This technology is not new and I have seen similar products about 4 years ago for the Windows Mobile devices like the Total Remote from Griffin Technologies. What seems interesting about the Apple version is that the product seems to include a large database of supported devices and also comes with a learn feature that I have not seen before in the Windows Mobile versions I have tried. The product is not out yet but is slated for early 2010 release. The cost of the unit will be $49.00 USD which includes the software.

For just a universal remote, it may seem expensive to pay $49.00 but compared to current touch screen based universal remotes, the price is very competitive.  This will certainly be popular with single males out their. Not really suited for couples or families unless you have a spare iPhone around that can double as a universal remote only for long periods.

I would certainly be interested in the learn feature. I have a digital to analog converter that is made by a no name brand and is always a pain to switch betwen two remotes to watch TV. If I can program all the functions of both the TV and the converter box onto one control panel, this would make it so much easier to watch TV.

To find out more about the RedEye Mini, just head over to THINKFLOOD for more details.

What I have come to enjoy recently are energy bars. Not just any energy bars but energy bars that are all natural, contains no fillers or man made additives. I am referring to the NATURAL plus ENERGY bars which are really tasty and convenient to carry. These are energy bars that contain only the RAW ingredients listed for example:

Almond bar contains:

• Almond
• Honey
• Orange blossom water
• Lemon juice

There are 8 different flavours available.

When I first tried one I was truly amazed at how great the bar tasted, especially when the nuts are RAW. The company that manufactures these bars understand that RAW food contains the highest level of nutrients and the conbination of the ingredients makes each bar really tasty. I really like the almond, pecan, cranberry and the granola bars.

These bars are great for those days when I am hungry between meals or I am looking for a late night snack to munch on. These bars are made in Canada and currently available in some markets in Canada and the US. If you cannot find these bars locally, you can go to www.naturalenergy.han-d-solutions.com.

The energy bars are small like most mobile devices and easy to put in your pocket or carry case. As with many of us that utilize mobile devices on the road, it is a good idea to carry with you an energy bar too for those times when a good sit down meal is not readily available. Be careful when you are looking to buy just any energy bar though.

Many bars contain:

• salt
• preservatives
• additives
• man made sweeteners
• fillers

These bars are pretty much “what you see is what you get” with none of the above ingredients.

NATURAL plus ENERGY bars

For now, enjoy the continuing content and look out for more Canadian specific content coming your way soon.

Bob Katayama Executive Editor

www.technobrains.com / www.technobrains.ca

Bob Katayama Executive Editor

Every Friday,  www.appdope.com also gives away promotional codes to various software titles. According to Morgan, they currently have available over 50 promotional codes to giveaway. Anyone that owns an iPhone or iPod Touch should check out APPDOPE on a regular basis and especially on Fridays. You will need to register an account on APPDOPE and follow the links associated with the giveaway apps to qualify for the promo giveaways. I would suggest you go to www.appdope.com to get the whole story and enjoy what this great website has to offer.

APPDOPE is a great addition to the Apple iPhone community and should be one website that you have to bookmark. What APPDOPE offers via their MEGACOMP Fridays giveaway is one simple way of trying to secure one of the limited promotional codes developers have available to giveaway at the launch of any new title.

Final Verdict: Recommended

APPDOPE

MEGACOMP

The iPad seems to be situated right in the middle of the smartphone and laptop category as far as functionality goes. No other ebook reader on the market currently or coming out this year except for the enTourage eDGe can be placed in the same category. Most are specifically ebook readers with some added online capabilities.

The clear, 9.7 inch high resolution color screen looks very nice to me and the fact that it is a multi-touch screen is great for a screen of its size. Some of the other features that stand out for me are:

• Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth
• iPad version of the Apple iWorks software available
• Compatible with thousands of existing iPhone and iPod Touch software
• 10 hours of battery life on one charge
• Multi-touch screen. No stylus required which can scratch the screen and is easy to misplace

Many ebook readers will be available within the coming months to compete with the popular Amazon Kindle ebook reader. From what I have read thus far, The feature set and the competitive pricepoint will be very hard to beat. The enTourage eDGe at a suggested retails of $490.00 certainly will battle with the Apple iPad but due to its lack of third party software on the Android platform will have a huge disadvantage.

I am looking forward to trying the iPad once my local Apple store has one available.

Source: USA Today

Image Source: Apple

• Total distance travelled
• Total time taken
• Average speed for the trip
• Waypoints to determine actual route taken

Now, with the BT-Q1000eX GPS, you can get even deeper into the complete trip analysis. The BT-Q1000eX GPS records at a blistering speed of up to 5 times per seconds. This means, you can determine intermediate speeds in situations where precise details are required. This is really handy for racing enthusiasts and experts. Precise measuring of speeds throughout the whole trip or lap in not new but the ability to have this at a pricepoint under $200.00 is very impressive. The ability to know the speed before entering the corner or exiting the corner can be readily seen afterwards for automobile racers. This technology is beneficial for any racer that actually runs through a course with numerous twists and turns. Typically standard GPS loggers record anywhere from around 5 seconds to 1 minute. This is fine for short or long distance recording to determine point A to B tracking but not so good in determining intermediate details. A speeding race car can enter and exit a turn in under 5 seconds thus making precise calculations about speed for a given spot on the track very difficult with standard GPS devices. The BT-Q1000eX GPS will record up to 5 times a second therefore about 25 points of data can be recorded within a 5 second stretch of race track.

With this high speed recording capability, you now have the ability to track:

• Average/minimum/maximum speed per lap
• Sector time (the time from one split point to another)
• Split time (the cumulative time from start point to split point)
• Speed for any given position.

Just like many of the QSTARZ GPS units, it is a simple one button ON unit and requires no additional hardware to reord the data. Once the data has been recorded, you can download the data via USB or Bluetooth. The BT-Q1000eX GPS comes with Lap Time Analysis, QSports software and QTravel software.

The BT-Q1000eX GPS has a suggested retail pricing of $160.00 USD. You can find more details at QSTARZ.

Source: QSTARZ

Skiff Ereader

Remember the movie “Star Trek IV – The Voyage Home”? Scotty needed to create a tank onboard to house two hump backed whales. He gave the technical specs to a manufacturer to create a sheet of transparent aluminum. A lab at Oxford University has now created such a transparent aluminum sheet. Now a company called Skiff will be releasing an ebook reader later this year which uses a thin transparent metallic layer instead of glass to protect the screen underneath. The silicon thin film transistors (TFT) are also on a flexible stainless steel substrate which makes the whole screen shatterproof and crack proof.

This new ereader will be one of many that will be competing for the top prize of best ebook reader for 2010. It is hard to say who will come out on top but I feel my money is currently on the enTourage eDGe.

Another movie in the 80′s that popularized science was the movie “Back to the Future”. Remember the Stainless Steel car called the DeLorean? This car was retrofitted with hardware that allowed the car to travel in time. DOC had returned from the future with an engine that took any material like a can of cola including the can and turned this immediately into fuel. Now a designer has been working with Nokia to produce such a fuel source for mobile devices.

Daizi Zheng has created a bio battery that uses enzymes to breakdown the sugars to produce power that produces 3 to 4 times longer lasting power over the current Lithium-ion technology on one charge. The current prototype accepts cola as the fuel and the final by-product is water and oxygen. SWEET!!! Clean and environmentally friendly.

Cola powered phone - Images Daizi Zheng

This technology probably will not be available for a few years still due to consumer acceptance and various other issues like:

• What do you do if the container leaks?
• How do you clean the liquid container?
• Pressure from battery manufacturers to not have this in the marketplace.
• Just the yuck factor of pouring a syrupy liquid into a small container to recharge your electronic device.

In any regards, the potential of these types of scientific advancements will truly revolutionize the mobile and electronic industry within the next 5 – 10 years. We are currently at the fringe of a new era of truly exotic technologies becoming mainstream. I am really looking forward to the next 5 years and beyond.

I must have a twin working for ION Audio or a designer there must have read my mind. I say this because I have always wanted an external musical keyboard that I could dock into a handheld computer. Not connect via cable like to a laptop but have the keyboard actually merged with the handheld like the Windows Mobile device when they first came out.

ION keyboard

ION Audio has actually fulfilled my long time wish and the product will be available very soon it seems. The iDiscover keyboard is a 25-key, battery operated musical keyboard with a custom iPhone/iPod Touch application. You might be thinking why this is so exciting for me? Well, here is my short list of reasons:

• The external musical keyboard runs on batteries therefore I can take it anywhere.
• No heavy laptop required to be carried with me.
• No laptop bootup time required (2+ minutes loading Windows) when I get inspired to record a musical sequence I have in my head. The iPhone/iPod Touch is instant ON and ready to start.
• Takes advantage of my iPod Touch which already has a great sound processor and decent amount of memory for storing short musical sequences.
• No cables required which can be lost or damaged easily.
• Since the keyboard plugs into the iPhone/iPod Touch, the whole system is readily upgradable when new applications become available for the iPhone through ION Audio or a third party source.

The keyboard has many of the features of a professional keyboard:

• Velocity sensitivity.
• Pitch bend wheel.
• Modulation wheel.
• Physical buttons for sound bank selections.
• USB/MIDI connection thereby allowing me access to my PC or MAC for even more musical flexibility at home.

I would love to take this musical keyboard for a test drive when the unit becomes available in the second quarter of 2010.  It certainly meets my needs as a true portable on demand musical keyboard. At the end of the day, the iPhone or iPod Touch has all the capabilities of my full fledged laptop and then some without the bulk and weight.

The iDiscover is the latest product from ION Audio and will be released along side the iTYPE keyboard which is a full qwerty keyboard. Look for both in the spring/summer of 2010. I know I will be.

More Details: ION Audio

The Que proReader and the enTourage eDGe are geared to hit the market in the coming months.

Basic criteria for this comparison:

• Designed primarily as an ebook reader
• Large screen
• No DVD-Rom
• No hard drive
• Touch screen
• Under 5 pounds in weight

Que proReader

QUE proReader

enTourage eDGe

enTourage eDGe

Overall Winner:

The enTourage eDGE. The enTourage eDGE has a dual screen and an actual computer built in allowing for web surfing, wordprocessing, and Google Android applications to be installed. The Que proReader requires a separate computer to be fully functional while the enTourage eDGE is a stand alone unit.

Added benefits of enTourage eDGE:

• Includes an SD memory slot
• Ability to plug in an USB memory pen
• Audio recording capabilities with built in mic or an external mic.
• Lower price point

Recommend: enTourage eDGe