Archive for the Peripherals category
Ultimate Keyboard
by David English on January 15th, 2008
It may sound like name of a Roman General or twist-toy Transformer, but Optimus Maximus is actually a high-tech computer keyboard. There’s a tiny OLED screen embedded into each of the 113 programmable keys.
A software utility lets you associate each key with a 48×48 pixel image, so you might use a logo for a corporate website, desktop icon for a popular application, or friend’s photo for an instant messaging program.
The keyboard is ideal for switching among unusual character sets, such as Cyrillic, Ancient Greek, Georgian, Arabic, or Quenya. Musicians might use musical notes, mathematicians could embed math functions, and programmers may favor HTML codes.
Before you rush out to buy one, you should know the price. It’s roughly $1,500, depending on the exchange rate between Russia and the U.S. Check out the website of Art.Lebedev Studio, the designer of the keyboard, for other interesting products — most with more down-to-earth prices.
Pinstripe Skype
by David English on January 19th, 2007
Lost among all the cool new gadgets at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was a nifty Skype-compatible accessory from Polycom.
You might wonder why Polycom would be releasing a consumer product. The company is best known for its business-oriented teleconferencing equipment, especially its tri-cornered phones that let a room full of people participate without the usual audio feedback problems. Polycom has taken that same conference-room expertise and applied it to the Polycom Communicator ($129 list price), which brings conference-phone capabilities to your Skype-equipped notebook or desktop computer.
It plugs into any USB port with a lightweight cable that folds back into the unit when you’re done. The front-mounted buttons adjust the volume up and down, mute the microphone, run the Skype program on your computer, and hang up the phone. It has a stereo headphone jack for private conversations, as well as a slim carry case for easy portability. Given Skype’s rock-bottom prices for domestic and overseas phone calls, this would be an excellent way to add phone service to your WiFi or cellular-modem equipped laptop.
I found the audio quality to be very good on my end, though someone on the other end of a call mentioned the audio sounded a bit tinny. That was probably a result of the Skype Internet connection, not the fault of the Communicator, as the built-in speaker and dual microphones seemed fine when I used them for other computer-based functions.