Every now and then, a technology product comes along that’s so profoundly brilliant, the world changes forever.
Today is not one of those days.
Most of the time, what comes along is interesting but a good deal more modest. That’s the stuff that winds up on my “review someday” table. It piles up, eyeing me and poking my guilty conscience, until I get around to dispatching all of them in a single column.
Ladies and gentlemen, here it is: Dave’s Spring Cleaning Column.
• Scott eVest Transformer Jacket ($160): You’ll never again complain that you can’t find a free pocket for the gadgets you carry around. This obsessively engineered jacket (gray, red or black) has 20 of them.
Each pocket has a tiny label, so you know where everything goes, and a zipper with a cloth pull. There are pockets for your phone (with touch-screen-sensitive walls). Glasses (with a cleaning cloth attached by a leash). Keys (with a springy clip). Water bottle. Wallet. Pens.
There’s even an iPad pocket on the inside front. This may be the first jacket that ever needed an instruction manual.
Like previous Scott
eVests, this jacket has a channel system that routes earbuds to the collar. What’s new here is that the sleeves come off with a couple of tugs, turning the jacket into a vest.
• The Polester ($230): Somebody had to invent this: a 15-foot, telescoping, smooth black fiberglass pole for your camera. The idea is to let you take photos from way up high, while you’re still on the ground. (My favorite part may be the Polester inventor’s name: Jim Polster. For real.)
It’s quite a contraption to assemble and manipulate. It has a string-activated shutter trigger, so you don’t have to rely on the camera’s timer.
Heavier cameras can make the pole sway a little. And, of course, you simply have to guess about the composition of the photo. Unless you can make your eyes pop out on stalks like a cartoon character, there’s no way to see the screen from your position on the ground. And $230 is a lot for an average camera user to pay for this accessory (although there’s a $200 9-foot version, too).
But if you’re in one of the Polester niches — a roof inspector, wedding photographer, real-estate agent or creative user of any type — this rig puts your camera in places where its operator should fear to tread.
• Ivee Flex Voice-Controlled Alarm Clock Radio ($60): You know Siri, the voice-control feature of the iPhone 4S? One of her greatest tricks is reducing the number of steps for setting the phone’s alarm. You can say, “Wake me in 45 minutes,” or “Set my alarm for 7:30,” or whatever — and it’s done.
Now you don’t need a fancy phone to do that trick. This simple, big-digit, plastic alarm clock is voice-controlled. You can set the time or set the two alarms, check the time or date, choose an alarm sound, turn on a falling-asleep sound (ocean or brook, for example), set a timer or change settings — all by voice.
The best part is that the clock is always listening; you don’t have to touch a button first.
Ivee’s recognition accuracy is 100 percent, the commands are logical and speaking sure beats fussing around with buttons.
• Sigma 8-16 MM Wide-Angle Zoom Lens ($700): One of the reasons you may have bought an SLR camera is to be able to swap lenses for different photographic effects.
Sigma says this is the widest-angle lens on the market for cameras with APS-C sensors (that is, SLRs under $1,000). It’s the equivalent of a 12-24 mm lens on a 35 mm camera. It’s available for Nikon, Canon, Sony, Pentax or Sigma cameras. It’s not a fisheye, so it doesn’t distort the image spherically — but wow, does it capture a wide slice of the world around you (121 degrees).
• striiv ($100): The world is filled with high-tech pedometers, using a built-in accelerometer to measure your physical activity and try to motivate you to move more. Well, here’s another one. It’s a 3-inch key fob that you’re supposed to carry (in your pocket or purse) or wear (it comes with a clip) all day.
You don’t need a computer to see your results, so the gratification is immediate. Built-in challenges, video games and graphs encourage you to walk a little more or take a few more stairs. A walkathon app lets you earn credits that go to charity, so you’ll feel good in more than one way.
David Pogue writes for The New York Times.
• Sigma 8-16 MM Wide-Angle Zoom Lens ($700): One of the reasons you may have bought an SLR camera is to be able to swap lenses for different photographic effects.
Sigma says this is the widest-angle lens on the market for cameras with APS-C sensors (that is, SLRs under $1,000). It’s the equivalent of a 12-24 mm lens on a 35 mm camera. It’s available for Nikon, Canon, Sony, Pentax or Sigma cameras. It’s not a fisheye, so it doesn’t distort the image spherically — but wow, does it capture a wide slice of the world around you (121 degrees).
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