I predict fun and games learning to drive the Gyration Air Mouse but it looks like it could be worth it. Unlike an ordinary rolling ball or optical mouse this one doesn’t need a flat surface to work. Just wave it around and motion sensors inside the case tracks your movements. This information is translated by ‘intuitive’ software, which works out where on the PC screen you want the mouse pointer to go. It also responds to a range of simple ‘gestures’ that are basically shortcuts for frequently used functions, like highlighting or magnifying text. It communicates wirelessly with a small dongle that plugs into a vacant USB socket on the PC, and for good measure, it also works as normal mouse on flat surfaces, so lie back in your easy chair, wave at your laptop and it will do as it is told, probably… In the shops soon, expect it to cost upwards of £60.
Ho-hum, another 2Gb SD card, but hang on a minute, this one is different. The Eye-Fi Explore is a Wi-FI memory card. So what, you might be asking, SD Wi-Fi cards are nothing new, the one in my PDA must be at least 3 years old, but there is more. This is a fully self-contained wireless device, so it can be used in any SD compatible camera, and used to beam images across a network to a PC, printer or uploaded to the Internet. In other words the camera doesn’t need to be a special wireless-capable model. All you have to do is pop the card into your PC to activate and configure it then put it into the camera and while it is on it automatically sends image to any wi-fi device in range (around 3 – 5 metres). There’s an added bonus, it uses a system called Geotagging to label or identify where the picture was taken. Read the rest of this entry »
Have you ever lost a file or forgotten where you’ve put it on your hard drive? Of course you have, we’ve all done it, and if you’re lucky you may even have found it by searching through folders, or using the Windows Search facility. The one in Vista is actually quite good, but even that won’t be able help you if you can’t remember what the file was called.
Here’s something else to try, it’s called Seeker and in addition to searching for files by all or part of the name, it also looks inside files, for keywords or phrases. Again it’s something Windows can do, but this search tool is fast, very fast in fact, thanks to a powerful algorithm and an unusually flexible range of search criteria. Read the rest of this entry »
As you know Windows Explorer (aka My Computer, Explorer etc.) lets you see what’s stored on your computer, move files around and so on, and it works reasonably well, but it could be so much better.
Over the years we’ve looked at several Explorer alternatives, but this one, called Explorer ++ is definitely one of the best. It does pretty well everything standard Windows Explorer does but its main claim to fame is a multi-tab display, so you can quickly switch between folders. There’s also a file details and thumbnail preview pane at the bottom (it has all of the usual Explorer type ‘Views’ as well), Permanent file delete, it’s highly customisable and it supports advanced operations, like file merging and splitting. Read the rest of this entry »
Apparently, the world agrees with HD DVD’s original proposition: For a high definition video disc format to be adopted, it has to be inexpensive enough for people to consider in comparison to current generation standard definition choices.
The “widespread reluctance to commit to Blu-ray” by consumers (as described by ABI Research) is obvious just by just looking at the fully stocked shelves of retail stores. Only 1 in 4 people surveyed said they might buy a Blu-ray DVD player in 2009 according to this new survey of a 1000 consumers. Obstacles to adoption? The $300 high cost of players relative to current generation players and the excessive cost of video discs from $20+ each. Read the rest of this entry »
I predict fun and games learning to drive the Gyration Air Mouse but it looks like it could be worth it. Unlike an ordinary rolling ball or optical mouse this one doesn’t need a flat surface to work. Just wave it around and motion sensors inside the case tracks your movements. This information is translated by ‘intuitive’ software, which works out where on the PC screen you want the mouse pointer to go. It also responds to a range of simple ‘gestures’ that are basically shortcuts for frequently used functions, like highlighting or magnifying text. It communicates wirelessly with a small dongle that plugs into a vacant USB socket on the PC, and for good measure, it also works as normal mouse on flat surfaces, so lie back in your easy chair, wave at your laptop and it will do as it is told, probably… In the shops soon, expect it to cost upwards of £60.
