Recent Articles By Dave Hamilton [RSS]

CES - Scosche BaseLynx Modular Wireless Charging Station Organizes and Charges Your Devices

· · Cool Stuff Found

Scosche’s CES booth was again full of great new devices for managing your devices in both your home and car, and the highlight to us was their new BaseLynx modular wireless charging station. Available modules include a Qi fast-charge dock, an Apple Watch dock, powered end-cap, and a vertical power station which holds three wired devices. The end-cap has a 12V USB-A and 18W USB-C PD outlet, and the power station has that plus a second USB-A port. You can mix-and-match modules to serve your needs – including just using one if you like – and BaseLynx is engineered to prevent over- or under-voltage, surging, and overheating. Pricing has not yet been announced, and BaseLynx is due to be available this coming spring.

CES – Scosche BaseLynx Modular Wireless Charging Station Organizes and Charges Your Devices

CES - Satechi's USB Docking Stand For All Models of Apple iMac

· · Cool Stuff Found

At their CES booth, Satetchi was showing off their latest: the Satechi Aluminum Stand for iMac. Priced at $89.99 and available in Space Grey or Silver, this combination stand and dock provides three USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, a USB-C data port, micro/SD card slots, and an audio jack, all conveniently-placed on the front of the stand. Capable of supporting up to 50lbs, the stand can easily support the weight of any iMac and most displays, and would also fit a Mac Mini quite well, too. The Satechi Stand for iMac is built with a USB-C connector on the cable to the computer, but also comes with a USB-A to USB-C adapter for use with any existing iMac. It’s a sharp way to free up some space on your desk while adding a few easy-access ports on the front.

CES – Satechi’s USB Docking Stand For All Models of Apple iMac

CES - TiVo Demos Upcoming Apple TV App

· · Cool Stuff Found

TiVo on Apple TV

At CES this week TiVo announced and was demoing an in-progress build of their upcoming Apple TV app. Once launched, the app essentially makes your Apple TV a TiVo Mini, allowing you to stream content from your existing TiVo box throughout the house. In our demo things worked quite smoothly, and the app seemed to be pretty far along in its progress. Both live TV and pre-recorded shows are available, making for a seamless experience moving from room-to-room without having to add more TiVo Mini boxes. TiVo’s Apple TV app is due later this year, along with similar apps for Roku and Amazon Fire Stick. All three will be available free-of-charge.

LG's CES 2019 Curved OLED Screen Booth Display [Video]

· · Cool Stuff Found

Every year at CES one of my favorite things is to visit the Central Hall to see all the new TV technology. This year LG again won my vote for most impressive display (no pun intended!) with its array of curved OLED screens. Showing a rotating series of nature videos, this array of curved displays was both immersive and astounding. The video doesn’t do it justice, of course, but it’s worth a quick look just to get an idea of what the future looks like. Enjoy!

CES - QDOS Infinity Glass Encases your iPhone in Tempered Glass

· · Cool Stuff Found

At CES Wednesday, QDOS was showing off Infinity Glass, a case unlike any I’ve ever seen: both the front and the back are made entirely of tempered glass, and the two halves fit together with magnets to completely encase your iPhone. The case snaps on quickly and without any alignment required, and the metal edging fits perfectly together around your phone. Once on your iPhone, the seams between the two halves disappear, and everything feels smooth and silky, just as you’d expect from tempered glass. QDOS Infinity Glass cases are priced at $49.99 and are available for all current iPhones.

CES – QDOS Infinity Glass Encases your iPhone in Tempered Glass

CES - Hyper's New Wireless AirPods Charging Case

· · Cool Stuff Found

At CES 2019 on Wednesday, Hyper was showing off the new version of their AirPods charging case. Due to be made available imminently, the case completely encompasses your current AirPods charging case, and contains a Lightning connector in the bottom. Simply place your existing AirPods charger inside the Hyper case and lay that down on a Qi pad (or mat, like the one coming in Q2 shown in the picture here) and, boom, your AirPods wirelessly charge. Retail price is said to be just US$20.

CES – Hyper’s New Wireless AirPods Charging Case

CES - Adero's Smart Tags and Taglets Help Make Sure You Never Leave Your Stuff Behind

· · Cool Stuff Found

Knowing where your stuff was last seen can be handy… or frustrating, depending upon where it is versus where you are. Adero takes that to the next level by making sure that you don’t forget your stuff in the first place. Shown off at the CES Pepcom event, Adero’s Bluetooth-based Smart Tags work similarly to what you’ve seen from Tile or Trackr, syncing with your phone and letting you know where your stuff is. The differentiator is Adero’s smaller Taglets which attach to the contents of your backpack or purse. Sure you know to grab your backpack, but wouldn’t it be great to know that your bag contains the key items you need, like charger, AirPods, and glasses? Simply put a taglet onto each of those three items, and the Smart Tag on your bag will tell you if anything’s missing, either via a red/green LED or via alert to your smartphone. Adero will help you find your stuff if you’ve left it behind, too,  but with their tech the idea is that you won’t leave it behind in the first place. US$119 gets you an Adero starter kit with 3 Smart Tags and 3 Taglets.

CES – Adero’s Smart Tags and Taglets Help Make Sure You Never Leave Your Stuff Behind

CES - Netgear's Nighthawk AX12 Brings Wi-Fi 6 and Enhancements to Wi-Fi 5

· · Cool Stuff Found

Netgear took the opportunity Monday at the CES Pepcom event to show off its latest dual-band router, the Nighthawk AX12. Billed as a 12-stream router, this device includes some significant Wi-Fi enhancements over its predecessors. First, of course, is support for 802.11ax, a.k.a. Wi-Fi 6. This operates over the same 5GHz band as Wi-Fi 5 (a.k.a. 802.11ac), but uses OFDMA signaling to fit more bandwidth into the spectrum. Full utilization will require Wi-Fi 6-compatible clients, and nothing from Apple currently supports that. However, this 5GHz radio also supports Wi-Fi 5, and has a couple of benefits: first, with 8 streams for that antenna your chances of getting connected to the best streams double over even the top-end routers out there. Second, the Nighthawk AX includes the very latest Wi-Fi chipset which now truly supports full, 160MHz connections, delivering real-world speed and range increases to existing Wi-Fi 5 devices. Pricing hasn’t been announced, but we expect it to be north of $400. Interested users can sign up to learn more through NETGEAR’s upcoming Premier Beta program.

CES – Netgear’s Nighthawk AX12 Brings Wi-Fi 6 and Enhancements to Wi-Fi 5

CES - Twelve South's PowerPic Hides a Wireless Charger in Plain Sight

· · Cool Stuff Found

On Monday at the CES Pepcom event, Twelve South was showing off the latest result of their creative efforts: the PowerPic. As co-founder and creative director, Andrew Green, puts it, “wireless charging is supposed to be invisible.” PowerPic achieves this mandate by hiding a charging coil inside a standard 5×7 picture frame. By day (or by night, whenever you’re not charging) the PowerPic holds a photo of your favorite memory (or person, or even pet!). When you need to charge, just place your phone inside the frame and boom, the coil fires up and your phone starts sipping juice invisibly through your family ski photo. PowerPic retails for $79.99 and delivers up to 10W of wireless power to most smartphones that feature Qi charging, including everything currently available from Apple.

CES – Twelve South’s PowerPic Hides a Wireless Charger in Plain Sight

TMO CES 2019 Coverage Sponsor: TextExpander from Smile

· · Weekly Sponsorship

TextExpander Logo from Smile

Our sincere thanks to TextExpander from Smile for helping support us as a sponsor for TMO’s CES 2019 coverage. The effort, planning, and expense it takes to comb through all the noise at CES and bring you targeted, relevant coverage is quite large, and without our sponsors we wouldn’t be able to do it all for you. The good folks at Smile see the value in this and were very quick to jump on board to ensure that you would get the very best of what we have to offer this year. We’re very thankful for that, and we hope you are, too.

Add Four Displays To Your Mac with Targus USB-C Universal Quad HD Docking Station

· · Cool Stuff Found

The beauty of our new USB-C docking station world (don’t say dongles!) is the flexibility and expandability it provides for our Macs. Targus highlights this perfectly with their new USB-C Universal Quad HD Docking Station that they were showing off Sunday at CES Unveiled. In addition to four USB 3.0 ports, an audio in/out port, and a USB-C port with 15W of power, this dock includes four (yes, 4!) HDMI ports, each connectable to a 1080p display. MacOS sees each of these connected displays individually, meaning you could just as easily have four separate screens for your day-trading delights as you could build a multi-screen video “wall” and spread your image across all four of them simultaneously. At US$275 this is a no-brainer if you need those kind of display options. A unit supporting four 4K screens will be out later this year, due to be priced at US$375.

Add Four Displays To Your Mac with Targus USB-C Universal Quad HD Docking Station

Speck's GrabTab Offers Wireless-Charging-Friendly One-Handed iPhone Grip

· · Cool Stuff Found

Speck was showing off GrabTab, their latest iPhone accessory, at CES Unveiled in Las Vegas on Sunday. Think of GrabTab as serving the same function as a PopSocket — allowing you to get a better one-handed grip on your iPhone — but GrabTab collapses much flatter to allow for better Qi charging, car mounting, and travel in and out of pockets. For US$9.95 this is a no-brainer. Buy one, stick it on the back of your iPhone, and you’re good to go. Bonus: you can slide it open to use as an iPhone stand for watching all of your favorite videos, too.

Speck’s GrabTab Offers Wireless-Charging-Friendly One-Handed iPhone Grip

Nahimic Brings Enhanced 3D Audio To Your Mac’s Movies and Music

· · Cool Stuff Found

Nahimic, long-time makers of enhanced audio for video games, on Sunday launched Nahimic for Mac. Built to enhance music and movies, Nahimic brings real-time processing of your Mac’s audio from any app. They demoed it with movies and music and the results were impressive. Their 3D Sound truly made a noticeable difference out of MacBook Pro speakers at CES Unveiled, a very noisy environment. Tests on our own back at the hotel confirmed what we heard earlier: this sounds fantastic, there’s no noticeable latency, and the app performs well. A free trial is available and one-year subscription will set you back just US$35.

Nahimic Brings Enhanced 3D Audio To Your Mac’s Movies and Music

MacX DVD Ripper Pro - Rip a DVD in 5 Minutes with Level-3 Hardware Acceleration (Sponsor)

· · Weekly Sponsorship

MacX DVD Ripper Pro edit screenshot

It’s my pleasure to welcome MacX DVD Ripper Pro as this week’s sponsor. Let’s face it, ripping DVDs is not a fun task, but it is one that we all need to do as we migrate our video libraries to more portable formats. This means you want a DVD ripper that gets the job done quickly, compresses your files to the smallest format without losing any noticeable quality, and rips every DVD you throw at it. Enter MacX DVD Ripper Pro.