The Tiniest Tech

In tech, the trade-off between size and functionality has always been a difficult line to negotiate. Consumers want ease of portability as much as they want multi-functionality, but the drive to make gadgets smaller and lighter often means compromising quality of use. There comes a point when just because you can make something smaller, doesn’t necessarily mean you should. We’ve done some extensive research (defined as Google plus copious amounts of coffee) into some of the tiny tech gadgets out there that manage not only to be some of the smallest in their field, but are also not entirely useless.

Bluetooth Headset No Bigger than an Earring  Pillette Bluetooth: Trying to find the tiniest Bluetooth headset is a thankless task. Every manufacturer claims theirs is the smallest, and then to add insult to injury they offend your intelligence by presenting you with a badly photo-shopped image that “proves it”. I have no idea what the world’s smallest Bluetooth headset is and, despite what they may tell you, neither does anyone else. What I can tell you is that the Pillete is right there at the top of the running. The specs are hard to find because it’s still in development in Germany and not due to hit US Markets until next year, but it’s approximately 1.5 inches long when fully extended in the off position. To turn it on simply fold in half and insert into your ear. I’m not sure how comfortable it will be or how often the doctor will have to dig it out of someone’s eardrum after a night out, but as long as you don’t swallow it you should be fine.

Color TV Screen About the Size of Your Pupil Eyescreen: At about half the size of a standard postage stamp, the eyescreen is the world’s smallest color TV screen as well as the world’s only polymer organic light emitting diode microdisplay (translation: super fancy, high contrast, tiny LED screen). Initially this doesn’t strike one as particularly practical; especially with the photo causing it to look like a watch, but MicroEmissive Display designed it to be incorporated into wearable mobile media headsets. A television inside my sunglasses? Yes, please.

Cell Phone the Same Dimension as Your Credit Card Modu-t: One of the problems with a roundup of tiny tech is that the marketing for these items all like to claim they are the “world’s smallest”. It’s an easy thing to get away with because the assertion is often quite difficult to quantify. The modu-t out of Japan, on the other hand, has the Guiness Book of World Records to back up its claim as the world’s lightest, fully functional phone - weighing in at 55.1g and measuring 1.83x2.95x0.43 inches. The problem with a tiny phone though, is, well, it’s tiny. modu has addressed these issues in a creative, if not entirely practical, way. The phone slips easily into several different “jackets” that allow you to access various features. For example, there’s a Sport Jacket with an armband and software that monitors your workout; a Music Jacket with loudspeakers and a headphone jack. I don’t see them ever really catching on in this country, but it’s nice to see a company thinking outside the box.

200 Members of Your Robot Army Fit on the Kitchen Table Robo-Q: Okay, so remember earlier when I said these tiny tech items wouldn’t be entirely useless? This one may be stretching it a bit, but personally I feel that the ability to play tiny soccer games with tiny robots is the hallmark of a spiritually fulfilled life. At 1.3 inches tall, the Robo-Q is the smallest consumer robot available on the market. Not only is it petite and cute and remote controlled, but it has built-in infra-red sensors that functions with obstacle recognition software to not only keep them from running into things, but allows them to chase and follow moving objects – hence the world’s tiniest World Cup Tournament.

MP3 Player the Size of Your Eardrum Micro Sport 2 MP3 Player: Weighing in at a mere 8g and measuring 16x25x22 mm (0.6 x0.98x0.87 in) the Micro Sport 2 is officially the world’s smallest MP3 player, so published in the 2011 Guinness Book of World Records. There doesn’t seem to be any way to really control the music, so targeting this towards people (the athletically inclined) who just want to plug and play is smart marketing. It holds a decent 4GB of music and plugs directly into your computer’s USB port.

Portable PA System for Your Robot Army Super Mini Cube Speaker: Spectacular just for the name alone (because what isn’t made better by adding ‘Super’), this 17g speaker is 1 cubic inch and claims to be the world’s smallest speaker. With a mind-blowing 0.8w of power this is one of the least useful items on our list. Still, if cheap and portable is more important than clear and loud then practical it can be. It does not have volume control, so if you want to be able to hear your music on public transportation you’ll have to get two and convert them into headphones, sparking what will no doubt be the newest techy fashion trend.

Camcorder the Size of Your Index Finger Digital Cowboy DVR-SP: Claiming to be the smallest DVR in the world, you need a microSD card to actually record the footage. It’s only available in Japan at the moment, but don’t be too disappointed because at a mere 176 x 144 pixels your masterpiece won’t be featuring on the big screen.

PC that Fits in Your Palm fit-PC2 Desktop PC: In the case of the fit-PC2 the term “desktop” becomes a bit limiting - we can now call them palm PC’s or pocket PC’s or toss-them-in-your-handbag PC’s. It runs Windows 7 or Linux, has 160GB memory, 1GB RAM and an impressive 2GHz (a vast improvement over its predecessor, which only ran 500MHz), WiFi and a surprising 6 USB ports. It’s staggering how much they’ve managed to fit into a 4” x 4.5” space. It also uses 96% less energy than a standard desktop, for those of you who like smaller electricity bills (or just like being environmentally conscious and smug).

Whether you’re looking for big or small gadgets, you'll find great reviews and manuals for all the latest gear including laptops, cameras, HDTV, and more on Retrevo. Have you seen other tiny gadgets, tell me about it.

iPhone Shortcuts and Tips You Should Know About

You don't have to be a power user to appreciate time-saving shortcuts for your iPhone. Although we're sure some of you may already be familiar with a lot of these, here's a collection of some of the ones we like and think everyone should know about. We've also added some fun tricks you may not have been aware of. If we missed any of your favorites please tell us about them.

Press and Hold Typing Shortcuts Whether you call it long press, press and hold, or tap and hold, there are many time-saving shortcuts you can do on both an Android and Apple iPhone by pressing a key for an extra second or two.

On an iPhone, when you're writing an email address holding down the "." key will bring up a selection of domains like com, org, net, and edu that you slide your finger over to select and then release.

Hold the "123" button and drag your finger to insert a number or punctuation mark and it will go back to alpha mode when you release the key. A similar trick can be done with the shift key to get capital letters.

For another press and hold shortcut, just hold a letter for an extra second and a selection of alternate characters like the tilde over a letter in Spanish or accent in French. If the symbol you need doesn’t show up you can add an international keyboard under Settings > General > Keyboards.

Double Tapping Shortcuts You can quickly add a period at the end of a sentence by double tapping the space bar. You save the time it takes to go into "123" mode, select a period and return. To resize a Safari browser window to fit your screen double tap a column, word, or picture and it will resize to fit your screen width.

Misc. Shortcuts Everyone probably knows this one but if you tap the top of the screen in Safari and other apps and you will be taken to the top of the page Android owners can’t take a screen shot without rooting (jailbreaking) their phones and running an app. iPhone owners can use the built in screen shot feature. You press the home button and then push the sleep button on top of the iPhone the screen will flash white and the image of the screen will be saved to your "camera roll" folder. A similar function is available in Safari or Mail when you press the image for a second or two.

*Did you know? You can voice dial by nicknames that you have added to your contact's info?

Microphone Shortcuts There are a lot of functions you can perform with the microphone button here's the list: One press will answer the call (no surprise here) Two clicks sends the call to voicemail (you can do the same thing by pressing the "Sleep" button twice) During a call one press hangs up the call With a second incoming call One press puts call on hold and answers second call Hold down button for two seconds and release and to ignore call When you're not on a call the button can be used to control the iPod functions One press starts playing a song One press can pause a song being played Two presses skips to next song

Some Fun iPhone Tricks Next time you have the calculator up try turning the phone in the horizontal orientation and your calculator will go into scientific mode.

Scrub a Song or Podcast For fine tuning the point in a song drag the location indicator down. You’ll see a selection of scrub speeds. Without releasing your finger you can scrub left and right at the speed selected.

Focus Your Camera Touch the area of the picture you are about to shoot and the camera will focus on that spot.

Go to Sleep With Your iPod  Use the clock app, set the timer, select “when timer ends,” then “start” and scroll to "Sleep iPod."

Samsung AMOLED 12M Officially Announced

Samsung was not long to wait, and yesterday the rumors were confirmed - 12-megapixel cameraphone officially announced its name - Samsung AMOLED 12M (SCH-W880). Already known specifications devaysa also confirmed. Already known specifications devaysa also confirmed. In incarnation Camera Samsung 12M has 12 megapixel, flash, 3-fold optical zoom, image stabilization, face recognition function and video recording (720p, 30 frames / s). In incarnation Camera Samsung 12M has 12 megapixel, flash, 3-fold optical zoom, image stabilization, face recognition function and video recording (720p, 30 frames / s). In the incarnation phone - support UMTS / HSDPA, 3,3-inch WVGA AMOLED touchscreen display (800 x 480), the availability of slots for cards microSD, and, of course, the joys of life such as Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth. In the incarnation phone - support UMTS / HSDPA, 3,3-inch WVGA AMOLED touchscreen display (800 x 480), the availability of slots for cards microSD, and, of course, the joys of life such as Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth. Apparently, the device will be used interface TouchWiz. Apparently, the device will be used interface TouchWiz. About the price of a camera phone is still unknown, but the timing of it for sale called - this is October of this year. About the price of a camera phone is still unknown, but the timing of it for sale called - this is October of this year.

 

BlackBerry Torch Officially Presented

We just got a quick hands-on with the BlackBerry Torch - unfortunately our unit wasn't powering on. We're headed back for more in just a second and there's video on the way, but check the gallery for some hardware shots and some Droid X / iPhone 4 head-to-head action right now! We're headed back for more in just a second and there's video on the way, but check the gallery for some hardware shots and some Droid X / iPhone 4 head-to-head action right now! More images after the break...

Update: We went back in for round two with a functional device -- the hardware is quite nice, and the keyboard feels similar to the Tour / Bold. Update: We went back in for round two with a functional device - the hardware is quite nice, and the keyboard feels similar to the Tour / Bold. Software-wise, we're still waiting to play with BlackBerry 6 in-depth, but it definitely feels like the OS overwhelms the hardware a little when it's really cranking -- for example, the phone basically locked up while it loaded Engadget in the new Webkit browser, but when it was done loading it responded smoothly to panning and zooming. Software-wise, we're still waiting to play with BlackBerry six in-depth, but it definitely feels like the OS overwhelms the hardware a little when it's really cranking - for example, the phone basically locked up while it loaded Engadget in the new Webkit browser, but when it was done loading it responded smoothly to panning and zooming.

Update 2: We've got video, people. Update 2: We've got video, people. It's a little scattershot in scope, but it should illustrate the basic feel of the new OS. It's a little scattershot in scope, but it should illustrate the basic feel of the new OS. You can find it below the fold. You can find it below the fold.

iPhone Pro — Another concept smartphone in the form of a slider

By now you must be used to all the pictures and sketches that hit the web before a hot product launch. We’ve shown you iPhone 4G concepts before and today we have one more for you. The iPhone in the picture above is not dubbed as the iPhone 4G but as the iPhone Pro, a handset that wants to be, simply put, “just better.” More after the break...

The iPhone Pro is supposed to offer us an even slimmer design which will pack inside a better camera and better audio and a front facing camera for video calls. The iPhone Pro is supposed to run on iPhone OS 3.2 and feature a larger screen too. More importantly, looking at the iPhone Pro we will discover two slide-out “paddles” which are touch-friendly and bring us dedicated gaming controls. A new MagSafe power port is found on the back which means the regular 30-pin port will not be required anymore.

So what do you say, folks? Are you impressed or what? As for me I have to protest against a few features described here. Sure the design is impressive but we already have an iPhone Pro. It’s called the iPad and although it doesn’t have dedicated gaming buttons it will act quite nicely as a mobile gaming platform. It has an even bigger screen which means we’ll be able to use the iPhone for communication-related matters and the iPad for games and apps. That does make sense, right?

And what about that crazy power plug? There are tons of docks made for iPhones and iPods that use the 30-pin port. Why should Apple change the port and thus render all those products useless? In case the iPhone Pro was real then users would need special MagSafe to 30-pin connectors for their docks, wouldn’t they?

And what’s the deal with iPhone OS 3.2? We’re looking forward for iPhone OS 4.0 for the next iPhone versions, aren’t we?

Naturally the device in the pictures here is just a concept so I’ll understand that designers can take all the freedom they want when imagining next-gen products like the iPhone Pro or the iPhone 4G. But I’d like to see these designers approach the matter from a realistic point of view and create next-gen gadgets that would be based on available Apple technology (at least what we know of so far) and thus could actually be feasible for the near future.

We’ll be back with more iPhone 4G designs as this saga will not be over soon. But at least we’ll get to appreciate the amazing work these designers put in as well as add some constructive criticism of our own. Via Link 1 2

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Netbook Litl Easel presented officially

Litl has quickly acted on rumors by launching its first computer, the Webbook. The PC breaks away from the usual netbook market through a unique 12-inch LCD that bends almost completely backwards and turns the system into an easel-like display; the mode is considered ideal for video watching or for sharing content with someone else. To match, the screen uses a high-quality LCD with a 178-degree viewing angle and better colors, and unlike most netbooks carries a dedicated (but unnamed) GPU that can decode H.264 video at up to 720p. The computer runs its own operating system that is both "always on" and which has a very simple, visual interface with channels for Flickr and Shutterfly photos, Facebook updates and Weather Channel forecasts. An optional remote can steer many tasks in the easel view or when the Webbook is linked to a TV through HDMI output. As a result of the custom interface, the system can afford relatively lightweight specs with a 1.6GHz Atom chip, 1GB of RAM and just 2GB of permanent storage. Litl sells its portable today for $699 through its online shop. The remote costs $19.