Mobile Technology

We've seen the cardboard record player and cardboard USB sticks, now another design that thinks outside the (cardboard) box - the foldable phone concept. Created by Chengyuan Wei, the Origami phone handset comes flat and like a pop-up book, transforms into a 3D handset with a few simple folds ... oh, and it's recyclable. Read More

For the rest of 2011, I'm visiting a new country every week or two. I'm not the biggest fan of getting lost, asking for directions, or getting ripped off by taxi drivers, so keeping my iPhone's battery charged is high on my list of priorities. I came across Mophie's Juice Pack Powerstation while I was doing my pre-travel gadget shopping, and was surprised at how small, light and cheap the unit was. So how does it stack up? Read More

Although the carry-ability of iPads is undoubtedly one of their biggest selling features, holding one of those things in front of yourself can get tiring after a while. Various companies have attempted to capitalize on this fact, offering a wide variety of iPad holders. While many of these systems just prop the iPad up, the new Freedom II offers a few unique features, such as suction cups and a mounting strap. Read More

With a mobile phone now an essential item in any ladies' handbag, it's surprising that most of the solar powered bags we've seen up until now have been either backpacks or messenger bags. That's fine for men who generally see bags as a purely functional piece of equipment designed to make it easier to carry things like beer, guns and pornography around. But from what I understand, it's much different for women, for whom the handbag is an extension of their personality and needs to be fashionable as well as practical - and the practicality is probably optional. Danish design studio DIFFUS has done its best to combine the two with its Solar Handbag. Read More

The dust hadn't even had time to settle on the announcement of the new Kobo eReader Touch Edition before Barnes & Noble (B&N) unveiled the Nook Simple Touch Reader. The new Nook has 50 percent better contrast than the previous e-Ink edition (thanks to being upgraded to the latest Pearl e-ink technology) and, like the Kobo device, its 6-inch display has been made touch sensitive with the aid of infrared technology. It's also 35 percent lighter and 15 percent thinner than the first edition Nook, and offers a best-in-class battery life. Read More

IDAPT has been providing charging solutions for power hungry mobile device users for a few years now with its range of multi-purpose chargers, such as the IDAPT i3. The company has now extended its range with the IDAPT i1 Eco dual charger that has been designed as a more environmentally friendly way to keep the juice flowing in your electronic devices. Read More

The tablet frenzy sparked by the launch of Apple's iPad in April 2010 and the success of eReaders like the Kindle has seen many new players enter the market in the past year ... and there were bound to be some casualties. The enTourage eDGe looks to be one. The company has officially closed the content store for its eDGe and Pocket eDGe eReaders and there are reports that the dual-screen hardware will follow suit. Read More

While I'm a big fan of the Kindle 3, I think that Kobo may have got it beat with its new eReader Touch Edition. Featuring the latest Pearl e-Ink technology that so improved Amazon's models last year, Kobo's new Wi-Fi-enabled device also boasts optical touchscreen interaction courtesy of Neonode, is powered by a processor specially developed for e-Readers and comes with support for multiple languages. Read More

Fans of the movie They Live will recall the special sunglasses in the film, that allowed the unknowing public to see that certain people were actually aliens, and that seemingly ordinary billboards in fact displayed messages like “OBEY” and “CONSUME.” The new Aurasma app for iPhone 4 and iPad 2 is kind of like those glasses. OK, it doesn’t actually reveal the true nature of things, but it does allow you to see otherwise unseeable videos and other images that fellow Aurasma users have virtually attached to real-world scenes and objects. If you were to point your phone’s camera at a certain building, for instance, you would see real-time video of that building on your screen, but perhaps with another user’s computer-generated monster climbing up the side of it to promote an upcoming event. Read More