Tag Archives: gadgets

Ho! Ho! Ho! The Christmas Gadget List……

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Christmas gift list

Happy Christmas from us All

It’s that time of the year again when people are eying up their Christmas want lists and gadgets are almost likely to be up there near the very top for many of us.

From a new mobile to a tablet computer there are an array of gadgets that can keep us drooling and wanting the next best thing. So who are doing the most obvious pushing this Christmas Time? Who will Santa be wooed over by when he is choosing your and my presents this year.

Phones

The IPhone 5S is still high in the popularity stakes with its clean looks and fingerprint recognition. Will an Apple at Christmas be your thing. At around £549 to buy.
HTC One is the competitor and again sturdy design with HTC’s proven record of phone technology. Fabulous sound through two front facing speakers. Made from a solid piece of aluminium. At around £479 to buy.

Cameras

The cannon EOS 700d might be the present you are seeking from Father Christmas, get the professional shots you have always wanted. 18 Megapixel sensor and great build quality; this puppy will set you around £750 to buy.
Samsung have their NX300 out as well to compete and being Samsung the name is there as far as technology is concerned. It has a 20.3 Megapixel sensor and talks to all other Samsung devices. It will take around £600 out of your Christmas savings account.

Apple again

Apple MacBook Air is still popular, the 2013 edition. Only a small upgrade to previous versions but still maybe on your Christmas list if you are and avid Apple follower. Apple never does anything by half so this baby will cost you around £849 to buy.

TV’s

A large new TV, which would be a great Christmas present. Samsung again with their Samsung UE46F8000ST, 35mm thick with e tiny 5mm surround bezel has to be a great pick. Image quality is meant to be one of the best from an LED TV. And it includes all the gesture recognition that is coming in. Basically a computer on board containing Quad cores……This screen will steal around £1800 from your savings.
Panasonic have their TX-P60ZT65, which is rumoured to be the best HD TV out there with extremely fine picture detail. Smart with Internet options and also acts as a media streamer. However the elves will raid your bank account to the tune of around £3650.

To finish our Teaser list…..

How about a JL Built-in Wine Cooler, this small cabinet fits in the smallest of spaces in a kitchen and chills the wine, 7 bottles, and is very quiet with a noise count of only 36dB. Doesn’t frost up either it seem? This will cost your around £180, so not such a sting on those savings this time.

Well, have a great Christmas and a fabulous new year and let me know below what your gadget for Christmas would-be this year.

IT Tech Point

Flexible screens, a touch of the future?

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The rumours and sneak previews of flexible screens by Samsung and other manufacturers has caught our eye and intrigued is. So here we are going to give you some gleaned info from the net.
But first let us ask you a question. What usage would you see flexible screens having and would they be better than what we have just now?
We picked our brains and thought of some of the following: –

Wrist devices.
Jackets or waist coats.
Wall mounted devices that follow the contours of the wall.
But what else?

Anyhow, onto what we have gleaned from the web.
We have viewed over the last 8 to 10 months the videos that have been going around demoing the flexible screen, or OLED manufacture. This new revolution has made manufacturers like Samsung go into overdrive with concept devices and then create videos demoing what they might look like. Here is one we have seen a few times and gets you thinking.

Samsung showed this at their CES talk this year. A brief potential view of where this technology maybe taking us. Again it will be down to the patent race and who gets the patents in first. Watch this space.
This next video shows the durability of the new screen technology, WARNING it does hurt to watch the screens we love today being pounded by a hammer…..

Ouch, that’s just not nice. But what about the OLED screen, durability at its core, flexible and will take abuse. There is definitely a market for that.
How about a touch window in your house. You get up in the morning and draw the curtains and the blinds are built into the window. Then you call up all sorts of touch screen info about weather and driving conditions etc. You are kidding me Ian surely I hear you cry….Well no.

Isn’t that amazing? Come on, it had you excited…..
So it looks like we will be able to wear the flexible units with Samsung already having launched their wrist device that is curved. We will also be able to drop then of a building by the look of it and then our houses will be equipped with the latest tech and info.
I just can’t wait!
Samsung are not the only manufacturer by the way, it is just they are at this time shouting the loudest about it with videos and promotions.

What are your thoughts on all this new Flexible screens and tech, does it excite you or bore you?

Ian Thomson
Consultant
IT Turning Point

 

Rumours Surface about Surface 2….

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touch screenRumours are surfacing about Microsoft being about to launch their next generation of the Surface tablet computers. These remember are the computers that they have a huge stock of in warehouses that is costing them more in Rent for the storage space than it did to make the units.

They have scheduled a press event on the 23rd September in New York and are emailing out media invites, but are keeping very quiet about any other details….oh the intrigue.

The rumour mill of course has been running all the time and snippets have been released about the various new Surface units that might be emerging. For example, it is rumoured there will be a Surface 2 and a Surface Pro device. Also a refreshed version of the Surface RT device. Hardware is expected to be improved to the Tegra 4 CPU with 1080p screen and 4Gb of RAM. Improvements to the battery life have also been muted.

Of course Windows 8.1 is expected in October so all these devices are rumoured to be running this version.
But is it too, little too late for Microsoft. Or will they make the breakthrough they expect to make in this catch up race with IOS and Android devices?

What are your thoughts and do any of you have a Surface just now?
If you do let us know your thoughts on it?
If not, would you rush out and buy a new Microsoft Surface device?

Technology: – For better or for Worse

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technology

This March I thought I would consider our marriage to modern day technology and whether in our vows to our life long addiction to it include for better or for worse.

Where am I coming from? Well like any marriage we make commitments to the bond that is marriage and to our partner in the act. Through thick and thin, for better or for worse, and so on.

With today’s technology we probably spent more time with it than we do with your partners and I wondered what the loyalty factor was and what drives the loyalty. I remember not to many years ago I would not have considered any phone other than a Nokia; you would have to be a fool to use any other handset. The loyalty was in the brand, for better or for worse.

Then Nokia lost grip of where the market was going and made the bad mistake of creating fashion looking phones and ignoring the massive move over the thin clam shaped phones and of course Apple blew the market wide open with the IPhone and the age of the smart phone.

Loyalty then just became about desire and I want the new phone because look what they say it does.

Of course technology is in almost every part of our life, from the box in our living room that we stare at for hours as it streams the latest and greatest programmes to us, to the laptop or tablet that we use to surf the net. Even to the choice of kitchen appliances that are around.

There are so many elements that guide us, is it the budget, well I am as loyal as the money I can spend, so brand loyalty is out the window or is it down their durability, I always buy their stuff it just seems to last for ever and ever.

I have to ask if the consumer of today is better informed than the consumer of the past due to the Internet or do they just succumb to the marketing that the Internet allows. The other thing of course is peer pressure and what difference that makes. Having been in IT for a good few years now and a self-confessed GEEK and I do love the latest bit of technology and if budget allowed would gladly like to try most of them. However I have also become discerning and use the Internet as the sounding board it really is and take in as many reviews as possible as well as first person testimonies of people who have used the kit I am interested in

However, I still see so many people flash out their new IPhone or Samsung and when questioned have done little to no research and in fact the loyalty is not even to the brand but to the trend that could be here today and gone tomorrow.

So is our loyalty to our beloved technology down to a fleeting trend or something else, what are your thoughts.

Ian Thomson

Founder/Trainer/Consultant

IT Turning Point www.itturningpoint.com