The Gadgets Page

Hi,

I just read your very informative article: Understanding SD Flash Memory Card Speeds.

One thing I’m still confused about is memory card readers — what are they and are they required? Would I be able to copy to my computer, delete, print, etc. just with a USB cable connecting to my computer directly or will I need a memory card reader?

Specifically, I’m thinking of getting a Lexar Platinum II 60x 2GB SD card for my Canon PowerShot a720.

Thank you very much,

Felix

Felix,

Your computer might already have a card reader. If it doesn’t, you can always connect your camera to your computer with the included USB cable. If you want to download your photos directly from your SD card, however, you need a “slot” to put it in. If your computer doesn’t have a SD card reader, you’ll have to buy one.

Best,
Laura Moncur

So if my computer doesn’t have a card reader, I can just use the camera as a sort of card reader by connecting the camera to the computer via USB, and then copying stuff from the SD card? What’s the advantage of getting a card reader?

Thank you

Felix,

The advantages of a card reader are a little nebulous.

Firstly, you don’t have to hunt down the USB cable that came with your camera. Most of those cables are proprietary, so if you lose it, you can’t just find another cable easily.

Secondly, some card readers download the photos a lot faster than your camera will. I’ve never tested your Canon camera, but with my old Canon (6 years ago), the compact flash card reader was MUCH faster.

Finally, sometimes the cameras make it difficult to download the photos by requiring software to be installed. If you have a Mac, I’ve heard that it’s MUCH easier, but sometimes things are a little difficult on a PC.

The most important thing is to download your photos to a computer and make a backup by burning a CD or DVD. That way you won’t lose your most important pictures.

Best,
Laura Moncur

Guitar Hero was featured heavily on the main floor and was in many booths not sponsored by Harmonix or Red Octane. Guitar Hero already gets me off the couch and pretending I’m a Rock Goddess, but if you didn’t think Guitar Hero made you look silly enough, welcome to Guitar Hero Air Guitar Rocker.

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The Guitar Hero Air Guitar Rocker comes with a magic belt buckle, an amplifier, two guitar picks and an air cartridge of songs.

The belt buckle reads your hand movements and starts the music playing on the amplifier. Guitar Hero Air Guitar Rocker is a dream come true for the professional air guitar fanatic!

The biggest problem with huge International conferences like CES is that you are suddenly exposed to EVERY virus and bacteria on the planet. I am finally back home, nursing a sore throat and trying desperately not to lose my voice. While I’m sick, I won’t be posting.

I have SO much to write about CES and everything I saw there that this comic from Ballard Street really rings true for me today. Hopefully, I’ll be able to make my way out of the dark forest and show you the things I found along the way!

As a child, I loved Barbie, but lately I have felt betrayed by Mattel. When I walked up to the Barbie Girls booth at CES this year, this betrayal was seething right on the surface:

“Oh, you’re a blogger. Are you going to write about this?” She pointed at the Barbie Girls MP3 Players. I had seen them in the store.

“No, because they’re lame.”

She didn’t miss a beat. “Well, those might be lame, but this isn’t.” She held up the Barbie iDesign box and lead me over to the computer running it.

I immediately fell in love with Barbie all over again.

Fashion Plate Redeux

Barbie iDesign is the kind of toy that I would have LOVED as a kid. In fact, I had a toy that was very similar as a child called Fashion Plates. It was a coloring fashion toy that used plates to create outfits. I created a million outfits with that game and Barbie iDesign is a totally awesome update to that toy.

Gameplay

The Barbie iDesign is a computer program that runs on Windows and comes with a barcode scanner (called the Style Swiper and conveniently colored in Barbie pink). The Style Swiper reads the fashion plates that are included with the toy. Each plate represents a doll, a background, or a piece of clothing.

You scan in the doll and she shows up on the screen. Then you take a different plate to scan in her outfit and it shows up on the doll. Pants, skirts, tops and footwear are all different kinds of plates that you can choose from. You get a total of 60 cards with the Barbie iDesign, but there are a total of 200 available for separate purchase to augment your collection.

Once you’ve chosen a few outfits and dolls, you can have them walk down the catwalk in an Uncanny Valley extravaganza!

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The strange little girl that I was would have systematically created every possible outfit and showcased it on the catwalk. Boots with swimming suits? YES… I must create each and every combination and walk it down the red carpet! I can even feel the adult in me wanting to play this game just so I can create every outfit. Quick, what is 60 factorial?! How many permutations are there?!

The additional card packs add even more permutations and are organized by style of dress. For the younger girls in your family, there is a princess pack with enough frilly dresses and crowns to please.

The fun doesn’t end with the fashion show, though. There were other games to play with the cards. You can play them against a friend or you can fight the clock alone. They were mostly games in which you were frantically searching through the cards trying to find the correct one to scan to get a good score. They didn’t look like they were intellectually taxing. Just fun.

The pieces of the iDesign looked pretty sturdy. I tried scraping off the barcode on the side of the cards to see if they were easily damaged, but they are printed well, so you won’t have to worry about your little girl breaking her toy. The worst you have to worry about is losing the cards.

Hacking

The most exciting idea I had was hacking this game. Trying out different bar codes to see what they create in the game was the first idea I had when I saw the iDesign. The easiest hack you can do is to photocopy the bar codes on the back of your friend’s cards so you don’t have to buy the additional packs. The only negative to that is that there is a lot of real world play that you do with the cards and since they are transparent, a picture of them isn’t good enough.

There is some hacking fun to be had with this game and I can’t wait to see what the girls of today do with their iDesign toys.

Complete 180

I walked up to the Barbie Girls booth feeling betrayed by Mattel and Barbie and walked away wishing I knew a little girl who I could buy iDesign for. I guess I’ll just have to buy it for myself…

Wow… The narrator couldn’t have sounded MORE bored with Toshiba’s booth tour:

What the heck does this sentence MEAN?!

“Our passion is to empower users to expand their interests and passions by adding the convenience and capability to connect to all the devices that enrich their lives.”

It’s stuff like this that makes the big companies BORING. I like Toshiba. I like their products, but this booth tour is the kind of marketing that makes me HATE them.

Your passion is to empower me to expand my interests and passions? How? By adding the convenience and capability to connect to all my devices that enrich my life? Come again?

What Toshiba needs to do is let their fans loose on their booth and film them as they play with the new laptops and other toys. This booth tour shows some cool stuff. Show REAL people playing with it and you’ve got REAL people who want to see it in real life.

This video is for stockholders, not human beings.

Another product showcased at CES Unveiled was InternetVue by AddLogix. The InternetVue devices allow you to show the video output of your computer on any TV or monitor, without a wired connection.

Here’s how it works: the InternetVue software on your computer compresses an image of the the video display, sends it over WiFi, and the InternetVue device plugged into your TV receives the data and displays it. The compression is lossless so the signal quality should be good.

They have two models: one with composite and component video outputs for regular TVs, and a more expensive model for business with DVI-D and VGA outputs for monitors and larger plasma TVs.

Unfortunately, since it relies on custom software, this appears to be a Windows-only product. Other than that it looks like a handy device since people are getting more and more of their video from computers.

At CES Unveiled, they were also highlighting the winners of the Innovation Awards. I was tickled pink to notice that my Sanyo Xacti E1 is one of the winners!

I talked about the E1 before:

• Gadgets Page » Sanyo Xacti Waterproof E1 Review

• Gadgets Page » Xacti VPC-E1 Camera Test at the Craft Store

They were showcasing the winners of The Best of Innovations 2008 by having the living statues from the Venetian holding them. Here’s a photo of me taking a picture of him with MY Sanyo Xacti E1.

Here is the photo I took:

If you were wondering what the sign he was holding said, here it is in detail:

Congratulations, Sanyo! You really outdid yourself on the E1 and I love using it every day!

As always, the best stories from any convention always happen outside of the convention. Today, I met the entire Gear Live team (AWESOME nice folks, by the way). In particular, Andru Edwards was willing to let us see his iPhone. All of us had iPhones, but his is updated to Firmware Version 1.1.3.

He has a video showing the new update in action here:

• Bleeding Edge TV 195: iPhone 1.1.3 Firmware Feature Walkthrough | Bleeding Edge TV

Gear Live answers your version 1.1.3 questions here:

• iPhone 1.1.3 Q&A: Batch One | Gear Live

The real question is: is it real?

He could have just had a hacked iPhone that looks like it has a version update. He did, however, show me his version number on his About screen in the settings. One note: this IS a Photoshop edited picture. I removed his serial number so that it wasn’t shown (which is why his finger is over it). The only thing I’m wondering is why he also covered the number in the parenthesis to the right of the version number. He did that in both photos I took, which makes me wonder whether the number in the parenthesis would have given away his source somehow.

Speaking of his source, he was not willing to tell anyone HOW he got a copy of version 1.1.3 for his iPhone. He probably wanted to protect the person who leaked it to him, but it makes me worry that Steve Jobs’ Goons will show up at his door and whisk him away for attitude readjustment.

Let’s all say a little prayer for Andru, okay, folks?

Another innovative product I saw at CES Unveiled was the NRG Dock. Gadget docks were a popular present this holiday season, but the NRG Dock takes the idea one step further. You place it near a window and the solar panels will charge your iPod, Blackberry or Nintendo DS. You do not need to plug it in. You can keep all of your gadgets charged with the power of the sun.

Unfortunately, the photos from the event were unusable, so all I have are the pictures from their brochure and website.

These pictures really don’t do it justice. This is a tasteful dock to store your gadgets, wallet and other pocket items. The solar panel has four suction cups (which are not shown in these photos) so you can attach it to a southern-facing window.

If you have ever lost power completely and worried that your phone will become a useless brick, then the NRG Dock is for you. You could also use this camping, but it looks WAY better than something that you would have sitting in your car, gathering sunshine to keep your gadgets charged. If you want to be completely off the grid, the NRG Dock will work.

They also carry a version of the NRG Dock that you can just plug into the wall and charge your cell phone, MP3 player and handheld gaming device. It’s a beautiful addition to any dresser by the the bed and keeps all of your gadgets charged and in one place.

CES is the Consumer Electronics Show and it happens once a year in Las Vegas, Nevada. The writers of The Gadgets Page are attending the show again this week and we were invited to CES Unveiled, which is a pre-show event, showing us some of the gadgets that will be highlighted at CES this year.

It’s a very busy event and it’s hard to see anything there because of the crowds. Fortunately, Mike and I were able to find some really cool items. The Powramid is one of them.

The Powramid is a new kind of power strip. Instead of putting your power outlets on a strip, they are in a circle, with plenty of room for your power bricks. Most of the time, a power strip will only hold two huge power bricks, but the Powramid will allow you to use every one of its outlets, no matter how big your power bricks are.

Here is a Powramid fully loaded:

Sadly, the Powramid isn’t available for purchase right now, but coming next month, you’ll be able to buy them from their website. If you are sick of the huge tangle of cords underneath your desk, the Powramid might be for you.