language Archives - Page 3 of 3

Jul 23

This tiny portable wearable mouse lets you universally control all your gadgets with gestures

One wearable to rule them all…

What VANZY offers is best described as the future of Human Interface. Conventionally, we used keyboards and mice, then we used touch-sensitive displays. However, now, VANZY lets you control all your devices with their hand gestures, sort of like Tony Stark. Designed to sit on your finger like a ring, VANZY is an Air Mouse and a motion-sensing controller that gives you advanced controls over all your devices. You could swipe or perform gestures to move slides in a presentation, increase or decrease volume while listening to music, skip the intro on Netflix shows, play games, or do a variety of other things. VANZY’s ring also works like a computer mouse or trackpad that allows you to use it as a conventional cursor controller on your laptop or tablet, sort of like a wearable mouse. You can even control elements in VR, and potentially even use the VANZY to keymap some words, making it quite literally the ultimate input device for any gadget you have… and it’s small enough to fit around your finger.

Designer: CoX Space

Click Here to Buy Now: $89 $129 (31% off). Hurry, for a limited time only.

About as small as a ring, VANZY comes with a 9DoF sensor that allows it to perform high-quality 3D spatial recognition and an advanced chipset that allows it to recognize as many as 7 different gestures across multiple software and on Windows, Macintosh, Android, and iOS devices. The premise behind the VANZY is simple – in a world with multiple devices that you control by touching and tapping with your fingers, why can’t your finger just be a mouse instead, working like a wand to operate any device it’s connected to? To that end, VANZY works with phones, tablets, and even laptops via Bluetooth, letting you operate them intuitively by waving your hands, or use the trackpad on the VANZY to control them more precisely.

The finger-worn ring works in two ways – either by recognizing movements and gestures, or by allowing you to navigate your device via the trackpad on top of the VANZY. The trackpad works just like the touch surface on your TWS earbuds does. You can keep the mouse functions by touching and dragging your thumb; left touch to left-click, right touch to right-click, and swiping for scroll-down/up on the VANZY. As far as gestures go, VANZY recognizes common gestures like swiping left, right, up, down, circling clockwise, anti-clockwise, and moving forward (like you’re pointing in the air).

Morning Routine – Turn your finger clockwise or counterclockwise to adjust the volume on your earbuds without taking your phone out first.

Move the Desk to your Fingers – Thumb control over an air mouse for all of your devices.

At Work – Perfect companion for lectures, presentations, and meetings. VANZY gives you precise control, even from a distance.

For Content Creators – Makes the discomfort of swapping between devices a thing of the past. Just use your finger.

Watching

Jul 22

Guardians Gadgets and Goodies by Gregg Jacobs

Whenever Disney opens up a new attraction, particularly an E-ticket, there will invariably be an avalanche of related merchandise available. Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind, which opened this past Memorial Day Weekend at Walt Disney World’s Epcot, is no exception.

The items range from standard to cool to quirky (Star Lord helmet, anyone?). Today we’re going to take a look at some of the standouts, and I’ll give a tip on how to buy them without waiting in a long line.

Without further ado, here are a few of the items that grabbed my attention.

Let’s start with clothing. Anyone of my generation remembers having a Members Only jacket in the 1980s, and I believe that style is back, at least in the form of the bomber jacket worn by Peter Quill/Star Lord in the Marvel movies.

You can be 80's cool with this Star Lord faux leather jacket. Photo by Gregg Jacobs.
You can be ’80s cool with this Star Lord faux leather jacket. Photo by Gregg Jacobs.

You can have your own version of the jacket, made from faux leather, as per Disney. I know I’m an old ’80s geek, but this one is actually kind of cool. Adults can have one for $99. There’s also a children’s version for $79.

As usual, there are also several variations of T-shirts available. The one that stood out to me is kind of simple.

T-shirt with logos you see all over the ride. Photo by Gregg Jacobs.

It features symbols of the ships from the ride with the heading, “Spaceships,” and says Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s yours for the somewhat steep price of $36.99.

For our limited edition merch collectors, there are a few things for you, too.

Pin collecting and trading isn’t at the fever pitch it was a few years ago, but some, like me, still like to grab a few that remind them of something special. For annual passholders, you can again get your ’80s geek on by buying this limited edition pin.

There's a limited pin to honor the ride opening date. Photo by Gregg Jacobs.
There’s a limited pin to honor the ride opening date.

It looks like the cassette mix tape you know you all made in 1984, and on the front, it says “Launched 5-27-22” in honor of the ride opening date. It doesn’t have an edition number that will be sold, but grab it soon, because Disney could pull it at any time.

Also in the limited time only category is the Guardians Magic Band.

The Guardians magic band is available for a limited time. Photo by Gregg Jacobs.

The band is black with a star field that reminds you of the ride, the Guardians logo and images of the spaceships. It’s, again, available for a limited time and costs $39.99, in line with other “specialty” bands.

Getting back to basics for a moment, there are of course the normal assortment of T-shirts, mugs, and key chains. Nothing wrong with that and in this particular case, will give Disney props for making them interesting. For example, there’s a mug with funky design.

This mug could have been used in

Jul 18

Should You Buy Smart Home Gadgets on Prime Day?

This story is part of Amazon Prime DayCNET’s guide to everything you need to know and how to find the best deals.

Amazon’s annual Prime Day sale returns July 12-13, and some deals are already live in the run-up to the event. Not surprisingly, that includes a smattering of deals on Echo speakers and other Amazon devicesa few of which are already marked down to all-time lows.

If you’re an avid Alexa user interested in expanding the assistant’s footprint throughout your home, then you’ll obviously want to give those deals a look, but other smart home manufacturers are likely to be in the mix, too. from smart lights to robot vacuumsit’s a safe bet that you’ll be able to find Prime Day discounts across a variety of categories, and competing retailers like Walmart, Best Buy and Target figure to be in the mix with smart home sales of their own, too.

That said, as far as smart home gadgets are concerned, the absolute best discounts of the year typically come in November, when Black Friday unleashes a flood of deals at holiday shoppers. Your best bet is to save any major purchases for then — but Prime Day can still be a great time to expand your smart home setup with a new device or two, or to try out something completely different. Here’s what you should know as you shop.

Read more: Best Cheap Alexa Devices of 2022

Prime Day pickings are slimmer than Black Friday

Don’t get me wrong, we’re definitely going to see discounted smart home tech for Prime Day, and some of those deals might indeed be pretty tempting. You can already find good deals on smart plugs, smart displays, self-emptying robot vacuums and more, many of which bring the prices of those products down to the lowest levels we’ve seen all year.

Historically, however, the best sales of the year come closer to the holiday buying season — specifically, on Black Friday and Cyber Monday at the end of November. Simply put, there’s a much, much greater number of shoppers ready to spend; in turn, that means a much greater number of manufacturers pulling out all of the stops to compete for your dollar.

On top of that, your Prime Day pickings are going to lean heavily toward the Amazon side of things, with many of the best discounts reserved for echo speakers and other Alexa-compatible devices. It isn’t all Alexa, though. Echo stuff aside, a good number of those third-party devices will work in Google Assistant smart homes and in some cases Apple HomeKit smart homes, too. Meanwhile, other retailers like Best Buy and Target working to counter-program Amazon with summertime sales of their own might provide some additional variety among brands and devices. Still, for the most part, Prime Day’s smart home deals are always going to skew toward Alexa. Maybe that’s exactly what you’re looking for — but maybe it isn’t.

In the end,

Jul 08

Must-Have Travel Gadgets to Make International Trips Stress-Free

Bringing your own laptop, tablet or phone along while traveling internationally makes everything a lot easier.

You can serve as your own travel agent; scoping out activities, curating restaurants, making bookings and reservations and navigating unfamiliar areas. Plus, with some companies maintaining remote-work flexibility into 2022, you can work a bit while traveling so you don’t have to use up all your allotted time off for one trip.

But packing your tech isn’t as simple as stuffing it into your suitcase. You also need to find a way to keep it charged, connected to the internet, safe and easily accessible. On top of that, different regions use different types of electrical plugs and voltages; if you haven’t brought along the right adapter or converter, your tech is rendered useless.

I encountered these challenges in early May when I traveled from the US to the UK, tagging along with my partner on a business trip. We incorporated both work and leisure into our travels — a practice becoming increasing common in the form of the digital nomad lifestyle. To keep our devices functional and secure, we relied on a number of tech accessories.

Here are the gadgets that enabled us to stay online during our international trip. For even more tips, check out this list of travel tech recommendations from CNET contributor Geoffrey Morrison, a seasoned traveler.

Mary King

Before I purchased this handy little case, I would store my small electronics and wires by simply cramming them into my backpack. I’d have to dig around and pray I’d pluck the one I needed from the heaps of tangled chargers without having to dump everything out.

No more of that. Outfitted with pockets and zip-up compartments, the Thule Subterra PowerShuttle is perfectly suited for organizing small tech-adjacent doodads: AirPods, adapters, a webcam, small charging cables, spare earbuds and dongles.

One particularly helpful feature is a hidden cutout in the exterior pocket that allows a cord to pass through: You can stick a phone in that pocket for easy access while you charge it up using a powerbank you’ve placed inside the case.

If you have a larger assortment of chargers and long cables, upsize to the Subterra PowerShutte Plus or this double-layer option from Amazon.

Mary King

This portable charger saved my iPhone’s arse on numerous occasions, adding hours and hours to its battery life. Though the chunky 5.9-inch unit (which weighs just under a pound) bogged down my backpack a bit, it certainly pulled its weight, refueling my phone’s weary battery while eliminating the need to duck into a cafe in search of an outlet.

While traveling, I needed to recharge my phone much more often than I’d expected to. I put a real strain on my iPhone’s battery, mapping out public transit routes, cueing up boarding passes, snapping photos, researching nearby attractions and food, scanning QR codes and religiously refreshing the West End’s virtual ticket booth for dirt-cheap last-minute seats . I’d gulp each time the battery icon turned