cooltech

This is the third article I have written on this topic recently and it seems like everyone is jumping on the robot bandwagon.  Robots, which have been popular in Japan for years, are making a major leap over the Pacific and landing on store shelves across America. Indeed, everyone from Disney to Sony to Hasbro is piling on to capture an emerging market that is taking many forms.

One of the real hot areas of robot exploitation is combining music with animatronics. I wrote about Sony’s Rolly, the egg-shaped robot capable of choreography.  Why listen to music when there is so much more entertainment potential available?  That seems to be the premise behind Tiger Electronics and Hasbro’s A.M.P.; hot on the heels of Rolly.  A.M.P. stands for Automated Music Personality.

SEGA Toys in Japan is part of the team distributing this new robot with it’s big introduction and demonstration occurring at the Tokyo Toy Show over the next couple of days. (June 19-22)

The 29″ tall robot can use any MP3 player as it’s motivation to start moving. The maker claims that this robot has ‘attitude’, which should make it popular with a lot of consumers. The AMP robot features Dynamic Balancing Technology, which allows the robot to balance ‘in a manner that seems to defy gravity’.  Can you say ‘Segway’.

Music comes from a 5″ mid-range speaker and two high output tweeters. The option of bass boost is available by touching the boost button. While the A.M.P. bot looks like a waiter holding a couple of plates, it actually has user-controlled touch-pads at the end of each arm.  Use the left touch pad to add music effects and the right touch pad to control the audio.

With the release of the Disney-PIXAR movie WALL-E on June 27th, movie-goers will once again be focused on robots. The release of A.M.P. in the U.S. in October will find anxious consumers willing to pay the estimated $500 retail price.

Watch for A.M.P. bot at select retailers. With 12 watts of stereo sound, 49 LED lights that blink to the music and an infrared  tracking system, A.M.P. will be a rolling, dancing fun-bot for those ready for some entertainment. Choose his Dance, Track, Drive modes to keep him moving or put him in Park and just chill. A.M.P.’s unique gyro technology keeps him upright while moving, and when in Park, he deploys his kickstand to keep from falling.  Who ever said that your music just has to sit there?

On June 10th, HP introduced 16 new notebook models designed with new materials and software features at their ‘Connecting Your World’ event. The consumer models feature the sleek new liquid-metallic HP Imprint 2 surface design.  The HP Elitebook business series notebooks feature a durable, aircraft-inspired look.

The new HP Pavilion notebook consumer-focused notebooks have the innovative HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection feature which detects when the notebook has been dropped, and during the fall, automatically stops the hard drive from spinning, helping to prevent the loss of files and data.

Buyers of the consumer series also have the option of a high-speed eSATA interface for backing up data to external storage drives. Accessories for the new notebooks include the HP xb4 Notebook Media Docking Station and HP Bluetooth(R) Stereo Headphones with active noise cancellation.

For the working professional on the go, the new Elitebook series notebooks include a protective coating of anodized aluminum on the palm-rest surface that is six times more scratch-resistant than that used in previous notebooks. EliteBook also includes HP QuickLook 2 software. HP has set a goal to remove any mercury from their notebook screens in the next two years.  Mercury is commonly found in notebook screens and florescent style light bulbs.

For the busy business person on the go, a new product for the iPhone makes keeping a schedule easy and convenient. RemindYou by Make Your Day Media is an application for the Apple iPhone that helps users keep appointments and review their schedules.

When an iPhone user unlocks their iPhone, the default earth view image is replaced with a view of their RemindYou schedule. The application syncs with iCal, Outlook, or Entourage so that the user gets a lock screen schedule, that is up to date, every time they use their iPhone. Time management just got easier.

In my last posting, I talked about the iPhone’s new GPS capabilities. Now you can keep track of your schedule and location all at once. This is the perfect tool for the salesperson or executive on the go.

The RemindYou application can show over a dozen appointments up to six weeks away.  It can be set up in a 24 hour format and uses little battery power. Make Your Day Media offers a free 14 day trial of the RemindYou app. 

Make Your Day Media foresees additional software development for the iPhone that will enhance the iPhone’s utilitarian capabilities.

The next version of the popular iPhone is only a day away.  The new phone is expected to have additional features produced by third-party vendors.  It is also expected to take advantage of advanced GPS and have 3G capabilities. So much speculating, but the original version was so good and this one is improved. The possibilities are endless.

The smart phone concept has come a long way and the 2nd generation iPhone aims to please. Speculation is that the new version will have a top connection speed of 7.2 MB/s.  Window’s Media content is rumored to be supported in this version also. Some anticipate longer battery life. Just think how long you could surf the Internet.

Some have speculated that the new iPhone will be slightly thicker than the original. My experience with 2nd gen products is that the opposite is true.  We will see.

The regular great features are there, like touching a name or number in your address book or call log to dail,  Choose to listen to voicemails just as you do your e-mails, in no particular order. Synch your address book/phone book from your PC or Mac with your iPhone. No prob.

Check movie schedules or train schedules. Choose from 600 web apps. You can use your iPhone with most e-mail standards and take it with you around the world.

Skyworks is believed to be the manufacturer of three new chipsets for the new iPhone.                                                                                 

There are also rumors with this next iPhone that pricing may be even more attractive with AT&T offering to offset the cost with commitment to a longer service plan. Just another day and we will know speculation from reality.

It’s all about security these days when important personal information resides on your computer hard drive.  Short of sticking your computer in a safe, there are easier means to achieving a ‘hardware’ solution to locking your personal information down. That’s where the Edgetech Corp. DiskGO Guardian comes in.