Category: Tech news

Product: Gravity Balans Chair

Manufacturer: Variér Furniture

Wired Rating: 6

Okay. We know what you’re thinking. This chair looks like a melon-busting death trap.

In reality, the Gravity Balans from Variér Furniture is far less nefarious and cranium cracking. Though it’s not the newest piece of furniture to hit the block, we’d heard a great deal about its ergonomic benefits and decided to give it a spin in our quest to find the perfect marathon gaming/lounging chair. The verdict? Gravity lounging > Gravity gaming.

Cracking open the box revealed one of our worst fears: two allen wrenches, a bunch of boards and screws, and a page of crudely drawn instructions. The two-man assembly (one to interpret the images, the other to clumsily execute) was complete in a little over 20 minutes, having us parked in front of the TV in no time.

To be fair, the Gravity isn’t really a rocking chair; instead of remaining in one position and rocking back and forth, it’s designed to rest in one of three positions. The upright position resembled that of a stiff office chair, forcing us into school-marmishly proper posture. This position proved useful for activities like movie watching and gaming, though we felt the need for a little slouchy leeway after about an hour. The next position was a very basic 3/4 position reminiscent of a traditional recliner. As a whole this middle position ended up being the sweet spot for comfort and utility. The final position (which is what lends the chair it’s namesake) rests all the way back on the rear of the slats, creating an oddly floaty, fully-reclined sitting position. Once we got over the initial fear of death (roughly 10 minutes), we fell … in love with this chair. It essentially provides the spongy weightless feeling of a hammock with the back and leg support of a proper chair. Even subtle movements like sneezing or even a heavy sigh makes the entire thing gently bounce in response. It’s a completely alien, yet surprisingly comfortable experience (as far as sitting goes).

Still, we have to be realistic. Even with all this zero-G sweetness, we had to wince at the price. We love sitting around and sleeping on the job as much as the next slacker, but the low-four-digit price makes our beds, which we crash on nightly for eight hours, seem like a much better investment. If you’ve got the funds lying around and fancy yourself a napmaster, it’s worth a look. Otherwise, we’d suggest avoiding the Gravity and choosing a chair that’s much more down to earth.

WIRED It’s like regular sitting … BUT IN SPACE. Relatively light and easy to move. Absolute nap magnet when fully reclined. Adjustable headrest is great for the no-necked. Leg rests allow even the giraffe-legged to truly stretch out.

TIRED One Gravity Balans = A full semester’s tuition ( … at a state school). Fully reclined position elevates your feet above your head, making TV watching problematic. Upholstery reminds us of a baseline Honda Civic. Moving between positions takes practice, coordination, fearlessness. Allen wrench to assemble furniture is totally Freshman Year.

Product: Beer Machine

Manufacturer: BeerMachine.com

Wired Rating: 5

Home brewing tends to be a deliciously messy and involved process. The Beer Machine promises to change that with a simple, all-in-one kit for making your own brew at home — in 7 to 10 days, no less.

To be completely honest, our beer lust was only matched by our skepticism. In the end, The Beer Machine turned out to be less of a letdown than we were expecting, but not by much.

Since the relatively compact unit functions as a fermenter, conditioning vessel and dispenser, careful assembly was required. Getting the main (and cheap-feeling) plastic barrel set up was easy enough, but piecing together all the valves (a pressure release and a spigot for dispensing) and checking the corresponding seals took a few tedious tries.

The included instructions and website both offer a number of useful pointers, but we suspect first-time brewers might be a little perplexed by some of the more esoteric steps. For instance, ensuring a proper airtight fit on the main barrel involves soaking the main rubber seal in warm water, so that it’s malleable enough to manage a snug fit. Little steps like these aren’t necessarily deal breakers, but we were expecting a little less work for a such a pricey all-in-one solution.

After tackling assembly, pressure tests and sterilization of … well … everything, getting the brew started was a relative cinch. Our particular kit shipped with the basics: a straightforward ale mix and brewer’s yeast. At this point, the old “just add water” adage rang true. We poured everything into the barrel, sealed it up and began the waiting game.

Though this was the easiest part of the process, we still had a minor gripe. At 2.6 gallons the capacity of the Beer Machine is on the light side, yielding about 27 bottles. Although this is enough to get a Gadget Labber (or three) adequately tipsy, we’ve encountered more than a few, less-expensive DIY kits that yield 5 gallons or more. Otherwise, checking on the progress midbrew was simple, thanks to the opaque drum, integrated temperature and pressure gauges, and spigot for the occasional taste test.

Aside from a few precarious location swaps to maintain temperature — thank you, California heat wave! — we were ready to start bottling. In addition to the very basic spigot, the Beer Machine sports a bottle holder and tubing for spill-free bottling. Despite its inelegance — both the holder and tubing reminded us of cheap aquarium accessories — we had no problems filling the six resealable bottles with the relatively quick tap. No fuss, no muss.

Ay, there’s the rub. Though the Beer Machine definitely works, it isn’t really anything special. The build quality leaves a lot to be desired, and we suspect even first-time brewers would quickly outgrow the device — especially when the market is flooded with cheaper, higher-yield alternatives.

It does a decent job of simplifying peripheral brewing tasks — checking PSI, bottling, taste tests, etc. — but the advantages are rather minor. Our suggestion? Do a little more research and brew up a better kit.

WIRED Does what it promises: Liquid gold in about 10 days. Ships with six reusable PET bottles and caps. Includes a CO2 injector (and three cartridges) for giving your brew pep. Company website includes video tutorials. Light at just under 10 pounds.

TIRED Geared more towards the just-add-water hobbyist. Only fit for smaller batches. Assembly is more involved than common DIY kits. Kind of a pain to sanitize, and that’s nonnegotiable for brewing.

Product: Echo Smartpen

Manufacturer: Livescribe

Wired Rating: 8

Looking for a way to give your note taking routine a 21st-century kick in the ass? Have a gander at the Echo.

Livescribe’s latest smartpen comes with all the insanely cool tricks of its predecessor — the Pulse —albeit in a slightly redesigned package. Packed with the same ARM 9 processor, an infrared camera, a built-in speaker and mic, the Echo lets you write, record and then seamlessly transfer all your notes (with the help of the company’s free desktop software) to your Mac or PC. Of course, you’ll still need that dot-speckled smart paper to perform this magic trick. But with a huge variety of notebook sizes and bundled options, the average student shouldn’t have to part with much beer money to get a semester’s worth of high-tech scratch pads.

While the overall system remains the same, there have been a few design tweaks to the pen itself. The Echo now comes with a smooth rubber grip plus flattened surface. This, presumably, is for added comfort and to keep your $200 super pen from rolling off your desk. Livescribe has also packed the Echo with either 4- ($170) or 8-GBs of flash memory, a much-needed boost as there’s now a host of apps to choose from in the company’s app store (many of which eat up a significant amount of space).

In lieu of the Pulse’s charging dock, the Echo now has a micro-USB connector at the top of the pen. This lets you both charge and sync your notes and recordings with your computer using the included cord. There’s also the ability to name and password protect your pen.

But the real allure of the Echo remains the way the software and hardware work together to make your life easier. Yes, there’s something immensely satisfying in seeing your deranged scrawlings rasterize onscreen. And for college students and journalists in particular, the Pencast option is quite simply a Godsend. Simply hit the record icon on the included paper and start taking notes as you usually would. Once you’ve finished the lecture/meeting/interview, you can not only replay the entire recording, but also instantly move from one section to another by simply tapping on a specific note. The pen will automatically play back the audio from that precise moment. This has the obvious benefit of helping you navigate long, meandering lectures, but it also frees you up to write random or tangential thoughts without the fear of missing important information.

Once your notes have been transferred to the Livescribe desktop software, you can choose to export them as PDFs, audio, or as a .pencast file, a hybrid format that combines both audio and video. Livescribe says that iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone apps are in the works that will allow for Pencast playback, too.

As with the Pulse, plan on recharging your Echo daily. For us, battery life varied significantly depending on the quality (low, medium and high) of the audio recordings we chose. On average, we coaxed about 7 hours of low-quality MP3 audio on a full charge. Not spectacular, but not horrible either.

Our other quibble had to do with the pen itself. While there’s undoubtedly a lot of tech stuffed into it, the pen remains bigger than your English professor’s ego. Spending an afternoon scribbling notes is not a cramp-free experience, at least for us. Furthermore, listening to the recordings you’ve made on the Echo can be, well, echoy. While there are three pre-settings (room, hall and automatic), open spaces with a lot of ambient noise can make recordings particularly hard to decipher regardless of the setting you choose.

Also unfortunate is the fact that budding artists or graphic designers won’t find the Echo of much use. While the smartpen works fine for rudimentary drawings, illustrations and note taking, anything more detailed fails to translate when transferring to the PC.

Still, as a go between for the analog and digital world of note taking, there’s simply no beating the convenience and ease of the Echo. Just don’t lose it.

WIRED Ideal for students and journalists who want the best of both note-taking worlds. New 3.5mm headphone jack is now compatible with most headphones. Tons of dot paper options that are relatively cheap. Echo comes with a 50-page notebook. Learn foreign languages, perform rudimentary math, play hangman with a growing portfolio of Livescribe apps.

TIRED Pen is still bulky and awkward. Plan on sitting in the front class if you want clear audio records. Wireless uploading would be nice. Still no built-in handwriting-to-text conversion.

Product: Epic 4G

Manufacturer: Samsung

Wired Rating: 8

Got big pockets? And we mean that in both the physical size and money-carrying capacity sense of the word.

At $250, it ain’t cheap — and you’ll pay extra each month for anything beyond basic service. But more to the point, Samsung’s new Epic 4G is a big phone: nearly 5 inches tall and over 2½ inches wide and ½ an inch thick. Its 5.4 ounce heft is light considering the overall size of the handset, but there’s no getting around its girth: The Epic 4G makes itself known in your pocket, assuming you can wedge it in there at all.

And maybe that’s because this Android phone (version 2.1) has so much to cram into it. Giant, gorgeous 4-inch WVGA-resolution Super AMOLED screen (800 x 480 pixels), 5-megapixel camera with flash. Big-ass slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Sprint Hotspot, which lets you use the Epic as a Wi-Fi access point for up to five other devices ($30 extra per month, by the by). Front-facing camera with video chat support (Qik is required on both ends). And, of course, 4G WiMax data networking (where it’s supported), courtesy of carrier Sprint.

Once you swallow its size, there’s very little to complain about with the Epic. The screen looks great with games, media, or even just browsing the menus. Audio, both with calls and media playback, is loud and crisp. Photos look good. Webpages load quickly and cleanly. And managing extra services like the porta-hotspot system couldn’t be easier (though the speeds we got on our connected PC were sub-megabit downloads).

On the downside: The Epic turned in just 4½ hours talk time, which is pretty sad for a phone with such vast amounts of room for a battery. And we weren’t big fans of the slide-out keyboard, which features keys that don’t stick up enough and are hard to hit with anything except a fingernail. At the same time, on-screen typing was jarring thanks to the overly-active rumbler beneath the display.

Those are relatively minor complaints, though. If big’s your bag, this is one of the best Sprint smartphones you can get.

WIRED Glorious display — extremely bright and crisp. Feature-laden; literally lacking nothing that a state-of-the-art handset ought to have.

TIRED Battery life is substandard. Keyboard is too flat for easy typing.

Product: Daily Arsenal Kit

Manufacturer: Doane

Wired Rating: 8

You are not Ernest Hemingway.

Unfortunately, your undying devotion to Moleskine notebooks will not change that fact. Our advice? Ditch the aspirational pieces of writing bling and cozy up to something more practical.

If you truly want to indulge in a bit of paper-and-pen Luddism, nothing beats the elegant simplicity of Doane Paper’s Daily Arsenal Kit.

Instead of harping about his product’s (questionable) creative lineage, Chad Doane simply makes high-quality notebooks. And it shows.

The line-up comes in a variety of shapes and sizes, but it’s the stationary that’s the real star. To wit: the clever grid + lined paper layout, which combines bold blue horizontal lines embedded with smaller (.125-inch) grid formations. Think of it as a mashup of your standard college-ruled vellum with some graphing paper.

The resulting parchment is suitable for everyone from the math ninjas to artists and designers to the average college freshman. Not only is the grid system fantastic for impromptu doodles, but it also works for intricate outlines and even simple lists. Doane even lets you print out sample pages before you buy.

Included in the company’s 21-piece uber kit are three large, legal-sized writing pads, three smaller pads, plus a trio of small “flap jotters” for random quick notes or weekly scheduling. Our favorite piece of scribble candy, however, is the 8 x 11-inch idea journal, which comes sandwiched between durable, 80-point chipboard stock and is bound with a double 0-ring wire binding. Throw in three of the best writing utensils in existence — the water-resistant, smudge-proof Sharpie Fine Point pens — and you have yourself a deal that even Hemingway and Chatwin couldn’t turn down.

WIRED Grid + lines = awesome. A semester’s worth of notebooks in one shot. Buying the Arsenal saves you 20 percent over selecting each item individually.

TIRED Writing pads are lined on one side only. Could use more variety both in writing tools and line spacing. Paper thickness varies across notebooks. Bleed through becomes a problem on some of the smaller notebooks.

Product: Novara Fusion Bicycle

Manufacturer: REI

Wired Rating: 7

Unless you’re majoring in spandex and minoring in too-cool-for-school at Steephill State, you may not need a road, fixed-gear or a mountain bike.

Consider REI’s Novara Fusion commuter. Sure this hybrid 8-speed won’t get you anywhere in a mega-hurry, but you’ll likely enjoy getting there. The aluminum frame, mustache-style handlebar and soft Velo saddle provide the mellow stability of a cruiser. But we found the thinner Vittoria tires and Shimano shifters and internal hub to give the ride a decidedly peppier vibe. The whole package weighs in at 34 pounds and we found ourselves huffing and puffing carrying the thing upstairs. But with that heft comes luxury and convenience: The front and rear alloy fenders minimized puddle splashback. And that kickstand? It actually works really well. Plus, we were able to load up that rear rack with tons of “books” (OK, beer). The biggest advantages of the Fusion versus, say, the sportier, infinitely more customizable Swobo Crosby are the drop-top tube and pedal-powered LED headlight.

You can literally hop on this sucker in a hurry and take it for night rides without worrying about changing or charging the batteries. We recommend using the extra brain cycles to figure out what to do with all the PhD candidates who throw themselves at you for having such a smart ride.

WIRED Below-the-bar and tigger shifters are right at your fingertips, and both on the right side (frees up the left hand for coffee or BEER). Headlight’s pretty darn bright. Kalloy Cozy Comfort handlebar is as it sounds: comfy. Anti-smear campaign: Chain guard protects pants. This is the Ziggy Stardust of 8-speeds: Drop-tube frame isn’t explicitly masculine or feminine. Bell integrated into the handlebar isn’t obtrusive or visually-arresting.

TIRED Roller disc brakes are finicky, difficult to adjust. $950?! Taillight isn’t pedal-powered. Surprisingly, the alloy fenders scratch and dent somewhat easily — out of the box, the front fender arrived more smashed than Peter O’Toole. At a wake, at a bar, with free drinks!

Looks like Commodore USA is just full of news this past week. It was just a few days ago that they announced the return of an updated Commodore 64 and now they are talking about the return of their 90′s mainstay; the Amiga. Looks like they will follow the same road as the new PC64 with cramming everything into the keyboard much like the old Amiga 1200, but according to the press release they are being mum on the hardware details.

Commodore USA has now taken a major role in not just supporting the future Amiga market with our many new products, but also in providing a new beginning for the enormous existing Amiga community. Our relationship with them, along with our support for the elegant, robust and lightweight AROS desktop operating system, will ensure that they and future customers will benefit from our new and exciting vision, and enable the legacy Commodore and Amiga culture to flourish. We look forward to bringing these new products to market, and welcoming a whole new generation of computer users to the Commodore and Amiga experience”

Read: Commodore USA Announce Plans To Relaunch Amiga Brand PC’s [Classic Computer Brands Making A Return, First The AIO Commodore PC64 & Now An Amiga Branded AIO Keyboard Computer] » TFTS – Technology, Gadgets & Curiosities

As a former Amiga user who still to this day runs his Amiga BBS on an old 1200 I’m super excited about the news, but I hope they use something like OS 4 with it and not a Windows based system. We will keep a close eye on this and let you know if any other details surface.

New Amiga On The Way originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/09/03.

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Although this is still a concept, this holy power bar might just work when you need a prayer to keep your gadgets from being fried by power surges. With a full 12 outlets, this will be perfect for oversized power bricks and adapters, it’s the catholic way!

If these actually make it to production, I’m sure the various archdiocese’s across the world will be lining up to buy them. You know that every church will want one to power their circa 1970′s PA system. It’s the holy way to power your sermon.

I’m going to stop making all sorts of jokes about this or I very well might be the way who gets hit by lightening.

Holy Surge originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/09/03.

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Now that mobiles phones have advanced to the point that they are great gaming machines why not have a proper game controller to enjoy them? That’s an itch that hacked Sk3tch just had to scratch. By hacking together an original NES controller, an Arduino and a blueSMRF Bluetooth module he was able to use the controller via bluetooth and even demo’s the hack by playing Super Mario Brothers 3 in an emulator in the video after the break.

He says that the mod it Alpha at best, but from the video it looks great to me. All he needs to do now if slap everything together in a nice case or better yet, find a way to put all of the components in the NES controller itself.

NES Controller With Android originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/09/03.

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When it comes to seed investing, New York City is becoming a hotbed. And now TechStars, the incubator that began in Boulder. Colorado and has spawned nearly 40 startups, is coming to New York. This will be the fourth (and supposedly last) city TechStars expands to, according to CEO David Cohen (the other two are Boston and Seattle).

TechStars is accepting applications for the New York City Class of 2011, which will start in January. TechStars provides a little bit of cash ($6,000 per founder for a three-month program) and a lot of mentorship. The list of New York City mentors includes Foursquare founders Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai, Tumblr founder David Karp, VC Fred Wilson, Hunch founder and seed investor Chris Dixon, angel investor Roger Ehrenberg, StockTwits CEO Howard Lindzon, Boxee CEO Avner Ronen, BuzzFeed president Jon Steinberg, and Hot Potato founder Justin Shaffer. Jeff Clavier and Dave McClure snuck in there as well, even though they live in California.

TechStars takes a 6 percent equity stake in each startup in common stock (no board seats), and has a decent track record. Cohen and David Tisch will be running the program. They are looking for about ten startups for the initial New York City class.

When Salesforce.com bought crowdsourced business contact database Jigsaw for $142 million earlier this year, the CRM giant said that it would combine its suite of applications with Jigsaw’s model for the automation of acquiring and keeping up-to-date business contact data. Today, Salesforce is unveiling Jigsaw’s deep integration into the company’s platform, Jigsaw for Salesforce CRM.

Jigsaw will now deliver real-time updates to contact and company information within Salesforce CRM through communication platform Salesforce Chatter. Jigsaw, which uses a Wikipedia-style crowd-sourcing model to bring in data around business contacts, has been incorporated into CRM applications to provide on-demand data, and analytics on the health of data and on usage.

Card.ly, a Web service that allows anyone to create sweet-looking online business cards (see my personal site robinwauters.com for an example) has been acquired by Workface, the company behind digital business card creation tool BusinessCard2. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

In fact, I didn’t even manage to hear about the acquisition, let alone get the purchase price, from Card.ly parent company Harkness Labs founder Daniel Blake, who to date I had considered to be a friend of mine.

All kidding aside, Workface acquired Card.ly primarily for its user base, as it aims to introduce its virtual business card creation technology to more potential users. Blake says Card.ly has attracted tens of thousands of active users, but declined to share more detailed numbers.

Blake sold off Card.ly to Workface because he’s focused on his most recent venture, video chat and collaboration app Tinychat, which has seriously taken off this year.

Until further notice, Card.ly will remain unaffected, although Workface does say it plans to integrate the service into BusinessCard2, which has been around since 2007, in the months to come. As long as they don’t kill my website, fair enough.

Electronic payment solutions provider VeriFone Systems this morning announced it has acquired the assets of WAY Systems, a provider of mobile POS solutions and gateway services for mobile merchants.

The purchase price consisted of an upfront payment of $6 million and an earn-out payable in one year of up to an additional $3 million dollars should certain performance targets be met.

VeriFone says the acquisition will not have a material impact on its financial results.