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Do devices control your life or not? Are you sure?
No doubt you have heard the rumour that has recently been making the rounds on social media and other outlets. I know I have come across several instances that certainly re-enforce the message being delivered by this rumour mill. However just in case you are one of the few who have managed to isolate themselves from such trivia. I should explain that there is a belief that the digital world was developed to help us in different aspects of our lives.
This is more than just an enclosure with Bluetooth speakers. The Teufel One M is a Bluetooth speaker that can be linked to any device to output its sounds but it is also – via the Teufel App – able to do much more including play Internet radio.
Dipping into a bag of goodies, I came across a product from Leap Frog.
It is a simple question – just what is the condition of your fridge? I should make clear that I am referring to the outside of the fridge rather than its actual contents stored within. Probably, like many including myself, the door of your fridge will be decorated with an assortment of magnetic knick-knacks that you have collected, or been presented with for various reasons, over the passage of time.
So many of these latest crop of bulbs have screw fittings and even if you have a suitable fitment they tend to be too fat to screw in, so when I was offered a pair of Bayonet fitting units that can be used either with a SmartPhone App or a remote control I said yes please.
The bulbs themselves are about the same size as a 60watt filament bulb but do weight around three times as much. If you fit one in they will turn on normally with a white light but the magic happens when you use the supplied remote control or even better with the SmartPhone App as you then have any shade of white or any colour you want you can even set them to strobe - ideal for a party.
Are you ready to enter a ghostly hotel to rescue your partner who has been ghostnapped?
Hidden Fears is a Hidden Object Adventure game developed by Rosen Studio. The game is based on a story of a young couple who initially embark on a honeymoon only to find that their chosen destination was not as they would have expected and, in fact, leads to a hellish ordeal that they must survive in order to prove their love for each other. But we are getting ahead of ourselves a little and need to backtrack a few steps or so.
Regular readers will know music – jazz – is my passion and photography is my hobby. My photographs are unlikely to win awards as I tend to want realism. I once took a photo of a friend with a camera I was reviewing and sent him the result, his reply ‘you can see every crease and wrinkle I look about 200’ luckily it was not a lady friend or she would no longer be a friend.
However when you spend a long time trying to get the perfect shot and something just spoils it I can see why you would want to remove the ‘spoil’ factor. In today’s bloatware world a program that is less than 400MB to download is pure joy, and if you already have something like Photoshop it can even become a ‘plug in’ to that package.
Testing a product can sometimes be painful for others as happened when I added my voice to this product.
Despite the number of televised talent shows being currently aired, not everybody gets the opportunity to perform. Fortunately Worlds Apart has developed a solution to ease any disappointment that might occur.
For those who have an interest in photography then a specialised ‘RGB’ unit such as this offering from BenQ could well solve the problem of getting the colour correct, this unit guarantees 99% correct Adobe RGB colour space.
While this unit can operate as a standard panel for all the normal home and office tasks the extra top and side shields when fitted give that exact colour that the photographer craves. Having recently unhooked a 4K offering it’s nice to be let down slightly more gently with a QHD 2560x1440 offering as a stop before returning to my own HD offering 1920x1080. It is 64x37x2cm without the shield in place.
Sometimes it can be possible to miss a clue when conducting the installation of a new product. I will be generous and state that this could have happened when I installed the latest versions of MAGIX’s Photostory software.
Having looked in the past at a couple of other offerings from Sphero I was keen to add this smallest offering from Sphero to the list. It is a small round object that is controlled by an App that you can even learn to code to make it go through routines.
The Sphero Mini is a 4cm ball that has no connections at all it is simply a round ball. It is weighted on the inside and without power if it is moved around it will always roll to that one spot. There are three simple instructions on the inside cover of its small box. The two parts of the ball twist apart to enable you to charge it and that process will let you link it to a mobile App and then it is no longer simply a round ball.
The 276E9QJAB/00 is one of a series of three 27 inch 1920 x 1080 full HD computer monitors employing what Philips describes as Ultra-Wide Color technology aimed at the home & office markets.
When I first came across the Spellarium 2 title for a possible review, I thought it was a game based on words and correct spelling. But, not for the first time, I was wrong
While this can be used as a notebook the keyboard is not fixed and the screen would need propping so this Latitude device is really a Tablet with a keyboard attached so probably best described as a Tablet/Notebook to be accurate.
The Dell Latitude 5285 measures 29x21.5x1.3cm and it weighs 1251grams. It has an 82 keyboard with the alpha keys being full size. There is a hinge behind the keyboard that can have the screen upright and no space between the function keys and the screen or the other way and over 1cm gap between the two. Around 1.3cm is the gap between the edges and almost 8cm clear in front of the keyboard with the 10x5.5cm trackpad mounted 8.5cm from the left and 10.5cm from the right side.
Offering a wide range of viewing features is a monitor from BenQ aimed at designers.
Delivering more than one billion colours, the BenQ PD2700Q product is a 27-inch monitor for use on either a Windows or Mac computer. This monitor is aimed specifically at the creative and designer fraternity as they take advantage of the product’s range of viewing angles and display modes. My review is based on using the monitor running a Windows 7 computer.
The latest in a range of small pocket recorders not just for voice but also with the quality to handle music with the special crossed microphones that Olympus brought in a few years ago. It comes able to use either Ni-Cad or Alkaline battery.
The Olympus LS-P4 Audio Recorder measures 11x3.7x1.4cm and weighs 72 grams. The face has a 2.7x2.2cm black on grey display. Below this three bar buttons and then two round buttons Stop and Record. Next is the ubiquitous five position joystick control and finally near the bottom of the front two further well marked buttons. The reason I have only mentioned Record and Stop by name is simply they are all you need to know about to make recordings. The right side has two 3.
A few years when I wrote a Shareware column, graphics editor products were a popular subject. This next title is a late addition to this genre.
I suppose the event I am about to relate could well qualify as an example of Sod’s Law. When examining four different titles from the same company I was not expecting the fourth offering to prove the most stressful when it came to the task of installing it. But that is what happened with Smart Photo Editor from Anthropics Technology. To clear up one point from the start, all four titles were installed and checked out on the same computer.
I asked to look at this - solely on price - as most camera carrying Drones are not cheap – I am thinking three figures – but this offering is less than £20. In fact only just over a year ago similar items were well into the middle hundreds.
I looked at one very small drone last year that was suitable for children, yes suitable for children as it had blades that were fully protected and was very easy to hover. This unit is larger and will either need parental supervision or children of an older age as it needs to have more ability to fly it – yes even I could fly it – and the blades although plastic could do damage. It is circular and a maximum of 32cm across and up to 5cm tall with its camera attached.
Entering somebody else’s dreams can be a nightmare as your character discovers in this next game.
Classified as a Hidden Object game, Dream Walker takes you into an environment where you need to battle the evil Sandman. Shaman, the developers of this game, has adopted a similar approach to that which formed the Catch the Witch title reviewed earlier on this site. The storyline may be different but the greater part of the game revolves around Hidden Object scenes, jigsaw puzzles and reforming pictures cut into strips as you travel through various levels.
Do you suffer from poor Wi-Fi coverage then Zyxel may have a solution for you. This Tri-Band Router allows you to increase the area covered over that offered by the majority of other similar devices simply by not sticking to one waveband.
Unlike most this is an easy setup and everything required – even a good length Ethernet lead is supplied, just plug the Multy X into your modem insert the power supply and download the App – yes App – and then once the App is linked to the Multy X you get a white light on the Multy X and you just plug in whatever you want to and it works. It is even possible to get Amazon Alexa to control Internet time for children using Multy X.
Manufacturers tend to use the word “Lite” as a means of launching a second version of a product that has reduced features. But what does this mean in the case of the Honor 9 Lite.
Launched approximately six months after the well-received Huawei Honor 9, the Lite version of the product shares some of the Honor 9 feature set. However there are some differences including those of chipset used, size increase and weight reduction plus a reduction in the price along with different cosmetic colour schemes.
Braven do a range of speakers that do not object to getting wet, in fact they can even be waterproof. However the most important feature should not be that but the sound quality and here it is rather good from such a small enclosure.
This wireless speaker from Braven measures 18x9x8cm and gives a sound that makes you think you are listening to a CD through good speakers rather than MP3 being streamed from a SmartPhone, and this was with the default settings out of the box. It weighs 810grams. The Ready Pro is number two – smallest to largest - in a range of four outdoor speakers from Braven. It has a 2600mAh battery which lasts for around 14 hours at a good volume level enough to fill the average room with sound.
Body sculpture is the designated aim of the next product from Anthropics Technology as your digital images try to match your wishful aspirations with regards to appearance.
Watching an expect demonstrator can persuade a lot of people to buy things. I saw one sharpening with this product all kinds of knifes with edges - even serrated examples – then for effect - I am sure - an old axe was produced and this too was sharpened and then a soft tomato was sliced up thinly with it, everyone was suitable hooked.
What I have yet to do is carry out some of the other things he demonstrated on other garden tools perhaps the most strange a builders cement trowel that he also then proceeded to cut a ripe tomato into wafer thin slices. Why a ripe tomato well try it yourself I suggest you do not wear anything like a decent shirt or dress as tomato stains are not easy to remove.
The Filofax EniTAB360 Tablet Holder is a folding prop stand that has been designed to be attached to the rear surface of a tablet larger than 8.5 inches to enable it to be set at a convenient reading angle.
The components of the stand are moulded from an attractively coloured grey plastic material. The prop’s leg, which is 80 x 170mm in size, has a soft plastic non-skid piece incorporated into its lower edge in order to prevent it sliding around the desk. It is linked to the other, slightly smaller, portion of the stand by a friction hinge.
Visit a strange world in the Clouds as you try to rescue a kidnapped brother.
The Artifex Mundi title, Eventide 3: Legacy of Legends belongs to the popular Hidden Object Adventure genre. This title takes the intrepid gamer above the clouds to a world inhabited by mysterious creatures gathered from Slavic myths as you set about reviewing the ancient covenant between humans and the Clouders. As usual with such games, you can create profiles for individual players and adjust the game’s environment.
Most people think of Acer for their comprehensive Aspire range which varies hugely from entry level to really powerful business machines, they also have the Predator range of gaming systems and as I recently found another range call Nitro, here I am looking at the Nitro 5.
The Acer Nitro 5measures is 39x26x2.5cm and weights 2.454kilos. This is of course a powerful machine likely to be used by gamers. This means that battery life may not be that great, the best I got streaming video was around four hours. I see the figure quoted is ‘up to 8.5 hours’. So going around the outside has a Kensington Lock port, an Ethernet port, USB ‘C’, HDMI, USB3 and SD Card socket. The front is clear apart from the speakers that are under the cut away corners.
Whenever the subject matter of Anthropics Technology arises, my thoughts immediately turn to graphics software for editing specific types of digital images. In this case the designated target is that of landscapes.
This is a large panel with high resolution that should – for most – be just plug and play, it certainly was for me, my Desktop system normally has a 21inch panel running at 1920x1080, this unit was plugged in and the HDMI lead connected and I was looking at a screen showing 4k resolution that’s 3840x2160 and while icons were smaller all I had done was plugged in and switched on.
Yes it was a Windows 10 system completely up to date and the Auto display was at 150% but everything worked correctly. For some reason some of my desktop items moved to unusual places on the screen but once put back and ‘refreshed’ they stayed in position, a couple of older programs – note programs not Apps – failed to scale up but nothing that made them unusable. It is 74x44x2.5cm; the viewable screen is 70x39.
A mouse is a mousse is a mouse but then not all mice are the same. In this case the mouse belongs to the Handshake family developed by Bakker Elkhuizen.
Based in the Netherlands, Bakker Elkhuizen is a company that specialises in the development of high-end and ergonomic hard and software solutions designed to help users adopt a more positive proper working condition for their general environment. As a result the Handshake Mouse has been designed to help compensate for issues such as unnatural posture practices which can bring about the development of wrist and lower arm problems that can occur through Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI).
Having recently told you about CUE also a fun coding solution for older children here I regress slightly to tell you about an offering for children from six years upwards. This one is called DOT, again a Robot for the child to control.
Remembering how easy CUE was to extract from the box left me somewhat frustrated that the same system was not used here and sadly although I took time to remove DOT without ripping the cardboard apart I doubt I will ever get it back in place. DOT is 11cm across, 7.5cm from back to front and 9cm tall, it is a basic ball shape with extensions either side and on the base.
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