writer
The Puppini Sisters: Wuthering Heights
Pam Tillis: Mi Vida Loca
Cliff Richard: Please Don't Fall In Love
Brian Wilson: South American
Dean Friedman: Ariel
Talitha Rise: Invisible Fishing
Clifford T Ward: Wherewithal
Katrina Leskanich: They Don't Know
Agnetha Faltskog: When You Really Loved Somebody
Herb Alpert: Casino Royale
Music playlist:
The Beatles: Paperback Writer
The Puppini Sisters: Wuthering Heights
Pam Tillis: Mi Vida Loca
Cliff Richard: Please Don't Fall In Love
Brian Wilson: South American
Dean Friedman: Ariel
Talitha Rise: Invisible Fishing
Clifford T Ward: Wherewithal
Katrina Leskanich: They Don't Know
Agnetha Faltskog: When You Really Loved Somebody
Herb Alpert: Casino Royale
Monday, 24 October 2016
Talking Culture: 24th October 2016
The guests on my Monday 24th October Rocket FM Lewes 'Talking Culture' radio show included Tim Rowland from Lewes Theatre Youth Group as well as Jo Beth Young and Martyn Barker from locally-based band Talitha Rise.
Music playlist:
Paul Simon: Kodachrome
Paula Cole: I Don't Want To Wait
Ashley Tisdale & Lucas Grabeel: What I've Been Looking For
Neil Sedaka: Next Door To An Angel
Britannia High Cast: Start of Something
Eurythmics: Who's That Girl?
Frank Stallone: Beyond The Sea
Talitha Rise: Deadwood
Nellie McKay: David
Talitha Rise: Magpies
Music playlist:
Paul Simon: Kodachrome
Paula Cole: I Don't Want To Wait
Ashley Tisdale & Lucas Grabeel: What I've Been Looking For
Neil Sedaka: Next Door To An Angel
Britannia High Cast: Start of Something
Eurythmics: Who's That Girl?
Frank Stallone: Beyond The Sea
Talitha Rise: Deadwood
Nellie McKay: David
Talitha Rise: Magpies
Wednesday, 19 October 2016
Rocket FM Lewes: Talking Culture
Here are a few edited highlights from my Rocket FM Lewes 'Talking Culture' radio show on Monday 17th October 2016, with artists Susie Monnington and Keith Pettit.
Monday, 17 October 2016
Talking Culture: 17th October 2016
My Rocket FM Lewes 'Talking Culture' radio show on Monday 17th October 2016 included Chris Stones from Glyndebourne's Education Department and pianist/vocal coach Carol Kelly in the first hour, followed by artists Susie Monnington and Keith Pettit in the second part of the programme.
Music playlist:
Anthony Newley: Strawberry Fair
Lenka: We Will Not Grow Old
P J Proby: Somewhere
Nanci Griffith: You Made This Love A Teardrop
Eels: Losing Streak
Cheryl Bentyne: Tea For Two
Neil Diamond: Delirious Love
Ellie Greenwich: River Deep, Mountain High
Tony Christie: Louise
Fun: Why Am I The One
Gilbert O'Sullivan: Get Down
Music playlist:
Anthony Newley: Strawberry Fair
Lenka: We Will Not Grow Old
P J Proby: Somewhere
Nanci Griffith: You Made This Love A Teardrop
Eels: Losing Streak
Cheryl Bentyne: Tea For Two
Neil Diamond: Delirious Love
Ellie Greenwich: River Deep, Mountain High
Tony Christie: Louise
Fun: Why Am I The One
Gilbert O'Sullivan: Get Down
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