CES: Pens get smart, backups get easy and gardening goes digital
Here at the International Consumer Electronics Show, the cool-gadget faucet is flowing like a river, as pens get smart, computer backups get effortless and gardening goes high-tech.
My notebook is full of jottings on great gizmos, which I'll begin to share here. I'll likely be posting at least once more later today, as
CES officially opened. Even before the show started, the press had had a bevy of events designed to give an early peak under the exhibitors’ collective hood.
Here's some of the cool stuff from the Digital Experience event last
night at The Mirage:
• Live Scribe Smartpen
(http://www.livescribe.com/)
Ink is the only thing this pen has in common with every other pen in your drawer. As you write with this device in a special notebook that
contains a nearly invisible grid that maps the page, it captures
images of your penmanship with a tiny onboard camera that takes 75 photos per second. Bring the pen back to your computer, lay it into a coupled docking station, launch the software and see your
paper-and-ink page pop up on your computer screen.
The device also captures audio and matches what you wrote with what you were audio-recording then. You can search across all your documents and bookmark any item. The pen can also be used as a stand-alone audio recorder.
The Smartpen won the Best of Show award Wednesday at MacWorld, adding to the list of accolades its already captured.
The device is compatible with both PCs and Macs. The 1 gigabyte model sells for $149; the 2 GB model sells for $199. The smaller unit holds 100-plus hours of audio and 16,000 pages of notes; the bigger unit has twice the capacity.
Smartpen
• Clickfree Automatic Backup Drives
(http://www.clickfree.com)
Everyone has documents, photos, videos or music on their hard drives that they don't want to lose. Up till now, backing that data up took a concerted effort; you either had to install and program a backup drive or schedule online backups.
These backup systems are in place, but most folks don't use them because they’re a hassle. Clickfree takes the misery out of backing up files you created.
Here's how it works:
-- Step One: You plug the drive into your computer's universal serial bus slot.
-- Step Two: Watch the drive do its magic. There is nothing to click,
nothing to type, nothing to do but wait for the backup to finish.
-- Stop Three: Pull the plug from the USB port.
The drives start at 120 GB of capacity and go up to 500 GB. Prices range from $90 to $199, depending on the size of the drive.
Clickfree also has an adapter that converts any external hard drive
into a Clickfree drive. Simply plug your drive into the Clickfree
Transformer, then plug the Transformer into your USB slot. Your old
drive works exactly like the Clickfree drive.
This unit sells for $59.99. All of the units work on Windows 200, Windows XP or Vista and Mac OSX.
Clickfree Automatic Backup Drive
Clickfree Transformer
• Easy Bloom Plant Sensor
(http://www.easybloom.com)
Even folks already sporting green thumbs will appreciate this device, which looks like a throwback from the 1960s but acts like something James Bond may have in his poppy patch.
The device is a sensor that monitors water, sunlight, temperature and humidity for 24 hours. You place it in the soil, either outdoors or in a pot, wait a day, then pull off the green flower top to unveil a
USB connector. Slip it into your computer and get details of your plant environment’s climate and conditions.
The Easybloom Web site will offer planting suggestions, diagnoses for ailing plants and information on more than 5,000 plants. The site is free for all customers.
The device sells for $59.99 and is compatible on PCs and Macs.
EasyBloom
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More from CES later today. Time to head to the show!
