Anything For You All: The Latest from GadgetLite

Kamis, 13 Oktober 2011

The Latest from GadgetLite

Quick review: New Three Huawei E586 MiFi mobile broadband modem
Invisible Key unlocks your door with hand gestures
Watch local TV on your smartphone with TAXAN MeoTune

Quick review: New Three Huawei E586 MiFi mobile broadband modem

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 05:01 AM PDT

Recently we were sent the new and recently launched Huawei E586 Three MiFi mobile broadband modem for a review. For those of you who don’t know exactly how this works, its essentially a simple portable device that provides its users internet access via a 3G data connection on the go. In many ways it is similar to that of 3G on your smartphone, the advantage of using a MiFi is that it enables more than one WiFi enabaled device to use the same connection at the same time.

Design

The Huawei is lightweight (90g) and no bigger in size than the palm of your hands. Its always been made to a reasonable standard with a nice matte touch with a glossy front finish.

Usability

The Huawei E586 is extremely easy to use and requires only a few steps to get started. Once you’ve inserted your SIM, you’re ready to go. There are only two buttons on the modem, the bottom one being the on/off switch while the top one being the button for revealing WiFi network details.

Though small, the E586′s display shows useful info such as how much data you’ve used in total, reception, remaining battery as well as how many devices are connected via WiFi.

The claimed battery life on Three’s product page is 100 hours (standby), unfortunately during our testing this fell short, at approximately 80 hours.

Performance

Three claims the Huawei E586 to be the latest in tech yet with HSPA+, capable of 40% improved performance over previous MiFI modems. While the official numbers (up to 21.6 Mbps download and up to 5.76 Mbps) looked great, we felt as always highly skeptical of how likely we would achieve this. From our testing, we found both download and upload speeds highly variable and dependent on reception and whether the device was being used indoors or outdoors. As you can see in the screenshot, despite maximum reception (indoors), we could only achieve 0.97 Mbps, though this may not simply just represent a hardware issue as opposed to a combination of both hardware and network.

Whilst speeds are variable, we felt the lack of consistency meant the Huawei E586 would not be a suitable choice for those keen on watching video on iPlayer and YouTube for example, however it served well for less demanding tasks such as browsing the internet, social networking and emails.

Should I get one?
If you’ve not yet been to the product page on Three and checked out the various plans on offer, we would highly recommend you do. In our opinion, if you’ve never used a MiFi in the past and think you have the need for a device like it, we would suggest opting either for the pay as you go option or the one-month contract option as the rest do involve at least 18-month commitment and will be more expensive in the long run.

Pros

Portable and lightweight

Minimal setup required

Easy to use interface

Cons

Not always reliable, variable speeds dependent on network connection

Can be expensive if tariff / plan not carefully chosen

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Invisible Key unlocks your door with hand gestures

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 04:21 AM PDT

Unlocking doors can be a tiresome process sometimes, especially if you have to carry several different keys with you at all times, but thanks to the development of technology, we might be able to open our locks with invisible keys in the future.

Invisible Key is developed by Tsai Yao-pin, and instead the actual key that you use to unlock the door, you'll use a specific hand gesture. Tsai Yao-pin got this idea from motion controllers, so he developed a system that can track 3D movement of the hand, and his team from Technology and Science Institute of Northern Taiwan, developed a chip capable of performing such tracking. In order to unlock the door, you just need to setup your gesture, and repeat that gesture in front of the sensor each time when you want to unlock your door.

With Invisible Key, there's no need for keys or cards, and only thing that you need is your special gesture to unlock the door. As for availability, we should see Invisible Key probably in the middle of 2012.

[via Geek]

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Watch local TV on your smartphone with TAXAN MeoTune

Posted: 13 Oct 2011 12:56 AM PDT

Enjoying in your favorite TV shows on your smartphone is possible via internet, but if you want to watch local TV stations on your smartphone, you'll be able to do so with TAXAN MeoTune.

TAXAN MeoTune is Wi-Fi-enabled 1-Seg TV tuner that works with both iOS and Android devices. Thanks to this device, you'll be able to tune in to the local TV stations via special app without any cables, antennas or such. As for number of working hours, TAXAN MeoTune can provide you with four hours of TV content, which is more than enough. In addition, TAXAN MeoTune, can also work as a charger for your smartphone in case you run out of battery.

If you want to enjoy in TV content on your smartphone you can do it with TAXAN MeoTune. However, this device is only available in Japan, and we doubt that we'll see it in the United States, and as for the price, it remains unknown.

[via Technabob]

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