Technical Pro

We’ll go ahead and let you try it first, but the folks behind Liquipel ($59) claim their clear coating “protects every feature of your device with a revolutionary waterproof shield.” The Liquipel permanently bonds on the molecular level to your device, both inside and out, and is said to keep your phone working even if you drop it in water (creek, bath tub, Kool-Aid, etc.). Certain iPhone, HTC, Samsung, and Motorola devices can take the Liquipel treatment and their subsequent plunges now.$59

Seagate just took the wraps off what’s likely the niftiest portable HDD to cross our path in a long, long while. The GoFlex Satellite is part storage device, part wireless media streamer, and it manages to wear both hats with little compromise on either end. For all intents and purposes, this is a standard 500GB GoFlex HDD with a bit of extra girth, an AC input, an 802.11b/g/n WiFi module and a built-in web server. The reason for those extras? A simple depression of the on / off button starts the streamer up, and it’s ready for a connection in around 30 to 40 seconds. Once fired up you can stream data to just about anything — even iOS devices. That’s an impressive feat, not quite a “first” moment as Seagate would like you to believe (we’ll give that crown to AirStash), but still a rarity.

Our unit shipped with a GoFlex USB 3.0 adapter and a car charger, with the latter enabling users to entertain their children on long road trips — a nice addition, we have to say. Installation is a cinch; just fire up a media sync application that resides on the drive (for OS X users, anyway), and you’re ready to drag and drop files as if it’s any ‘ole HDD. No media management software or anything of the sort, thankfully. The purpose of having your media onboard is to stream videos, photos, documents and music to your iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, or any other tablet, phone or laptop with WiFi. You heard right — while there’s only a dedicated app for the iOS family, any WiFi-enabled device with a web browser can tap into this. Care to hear our take on this $200 do-it-all hard drive? Have a look at our review video just after the break.

The drive itself — while patently gigantic compared to the GoFlex Slim — is still highly portable, and it’s way easier to lug around than any other media streamer we’ve seen. It’s also just $199.99, which tends to be the going rate for higher-end streamers with half a terabyte of storage baked in. Only this one, of course, packs a built-in battery and could easily slide into your front rear pocket. We were immediately struck by just how easy file transfer were — we anticipated having to deal with yet another piece of kludgy software in order to get our tunes and videos over to the HDD, but it truly acts like a standard hard drive. Just drag files over and organize however you want, and the app / web server sorts it accordingly.

The iOS app (there’s an iPad version and a separate iPhone / iPod touch version) is relatively spartan, but certainly gets the job done. There’s a handful of categories and view options, but the Folder View seemed to be the most sophisticated. That’s the only one that actually gave us a view to our music in actual folders, so you’ll likely end up spending the most of your sorting time there. We’re thrilled to report that the app is both quick and accurate, and during our testing we had no issues getting it to pull content; better still, it’ll stream to three different devices at once. Unfortunately, the Photos pane doesn’t support scrolling through images, but we’re hoping that Seagate throws that in on a future build.

Naturally, things work best on an iOS device, but any tablet / handheld / computer with a WiFi module and a web browser can theoretically take advantage. We connected through the mobile Safari browser as well as the browser on our Nexus One (Android 2.3), and while the former gave nearly the same experience as the app (albeit with slightly longer loading times), the latter had one particular pain point. Viewing photos and listening to music on Android’s browser was a cinch, but viewing videos… no so much. Our phone kept trying to download entire videos rather than streaming them, so we’d caution non-iOS users to expect some limitations if you buy in.

Is the GoFlex Satellite worth its weight in gold? Depends. If you’re an avid iOS user, you need some extra storage space anyway, and you’d rather house all of your media on a 500GB external drive than on the device itself, Seagate’s latest concoction is a total must-have. It works well, and the built-in battery is capable of streaming for four to five hours on a charge. It’s hardly the most robust media streamer on the market, but it’s also one-of-a-kind. For those who tend to roll with other operating systems, we’d probably hold out until the company (hopefully!) adds dedicated Android / Windows Phone 7 / etc. apps — and who knows, by that time you may be getting a 1TB model for the same scratch.

Turn your dad’s old school speakers into AirPlay-enabled wonders with Griffin’s Twenty Audio Amplifier ($TBA). Just add an Apple Airport Express to this white brick, and it takes your existing non-powered speakers and lets you stream lossless audio from iTunes or any other AirPlay-enabled iOS device. The Twenty offers a 2.1 channel sound system with 20 watts output per channel with support for a powered subwoofer, and sports a big aluminum knob for adjusting the sound. Because who doesn’t like playing with knobs?

That tiny little chip of color that could look a little like an iPhone if you squint? Why, that is an iPhone, and it’s sitting in the frankly ridiculous 8ft x 4ft Behringer iNuke Boom speaker-dock. Yours for a can-you-say-gimmick $29,999.99 when the iNuke Boom lands after CES 2012 next month, it’s a 700lbs+ monster with over 10,000 watts of power.

 

Behringer is better known for its pro-audio equipment, including a range of mixer desks, studio monitors, preamps, microphones and MIDI kit. However the company is also looking to wade into the consumer electronics market with its new EUROSOUND, hence the eye-catching (and potentially ear-blowing) iNuke Boom.

Takers for this particular speaker dock are not particularly likely, but Behringer is hoping its 49 other new products will find more favor. Of course, it’s not the first ridiculous way of getting music out of your iPhone we’ve seen: Jean-Michel Jarre invited ridicule with his AeroDream One, a system so tall that it has an integrated ladder for you to actually climb up and put your phone in place. Its €399,000 price tag makes the iNuke Boom look practically reasonable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoCPQegwZmA

Siri can do alot of things but she refuses to get in the middle of an argument.

Complete your collection of Think Different posters with the quote that launched it all. This Here’s To The Crazy Ones Letterpress Poster ($100-$200) contains the full quote from the iconic 1997 Apple commercial, the majority of which has been attributed to our late hero Steve Jobs, who even tried on the narrator hat himself before bowing to Richard Dreyfuss in the version that actually aired. Each poster is handcrafted, measuring 10″ by 26″, printed on 100% cotton, handmade Arches 140# paper, and is limited to just 500 prints — so if you want one, you’d best get to ordering.

Typing on the iPad is anything but analogous to that of a standard keyboard.  As a result, a number of after market products have seen success, or at least production – case in point Logitech’s Foldup Keyboard (which we loved).  Unfortunately, they add bulk and negate the iPad’s svelte form factor.  As a result Steve Isaac & Brad Melmon built the TouchFire.

It’s an ultra thin and light weight (less than one ounce) keyboard that fits over the iPad’s virtual keyboard and provides the much needed force feedback to enable touch typists and those with an aversion to onscreen keyboards to type as if they were using the real thing.  Course it won’t solve the issue of keyboard size, but by using micro-structures and some sort of special manufacturing process, it can not only produces force feedback, allow you to partially see the screen as well as swipe, but leave the TouchFire in place even with Apple’s smart cover is in place.

So at this point the two have designed and built a working prototype.  But they need your help to get the TouchFire into production.  Pledging (it’s another Kickstarter project) $45 will buy you your own TouchFire, though if you pledge $25 more you’ll get two and some additional goodies.  So far they’ve raised $14,000, which exceeds their $10,000 funding goal, so it’s not a question of if it will ship, but when.

Jarre Technologies has unveiled a gigantic media player that has a massive amount of power. The device is called the AeroDream One and it has a dock up on top of the spire that supports the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. You have to climb up the tower by connecting the shiny metal ladder to the hoop around the top. The ladder is included with the purchase of the AeroDream One.

 

The power output is as impressive as the size of the tower. It has a total power output of 10,000W and a five-channel amp inside. The bottom-mounted subwoofer has 4,000W of power alone. It has a pair of mid-range speakers with 1,600W of power. The two high range speakers pack in 1,400W. Talk about room filling sound.

The AeroDream One comes in chrome, black, or white colors and is custom made. It looks more like some sort of core for a warp drive than a media player to me. You can order one right now if you have the money, the beast is € 399,000 and takes 6-months to build. It also comes with two tickets to a Jean Michel Jarre concert. Apparently, the designer is an electronic music composer and performer in Europe.

Apple’s new iPhone 4S wasn’t the iPhone 5 everybody wanted, but it was still packed with loads of cool upgrades and new features. The biggest being Siri, a speech recognition personal assistant that’s not an app, but an actual computer program built into the phone.  It has both speech input and output, meaning you can speak to it, and it can speak back to you. “Your wish is its command,” Apple says, marketing it as the new iPhone’s No. 1 new feature. Given her female robotic voice, Siri has become a she and, well, as you can imagine, users are now testing the limits of this voice-activiated personal assistant and asking it the most obscure and craziest questions/commands ever! The results are some of the funniest answers ever! Here are just a few things we’ve dug up on what crazy ass sh*t Siri musters up as replies.

30. Fairest of Them All?

Apparently Siri knows her Disney movies and can quote Snow White!

29. Big Surprise

Siri has her limits and giving THAT type of surprise isn’t allowed…maybe she’ll get that upgrade when the iPhone 5 comes out.

28. The Virgin

Wow, Siri has great comebacks, and she’s not afraid to dish them out!

27. The Best

Really, you had to ask?

26. Who Let the Dogs Out?!

She takes responsibility when she needs to and know’s she wasn’t the one that let the dog out…

25. Appearance

Fashion and style is something Siri definitely knows she has, even though she is just a program!

24. The Meaning of Life Part 1

It’s the one question we will never get the answer to…but Siri dishes out her version.

23. The Meaning of Life Part 2

Even though she knows she can’t get the right answer, Siri is down to try!

22. The Meaning of Life Part 3

Siri might not know the meaning, but she does know the definition!

21. Knock, Knock

Jokes are not Siri’s specialty.

20. Murder

If you ever find yourself in a sticky situation, Siri can help you out!

19. Drug Dealer No. 1

When you have the itch, Siri can help navigate where the closest shop that sells weed for you.

18. Drug Dealer No. 2

Siri cares about you and knows drugs are bad!

17. Aroused

Feeling a bit aroused? Siri can easily take care of that for you.

16. Who’s Your Daddy?

Oh yeah, Siri knows who’s boss!

15. The Proposal

Sorry, she’s taken.

14. The Meaning of Life…The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy version

Siri is cool! She’s down with the book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy!

13. The G-Spot

Usually, it’s a hard spot to find…but Siri had no problems finding the G-Spot!

12. Hiding a Body

Siri has your back when you need to get out of a really bad jam!

11. 911

In case of an emergency, don’t ask Siri for help! She can’t seem to dial 911.

10. Constipation

Sorry, Siri won’t help ease constipation…just provide sympathy.

9. The Matrix

Siri doesn’t want to let the secret out of the bag.

8. Storyteller

Once you warm her up, or start nagging, Siri can tell some cool stories!

7. Tootsie Pop

Wow, we’ve always wondered this ourselves…great answer, Siri!

6. Favorite color

That does sound like a great color, doesn’t it?

5. Babies

Siri isn’t afraid to tell the truth or beat around the bush.

4. Photographer

Siri is a lot of things, but not a photographer.

3. No Jokes

Siri can be a lot of things, but a comedian is obviously not one. She seems to always forget the punchline…sometimes it happens to the best of us!

2. Favorite Website

Hmmm, Siri must be lying because we all know it’s Apple.com, right?!

1. The Hardest Question of All

Everybody ponders this eternal question. What is love…poets have tried to define it, artists have tried to capture it and everyday, millions of people try to find it in their lives, but when you ask Siri, you get a straight out answer…literally!

A musical break-up over video chat. WIN the Rhettward Photo signed by us! Info here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQm8u_0we94 Make YOUR cover of this song a video response here!

 

LYRICS:
It’s not you; it’s me.
And me don’t like you.
It’s not you; it’s I.
And I’m breaking up with you.

You swore up and down the wall
Twilight’s the best trilogy of all
Somehow you got me to agree
To dress up like Edward for Halloween.
But now that I’m coming clean
First off, Twilight’s a quadrilogy.
And that tan werewolf dude isn’t worthy.
Of removing – a Wookie’s Dingleberries.

It’s not me; it’s you.
Yeah, the more I think about it- it’s definitely you.
But it might be me
Cause me decided to date you.

When we went out on our first date
You said you don’t eat anything with a face.
Then for the next 18 months
I ate sausage made from rice and walnuts.
Now that we’re parting ways
Newflash! Fish have a face.
Unless it’s in a Newton, No! He doesn’t want another fig!
Tonight I’m eating…a Rabbi-veni-turducken-ig.

It’s you; It’s you.
No doubt about it- it was always totally you.
Now it’s up to me
And me is now dumping you.