Posts from Coolest Gadgets for 10/30/2012

The latest and coolest gadgets daily digest Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Oct 30, 2012 11:00 am | Alison More than 50 Shades of Gray…and Blue…and Red… As we report on Coolest Gadgets, smartphones and tablets are doing everything these days. Aside from making calls and accessing the Internet they get us to our destinations, play our music, monitor our portfolios and even lock or unlock our houses. In fact more and more devices and apps that help us control our home seem to be springing onto the market. Let's add another one to the list compliments of Philips. Today (October 30, 2012) Philips will begin selling their Hue lighting system exclusively at Apple stores. Hue consists of 3 LED bulbs and a controller. Plug the bulbs – currently A shape, others are in development – into the light of your choice. Then plug the controller into your Ethernet connection. Using an app for a smartphone or tablet (iOS or Android) and the built in wi-fi receivers in the bulbs you control the color, brightness, off/on. Really the possibilities are numerous. Imagine reading in the living room. Set a nice mellow hue to create a comfortable environment. But say you want to prevent an all-nighter to finish your book. Program the system to blink or change colors (or go off!) at a certain time. Or maybe you have trouble motivating in the morning. Take your bedroom lamps from 2500K to 3500K and mellow blue to obnoxious red when you MUST leave for work. And obviously with the controller on the home network – yes, you could control lighting remotely. Have the house brightness and color as you desire when you arrive home. Or – mess with your spouse and change it while you are away! Other specs to know. Three bulbs and the controller run $199 and additional bulbs are $59. Each of the 11 LED's in each bulb can produce up to 16 million colors. So let's just say that the color combinations are endless. Each bulb has a 90 foot range and create a network – so they can communicate with each other versus individually with the controller. A single controller can facilitate up to 50 bulbs. The bulbs return to their standard white light and 2700K when turned off at the source. Bulbs only use 8.5W at full brightness – yay LED. And the controller uses 350mW power. So don't worry about sucking up electricity. Do we need Hue? Perhaps not. Do we want Hue and see a need for it? Of course. See a full review of the product at geek.com. And drop into any Apple store to learn more or start remotely controlling your lighting. [ More than 50 Shades of Gray…and Blue…and Red… copyright by Coolest Gadgets ] Read More Oct 30, 2012 06:30 am | Edwin Boombero Near Field Audio Speaker Well, well, what do we have here? A relic from the 1980s? Not quite, although it might look like it at first glance. After all, boomboxes were all the rage back then when I was a kid, and you had to match those sleek beats with jaw dropping moves of your own. Fast forward to today, and the humble cassette tape is no more, and the same goes for the CD player. It is all about digital files now stored on these things that have MP3 playback capability, so why not match modern day Gangnam-style tunes with the right kind of hardware? Enter the £44.99 Boombero Near Field Audio Speaker that comes in either black or white colors. Boasting an all-new NearFA technology, the Boombero will make full use of Near Field Audio in order to wirelessly transmit and broadcast your music right out of the speakers, hence doing away with pesky wires or connections that tend to get all messed up whenever you stash it away. All you need to do to get started is place your device on top or into the slot and you're good to go. Heck, rest your handset in landscape to watch movies and enjoy big sound with it. The three AA batteries boast up to 20 hours of continuous playtime, or you can always power it using USB connectivity. [ Boombero Near Field Audio Speaker copyright by Coolest Gadgets ] Read More Oct 30, 2012 06:00 am | Edwin Personalized Musical Mini Jammers Ever wished you were a rock star? Well, if you could not quite make it in this dog-eat-dog world and yet want to have something to do with the world of rock stars, you could always end up as a manager of a band – or heck, even own a record label of your own. Assuming that path, too, remains closed to you, I guess it is time to face reality, knuckles down, and bite the bullet. Of course, you can always dream a little on the side, as though you had your multi-platinum selling artist under your thumb, barking orders, wheeling and dealing for the best sponsorship deals for everyone on your label, through a pseudo rock star – via the $19.99 Personalized Musical Mini Jammers, that is. These dancing rockers are seemingly able to respond to voice commands, but the real secret behind such "magic" would be the clever implementation of invisible string. Each of the Personalized Musical Mini Jammers will come with multi-color lights for the latest sold out concert, and will be accompanied by a decent amount of clothes, hats and instruments amongst other accessories, ensuring that each concert held on the self-assembled stage will never be the same as the last. You can even log into the Mini Jammers website to customize your rocker, now how about that? [ Personalized Musical Mini Jammers copyright by Coolest Gadgets ] Read More Oct 30, 2012 05:30 am | Edwin Nokia Lumia 822 announced for Verizon Wireless Verizon Wireless will be playing nice with the Windows Phone 8 mobile operating system, and the first handset to roll out with Verizon livery would come in the form of the Nokia Lumia 822 – which is a variant of the stock Lumia 820. The change in model number makes it easier for folks to quickly identify with just which mobile carrier the device is on, and Verizon claims that the Nokia Lumia 822 was designed specifically for Verizon's fast and ubiquitous 4G LTE network – which incidentally, they are also the US' largest mobile carrier at the moment. Specially designed for simplicity and ease-of-use, the Lumia 822 will be accompanied by exclusive Nokia features such as Nokia Maps, Nokia Drive, and Nokia City Lens, helping you get around in a jiffy with a technological slant. The bright 4.3-inch display with ClearBlack technology, coupled with a fast yet efficient 1.5GHz dual-core processor, ought to pack enough processing power for the average smartphone user. Oh yeah, just in case the 16GB of internal memory is not enough for your portable storage needs, there is also a microSD memory card slot that allows you to expand that further by another 32GB. Charging its 1800mAh battery can be done the traditional way – through plugging in a standard issue charging to get it going, but if you want to be a wee bit more future forward, there is always the wireless charging route made possible thanks to an accessory (purchased separately, of course) known as the Nokia Wireless Charging Shell. The Lumia 822 will also play nice with other accessories such as the Nokia DT-900 Wireless Charging Plate and the JBL PowerUp Wireless Charging Speaker. In terms of imaging, the Nokia Lumia 822 will boast of an 8-megapixel shooter that has advanced Carl Zeiss optics and dual LED flash at the back, while the front-facing camera sports 720p HD resolution recording capability, and there are also a pair of integrated microphones for superior audio recording. Verizon will make available the Nokia Lumia 822 in white, black and grey colors before Thanksgiving for $99.99 on a new two-year contract if you are interested. Press Release [ Nokia Lumia 822 announced for Verizon Wireless copyright by Coolest Gadgets ] Read More Oct 30, 2012 05:00 am | Edwin Windows Phone 8 debuts Never count Microsoft out of the game, especially if it has to do with operating systems – it is their bread and butter after all, and even on the mobile platform, they do have a considerable amount of firepower never mind that right now, they are tussling it out with RIM for a tiny slice of the mobile operating system pie which is dominated by iOS and Android at the moment. The latest announcement of the Windows Phone 8 smartphone operating system happened yesterday, and it does look like the masses will be spoilt for choice if you have yet to jump aboard the smartphone bandwagon, or want to make a switch from either iOS, Android or BlackBerry OS. We will take a look at some of the more notable features found on Windows Phone 8, starting with Live Tiles that function as the heart and soul of Windows Phone – and no other device has them at the moment. You are able to arrange the iconic Start screen just they way you want with Live Tiles, pinning your favorite people, apps, music, games, and photos amongst others. Not only that, there are three sizes of Live Tiles as well as 20 bright color options including cobalt, crimson and lime to choose from, truly personalizing your handset. It is also the only smartphone to come with Live Apps that delivers information right to the Start screen, including the Groupon deal of the day, flight information and news headlines. This also means Facebook is capable of delivering real-time information to your lock screen with an updated wallpaper, now how about that? Windows Phone Store will also not fall short on the apps department, boasting 120,000 apps to choose from, ranging from "Angry Birds Star Wars" to "Cut the Rope Experiments," "Disney's Where's My Water," "LivingSocial," "Temple Run," and "Urbanspoon" amongst others. Pandora will also arrive on Windows Phone in early 2013 with one year of ad-free music, now how about that? Kid's Corner might be a winner for parents whose kids want to use their smartphones – it lets you share your device without having them fool around with the other settings. Sort of like a user account on your smartphone, that's what Kid's Corner is all about. As for being selective in your communications with certain friends, the Rooms feature lets you share and chat with one particular group instead of the entire social network, thanks to the creation of private groups of folks who also use Windows Phone 8. Are you all stoked up for a Windows Phone 8 experience, and which device would you settle for? Press Release [ Windows Phone 8 debuts copyright by Coolest Gadgets ] Read More In This Issue More than 50 Shades of Gray…and Blue…and Red… Boombero Near Field Audio Speaker Personalized Musical Mini Jammers Nokia Lumia 822 announced for Verizon Wireless Windows Phone 8 debuts Recent Stories Comfortably Nap Anywhere! Organize Your Spices A More Comfortable Backpack LG Nexus 4 officially announced Seidio OBEX case for the Galaxy S3

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