Plus: SPC-500 Sound Effects MP3 car visor sound case; Seagate’s 5G-byte USB 2.0 Pocket hard drive
We’ve been busy – in addition to previewing the cool stuff debuting this week at Demo@15, we had some time to test a few more cool gadgets.
The scoop: Cordless 2.4-GHz Presenter from Logitech, about $60.
What it does : This is a remote device that can control PowerPoint presentations wirelessly (up to 50 feet away from the receiver), with the additional feature of a countdown timer that vibrates when the timer gets down to 5 minutes, 2 minutes or hits zero. Controls include the ability to go forward or backward, use a laser pointer and control the volume on the presentation.
Why it’s cool: We’ve sat through many PowerPoint presentations where speakers had no idea how much time they had left, causing them to ramble. Having a physical reminder (the vibration) could give them a clue that time was running out. The remote was easy to install on our laptop, and controls were self-explanatory (forward, back, laser pointer, start slide show and black out the screen). Another cool feature is that the USB receiver slides into the remote for easy storage and removal.
Our only gripe was figuring out how to set the timer – there’s one button that sets the timer in blocks of 5 minutes (we assumed that 0:05 meant 5 seconds, not 5 minutes). When we reached the time we wanted, there was no way to automatically start (it starts counting down after 5 seconds). We would have preferred a timer that actually showed seconds counting down. There’s also a chance for some interference if you have an 802.11b or g network, since the Presenter uses the same frequency.
The scoop: SPC-500 Sound Effects MP3 car visor sound case, from Sakar International, about $30.
What it does : This is a portable speaker system that connects to your car visor so you can plug in your portable digital music player (the pocket fits the size of an iPod) and play the songs through a single speaker. The device runs on a nine-volt battery, and includes a stand so you can remove it from the visor and play the music elsewhere.
Why it’s cool: If you don’t want to mess around with those cigarette lighter adapter devices that play music through your car speakers, this device is an alternative. However, the sound quality doesn’t match that of car stereo speakers. (If someone comes out with a stereo speaker version we might get more enthused). When listening to spoken-word audio (such as an audio book or a spoken Podcast), the speaker sounds fine.
The scoop: USB 2.0 Pocket hard drive (5G bytes), from Seagate Technology, about $160.
What it does : This is a very portable hard drive system with a ton of memory in a round package. The USB 2.0 cable is designed to unwind from the circular casing, which makes it very easy to set up, or pack up when you’re done. When connected to a PC, the unit has a blue light that tells you it’s working. For Windows ME, 2000 or XP (and Macintosh OS 2.2.2 and higher), no drivers are needed – just plug in and go. Bundled software lets you do things such as resize partitions, create a secured partition, write-protect and view status information on the drive.
Why it’s cool: We’re impressed with the design of the hard drive. Most portable drives are of the square, blocky, rectangular variety; the circular design is unique. We also love the ability to wrap up the USB cord within the unit, and the size of the drive (it fits easily in the palm of your hand) makes it extremely portable. We were disappointed that there wasn’t any back-up software on the bundle, which means backing up any files with the device would be handled with the manual “drag and drop” approach.
