GadgetSpeak Articles
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It has been said that there is a dastardly plot afoot and you have been chosen to thwart the evil plans of the Dark Lord. But are you to up the task?
Developed by Shaman Games Studio, “A Plot Story” had been classified as belonging to the Hidden Object genre of titles. The game is spread over more than 90 levels of game play as you work your way through various screens and challenges. However before entering this world based on a medieval appearance, as you attempt to foil evil deeds and stop the stealing of a soul, you are given the opportunity of making some adjustments to the game’s playing environment.
While I must confess to already being a convert to Nest as I have their Smoke Alarm/Carbon Monoxide detector their Indoor Camera was new to me having been brought to my attention by an on the ball PR person trawling through previous reviews.
Installation is just a matter of downloading the Nest app from the iOS or Android store, scanning the cameras code and attaching the supplied USB lead to the supplied USB fronted plug, the link takes place and you can then view the camera output on your phone. One big advance over some other cameras is that this offering from Nest knows the difference between ‘motion’ and ‘person’.
You may have heard of the expression “Talk to the hand” but are you as familiar with “Beware the finger!?
Described as the first-ever line of animatronical collectible toys, the WowWee developed Fingerlings® recently won the 2018 Collectible Toy of the Year and the overall Toy of the year awards. Now more bite has been put into the product with the arrival of an UNTAMED™ element/ for the intrepid dinosaur collector to partake Joining the original gang of Fingerlings, featuring the baby monkeys, unicorns, sloths and glitter monkeys, are the UNTAMED Raptors.
Let’s make no great claims for this phone it’s cheap and while it looks good perhaps it should be regarded as a spare or emergency phone, it’s slow to react and load and perhaps the best thing about it is the Vodafone service which is good.
However while I often struggle to find bad points to say about a device here it is no problem, looking for good points is harder, well lets see, solid and cheap. It is 14.5x7x.9cm and weighs 168grams. Screen shutdown is 4 seconds but activity is still happening, Bootup is poor at best it is 57 seconds. The viewable screen is 8.2x11.1cm which gives the notional diagonal imperial measurement of 5 inches; the display is 480x854 with a low ppi of 196.
Are you sitting comfortably? Then let me tell you a story to help ease your journey on the road to slumber.
Mind Candy, with its vision to create worlds that fire the imagination of the child with products such as the company’s flagship brand of Moshi Monsters, has now released the Moshi Twilight Sleep Stories.
If you are a small business or even a sole trader then accepting card payments is difficult or more likely near impossible, the card companies often set rather high barriers. However a company called Square in the UK have an offering that works with a £46.80 Card Reader and your mobile phone and you even get your money next day.
I saw this small device demonstrated at a briefing in London at the end of May. The customer touched the card on their reader it links via the phone and a beep on the device says the transaction is completed, all data is sent encrypted and next day the money arrives in the vendors account. Apart from the £46.80 (Inc. VAT) all you the vendor pay is 1.75% per transaction and there is no minimum charge. So if you sell some flowers for £20 you receive £20 – 1.
Looking for a present for a male partner then maube this next product will appeal.
This was actually announced over a year ago but due to a change of agency it was only when sometime later I spoke with them that one was forthcoming. The reason for speaking was another such printer recently reviewed from another manufacturer.
ZINK technology means no ink so the shiny white paper looks just like ordinary photo paper used in standard printers but of course it is not. The unit is 11.5x7.5x2.2cm and it weighs 183 grams. It has an internal battery that is recharged by supplied micro USB to USB lead. The HPSprocket app is downloadable from the iOS or Android store and connection is via Bluetooth. In the small box is the Sprocket and a sample pack of 10 sheets of the special paper.
Pack your bags, you are off to visit worlds where everything is possible.
Mundus – Impossible Universe is the title of a game which takes the player on a journey encompassing a kaleidoscope of worlds to explore and populate with elements. Developed by Rumbic, Mundus – Impossible Universe is a Match 3 title which makes us of a variety of playing styles, each with a particular set of rules based around achieving designated set targets within a specific period.
Anyone who spends a good amount of time gaming needs a fast PC/Notebook good connection speed a detailed - good resolution – panel and extremely good hearing and communications, this latest headset from Sennheiser can take care of the last mentioned.
With no extension in the cups the distance from the lower edge of the cup to the base of the padded headband is 16cm and as there is up to 4cm of extension in each arm this can be increased to 20cm so it should suit any head from an older child to a large headed person. With the pads parallel and fully extended the distance between them is 17cm and fully contracted it is 13cm. The total weight of the headset is 378 grams.
Some people collect trivia by the bucket load. Now you can dip into their collection.
Having recently finished taking a look at a game with the word “Hidden” in its title, I was unsure of what to expect when another game with “Hidden” in its title found its way on to my computer. I quickly realised that this second offering was totally different. To give it its full moniker, “Einstein’s Diaries: Hidden Facts: The Hawaiian Island” was developed by Point8 Games.
This is an electric shaver and beard trimmer that has everything in ‘one blade’ it is usable wet or dry. The recent trend for a lot of shavers it to go multiple blades, what the first misses the second will get etc. Here is a slim and light unit.
It weighs only 96grams 16cm long and roughly 2.5cm square for all but the last 2.5cm where the neck starts to turn to give the shaving angle. My unit very dark grey back and front with a ridged lime green rubberised colour on both sides so it is very grippy when wet.
Generally upgrades appear frequently but not in this case.
While perhaps not quite qualifying for the full Rip Van Winkle award for dormant arousals, MAGIX has awoken its ACID PRO software from a period of slumber that has lasted ten years. In the interim period since the software’s last release in 2008, ACID PRO has undergone a change of ownership as the product departed from Sony Creative Software and made its new home with the MAGIX family of graphics, audio and video products.
A new name to me but I got up at the crack of dawn – or what is the crack of dawn to me at my age – and travelled through the London rush hour for a briefing held at a house in the Kings Cross area of London to get to know their products, I liked what I saw and in time you should hear about three of the items I saw, first an overview of their whole range.
If you have a decent bicycle you will know that keeping it safe from being stolen is not easy and in the back garden of the house I saw a number of locks that would defy almost all thieves and send them looking for an easier target. These range from locks and chains to multi sided metal that will make bolt cutters small enough to carry ineffective. They have locks with key entry so small that picking them would only work in TV programs.
Corel has announced the availability of the latest version of its Pinnacle Studio software.
Now firmly established as part of the Corel family of graphics software products, Pinnacle Studio provides a range of movie-making options. Version 21 of this software was released last year with a choice of Standard, Plus and Ultimate offerings aimed at the needs of different groups of users. My original review of Pinnacle Studio 21 Ultimate . Now Corel has released Pinnacle Studio 21.5 Ultimate which brings new features to this movie-making software.
Maybe suitable as a phone for a younger child because every action is monitored, once older although it has good intensions I doubt the child will allow their parent or guardian to know their exact whereabouts all the time.
The purpose is to protect the child from being bullied and while in my day the bullying was done face to face nowadays it seems to be done predominately online and this phone has a large range of words – some I have never heard of – that it will not allow to be used without being reported. The Phone itself is a rather nice 5.5inch screen running Android 7 with an overlay which is called "The PhoneCloud Control Panel" that you are unable to close even should you want to.
Designed for the bookshelf, this next audio system features two-tone speakers.
Developed by Edifier, the R1700BT product is a Bluetooth bookshelf speaker system. The kit consists of a pair of speakers covering active and passive roles. The speakers can be connected to a gaming console, computer, TV or for delivering streaming audio from Bluetooth-aware devices such as a smartphone or tablet. Also included in the package are a small remote control unit, a selection of leads and a User Manual booklet in various European languages.
A lot of homes will have a Dimplex radiator, they are ideal for an extra splurge of heat. The latest offering does exactly that and a bit more for a start it can be remotely controlled by Bluetooth and an App but while earlier offering had a thermostat not much else, with this you can set in advance the times to go on/off automatically and still have a manual override.
In the past most electric radiators were oil filled, this offering from Dimplex has no liquid in it at all and test show this heats up a room quicker and for less cost than the oil filled alternatives, it has another plus it is lighter to move around. Open the box and remove the radiator it is 42x55x13cm, it has two feet (each with two castors) and these increase the width to 30cm and add 6cm to the height.
With a pedigree stretching back many years, the latest version of Corel’s flagship has arrived.
As the years roll by, and memories fade, it can sometimes be difficult to remember some of the software titles that were market leaders when you took your first hesitant steps into the world of computing. But this sentiment does not apply to one particular old friend, namely CorelDRAW.
As this printer is designed to print square images then the best results will be when you set your phone to capture square images which on most will be called 1:1. However I also printed some more normal 16:9 and 4:3 images.
Often setting Wi-Fi linking between printer and SmartPhone is a lot harder than it should be. Here it was just a case of downloading the App from the iOS or Android store selecting the image and saying print. The FujiFilm battery operated printer is 13.5x11.3.5cm and weighs 366grams. The App for some reason is called Instax Share which given all the different Fuji Apps is somewhat confusing and indeed you need to download V3.
With a choice of connection options, this next speaker system could deliver your favourite audio
With the less-than-informative model number of R1280DB, this kit is a Bluetooth speaker system from the Edifier family of audio products. This particular model, sporting a classic wooden appearance suitable for various environments, is being targeted at a bookshelf location when it comes to positioning the unit.
I have a Prime account and this enables me to get quicker delivery and also avoid delivery charges on most items under £20 even when the items are from some of the Amazon affiliates, the socks in this review are a case in point.
Do read the small print as another – non Prime – seller had them 5p cheaper but for the same delivery option that I had you would pay a mouth-watering £13.98 delivery charge but in fairness if you were willing to wait six days they would deliver for free. I have been Diabetic for 25 years but it’s only in the last two of three years that I had noticed how much the tops of my socks bit into my legs.
With the tag line of “There’s a thin line between the living and the dead”, Mystery Tales: Her Own Eyes belongs to the popular Hidden Object Adventure genre.
Developed by Domini Games, Mystery Tales: Her Own Eyes casts you in the role of a recipient of a lens transplant procedure. However, as can sometimes happen with operations, as I discovered myself recently, unexpected side effects can occur. Following the surgical procedure you find yourself being afflicted by visions of the dead which then leads you to begin an investigation into strange events that include a mysterious disappearance.
This new phone from the company that are making Samsung and Apple look over their shoulders does not have the eye watering price of some of the recent offerings in fact this is available on PAYG 1 from Vodafone for only £229.
This lower price point means that for a lot of people a Huawei phone is now in their price range whereas before they were something to dream of. It is 14.7x7x.7cm and weighs 144 grams. The viewable screen is 12.7x6.5cm which gives the notional diagonal imperial screen measurement of 5.65inches. The screen is FHD+ 2160x1080 but for those whose sight is less than perfect it can be changed in settings to HD+ 1440x720. Apart from Android 8 it has a EMUI skin for some extra functionality.
Do devices control your life or not? Are you sure?
No doubt you have heard the rumour that has recently been making the rounds on social media and other outlets. I know I have come across several instances that certainly re-enforce the message being delivered by this rumour mill. However just in case you are one of the few who have managed to isolate themselves from such trivia. I should explain that there is a belief that the digital world was developed to help us in different aspects of our lives.
This is more than just an enclosure with Bluetooth speakers. The Teufel One M is a Bluetooth speaker that can be linked to any device to output its sounds but it is also – via the Teufel App – able to do much more including play Internet radio.
Dipping into a bag of goodies, I came across a product from Leap Frog.
It is a simple question – just what is the condition of your fridge? I should make clear that I am referring to the outside of the fridge rather than its actual contents stored within. Probably, like many including myself, the door of your fridge will be decorated with an assortment of magnetic knick-knacks that you have collected, or been presented with for various reasons, over the passage of time.
So many of these latest crop of bulbs have screw fittings and even if you have a suitable fitment they tend to be too fat to screw in, so when I was offered a pair of Bayonet fitting units that can be used either with a SmartPhone App or a remote control I said yes please.
The bulbs themselves are about the same size as a 60watt filament bulb but do weight around three times as much. If you fit one in they will turn on normally with a white light but the magic happens when you use the supplied remote control or even better with the SmartPhone App as you then have any shade of white or any colour you want you can even set them to strobe - ideal for a party.
Are you ready to enter a ghostly hotel to rescue your partner who has been ghostnapped?
Hidden Fears is a Hidden Object Adventure game developed by Rosen Studio. The game is based on a story of a young couple who initially embark on a honeymoon only to find that their chosen destination was not as they would have expected and, in fact, leads to a hellish ordeal that they must survive in order to prove their love for each other. But we are getting ahead of ourselves a little and need to backtrack a few steps or so.
Regular readers will know music – jazz – is my passion and photography is my hobby. My photographs are unlikely to win awards as I tend to want realism. I once took a photo of a friend with a camera I was reviewing and sent him the result, his reply ‘you can see every crease and wrinkle I look about 200’ luckily it was not a lady friend or she would no longer be a friend.
However when you spend a long time trying to get the perfect shot and something just spoils it I can see why you would want to remove the ‘spoil’ factor. In today’s bloatware world a program that is less than 400MB to download is pure joy, and if you already have something like Photoshop it can even become a ‘plug in’ to that package.
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