Headworx

It is summer vacations time again and I am taking a short break from the sunbath at the pool overlooking endless orchards of lemon trees at the foot of the majestic Etna volcano. This trip to Sicily, which I enjoy a lot, has brought usual thoughts on the state of the gadgets I pack with me. Surprisingly, my carry on rucksack has been significantly smaller and lighter this year. A clear sign things are going the right direction for gadget maniacs. I no longer have to tug a set of trolleys filled with electronics. Speaking of the rucksack, I am very pleased with the Kata 123-GO-30. Kata is a brand that does not need explanation for photographers. They have probably the best equipment to carry the DSLR stuff. The 123-GO series bags are very light. I picked the 30, as it can accommodate my Nokia 3G booklet, along with the photo stuff ( FujiFilm FinePix S5 Pro , four lenses, a flashlight, and some accessories). The significant reduction of travel weight comes from well optimized set of pow...

I have been contemplating getting myself a Mac Mini. The trigger to the thinking in this direction has been my recent adventure with the Nokia Booklet 3G . The Nokia is a great portable machine. Very good balance between screen capacity (resolution/size) and overall bulk of the machine, with phenomenal battery life. And after the 256GB SSD upgrade it really holds everything I have. Unfortunately both the screen and keyboard are too small to be used on a regular basis in the office (or in the home office in my case). The good solution has been pretty straightforward - I purchased an external monitor. The Nokia has HDMI output and can deliver FullHD resolution (1920x1080), so a matching monitor seemed a good idea. The beauty of the HDMI port is it carries sound too, so essentially docking my Nokia Booklet is a matter of plugging two simple cables - HDMI and USB. HDMI for sound and display. USB to connect to various desktop devices - the Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner (btw the ScanSnap is the...

Yes, Apple will make TV sets. Not just an add-on set-top-box, but an entire TV. They will be persuading the market, people no longer need traditional TVs, surrounded with multiple boxes, and entangled in the single biggest mess of cables yo have in house. And a number of remotes, one to change volume, another one to switch channels and yet another one to play a movie from a disc. Even if we do not look too often at the interconnectivity mess behind the TV sets, we hate to operate them. Magnitude of inputs, hundreds of buttons on remote controllers (you know, every single function has to have a button in the TV world...). And it used to be so simple 50 years ago. Google, together with major partners like Sony, Logitech and DISH, announced the Google TV initiative. A clear sign, after personal computers, game consoles, mobile superphones, the next battle ground is the living room. This has to be true. When yo look at your TV now, it is the most disconnected device you have. While there w...

Rumors of a BlackBerry tablet have been circling the Internet for a couple of weeks. Most prophets predict the bPad will be a companion device, connecting via Bluetooth to a BlackBerry smartphone and using it as a connectivity gateway. This kind of reminds me the old faithful HP Jornada 560 PDA I used to pair over Bluetooth with an Ericsson T39 (one of the first Bluetooth/GPRS phones) to access the Internet. Those were the days! While a lot has changed since then, I still miss the concept of having just one mobile data contract and sharing the connection among many devices. It was Bluetooth then, and it is more WiFi now, with personal hotspots starting too pop up. New smartphones offer the mobile gateway option too - be it Windows Mobile 6.5 or Android. Only Apple does not allow tethering the iPad to the iPhone. But well, we have already learned Apple has it's own vision of the universe. In the meantime let's see what they are up to tomorrow at WWDC. So coming back to the bPad...

QuickLogic has been mentioned here a number of times. It was brought to me by Paul McWilliams, the editor of Next Inning , a technology investment newsletter. QuickLogic is a very smart company, and I like it a lot. With smart chips, referred to as CSSP's (Customer Specific Standard Products), QuickLogic helps to speed time to market delivery of new gadgets. It essentially fills the feature gaps, which are left open by long design times of the integrated circuits: processors and SoC's (Systems on Chip). Yesterday, by courtesy of Brian Coleman, the brain behind the Domino Analytics , I got a confirmation that QuickLogic won a slot in the latest Nokia CS-18 HSPA USB modem , called the Nokia Internet Stick. The CS-18 is built around the Icera soft modem processor and is able to deliver HSPA speeds of up to 21Mbps downstream / 5.76Mbps upstream. Today's feature trend with USB wireless modems is they offer flash memory storage along with their primary function - wireless conn...