VXK Capsule: Audiophile-Grade Music Player for Your Home

Posted on 05/07/2014 by Range

With the advent of digital media, it’s easy to notice that some of the files that you end up playing on your computer or mobile devices lack some quality. That’s where Voxtok comes in, with its new service and device.

Voxtok has just launched a new device, the VXK Capsule, which encompasses an audiophile-grade player, a home music server, local storage and a CD ripper – though you’ll need to attach a USB CD reader to use this functionality. An easy-to-use mobile app lets you control the device and the dedicated cloud service allows you to backup your music collection and access it anywhere. The Capsule supports most digital music file formats and has at least 1TB of storage.

It doesn’t come with it’s own speakers, but there are plenty of ports to connect your own amp or active speakers. The player is also AirPlay compatible.

The Voxtok is currently available via Kickstarter. Unfortunately, the system isn’t cheap. Buyers will have to pledge at least $1,290(USD) to get their own complete system with a 2TB hard drive.

FiDELYS Smartwatch: The Eyes Have It

Posted on 03/07/2014 by Range

There’s a good reason for biometric security, since it ensures that most of your information on your devices or computer doesn’t get stolen or swiped too easily. Using your eyes as your password is the stuff of science fiction and spy movies, which is why this watch is so cool.

Iritech’s FiDELYS smartwatch gets paired with your phone, and allows you to interact with incoming calls, text messages, and other functions. It also has a built-in camera that will have an iris recognition capability, meaning that you could unlock your device with your eyes, freeing your from entering a passcode. The device will also tie to your computer or smartphone, providing iris-based authentication for websites and applications.

The watch offers Bluetooth Low Energy and NFC wireless support, as well as a heart rate sensor, pedometer and wireless charging. Instead of using a touchscreen, you’ll interact with the watch clicking on the outside of its bezel.

The FiDELYS smartwatch will be launched through an Indiegogo crowdfunding project soon, with a pre-launch price of about $250(USD) – a $50 discount off its planned retail price.

[via Digital Trends]

“Light Men” Do Virtual Parkour in Kuala Lumpur

Posted on 03/07/2014 by Range

I’ve always had a fascination with parkour. I’m not sure why, but it just looks so awesome. The trouble is that it’s a lot harder than it looks. Thankfully, in this advertisement by Lexus, you won’t have to do any parkour whatsoever.

STROBE was created by Adam Berg, and is part of a series of videos called Amazing in Motion. CGI effects are always impressive, but there’s nothing like filming the real thing. That’s one of the reasons why this video is just plain amazing. In order to pull off the illusion of a single parkour athlete running through the city, multiple LED suits, each containing 1,680 LEDs were used by stuntmen rigged up all over Kuala Lumpur, Indonesia.

Each suit was connected wirelessly to DMX software running on a custom computer rigs, which triggered the strobe on cue in a pattern. A team of 40 engineers worked with the stuntmen, who were hanging all over the city.

Damson Headbones: Bone Conduction Headphones to Rock Your Brain Box

Posted on 19/06/2014 by Range

I seem to remember there being some bone conduction headphones on the market a few years back, but these are the first that I’ve come across in a while. These headphones look like an interesting middle ground between headphones and earphones.

The Damson Headbones rely on bone conduction to deliver sound. The headphones rest on the temporal bone on the side of your head and won’t go into your ears. You ear canals will be left open to hear any background noise. This seems a bit counterintuitive, because when I switch on my headphones, I don’t want to hear the outside world.

The headphones wirelessly connect to your smartphone using Bluetooth. The 32 mAh battery will give you 10 hours of playback, and it comes with an integrated microphone if you want to use your phone hands-free. These headphones also come with a 3.5mm jack, which lets you plug in regular earphones if you ever feel the need. Headbones were recently launched as a Kickstarter project. You’ll need to pledge at least $120(USD) to get yours.

[via Gizmag]

Chinese Star N9500 Phone Comes Pre-Installed with Malware

Posted on 19/06/2014 by Range

Plenty of phones comes with bloatware, but most of the time, manufacturers tend to limit the scope of these and won’t include malware. Well, the Chinese seem to have taken it up a notch, and will deliver you a phone that comes standard with malware!

The Star N9500 is a Chinese clone of the Samsung Galaxy S4, and according to G Data, a German security firm, who have received several complaints of buyers of this phone, discovered that the phone came standard with a difficult to remove Trojan-horse malware called UUPAY.D. The phone will also send data to some secret Chinese servers, so it sounds like the Chinese government could be involved.

The phone is currently being sold on Amazon UK, so if you’re looking for a cheap phone, look elsewhere!

[via Wall Street Journal]

Sony SmartBand SWR10 Review: Pricey But Works Well

Posted on 17/06/2014 by Range

It was announced a few months back, but the SmartBand was finally available in the last two weeks. I picked this up on a whim, and it’s been on my wrist since then. How has it performed? Not so bad, especially if you have an Xperia phone.

The SmartBand is basically an activity tracker. It’s not as precise as some of the dedicated fitness trackers for athletes, but it’s still going to give you an interesting metric on what you do with your life. To start off with, the pedometer and running tracker aren’t anything new, and to be honest, it’s not the best feature of this device. The good thing is that it’s always on, doesn’t always need to be connected to the Internet, and can function without your smartphone for up to a whole day.

The best features in my opinion are the Sleep Monitor app, the Smart Wake Up, the notification system, and the application launcher. The Sleep Monitor will let you know if you are getting enough sleep, and the quality of your sleep. Just by having this simple metric, I was able to get 30% more sleep, simply because I was exactly aware of how much sleep I got every night.

The Smart Wake Up lets you program in a desired wake up interval. The SmartBand will wake you up within this interval when you are in a light sleep. This makes waking up fairly easy, and I have felt less grumpy and jarred by using this. This is definitely one of the standout features, because I have been looking for something discrete like this to function as a daily alarm. Also, you can stop your phone’s alarm by pressing the main button on the SmartBand.

I tend to keep my phone silent, since I find the vibration distracting, but I like how the SmartBand will vibrate whenever you receive a notification. You can customize which apps will alert you. Now I never need to keep my phone on vibrate. I just keep it on full silent.

The application launcher took me a bit of time to figure out, but it works very well on my Xperia Z2. Press the main button once, wait for the LEDs to light up, and then tap the face of the SmartBand, once, twice or thrice for predetermined actions. For now, I use it for the media launcher. When I’m running, it allows me to change tracks without even looking at my phone.

It’s not a perfect device. There are some faults. To start off with, you expect this thing to have a way to tell the time, because it looks like a watch, feels like a watch… I have stopped counting the number of times that I have glanced at it trying to look at the time. The next generation should definitely have an LED or OLED display for the time.

You also have to switch the device between day and night mode. While you can program this in, it is a bit annoying to switch it between settings. Lastly, the price. This thing retails for $149.99(USD), which is way too expensive for what it is. Though you can find it on Amazon for as low as $94.99, which is a bit more palatable. Honestly, I’d think that a tracker without a screen of any kind should retail for even less.

The upside of the SmartBand is that it works, and it works well. It does everything that it’s been advertised to do, and while I have no use for the Life Bookmarks, and some of its other features, I do like having it on my wrist, tracking my sleep and fitness level. When you couple it with an Android phone, you get the full experience. I have an Xperia Z2, and I can’t say how well it performs with other makes and models, but Sony states that it is compatible with Android devices.

Sony Xperia Z2 Quick Review: Much Better Than the Z1, Especially the Camera

Posted on 17/06/2014 by Range

When my HTC One M7 smartphone ended up as roadkill off my motorcycle, more than a few cars passed over it. I decided to get a Sony Xperia Z1 for a few months before the Z2 came out. Now that it has, I can give you the full details between both models, and how well it performs against the competition.

The Sony Xperia Z2 looks almost exactly like the Z1 on the outside. It’s a bit bigger, a bit more polished, but overall, it’s hard to tell them apart, if you don’t know what you are looking for. Basically, the Z2 is also a better device than the Z1, it’s better in almost every way, which comes as a surprise. I expected the Z2 to be just a bit better, but in my opinion it’s a lot more refined.

If you love taking photos, than the Z2 is a good option. The 20.7 MP sensor has one of the highest megapixel counts, but that doesn’t mean much. I’ve found that the Z2 performs so much better than the Z1, in a variety of situations, from low-light to the new background defocus option, which reminds me of what a bokeh lens can do on a DSLR. The Z2 can also capture 4K videos, but I honestly haven’t used this feature much.

On board storage is 16GB, which is not a lot, but considering that the microSD slot can take up to 128GB cards, it doesn’t matter much. Currently, I have a 64GB card in and will get a 128GB when this one fills up.

The display isn’t the best on the market, but it’s a good improvement over the Z1. The Samsung S5 is brighter, but the device doesn’t feel as polished. The Android implementation on Samsung is also filled with bloatware, which are somewhat less prevalent on the Z2. The Sony Android implementation is one of the better ones in my opinion. I prefer Sony’s over what HTC has done, because it’s a lot more elegant. The few Sony apps which are included work well, and I haven’t been forced to removed any. What I did find surprising is the lack of the Notes app, which I liked on the Z1. I am using Google Keep instead, which is similar to the old Notes app, but I would have liked an included app. I see no reason to discontinue it. I did like the fact that you could glance at all of your recent notes without opening them up. It was a neat feature.

Text prediction on the Z2 is pretty decent. Sony will trawl through your emails, Facebook posts and tweets to get the best prediction possible. I’ve found it quite accurate, and I get the right suggestions after typing only a few letters, in multiple languages. The Sony default implementation can track multiple languages at once, which is awesome when you are trilingual.

My Z1 was a bit finicky. It overheated many times and shut down from this. The screen cracked from a 1 foot drop, which was completely ridiculous. The phone wasn’t as rugged as expected (compared to iPhones or HTC Ones), and was extremely slippery. A week after I changed for a Z2, the Z1 was bricked. All I get now is a blinking red light. I have tried to restore it, but it looks like it’s completed unresponsive. I hope Sony will give me a replacement unit, maybe even another Z2.

While the Z2 remains as slippery as the Z1, it hasn’t overheated yet. It hasn’t shut down yet, and it’s been performing quite well. I have no plans to drop-test it though, for fear of breaking its screen.

Common Fibers Carbon Fiber Wallets & Cases: Making Them Oh So Light!

Posted on 15/05/2014 by Range

Carbon fiber is a wondrous material, and I’d love to have it all over my tech, but it can get expensive quickly. That’s one of the reasons why a new company has decided to make this durable material available in cases and wallets.

Common Fibers‘ mission is to make carbon fiber more easily accessible thanks through a variety of new products. This includes cases and wallets which combine the durability and light weight of carbon fiber with flexibility.

If you missed their products through their Kickstarter launch, which blew through its funding goal in a short time, you can still pre-order their wallets on their website. The wallets will cost you between $40 and $55. For now, the iPhone 5S case isn’t available anymore, but I’m sure that it will be soon.

TapPainter: See What Your Room Looks Life Before You Paint It

Posted on 15/05/2014 by Range

Choosing the right paint color for rooms in your pad isn’t always easy, because colors do look slightly different when they are actually on walls, and it’s especially hard to get an idea from a few little paint swatches. That’s one of the reasons why this new app might work really well. It lets you visualize how your walls would look with any kind of paint.

TapPainter is an augmented reality app that lets you easily render how your walls would look like after your next makeover. It doesn’t just slap the color over an image of your wall either. It takes into account ambient lighting, shadows and other in the environment as well, and is designed to automatically differentiate walls from other surfaces.

The app includes paint color decks from companies like Benjamin Moore, Behr, California Paints, Dunn Edwards, Dutch Boy, Sherwin Williams, and more. You just take a picture of your room, enter a color code, and you can get cracking.

An iPad version is already available for $4.99 in the iTunes App Store, but its makers are raising funds on Kickstarter to support development of Android and iPhone versions, as well as a Pro version of the application with collaborative messaging, more paint brands and other refinements.

Ran out of Makeup? Just 3D-Print Some More with Mink!

Posted on 08/05/2014 by Range

3D printers are becoming quite popular, and there seems to be no end in sight about the things that they can output. However, this is the first time I’ve heard anything about one that can print makeup.

The Mink was launched at TechCrunch Disrupt, and it brings a new application to 3D printing. The printer lets users choose colors from anywhere, and use their software to print blush, eye shadow, lip gloss, or any other kind of makeup. It’s creator, Grace Choi says the materials use the same substrates as other makeup, and the printer’s inkjet add pigment to the raw materials to create the custom-colored makeup.

The system would allow the choice of just about any color you want, which is a limiting factor when it comes to store brands. You upload an image into the software, use a color picker to select the desired hue, then print away.

The Mink makeup printer is expected to cost less than $200, and its creator hopes to launch it by the end of the year.

[via TechCrunch]

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