Artists making use of tablets in music production-- or customers who simply enjoy playing with DJing apps-- might be interesting in the Tuna Knobs, small dials for use with capacitative touchscreens.

A creation of Dutch design company Tweetonig, the Tuna Knobs act as a radial stylus when attached on touchscreens via suction cap. The underside and soft-touch rubber grips on the knobs are conductive, meaning they only control virtual dials and knobs when touched by the users.

Or, as Tweetonig puts it, "simply stick them on your screen and you are ready to start twiddling away."

According to LG the KizON wristband is a wearable designed for kids, but it's really meant for parents-- after all, it is a means of tracking pre-school and primary school children's whereabouts on Android smartphones.

It uses wifi and GPS to provide real-time location information, and features a "One Step Direct Call" function allowing parents to communicate with their kids and vice versa. If a parent calls their child and gets no answer, the KizON automatically connects the call and lets parents listen to what is going on via built-in microphone.

A One Step Direct Call button also allows the wearer to dial a pre-configured phone number (changeable using the app), while a Location Reminder pushes location alerts at specific times throughout the day.

Native Union presents a novel take on the spare mobile device charger with the JUMP Cable-- a charging cable with a built-in 800mAh battery providing faster charging and an extra bit of power.

The result of a successful Kickstarter campaign, the JUMP cable recharges up to 20-30% of a smartphone's battery, at least according to the company, all while serving as a regular charger cable replacement.

A small square box in the middle of the cable hides the battery. When not in use it holds the cable snugly in place, with slots holding the connectors. AutoCharge technology ensures that once a device is fully charged power is redirected to the battery.

Thermaltake announces a novel take on notebook coolers-- the Satellite, a 2-in-1 twin fan notebook cooler that's also a dual-speaker audio system within a easily portable package.

The Satellite looks like a cuboid when whole, but splits into two triangular sections. Each section carries a 50mm fan running at up to 2500 RPM and a "high quality" speaker, and can be folded according to how the user wants to use them.

Hamburg-based accessory maker Roccat shows off a gaming keyboard with a twist at E3 2014-- the Sova, a wireless keyboard equipped with an adjustable mouse pad allowing users to play PC games on the couch.

The keyboard features aluminium construction, "ergonomic" palm rest, padded leg rests and Cherry MX keys with per-key illumination. Users can extend and retract the mouse pad for their preferred position with a USB port taking care of connection duties.

Customers want an Oculus Rift-style virtual reality headset, but can't afford one? Polish vendor De JET Works might have a solution with the Vrizzmo, a smartphone-powered VR headset costing all of €50.

First seen at the Digital Dragons games industry conference, the Vrizzmo combines a head harness, optical lenses and an app. One simply slots in a smartphone (4.7-inch or larger), and the optics turn movies, games or pictures shown on the companion app into VR-friendly images.

Smartphone gyroscopes provide a head-tracking 3D effect.

A sign of the growing maturity of Thunderbolt as a connector interface is the increasing number of Thunderbolt devices reaching the market. One of the more interesting comes from Elgato, the Munich-based vendor known mostly for TV tuner boxes and USB sticks, and its eyetv software.

Elgato’s Thunderbolt Dock, is touted as the most convenient solution to connecting devices to your MacBook or Ultrabook. With just one Thunderbolt cable, the computer can be connected to a display, wired network connection, a headset, and multiple high-speed peripherals. Elgato Thunderbolt Dock comes in an aluminium enclosure that complements the silver design of Apple’s notebooks. It offers two Thunderbolt ports, three USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet, and Audio In/Out.

Continue reading...

If the logo looks familiar, it should. For almost 30 years, the Patriot brand has battled it out with competitors large and small to carve out a significant share of the computer memory and flash markets. 

Like other consumer IT brands (like Microsoft, Intel, Lenovo, Acer and others) Patriot believes in the growing market for mobile device accessories. All the brands in consumer IT are following the platform change to mobile. Given their brands are already known and on shelves, extending those brands to mobile makes sense to dealers and distributors.

These brands were forged in intense competition and the winners are veterans who learned to compete in the fast-changing, demanding consumer markets.

Accessories aren’t new to Patriot, nor is mobility for that matter.  More than seven years ago, this captain of the DRAM and Flash business started in mobile storage accessories.

A separate Patriot product team for accessories and peripherals has already developed enough products to account for more than 10% of Patriot’s turnover.

“We’re not going after the me-too,” says Michael Chang, Product Manager at Patriot. “In consumer IT, we’ve developed our business as an engineering-driven company, with the competence to compete against the best. That’s our same strategy in the development of compelling products for emerging mobile markets.” Continue reading...