All posts by Todd Cochrane

Ford SYNC 3 at CES

January 31, 2015Auto, CES 2015, MobileTodd Cochrane

In the good old days, cars had heaters and radios. if you were lucky it might have had a cassette player. Getting directions involved winding down the window and asking a local. Today’s vehicles have zoned environmental controls, multi-source AV, GPS with maps and drive train telemetry to three decimal places. All this is fantastic but while you’re figuring out the way to San Jose, you don’t have your eyes on the road.

Ford wants its drivers and passengers to have a great journey but to get to their destination safely, and in an unprecedented move, Ford invited customers to their advanced car simulator in Dearborn to help design the next iteration of their infotainment system. With over 20,000 pieces of feedback, Ford developed SYNC 3 with safety and ease of use at the fore. Big touchpoints keep hands on the steering wheel longer and voice commands now produce what the driver wants rather than purely what is said.

Todd chats with Gary from Ford about the company’s approach to the latest iteration of Ford SYNC, which will be available on 2016 model cars.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network

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Unleash the AirDog (at CES)

January 31, 2015CES 2015, Gadgets, Toys & Gaming, Video, WirelessTodd Cochrane

With the advances in drone technology, it’s easy to fly most drones these days. To fly a drone well and record video at the same time still takes a great deal of skill. It’s especially difficult if you are the pilot, cinematographer and star all at the same time. If this is your problem, then the AirDog is the solution. Todd cries, “Havoc” and lets slip the AirDogs of war.

The AirDog drone has two unique selling points. First, it folds up to fit into a backpack and second, it can follow its owner from the air, filming the action. The owner wears a wristband somewhat reminiscent of Jack Harkness which lets the drone track the owner’s position. Various parameters can be set to adjust how the AirDog positions itself relative to the owner, such as height and distance. Seriously cool.

The AirDog will be available later in the year for $1,500 but are open for a little under $1,300. You’ll also need to get yourself a GoPro camera.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network.

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Perfect Your Swing With Babolat Play

January 31, 2015CES 2015, Health, Toys & Gaming, WirelessTodd Cochrane

To improve at any skill or game, it’s often practice, practice, practice but today’s technology can help point out the areas to work on. Babolat‘s rackets are world famous and used by some of the top tennis professionals and for tennis fans, Babolat have developed a connected tennis racket based on their AeroPro Drive to help them hone their game. Eva shows Todd the new racket, Babolat Play.

The Babolat Play racket looks like an ordinary racket on the outside but with sensors integrated into the handle, players now have access to a pile of information – power level, impact position on the racket head, type and number of strokes (forehand, backhand, serve, overhead smash), top spin or back spin, all provided through a smartphone app for both Apple and Android. The racket can be taken on court for six hours between charges and over 150 hours of performance information can be recorded between downloads, which can be either via USB or Bluetooth.

The Babolat Play racket will be on sale in March for $349.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network.

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IC Real Tech Allie Camera at CES

January 31, 2015Accessories, Cameras, CES 2015, Video, WirelessTodd Cochrane

Web and IP cams are ten a penny these days, but the IC Real Tech Allie takes expectations to a whole new level with a near 720 degree field of view and the ability to stop time. Todd gets a demo from Matt on how the Allie Pro can see everything.

The Allie Pro is an IP cam with two lenses, one on the front and one on the back, that have overlapping fields of view. As result, when viewed in real-time on a tablet or smartphone, the image can be panned round in nearly 720 degrees; left-to-right, up-and-down with no blindspots. The complementary apps on both iOS and Android can either use touch or the motion sensors to move round the image. Live video is fed through but if something catches the eye, the video can be paused and the frozen image explored in more detail.

There are three models in the range, Allie Play, Home and Pro, with increasing levels of video resolution and prices to match at $399, $599 and approx $1100 for the Pro. All available in late Q1.

These cameras are awesome and I can see tremendous potential for pseudo-telepresence, perhaps combined with a simple VR setup like Google Cardboard. Turn your head, turn the view. And think of a head-mounted action cam version! Watch the video – you’ll be impressed.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network.

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Kelvin Wireless Wine Thermometer at CES

January 31, 2015Accessories, CES 2015, Gadgets, HomeTodd Cochrane

Watching the video for the Kelvin Duo wireless wine thermometer put me in mind for a glass, so as I write this, I’ve a tasty little Sicilian red to hand. But how do I know that I’m getting the best from the wine? Let the wine breathe – check. Wide glass – check. Temperature….hmm, not so sure about that…and that’s where the Kelvin thermometer comes to the rescue.

The Kelvin Duo consists of a thermometer band that goes round the bottle, transmitting the temperature to a receiver which in turn shows the temp on a small screen. The screen’s backlight is colour-coded to red, green and blue for too warm, just right and too cold. The Kelvin is straightforward to use: first choose your wine, second select the category of wine from a choice of ten (four for white, three for red, two for sparkling and one for rosé), next put the band on the bottle and the bottle in the fridge. Finally, wait for the receiver screen to get into the green (or just flick into the blue) then pour and enjoy!

The Kelvin Duo is already on sale in the UK for £39.99 and will be coming to the US in the coming months with a price somewhere around $70-$80.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network.

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Liquid Image Ego LS at CES Unveiled

January 31, 2015Accessories, Cameras, CES 2015, Gadgets, Video, WirelessTodd Cochrane

Liquid Image weren’t a company with which I was familiar but having looked at their website, they have an impressive range of action cameras, with some interesting models where the camera is integrated into a scuba mask or ski goggles. At CES Unveiled, Todd interviews Melanie about Liquid Image’s new streaming wireless camera.

The Ego LS is hand-sized wearable and mountable camera not unlike others on the market but its key feature is that it can stream video over the Verizon 4G LTE network including XLTE allowing for fast live streaming. In addition to 4G LTE, the wireless features include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Low Frequency RF, which keeps the camera in standby mode for over a day without draining the battery. This makes the camera very flexible with a range of wireless coverage options and the Ego can simply record to memory if there’s no wireless at all. Neat.

The Ego LS model 800 is expected to retail at $399 and will be available in Q1 2015 for the US, with availability in other territories including Europe, Russia, Japan and Canada in Q2 and Q3.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network.

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Indiegogo’s Slava Rubin at CES

January 31, 2015CES 2015Todd Cochrane

In less than ten years, crowd-funding has come from nowhere to a seriously considered option for many startups and entrepreneurs. Crowd-funding isn’t only about the money, it’s about being able to engage early with potential customers to make better products.

And when it comes to crowd-funding, Indiegogo‘s right up there at the top and at the top of Indiegogo is Slava Rubin, co-founder and CEO. In a great score, Todd and Jamie interview Slava about Indiegogo’s trail-blazing approach, venture capitalists and the latest expansions into charity (Indiegogo Life), commerce (Indiegogo InDemand) and merchandise (Amplifier).

Interview by Jamie Davies of Health Tech Weekly and Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network.

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Peri Duo Speaker Case for iPhone

January 31, 2015Accessories, CES 2015, Entertainment, Gadgets, MobileTodd Cochrane

When it comes to smartphones and tablets, there are few mobile devices that produce anything like a decent volume and as for stereo separation, forget it. Fortunately Peri can come to the aid of iPhone owners with the Peri Duo, a high-power wireless speaker and phone charger case. Todd and Jamie find out more from Cedric Sumimoto, co-founder of Peri.

The Peri Duo is a standalone wi-fi and bluetooth-enabled speaker and iPhone charger case all in one. As expected, music can be streamed via AirPlay but the iPhone doesn’t have to be in the case when playing the music, so the Duo speaker can be on the opposite side of the room while the iPhone is safely in a pocket. Even better, more than one Duo can be connected to a phone so one Duo can be assigned as the left speaker and one as the right. Alternatively, one phone can multicast to dozens of Peri Duos, which really gets the party going.

The battery is 2500 mAh which will fully recharge an iPhone once with a bit over, or else the Duo will play music for around 4 hours.

The Peri Duo will be available for the iPhone 5, 5s, 6 and iPod Touch. The MSRP will be $139 though it’s currently on pre-order at $99 via Indigogo. Deliveries are expected from April onwards.

Interview by Jamie Davis of Health Tech Weekly and Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network.

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Aleratec Hard Drive Duplicator at CES

January 31, 2015CES 2015, ComputersTodd Cochrane

Let’s been honest, it’s not often that the average geek needs to duplicate a single hard drive to five others in a range of physical sizes and capacities. But if you did need to do it, Aleratec have the machine for the job with the snappily named 1-to-5 HDD Copy Dock Advanced. Jamie and Todd find out what it offers from Perry Solomon, President and CEO of Aleratec.

The Aleratec 1-to-5 duplicates one SATA drive to five others, taking both spinning disks and SSDs while catering for both 3.5″ and 2.5″ form factors without any additional adaptors. In itself, that’s not particularly amazing as Aleratec do other units that will duplicate 24 HDDs at once, but this working prototype has a couple of features that set it apart. First, it has a secure erase function which will wipe disks to Dept. of Defense standards, but more impressively, the 1-to-5 has the capability to duplicate from a larger drive capacity to a smaller drive capacity. This situation often occurs when moving from an HDD to an SSD where the HDD has a volume capacity in a terabytes but the SSD has only gigabytes. Obviously the files on the source drive have to be pruned to fit the space on the receiving drive but it’s a great feature on a duplicator.

The price of the 1-to-5 HDD Copy Dock Advanced is $899 and will be available shortly.

Interview by Jamie Davis of Health Tech Weekly and Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network.

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Audio-Technica Gets SonicSporty At CES

January 31, 2015Accessories, CES 2015, Entertainment, Gadgets, MobileTodd Cochrane

Japanese audio specialists Audio-Technica have a long pedigree in sound going back to the 60s with an impressive client list include a number of successive Summer and Winter Olympics. Todd and Crystal Griffith take a look at the latest headphones from Audio-Technica.

First up are new additions to the SonicSport line of in-ear headphones, each of which has a different mechanism for retaining the earbud in the ear. Some hang over the ear, others lock into the inner part of the pinna. The idea is that Audio-Technica has headphones that suit you and your activities. The USP of these in-ear phones is that in addition to the standard ear-tips, ridged ear-tips are provided which allow a small amount of external sound through. This makes the SonicSport headphone range a good choice for those who need to be a little more aware of their surroundings. Prices start at $35.

Next are a new pair of high-end audiophile over-ear headphones. Aimed at the lossless music market, these headphones are technically designed to get the best from the music source while providing comfortable extended listening. US availability is March at an RRP of $249.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network.

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