So, your Family Truckster is loaded with sixteen cup holders in various places. Since you already have a place to stash your hot coffee while driving, wouldn't it be nice to use one of those cup holders for something really useful, like holding your iPad or iPhone within arm's reach? Satechi yesterday delivered the SCH-121 Cup Holder Mount (US$29.99), which comes with two cradles, one for 7" - 10" tablets and the other for your smartphone.

While you don't exactly want to be going down the road watching movies on your iPad, this is perfect for the back seat crowd, front row passengers, or for those who need access to an iPad when they're stopped at a worksite.

Being able to swap out the cradles for iPad and iPhone provides a lot of flexibility. I can see using one of these to keep the spouse happy with her iPad on long driving trips, while the iPhone cradle will keep me on the right track with GPS apps while keeping the phone out of the hot sun on my dashboard.

The Cup Holder Mount is available either from Satechi's website or Amazon.com, although it hasn't shown up on the former yet. I'll be doing a review of the mount in the near future.

Satechi's Cup Holder Mount keeps your iPad and iPhone close at hand originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Satechi's Cup Holder Mount keeps your iPad and iPhone close at hand originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 09 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you're in the market for a new inkjet printer, you may want to take a closer look at two new offerings from Canon. Announced on Tuesday, the PIXMA MX512 and PIXMA MX432 are two wireless All-In-One injkjet printers that'll let you print, copy, scan and fax. Both printers support AirPrint, which lets you print documents, emails and photos from your iPhone and iPad.

Both the MX512 and the MX432 print at a rate of 9.7 ipm for black-and-white documents and approximately 5.5 ipm for color. The pair can print a 4" x 6" borderless photo in approximately 46 seconds. The MX512 has auto duplex printing and a dual-function panel which makes its easy for users to manage printing options and print documents directly from a media card. The MX512 and MX432 have a MSRP of US$149 and $99, respectively.

Canon introduces two new AirPrint inkjet printers originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Canon introduces two new AirPrint inkjet printers originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Zero1.tv has released its new VooMote Zapper (US$69.95) universal remote for iOS devices into the wild, and it's also now in your nearby Apple Store. I had an opportunity to try the new device out over the last week, and while less expensive and smaller than the VooMote One remote we mentioned at its release last last year, the Zapper still seems to have some of the same issues that many other iOS remotes have.

First, the good news. The tiny Zapper plugs into the 30-pin Universal Dock port on the bottom of your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. As such, it's able to provide the infrared transceiver on the device with more power than some of the cheap devices we've seen that plug into the headphone jack. The company boasts that the Zapper has four IR mini-blasters for range, and it really does seem to make a difference. I found that the Zapper was able to control devices easily from across a room in broad daylight, so it's definitely got the power.

The dongle comes in eight colors that match the iPad 2 Smart Covers, and it appears that there will be colored cases for iPad 2, iPhone 4/4S, and iPod touch 4th Generation. Those cases you see in the image at the top of this post? They're not available yet.

Gallery: VooMote Zapper

Now, the not-so-good news. Even after getting an update to the free VooMote Zapper app the other day, most of the devices that make up my home entertainment system were not in the library of codes. The Zapper app has one irritating habit right off the bat: it runs upside down on the iPhone so that the Zapper is always at the "top" of the screen. Want to check email? Flip your device upside-down again. The app is not universal, so if you run it on your iPad, it's either a tiny window on your device or a fuzzy 2X version of the app. VooMote is coming out with an iPad-specific TV Guide app sometime in 2012.

The way the app works is you add a room to your home, then add individual devices to that room. The list of rooms is quite extensive, but it doesn't include that staple of American homes, the "family room." I decided to use "living room" instead, although that is a completely separate room in my home that doesn't have any tech in it. Next, I started adding devices to my "living room."

Immediately I was confused. Is my Comcast / Motorola DVR considered a DVR, or is it a cable box? There are listings for both types of devices. I decided to call it a cable box. Upon choosing cable box, I found one that was named "Comcast", but the box I have wasn't listed. The Zapper app took me through a process of trying to figure out what it was by asking me if it was changing channels, bringing the volume up, etc. When it was done, I had a virtual remote on my iPhone called "Cable-Box" that looks nothing like the remote I normally use, and it has controls that make absolutely no sense for the model I'm using.

Next I added the TV. I have a Panasonic Viera 50" Plasma TV that's about five years old. The only Panasonic TVs that are listed are about fifteen units that must be quite new. Once again, I had to go through the training process to see if the app could come up with a remote that would work with my TV. Sure, it turns it on and off, changes channels, and bumps the volume up and down, but I still have to grab my old TV remote in order to change the input (HDMI1, HDMI2, etc.).

I went through the same process with everything but the Apple TV, which miraculously was already in the database. However, it didn't actually turn the Apple TV on, so my guess is that the device settings were for the first-generation device.

Sure, this is a new device and I'm sure that the code library for devices will expand in the future. But I'd bet that a lot of TUAW readers have the same opinion that I do -- when I get a "universal remote," I want it to work out of the box without needing to go through this tedious type of hit-and-miss process.

Like the Logitech Harmony One remote that I previously used, the Zapper has a way to string together commands so that you can turn on multiple devices in sequence for doing something like watching a DVD -- turn on TV, turn on DVD player, turn on audio device (home theater), etc. I didn't even try this function.

I am not going to single out just the VooMote Zapper for having this problem; just about every iOS remote control device I've tried has been lacking, and the Logitech remote described earlier was also a pain to program. I will give the VooMote Zapper a chance, and I've set up an appointment on my calendar to see if an expanded code library in a few months makes this device easier to set up and use. I certainly like the design of the little dongle.

If Apple really wants to capture the home entertainment market, it doesn't need to come to market with a new HDTV -- it just needs to figure out how to get every type of device working together seamlessly and without a lot of annoying setup. For that, I'd be willing to pay a lot of money.

VooMote Zapper universal remote for iOS: A first look and a rant originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

VooMote Zapper universal remote for iOS: A first look and a rant originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For Mac repair shops, enterprise tech support teams, and consultants who need to wipe all data off of hard drives before selling or recycling old Macs, there's now a fast way to erase those drives without tying up a machine for a long time. WiebeTech has a new device called the Drive eRazer Ultra (US$249) that promises to make cleaning those pesky drives a fast and easy process.

WiebeTech provided a Drive eRazer Ultra to TUAW for testing and review, and the device does an amazing job of wiping all of that private or corporate information off of hard drives. In this review you'll read about what makes the Drive eRazer Ultra such a useful device.

To start off with, erasing a computer's hard drive completely usually means that you remove the drive from the computer. Sure, you can boot a computer off of an external drive and then run a utility to do the dirty work on an internal drive, but that ties up the computer for the entire time that the drive is being erased. Using a multiple-pass erase to ensure that your drive is completely unreadable can literally take days if you're using Apple's Disk Utility to do the job, and other software-based erasure methods take equally as long.

The Drive eRazer Ultra erases drives at their maximum write speed, so the job is done faster. WiebeTech says that new drives are erased at 7 GB/minute while older drives will putt along at 7 GB/minute. No computer is required -- you just remove the hard drive, then use the included cables to connect it to the Drive eRazer Ultra. The device has a rocker switch and two-line LCD display for selecting the erase mode and showing how long it will take to the erasure to complete.

Gallery: WiebeTech Drive eRazer Ultra

There are ten different erase specifications that are supported by the device: a quick erase that just does a single pass writing all zeroes on the drive, a custom erase that can run 1 to 99 passes overwriting with zeroes or a user-selected pattern, Secure Erase N or E that initiates a drive's built-in Secure Erase normal or enhanced function, US Department of Defense "Clear" or "Sanitize" standards, NIST special publication 800-88 "Clear" or "Purge" standards, the Canadian CSEC ITSG-06 data sanitization standard, Great Britain's HMGIS5 "Baseline" or "Enhanced" drive erasure standard, and the Australian government's DSD ISM 6.2.92 data sanitization standard.

If your job requires you to print out labels that describe the details of the erasure (for audit reasons, for example), there's a serial port for Zebra brand label printers. Those labels can then be attached to the drives or to a box or bag used for disposal of the drive.

The Drive eRazer Ultra supports 2.5" and 3.5" SATA drives, 3.5" IDE/PATA drives, and other drives using optional adapters. If you're erasing a 3.5" drive, there's a metal protective plate included that you can screw onto the drive to protect the drive electronics and help dissipate heat.

For my testing, I grabbed a 160 GB Hitachi drive that had previously resided in a MacBook and that was loaded with about 100 GB of video backups. To use the Drive eRazer, you need to plug in a power brick that's about the same size and weight of the unit itself, grab the correct cable (SATA in this case), and make both power and data connections to the drive. Flipping the power switch on the box powers up the drive, and the display shows a command for doing a quick erase.

I chose to look at the drive information screens first, which provide data on the capacity of the drive, the number of bad sectors on it, the number of times that the drive has been powered on and off, the number of times the drive has been stopped and started, and an estimate of the time to do a Secure Erase (enhanced or normal).

The user interface is really quite simple to use, and it took very little time for me to set the default erase specification to "DOD Sanitize." The device warns the user that it will erase all data -- which I thought was silly since that's what the device is supposed to do -- and then estimates how long it will take to perform the erasure.

Sanitizing is "the removal of sensitive data from a system or storage device with the intent that the data can not be reconstructed by any known technique," according to Wikipedia. The DOD Sanitize specification (DOD 5220.22-M) recommends that you "Overwrite all addressable locations with a character, its complement, then a random character and verify" to sanitize information on writable media.

To complete this process, the Drive eRazer Ultra took about 2 hours and 16 minutes. As soon as that was done, I took the same drive and ran it through the "Most Secure" erase option in Disk Utility, which also complies with DOD 5220.22-M. That method took slightly over 8 hours to complete.

This isn't a device that most Mac owners are going to rush out and buy, but for those who are constantly erasing drives, the Drive eRazer Ultra can pay for itself quickly in terms of sheer convenience and time saved wiping data. For those teams and individuals, this is an indispensable device.

WiebeTech Drive eRazer Ultra provides super-secure drive wiping originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

WiebeTech Drive eRazer Ultra provides super-secure drive wiping originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The design wizards at Twelve South have come up with another unique and useful accessory for Apple gear. This time, they're introducing the HoverBar (US$79.99), a mounting clamp and flexible bar that floats an iPad 2 (or several) next to your iMac or Apple monitor.

The HoverBar can be clamped onto the upright of an iMac or Apple display, to a tabletop, or any other surface up to an inch thick. Your iPad 2 sits in a plastic clip that's mounted on a swivel ball so it can be turned to any angle. In the video below, one idle youth taking time out from doing his homework uses the iPad / HoverBar combo as a steering wheel for Real Racing. That's a different use case!

Many people will want to use the HoverBar-mounted iPad as a communications device, displaying email or providing a way to do FaceTime conferencing without the dreaded "nose vision" view. Used with an app like Air Display ($9.99), you can even have a Mac window displayed on your iPad.

We hope to get a HoverBar soon for a full review. Until then, enjoy the video and visit the Twelve South website.

Twelve South HoverBar a unique way to marry iPad and iMac originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Twelve South HoverBar a unique way to marry iPad and iMac originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We've seen lots of photo accessories that let you add filters and lenses to your iPhone, but SkyLight is the first to let you add a full-fledged microscope. It's a platform that attaches to a microscope and aligns the phone's camera with the eyepiece. You can view the microscope image on your phone and take photographs. It's perfect for classroom usage, for researchers who need high-quality images in their published papers and for clinicians who can take a photo and send it off for analysis.

SkyLight started as a Kickstarter project that reached its $15,000 funding goal last month. It was available for a preorder price of US$60 and will ship in March. It includes a generous five for one incentive plan that'll donate one SkyLight to global health or educational purposes for every 5 SkyLights purchased. You can read more about the accessory and its inspiration at the SkyLight website.

[Via Springwise]

SkyLight combines iPhones and microscopes originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

SkyLight combines iPhones and microscopes originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hard drive storage company Western Digital was in attendance at Macworld | iWorld 2012 last week showing off its MyBook Thunderbolt Duo setup. The unit is a two-drive box that can hook up to your Mac through the Thunderbolt port, and it's Western Digital's first entry into the protocol.

As you might imagine, using Thunderbolt means the transfers are much faster. Western Digital's rep said that while a transfer of 6 terabytes (the drive will likely debut in 4 or 6 TB models) would normally take up to 6 days to completely write over, the Thunderbolt drives can do it in six hours. That's big news for backup fans, who are very much awaiting WD's new models.

The drive we saw was only a prototype model, and official pricing or release information hasn't yet been announced, unfortunately. But the units on display at the show had two built-in Thunderbolt ports, which actually allowed them to be daisy-chained off of the iMac on display. That means that users can either run the drives in Raid 0 or Raid 1 configuration, either using the two drives as one storage unit, or allowing one drive to back up the other. Additional units can then be added on to the setup -- the display at WD's both had three such units all hooked together, allowing for 18 TB of storage total, or any number of splits across those drives for backups.

It was all very impressive, though again, WD hasn't yet announced plans for release. We should see these drives hitting the market later on this year, however, so we'll stay tuned for that.

Western Digital shows off a Thunderbolt hard drive at Macworld | iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Western Digital shows off a Thunderbolt hard drive at Macworld | iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just before I headed out of San Francisco at the end of Macworld | iWorld last week, I met up with a few of the guys from BearExtender, who make an impressive product that will boost the Wi-Fi signal coming into your Mac. The guys were in San Francisco to show off the BearExtender Mini, which will eventually replace the current product.

The reason it will replace the standard BearExtender (so named, by the way, because it was developed for dorms at the University of California Berkeley, where the network is in fact called AirBears) is that it's just better. The standard Bear Extender runs at 700 milliwatts, where the mini is about half the size of the original product, and runs at 1000 milliwatts.

Your MacBook typically receives Wi-Fi at a range of about 200-400 feet maximum. The BearExtender expands that to about 1500 feet, which is a sizable difference. That varies, of course, depending on what kind of building you're in and your line of sight to the core signal. The Bear guys gave me a demonstration using Macworld | iWorld's press Wi-Fi network, which they boosted from a 50% signal all the way up to 100%

The BearExtender Mini should be out sometime in February, and should run about the same price as the current model, or US$49.97.

I also asked the guys about a possible model for the iPad, but they said that because of Apple's restrictions on power usage from the iPad's docking port (likely because Apple wants to make sure battery life is as high as it can be), the BearExtender wouldn't be able to pull enough power to work well. But they had a solution ready to go anyway -- if you need to reach a signal on the iPad and have a Mac around, you can use the BearExtender on the Mac, and then share the connection over to the iPad.

Finally, the guys had one more product on offer. The BearExtender Mini will sell with an optional powered cable that will extend the product out another 10 feet away from whatever USB port you're plugging it into. The power is required in the cable to keep the signal from degrading over that last 10 feet, and the cable will also help as an auxiliary antenna, to grow the reach even farther. There will be an extra charge for the cable, but it's clear the BearExtender team is very serious about making Wi-Fi signals reach where they need to go. If you're in a position (the guys say they've heard from soldiers in Afghanistan, and researchers out in the field as well) where you need to reach as far as possible for a Wi-Fi signal, the BearExtender setup is definitely worth a look.

BearExtender turns its product mini at Macworld | iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

BearExtender turns its product mini at Macworld | iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kanex is an accessories manufacturer that has traditionally built cables and connectors for Apple products. The company has recently brightened up its branding and is introducing some new products that are sure to grab some attention. I was able to take some photos of the new Kanex Sydnee iOS recharge station at Macworld | iWorld 2012 last week, and heard a fascinating story about the origins of the design of the Sydnee.

Gallery: Kanex Sydnee

First, a little bit of background about the Sydnee. It's designed to charge up to four iPads simultaneously. That means that it supplies the requisite 2.1 Amps of current to four individual USB ports. Sure, you can swap out some or all of those iPads with iPhones or iPod touches, but where the Sydnee really shines is in the area of charging multiple iPads at one time.

What's nice about the Sydnee is that it manages to be both functional and stylish at the same time. In terms of functionality, the Sydnee does an amazing job of holding three iPads at the same time while feeding power to them through included USB cables that are just the right length. The fourth iPad (or an iPhone) must sit on the table, uninvited to the party.

Now, about the style. As you can see from both the image at the top of this post and the gallery, the Sydnee uses a unique design that allows it to hold three iPads gracefully. There's a clear plastic piece in the center of the oblong "loop" that separates two of the iPads, while the third perches on the outside of the device.

If this design seems vaguely familiar, than you must be a fan of Disney Pixar's Wallo.E. The Kanex team told me that Sydnee's design was inspired by the Axiom, the huge BnL spacecraft that is inhabited by a "lost colony" from Earth. Whether that story is true or the team was pulling my leg, there is a resemblance, and the design is striking.

Sydnee's not available yet, but you can sign up for updates on availability. The recharging station is expected to retail for US$149 when it appears, and you'll be able to get it in either black or white. I just wish it had a Buy n Large logo sticker on the outside...

Kanex Sydnee recharging station traces design to an unusual source originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Kanex Sydnee recharging station traces design to an unusual source originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Koss headphones have been around a long time. I remember doing some pro recording with them in the 70s, and I know they go back at least to the early 60s. The company isn't stuck in the past, though, so it has announced a new version of the popular Porta Pro headset. It's called the Porta Pro KTC, which stands for Koss Touch Control. It's aimed at all your iOS devices, and allows you to shuffle songs, adjust volume and make calls from a small controller built into the headphone cord.

The Porta Pro is an on-ear design, featuring a collapsible headband and a carrying case. Last time I listened to the Porta Pros I found the sound quite smooth and the headphones were very comfortable.

There is no price announced for the Porta Pros yet, but the current model without the controller retails for US$50.00. The KTC model is expected to hit stores in early Spring.

[via Engadget]

Koss adds iPhone remote to Porta Pro headphones originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Koss adds iPhone remote to Porta Pro headphones originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you live in an area that gets warm rain in the summer or cold rain in the winter, then you'll want to check out the iPad sleeve from Flowfold. It's a basic sleeve that'll protect your iPad from the elements. It's made of recycled materials, which makes it friendly for the environment, too.

Design

The Flowfold case has a basic sleeve design with sailcloth on the outside and a soft inner liner made of recycled bottles. The outer sailcloth layer is made from leftover scraps that would otherwise be thrown away. For those who have never seen it, sailcloth is used to make professional racing sails and has a unique glossy, fibrous appearance. This sailcloth sleeve is different from any other case I have seen because the styling doesn't come from inks and coloring, but from the material itself.

Besides its unique appearance, sailcloth is also an extremely durable, water-resistant material. According to the manufacturer, it's made of Carbon Fiber, Kevlar, Pentex or Polyester matrixes sandwiched between Mylar films. The outer sailcloth layer gives the sleeve some strength, but it's not a rigid case. It's still soft and flexible.

The inside is a low-pile plush material made from recycled bottles. It gives the case some cushioning and the soft surface won't scratch the surface of your iPad. At the top of the sleeve is an inner Velcro tab that'll keep your iPad in the case and not on the floor. It's a solid closure that requires some force to open and won't open without warning.

The Flowfold is a handmade case and solidly made. If you look closely, you may notice the stitches are not always perfectly spaced like a machine, but it's a strong stitching that doesn't come apart easily. I like the handmade look because it means each case will be a little bit different from the others.

Size-wise, the sleeve is designed for the case-less iPad, but it will fit will fit other similarly-sized tablets. I used it with my iPad 1, my iPad 2 and both the Touchpad and Xoom.

Functionality

The outstanding feature of the Flowfold sleeve is its outer sailcloth material. It gives you enough water protection that you can carry it in the rain or snow without concern. Be careful around deep puddles, though. The sleeve is water-resistant against surface moisture, but it's not a sealed case and won't protect your iPad if it takes a plunge.

Besides being water-resistant, the sailcloth won't rip or tear easily. I tried tugging at it and brushing it up against sharp corners and couldn't cause a split in the fabric. I'm sure if I took my Spyderco knife to it, I could tear it, but that's to be expected. Unless you work or play in an extremely rough environment, the sleeve will stand up to everyday wear and tear.

The Flowfold sleeve has a soft inner lining and thick stitching around the edges that provide protection from your average fall. It's not an Otterbox case that'll let you throw your iPad, but you can drop it without worrying about damage. It's a flexible sleeve, however, and won't protect your iPad from twisting forces or blunt impact. If you put your Flowfold-encased iPad in a backpack, you still have to be careful you don't bend it, twist it or step on it.

Conclusion

The Flowfold sleeve is excellent for the casual user who wants to carry their iPad without worrying about the weather. It gives you enough water protection that you can carry it in the rain and enough impact protection that you can drop it without concern. The sailcloth also gives the case a unique, outdoorsy look that's quite eye-catching. Best of all, it's made of recycled materials and is handcrafted in the state of Maine. The Flowfold iPad sleeve is available for $35 in a variety of colors from Flowfold's website.

Gallery: Flowfold iPad sleeve

Flowfold iPad sleeve: a water-resistant case with an eco-friendly footprint originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Flowfold iPad sleeve: a water-resistant case with an eco-friendly footprint originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sanho's Daniel Chin originally sought $100,000 in funding through Kickstarter, but wound up with more than 2,700 backers and more than $262,000 by the time the pledge drive ended three weeks ago.

CloudFTP is an adapter that turns any USB storage device into a wireless file server. It can share files with any WiFi-enabled device and will back up data to cloud storage on the Internet. It creates its own ad-hoc wireless network to share data, and it can be accessed from a web app, iOS app (there's one for Android as well) or via FTP.

CloudFTP is expected to ship in early February to Kickstarter participants and will cost $99.95 retail. Check out the video below to discover CloudFTP can do.

Sanho previews CloudFTP at Macworld | iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Sanho previews CloudFTP at Macworld | iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yesterday while I was on the show floor at Macworld | iWorld 2012, I came upon a 7-foot-tall scanner walking around. After I figured out that my cold medicine wasn't making me hallucinate, I knew that I was in the right place -- the Doxie booth. There I was able to interview Paul Scandariato of Doxie about their new DoxieGo + Wi-Fi mobile scanner and grab some video.

The new scanner communicates with your Mac or iOS device over Wi-Fi, and allowing you to scan straight to the cloud if you wish. Paul noted that many users scan their documents straight to Dropbox, then open them for viewing or annotation on the iPad.

The DoxieGo + Wi-Fi is priced at US$249, while the DoxieGo previously reviewed by TUAW remains at $199. For Macworld show-goers, you can the Doxie scanners for $50 off of list price through Saturday.

Here's the DoxieGo + Wi-Fi in action:

Doxie's new DoxieGo + Wi-Fi: Demo video at Macworld iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Doxie's new DoxieGo + Wi-Fi: Demo video at Macworld iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Standing in the middle of the Macworld | iWorld 2012 exhibit floor looking a bit out of place, Alljack's $68,000 diamond-studded speakers -- fresh from CES -- are drawing a bit of attention.

Inspired by a wine bottle and a flower, the speakers are crafted with Russian diamonds, gold plating, simulated wood grain and other decorative metal. Alljack works with industrial designers and engineers to create their products, and these speakers are crafted from precision-controlled machinery.

Alljack is a prototype center from Taiwan, so these are most likely the only set of these speakers that'll be made. They're here more to show off Alljack's skill more than get a pair of these speakers in your home.

Seen at Macworld | iWorld 2012: $68,000 diamond speakers originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Seen at Macworld | iWorld 2012: $68,000 diamond speakers originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If there's one company at Macworld | iWorld 2012 that epitomizes the leading edge of Apple accessories, it's Other World Computing (OWC). At this year's event, the company is showcasing a number of new or soon-to-be-released products for Mac and iPad.

In the Mac realm, OWC is about to release two new versions of the venerable miniStack external drives for the Mac mini. The miniStack Max and miniStack have the same footprint as the post-2010 Mac minis, and features FW 400/800, USB 2.0/3.0 and eSATA (optional) ports, as well as an optical drive (Max only) and USB hub.

When it comes to enterprise storage, OWC has announced and was demonstrating their new Jupiter mini-SAS storage solutions. Jupiter features input/output speeds three times faster than fibre channel and twice as fast as Thunderbolt, all with an infrastructure cost much less than you'd pay for fibre channel storage.

Companies deploying iPads will like the new GripStand Station, which charges and secures up to eight iPads at a time. There's more to come in this short video from the show floor:

Other World Computing at Macworld iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Other World Computing at Macworld iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Creativity is a splendid thing. It lets you come up with never-before-considered ideas, and leads to the creation of products like the Love Box. The Love Box is a videography accessory for the iPhone that lets you mix two videos together in real time.

It's a wooden box with a slot for your iPhone and a sliding mirror. You position the phone's camera in front of the mirror, which lets you record both the action in front of you and the action behind. You can slide the mirror to show just the rear, just the front or something in between. To get a better idea of how it works, you should check out the YouTube video below.

It's a novel concept created by the Honest & Smile agency in Barcelona, Spain. The Love Box is available from Etsy for about US$80. It's a limited edition, and only 100 will be made.

[Via Wired]

Love Box is a low-fi video mixer for iPhone originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Love Box is a low-fi video mixer for iPhone originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For the past three years, I've had the pleasure to meet with HP at Macworld to find out what new Apple-centric products the company has produced. This year afforded another opportunity for HP to showcase their products, and I've put together a booth tour video with many of the highlights. If you can't make it to Macworld | iWorld 2012, I hope you'll enjoy this visit with the fantastic HP team.

Among the products you'll see in the video are the new HP LaserJet Pro 400 color M451 printer, an excellent device for small to medium businesses and home offices. There's also the HP LaserJet Pro 300 color MFP (multi-function printer) M375, an "all-in-one" printer/scanner/ copier/fax, and the faster HP LaserJet Pro 400 color MFP M475 printer. All of these devices are iOS compatible, using AirPrint for fast wireless discovery and printing.

Have you ever tried to scan a three-dimensional object on a flatbed scanner? It doesn't work. That's why HP has introduced the TopShot LaserJet Pro M275, a surprisingly affordable color laser printer with a unique 3D scanner.

HP has brought their top Apple support personnel to this year's event, and you'll meet two of the printer geniuses who are at Macworld | iWorld 2012 to answer any questions dealing with using HP products with Mac OS X and iOS devices.

You'll meet the man behind all of HP's mobile apps, including the free HP PrinterControl app demonstrated in the video. Anyone who needs to print large format output from a Mac should get a lot out of the discussion of HP's DesignJet printers and the vast variety of media they can print on.

Thanks again to the wonderful staff at HP, not only for taking time out of their work at the show today to talk with me, but for also sponsoring the highly successful TUAW Meetup at Jillian's last night (January 26). Several lucky TUAW readers in attendance are receiving HP printers as part of the awesome giveaways. Me? I was just happy to meet and talk with hundreds of TUAW readers.

And now, on with our video:

HP at Macworld iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

HP at Macworld iWorld 2012 originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When we reviewed the Doxie Go in December, a workaround with Eye-Fi Wi-Fi / SD cards enabled wireless scanning of sorts, but now the devices have wireless functionality built in. Documents scanned with the new model can be sent to your computer, mobile device, or to Evernote, Flickr, or an FTP account. Its street price is listed at US$239.

Check back with us all week as our team at Macworld | iWorld is providing complete coverage of all the goodies on the expo floor.

Apparent announces WiFi-powered Doxie Go scanner originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Apparent announces WiFi-powered Doxie Go scanner originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It's the first day of Macworld | iWorld 2012 and the new Mac products are beginning to roll out. Western Digital is back with a hot, new Thunderbolt drive, the My Book Thunderbolt Duo. The external hard drive uses the 10 Gbps Thunderbolt port, and supports two 3.5-inch hard drives in a RAID 0 striped array. It'll send data at a speedy 2 Gbps (250 MBps) which will let you send a full HD movie to the drive in 30 seconds. This is fast, but not as fast as it could be because hard drive technology has not kept up with the speed of the ports.

Despite this speed discrepancy, the My Book Thunderbolt Duo still beats any USB 2.0 drive on the market. It'd be a perfect drive for video professionals who regularly transfer large files. The My Book Thunderbolt Duo will be available in 4 TB and 6 TB capacities. The availability date and pricing are not yet known.

Check back with us all week as our team at Macworld | iWorld is providing complete coverage of all the goodies on the expo floor.

[Via Electronista]

Western Digital announces My Book Thunderbolt Duo drive originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Western Digital announces My Book Thunderbolt Duo drive originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CES 2010 was where we first heard of the Parrot AR.Drone, a radio-controlled quadricopter that hooked up via Wi-Fi to an iPhone app. And now, two years later, that product is out and successful -- and now, obsolete. Parrot used CES 2012 a few weeks ago to introduce the AR.Drone 2.0, a brand new version of the flying drone that's set to arrive for the exact same price later on this year.

Last week at CES, we got to fly the drone around through its paces. There is actually a very noticeable difference in the new version once you get behind the wheel: It's much, much harder to crash. Part of the reason for that is updates in the drone's app and firmware, but the model for 2.0 makes the craft much sturdier, and a new onboard compass (along with some other tech) means it's easier to fly as well. Things are much more stable, so the drone itself can do much more of the work of just staying in the air. You, the flyer can focus on moving it around.

Gallery: Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 at CES 2012

In addition to general adjustments, there's also a new mode implemented called "Absolute Control." This allows the drone to fly in a certain direction, no matter where you tell it to go. It's tough to explain in just text, but the AR.Drone 2.0 "knows" where it's looking, even when you turn it around. For most people, keeping it facing the same way while tilting your iPad or iPhone to move the device is much more intuitive than having to track both the direction you're actually tilting and the direction the drone is flying. Explaining how it works is confusing, but it makes flying the drone much less so.

The drone design itself appears a little smaller than before, but it's actually about the same size. Rather than changing the form factor, some of the hardware has been strengthened, with the weak points on the initial model being the main targets for the refresh. There are also new cameras on board; they will shoot up to 720p HD video, which means even on a tablet screen video from the drone is clear and crisp.

Parrot has seen a lot of action with the drones on YouTube as well; in fact, while we played with the drone at CES, there was also a world championship of sorts going on, with all kinds of flyers from around the world competing after having entered by posting videos online. The new model's software (still a free download from the App Store) will now allow you to not only see video live from the drone, but also take pictures and even record full HD video directly from the device. That should make for a lot of interesting viewing online, even if you don't buy one yourself.

The AR.Drone 2.0 is a significant improvement on Parrot's already popular model. At $299, the AR.Drone is a pretty expensive toy (professionally made as it might be). The more stable control scheme, however, and the addition of the 720p camera and its capture features mean the Drone 2.0 is worth another look, even if you passed the first one by. We're set to get a review model later on this year, so stay tuned for an even more in-depth look at how it all works. The device itself is supposed to be available in Q2.

Parrot updates the AR.Drone for a second version originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Parrot updates the AR.Drone for a second version originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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