Portable

If you’ve ever sold something on eBay or Kijiji, you’ll know how surprisingly difficult it can be to get a clean, well-lit shot of even the simplest of objects - you don’t want a distracting background, insufficient light, or overly asymmetrical lighting. Or, perhaps you’re required to get a large number of on-location shots for something such as a catalog, but you don’t want to drag along a lot of gear. In either case, the Simp-Q is what you need. Putting it simply, it’s a self-contained photo studio. We had a chance to check it out at this year’s China International Consumer Electronics Show (SINOCES), and were pretty impressed with the shots it allowed us to take. Read More

Samson Technologies is about to release its smallest portable recorder to date. The Zoom H1 Handy Recorder is capable of recording up to 24-bit/96kHz WAV or 320Kbps MP3 using its built-in or external stereo microphones, and has an easy-to-use hardware-based user interface, where all of the controls are placed within easy reach. It weighs just a couple of ounces, runs on one AA battery and records to microSD. Read More

If you find yourself going to meetings, presentations or trade shows a lot then DocExpress from Taiwan's New Image could just help ease the burden of carrying away reams of paper handouts. Instead of lugging all that paper around, pop the document, photograph or even real object under the high speed, portable document camera solution and zap a digitized version instead. The solution can even be used to project, copy, fax, email or record images or video. Read More

With so many mobile workers and executives lured in by the lightweight appeal of the MacBook, it seems crazy there isn't already a raft of compact, Mac-specific scanners on the market. Now, Canon is putting things right with the launch of the lightweight, portable imageFORMULA P-150M Scan-tini personal scanner, designed to shine with the Mac operating system. Read More

OCZ Technology Group, known for its high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and memory devices has released the Enyo Portable SSD that utilizes the next generation USB 3.0 interface. For consumers who want the flexibility of a portable drive with the robust durability and performance advantages of an SSD, coupled with super fast USB 3.0, this device ticks all the boxes. Read More

Like test tubes and Bunsen burners, the centrifuge is a standard piece of equipment in scientific and medical labs the world over. But what happens when there’s no lab to speak of? In developing and third world countries access to centrifuges, not to mention the power to drive them, can make separating blood to diagnose a range of diseases a difficult task. Now a couple of university students have come up with the ingenious idea of turning the humble salad spinner into a rudimentary centrifuge that could be used in medical clinics in developing countries around the world. Read More

Here's another USB gem from Japanese gadget giant Thanko. Its full-size USB keyboard is broken into four connected quarter segments, allowing it to be folded over into a pocket-size rectangular shape. With the growing popularity of portable notebooks and tablets with smaller, cramped keyboards, having a full-size keyboard like this to tote around in your pocket might be a nice complement. Read More

While we wait for bigger, cheaper OLED displays to knock LCD and plasmas off their perch, Sony has released the first field display to use an Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) display panel. The PVM-740 is a 7.4-inch 960 x 540 pixel resolution portable monitor designed for professional users (with professionally deep pockets) that offers picture contrast greater than a CRT display and is less affected by ambient light, allowing images to be viewed even in strong sunlight. Read More

MEDL Technology recently showed off its fully functional, multi-purpose 13 inch display at the Spring DEMO conference in California. With its own power source and a number of connectivity options, The Panel not only offers extra screen real-estate to business and consumer laptop users but also to anyone wishing to show off a photo collection direct from a digital camera or watch a movie on the move or make gaming less reliant on complicated timeshare schedules being drawn up for the family TV. Read More