UV Cellphone Sanitizer

Posted on March 7, 2020 by Gadgets

Our smart phones are filthy. Wiping off the screen improves the view. UV light is a good option to get rid of bacteria and viruses. Using chemicals or soaps on a smart phone can damage the phone.

The Soeland UV cellphone sanitizer is one option of a product designed to rid our devices of bacteria and viruses.

The UV radiation from the Soeland UV cellphone sanitizer is about 2000 μW / cm2, which can effectively fungi, viruses and so on. Under ultraviolet light, oxygen in the air decomposes, producing a small amount of ozone. Ozone is a strong oxidant and also effectively remove various pathogens.

If you want to fit larger tablets, remotes, keys (or different items altogether – baby bottles etc.) the Baby UV Sterilizer is another option.

Update: Apple posted an update on cleaning your iPhone that says it is ok to clean your iPhone

Using a 70 percent isopropyl alcohol wipe or Clorox Disinfecting Wipes, you may gently wipe the hard, nonporous surfaces of your Apple product, such as the display, keyboard, or other exterior surfaces. Don’t use bleach. Avoid getting moisture in any opening, and don’t submerge your Apple product in any cleaning agents. Don’t use on fabric or leather surfaces.

They specifically are saying isopropyl alcohol wipes are ok; they are not saying that spraying anything onto your phone to clean it is ok.

The World’s Smallest Mobile Color Printer

Posted on November 4, 2019 by gadgets

PrinCube is a tiny handheld, portable printer: it fits in the palm of your hand. It works over wifi with your phone to easily upload any text, image, or design and instantly print onto virtually any object or surface at the touch of a button.

It makes precise prints on virtually any materials including paper, metal, textiles, plastics, wood, leather and other building and artistic materials.

The Indiegogo project for it is at 27485% of the goal with 7 days to go. So hopefully this gadget will see the light of day.

Telephone Zoom Lens for Smart Phones

Posted on November 24, 2018 by Gadgets

This new 58mm lens for iPhone, pixel, and Samsung galaxy camera phones provide 4x optical zoom from moment. Camera phones have become very good for what they do. The biggest problem I see is the lack of decent zoom options. Even this 4x optical zoom is limited but it provides a decent tradeoff of a quality zoom lens in a small package. You just don’t get the great zoom capabilities of full cameras like the 65x optical zoom I have on my Canon PowerShot SX60 HS Digital Camera.

You need the proper phone case to mount the lens to your phone (like this case for an iPhone X.

Karma Hotspot – $50/m Unlimited Data @5 Mps in the USA

Posted on November 5, 2015 by Gadgets

This seems like a very nice option for people with bandwidth needs that don’t fit in the tiny caps most cell phone providers put on plans. For $50/month you get unlimited data @5 Mps in the USA. You can get small increases to the speed by buying data in bite sized chunks (1Gb for $14 or $99 for 10GB, which doesn’t expire).

The bite sized chunks mainly make sense if you don’t have high data needs for the hotspot – but want it occasionally (and perhaps as backup for your primary connection). The $50/month offer is limited to 3 devices connecting at a time, compared to 8 for the other option.

The device itself costs $149. The device has up to 8 hours of battery life and over 220 hours of standby time.

Currently the devices use Sprint’s Nationwide 4G LTE network, with fallback to 3G CDMA. It seems like a nice option for travelers to me.

Portable Mini-Projector: P700 Pico DLP Projector from Aaxa

Posted on October 8, 2015 by Gadgets

The P700 Pico DLP Projector from Aaxa provides high quality projection from a tiny box.

The mini-projector is just 6.9″ wide by 3.9″ deep by 1.6″ tall while weighing under 2 pounds and it provides 650 Lumens with 70+ Minute Li-Ion Battery Life, 15000 Hour LED, 1280×800 (WXGA) HD Resolution, 2000:1 Contrast Ratio, HDMI, mini-VGA, Composite A/V, USB, microSD, 2x 1W Speakers, DLP Technology and a 1 Year Warranty.

The main market is likely to provide a very portable way to give quick presentations.

I wonder if it will be of interest to digital nomads. They could use this to project video onto a wall instead of watching it on their laptop. I might consider something like this when I go back on the road. If anyone has used a device like this that way, please share your thoughts below.

Multiple Screens for Your Laptop

Posted on August 2, 2015 by Gadgets

The Slidenjoy laptop screens seem like a cool idea for mobile laptop users.

The main thing I miss on my laptop versus my desktop is screen real estate (I had 3 large screen for my desktop but just one 15″ MacbookPro screen.

The device attaches to your laptop and with 1 or 2 extra screens that can be displayed in various useful formats (extra screen while you work and also sharing screen views while presenting or working with others.

One USB connection is all it requires. Single Slidenjoy screens start at just €199 and duel additional screens start at €299.

Apple Watch

Posted on May 17, 2015 by Gadgets

The Apple Watch is likely the most popular gadget of the year. People are still figuring out what benefits excite them about the watch. It seems to me the potential is huge but this initial effort is not quite amazing.

[Apple broke the link, so it is no longer available 🙁 jeez even companies with spending hundreds of millions on marketing don’t have people in charge that understand that web links must live.]

I embedded Apple’s promotional video for the watch which is obviously a sales piece but they do a very good job of showing what the watch offers.

There are many good reviews of the watch: The Apple Watch (Daring Fireball) – Apple Watch Review: The Smartwatch Finally Makes Sense (WSJ) – A Week on the Wrist: The Apple Watch Review (Recode) – Apple Watch Review (Verge

My opinion is it is very expensive for what you get. But I can see the potential for some very wonderful things down the road. The health kit options I think will be a killer feature (maybe not right away but within a couple years).

Another feature that will be quite valuable are paying with a swipe from the watch (which seems to be less than perfect so far), but it will be very nice. Apple Pay is a very smart system given the relative ease at which consumers credit card details continue be stolen using conventional means (Apple Pay doesn’t turn over you credit card number so hackers can’t get it from poor IT systems at retailers).

The quick interactions with friends I think will be a big feature, again it may take several interactions to get this to be wonderful. The “tap” notifications seems to physically be done very well. Figuring out the right settings to properly filter what should generate that touch seems to take a bit of work (and not surprisingly apps are defaulting to too much bothering the user).

Being able to just speak to leave yourself notes is a nice feature, though my guess is one that isn’t used as much as people would think it would be.

Personally I see more potential for the watch that I see actually delivered thus far. I am more positive about the long term success of the watch today than I was when it was first announced.

I stopped wearing a watch years ago. And I don’t have any plans to start again anytime soon. But if I do, the Apple Watch is a likely candidate. It sure isn’t cheap but hopefully I can just use a bit of profit from Apple stock when the time comes to pay for one.

Canon PowerShot SX60 HS Digital Camera

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Gadgets

I am fairly cheap. I bought a Canon Powershot SX-60 HS camera today (with 64 Gb card, backup battery and comfortable strap) for $550. I think that is the 2nd most expensive thing I bought this year (an iPad mini I think was more expensive). In the last 5 years the only other thing I can remember buying that was more expensive was a MacBook Pro.

I am very happy to have a new camera. I started looking more than 6 month ago, at that time the updated version of the Powershot was already 6 month overdue (with no explanation from Canon) so I decided to wait. I am glad I did (though I was annoyed not to have a new camera for my trip to Hong Kong, Guilin, Yunnan and Shanghai earlier this year.

The old camera was ok, if you don’t consider how much better things have progressed in the last 5-10 years. But that is a big thing to ignore. I think the Canon SX line is the most awesome camera for people that want something better than a smart phone (by far the biggest issue for me is zoom though it is also better for various things such as low light, taking lots of photos and video without running out of room on your camera…).

The photo shows the LCD screen extended which is actually a nice feature at times (normally I just fold it into the back of the camera).

The Powershot SX 60 has an amazing 65x optical zoom (21mm–1365mm). This is just amazing. Much more expensive cameras can’t come close to competing with this. The Canon SX 60 is DSLR-like but not a DSLR. It looks like one but isn’t. It really straddles the area between DSLR and non-DSLR in my opinion.

You can watch at Curious Cat Travel Photos and see if you notice a big leap in the quality of the photos now that I have a new camera.

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Polaroid Cube Camera

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Gadgets

Introducing the Polaroid Cube lifestyle action camera—water resistant, shockproof, mountable (1080p HD video, 3MP CMOS sensor and 124° wide angle lens).

The Mobius Action camera is another option (that doesn’t look quite as cool, but has good video quality in a small package at a cheap price – $90).

Add 128Gb of Storage to Your MacBook Air or MacBook Pro

Posted on May 23, 2014 by gadgets

Very cool device that fits inside the card reader slot of your Mac laptop to add 128 Gb of storage (it sits flush with your MacBook, you can barely even tell it is there).

Simply insert JetDrive Lite into the card reader slot on the side of your MacBook and instantly boost your storage capacity.

You need to select your laptop version so my guess is you can’t use one card for both a MacBook Air and a MacBook Pro (or between some versions of MacBook Pro that have different JetDrive Lite versions).

It is compatible back to late 2010 MacBook Air 13 inch so I am buying one for my old MacBook Air. Buying via Amazon a 128 Gb version is only $80 (at least right now), list price is $120. Currently it is back-ordered for 2-4 weeks.

I would include a way to lookup the production date of your laptop if I were selling these but they didn’t do so (maybe they will be smart and update the page to do so). You can use this Apple page to determine the production date of your MacBook.

Another similar product, PNY StorEDGE 128 Gb is $75 from Amazon ($200 list price – it is a bit older so likely price to places like Amazon has dropped, even if they didn’t lower the list price, since the release).

Curious Cat Gadgets

Tag Archives: portable device