Bluetooth Gloves

bluetooth gloves

Life in the Netherlands involves biking. Biking involves getting cold hands in the winter. Getting cold hands in the winter means difficulty operating your mobile phone.

It is typical, you are riding down the cycle-path, it is raining, your hands are cold, you might be wearing gloves. The phone rings. You stumble to the side of the path, take your gloves off if you are wearing them because otherwise you can’t get into the pockets of your jeans, through the waterproof trousers and take out your phone. By this time at the last second the person decides that you are not going to answer and bang… missed call with a withheld number. What was it? You will never know.

And your hands are now even colder, the touch screen does not register and in a nervous moment you drop the phone trying to put it back into your pocket with wet hands. You get off the bike, put the stand down, go to retrieve your phone (the back has come off so you have to reset various things) and the bike falls over because of the weight in the panniers.

This every-day occurrence could become a thing of the past though, thanks to a fine invention. Bluetooth gloves. Yes ladies and gentlemen, gloves that use bluetooth to operate your phone. You just press the answer button on the glove, make the phone with your fingers as you do when you are pretending to make a call or playing with the kids, and speak. The sound comes out of the thumb, and the pinky has a microphone.

Available in black or grey, mens or women’s sizes, but unfortunately only with the phone fitted in the left hand, the gloves can even be worn while operating a touchscreen. They are dry cleanable and charge with a USB.

I know what is going on my list for Santa.

The Future of Paper?

Much has been said and written about the future of paper publications with the arrival of downloadable  books, Kindles and a whole world of other hardware, but maybe a company from Cambridge (UK for a change now I am back in Europe) may be about to cause another revolution.

Many people are not drawn to reading books in digital, they like to thumb the pages etc, but a private company is putting what they describe as the ‘future of paper’ into mass production.

The company called Plastic Logic have designed what we could describe as the closest thing to paper that can show video.

An example of Plastic Logic’s invention

As the name suggests we are talking about a plastic paper-thin sheet that has the ability to display video, It can be used as a Wi-Fi fed screen, with the advantages of being flat, thin, flexible and bigger than your standard reader.

This video on the BBC website describes the product in greater detail, including the production process, and states that it should be in full production next year. The CEO of the company also explains the problems that this technology has faced during development as well as explaining why we might need a screen that we can roll up and carry around. He also describes how the computer and receiver part of the structure could be attached in the form of a handle.

All very interesting stuff, but I think the most important part of this application involves telephones. I have a so-called smart phone but I very rarely use it for internet work because the screen is too small. I cannot read an article on a screen that size. But if I had an A4 size screen rolled up in my bag that could show me the screen on a much larger scale (via Bluetooth) I would be happy to use it. And then I could leave my laptop at home.

Others see it as the future for glossy magazines, or the death of them, but the death of newspapers, radio, books, recorded music and commercial TV has been on the cards for a long time, and they are all still alive and kicking.

I look forward to this new product going into full production and appearing in the shops anyway, and the obvious question…. would you have a use for it?

Free gifts with selected mobile phone handsets

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Mobile phones are growing more and more expensive. With top of the range smartphone handsets costing upwards of £400, it may be tempting to downgrade, to go for something simpler and cheaper.

You may convince yourself that there’s not much to miss out on – a cheaper handset will be perfectly functional, of course, and you can make calls and send texts – that’s all that phones are for, right? Well not any more. If you choose not to try out one of the brilliant, high tech smartphones out there nowadays, you are not only missing out on an opportunity to familiarise yourself with popular developing technology – you are also missing out on the generous offer of free gifts that come with the majority of expensive handsets.

Many mobile phone retailers are now offering incentives such as free gifts, to try to get you to try out their smartphone handsets. One example of this can be seen at Phones4u. At Phones4u to help incentivise consumers to purchase some of their top of the range smartphone handsets such as the HTC ChaCha, the Samsung Galaxy S II, and the Sony Ericsson Xperia, when you buy one, you will receive an amazing free gift!

A giftFor some time now mobile phones have come with free gifts, but this offer is now being taken to the next level, by including some of the most popular gadgets on the market. Some free gifts being given away now include the Kindle 3G, Amazon’s popular eReader; the PS Vita, Sony’s brand new handheld PlayStation console; and even the Samsung Galaxy Tab, a tablet PC that can rival the iPad. These are gifts that are being given away free when you take out certain contracts, and buy certain handsets from different mobile phone retailers.

So, next time you go out shopping for a smartphone, remember, if you also want a Kindle, there may be some great offers whereby you can get both! One offered as a free gift when you purchase the other.

Keep your eyes pealed, to make sure that you get the best deal around!