There are a lot of iPhone cradles out and about but many are made by third-party manufacturers and often lack the build quality of a reputable company. The new Pioneer SmartCradle seems to be a quality entry into the line-up.
The gadget itself works the same as any other cradle – you connect it to the dashboard of your car. But Pioneer says the cradle boosts GPS signals, helping out with navigation apps and any other app that uses the GPS function.
The cradle also features an audio/video output jack and a built-in speaker and mic allowing easier hands free calls.
This cradle is pretty much the same as the TomTom cradle that was released in 2009, but coming from a major manufacturer it’s sure to have some punch behind it. This costs $US129 and will be available in April.
There were plenty of televisions released by all the major players this year and many of them came built-in with fancy online features and streaming connectivity – but none are so impressive as the LG OLED model.
LG claims it’s the world’s thinnest television – and at 2.99mm it’s certainly small enough. The panel supports 2D and 3D broadcasting and has a refresh rate of 600hz.
The model is 31 inches large, and the OLED screen makes every colour appear bright and bold. The thin border around the screen also ensures the viewer doesn’t have their picture obscured.
As for pricing, LG has yet to confirm any details – but no doubt it won’t come in cheap.
(Image courtesy of engadget.)
If the Xoom tablet takes out the “most powerful” title for this year’s CES, then the Samsung Sliding Series 7 tablet definitely wins the “most innovative” award.
This gadget works as a tablet, running Windows 7, but features a full-size QWERTY keyboard that slides out from beneath the screen, in order to act as a dedicated laptop computer.
The tablet is powered by an Oaktrail Atom processor, with a 10.1-inch screen and 1366×768 resolution. It also comes with 32GB or 64GB of storage on a solid state hard drive, features both USB and HDMI outputs and is reported to have a battery life of about eight hours.
The Sliding Series 7 will come with some apps and the Office 2010 Starter edition when it’s released in the US in March.
Set-top boxes are gaining quite a bit of popularity as users opt to stream media from other devices and combine computers with televisions. The Monsoon Vulkano is another step in that direction, but works alongside boxes instead of acting as a dedicated device.
The Vulkana is essentially a smartphone accessory. It connects to a set-top box and then streams to any handheld gadget, including the iPhone. Users simply install an app, and then use the gadget to stream television to their device.
Another version, the Vulkano Blast, uses those features and then adds the PVR feature along with 160GB of internal storage. It can also access YouTube and record television to the storage, or another type of attached hard drive.
With the app only costing $US9.99, and the gadget just under $US100, this is a solid solution for streaming data over the web.
