Gillian Shaw
Sun
MobileOffice D600, Plustek Technology
PowerShot A480, Canon
Speak-er, the., $120 US
Speak to me — in a bubble. You’ve got to love the design team of Mihoko Ouchi and Sherwood Forlee for coming up with speakers that so elegantly reflect their function. Multimedia speakers that plug into your computer or MP3 player. Delivering six watts per speaker. www.thinkofthe.com/
products/speak-er.php
MobileOffice D600, Plustek Technology, $330 US
Carry along your MobileOffice to turn anything from documents to ID cards into digital formats including JPGs, Word, searchable PDF files, and others. One button lets you scan both sides of a document, scanning at 19 ppm with 300 dpi for colour, and 55 ppm and 300 dpi grayscale (or about one second per page). www.plustek.com.
PowerShot A480, Canon, $150Cdn
A good price and useful features make the latest in Canon’s A-series PowerShot a contender if you’re looking for a point-and-shoot that will take photos you can be proud of. It is 10-megapixels — who’d have thought a few years ago that a sub-$200 camera would have that — plus a 3.3x optical zoom, and features that include Canon’s face detection technology, red eye correction, and VGA movie mode to capture high-res still images while shooting video. Also a super-macro mode lets you aim from as little as one centimetre from the tip of the lens. Available in several colours, including red for your favourite Valentine. For release in February. www.canon.ca.
IDR400M earphones with hands free cell microphone, Scosche,
$80 US
An unexpected bump from a cellphone-chatting driver reminded me recently about the importance of using a headphone if you carry on your cellphone conversations in the car. In some jurisdictions it is mandatory, and here in British Columbia I know at least one company that tells its employees to keep their cellphones locked in the trunk. Another option among the many available, this one from Scosche, the IDR400M, noise isolation earphones with hands-free cell microphone. Hands-free conversations and audio control. Just don’t be like the driver who told me recently about looking down at a ringing cellphone to see who was calling and running into two parked cars. Whoops. Fortunately, apart from the cars, there were no injuries. www.Scosche.com
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