Table of contents for No. 18 in Gadget

As we sat down with the Nintendo Switch the first thing that stuck out to us was just how small the device is. It’s roughly the same size as the Wii U’s gamepad, which measures in at around 5.5 x 10 inches, but the Nintendo Switch is much slimmer. Taking the console out of the dock and into handheld mode had no loading time, attaching the controllers and taking it away all felt seamless. As a handheld the Nintendo Switch plays no differently than when it’s in ‘console mode’, it was comfortable to hold, and while it had some weight to it, it’s no different to holding any other tablet device, such as an iPad. The Switch’s rumble feature took us by surprise with how different it was, compared to…

Inside the car Mercedes-Benz is adding plenty of luxurious tech flourishes inside the Generation EQ, with touch-based controls and a ‘floating’ widescreen display keeping the driver informed at all times Time between charges Range is all-important for an electric car, and Mercedes-Benz is promising you’ll be able to cover 310 miles before you need to stop and find a charging point Self-driving coming soon There’s been no detailed mention of any self-driving capabilities the Generation EQ might bring along with it, but Mercedes-Benz has hinted that future production versions will be autonomous Smart city driving The car has the excellent Here Maps built-in, and is designed to be able to ‘talk’ to other smart devices, from cars to lampposts to roads, as the technology develops More to come Mercedes-Benz is…

Eight-inch colour touchscren The colour touchscreen in the centre of the dashboard gives you vital info such as when you’re running low on charge. But because it can run Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, it doubles as a cool navigation and entertainment console Cruise control As well as using a windscreen-mounted camera to warn you when you drift out of your lane, the car will brake if it reckons you’re getting to close to a pedestrian or car and maintain a safe distance when you’re in cruise control Top safety features The IONIQ has seven airbags including one for the knee in the driver’s seat. That should cushion the blow should the unfortunate happen Blind spot detection Sure, you’re supposed to look over your shoulder when you move out of…

Apple AirPods Apple’s all-new wireless headphones include optical sensors that detect when they’re placed in your ears. The W1 chip then optimises both the audio quality and built-in microphone. £160 | $160 apple.com Charge on the go Apple has introduced a revolutionary charging case alongside the AirPods. Just 15 minutes in the case can provide up to three hours of audio playback in one go Automatic detection Motion accelerometers are placed at the base of each AirPod and automatically detect when they’re placed in your ear. This, in turn, wakes the AirPods up and starts audio playback Noise filters Beamforming microphones are used in conjunction with a second accelerometer to help filter out background noise when making calls to family and friends, aiding voice quality Channeled audio Despite their wireless…

MOTOROLA SMART NURSERY HUMIDIFIER+ Using the Nursery 7’s built-in sensors you can be notified if the humidity level is low in the child’s room. Why have a humidifier? As long as they’re cleaned periodically, the cool moisture in the air can keep away colds flu, they also help to relieve dry coughs. £100 | $100 | motorolahome.com MOTOROLA SMART NURSERY ALERT SENSOR You may have a room or cupboard that you don’t want your toddler going into, or perhaps you want to make sure the childproof gate is working. With these sensors you can see via the Hubble app if and when they were opened, and receive instant alerts. The device runs off two AAA batteries and will inform you if the power is running low. £35 | $50 motorolahome.com…

The days of traditional Valentine’s Day gifts are under threat because you can now express your love in a multitude of high-tech ways. If you take your time finding the right present for your loved one, they will be able to enjoy it for a long time to come and potentially remember the sentiment behind it every day. Flowers are wonderful and are close to magical in the eyes of some, but time passes and they die. Chocolates taste good for only a few seconds, and so we are aiming to suggest some Valentine’s Day gifts that will last for much longer. Don’t think that fact that they are extremely clever or high-tech mean’s they are any less romantic – it’s the thought that counts, after all. We hope to…

“We are taking more photos on our smartphones than ever before” Electric Objects EO2 If you’re too lazy to make your own, the EO2 is a 23-inch, full-HD screen that will display your pictures over Wi-Fi. To justify its hefty price tag, it’s set in a handcrafted hardwood frame. £240 | $300 electricobjects.com Many of us have an old tablet tucked in a draw gathering dust. Chances are you abandoned it because your new phone has a screen big enough for watching videos on the go or because your new supercharged iPad Pro has made your old tiny tablet obsolete. But rather than let your mothballed tablet go to e-waste, why not turn it into a digital photo frame? Just like your abandoned iPad, so many of the photos we…

“ You can just shoot live from your phone” Know when you’re live The icons at the top tell you if you are ‘on air’ and how many people are watching. If you loose connection you have a short period of time to reconnect Add your friends You can invite friends to watch your livestream during the broadcast. Press the icon and then search for the friend you want to add Reactions Think of this as applause; people can show whether they like the video, love it, think it’s funny or even sad. The comment section These comments will be visible to anyone watching for a short period of time before fading away. When viewed in the archive, comments will appear in the video at the point they were shared…

Memrise was developed along with a scientific advisory board to help devise the best way to trick your brain into memorising things – using repetition, rest and systematically testing your memory so it stays planted in your head for longer. It’s like when you meet someone for the first time and then the next time you forget their name, but after multiple interactions with that person your brain eventually retains the information because you regularly have to use it. Memrise is also heavily community based, with the user-made courses and mems, leaderboards and video chats with native speakers, this sense of community motivates you to stick with it.…

Its many uses  It’s not just for entertainment purposes, one app turns the cube into parts of the human anatomy, displaying information and allowing the user to rotate the object freely Open for development  Merge will make the platform open for developers later in the year so they can come up with their own ways of using the cube Interact with holograms  The sides of the cube are covered in patterns that, when viewed through the Merge VR app, transform into puzzles or moving light shows you can interact with Required AR headset  In order for the app to work you will need a headset that allows the camera to see beyond the goggles and gaze at the Holo Cube VR was so 2016, AR (or ‘augmented reality’) is the…

When your beat-up old banger pulls up next to a more modern motor, do you find yourself ogling its high-tech features? With touchscreens, locks and lights that you can control from an app, and hands-free parking, top-of-the-line rides like the Tesla Model X are in a totally different league to cars that are just a few years older. Unfortunately, they are also in a totally different price bracket. However, if you can’t afford a ride that costs the same as a deposit for a four-bedroom house, there are lots of aftermarket accessories you buy to give your existing car an instant upgrade. We’ve rounded up 50 of the best gadgets to pimp your ride. As well as HD dashcams and smarter satnavs, you’ll find sensors that alert you when you’re…

Rapidly-advancing technology has threatened to upend the car industry for years, but we’re now seeing genuine disruption, and the pace of change only seems to be accelerating. Leading the charge is Elon Musk’s Tesla, bringing state-of-the-art self-driving hardware to cars that run on electricity rather than petrol, and with the Model 3 actually making them affordable too. A Model 3 will set you back $35,000 (around £29,000) and production is slated to start in the middle of 2017 – but by the time the Model 3’s rubber actually hits the road it might have a lot more competition to deal with. Traditional car firms are following Tesla’s lead and making innovations of their own, which is good news for anyone in the market for a next-generation, clean and intelligent automobile.…

Built-in battery pack That 60 kWh battery pack isn’t particularly jaw-dropping, but it’s still decent: remember, this is an affordable electric car that’s already on sale, so we can’t quibble too much A high-tech interior The car’s interior won’t blow you away either, but there is a stylish-looking touchscreen dashboard, and an integrated Wi-Fi hotspot for all your devices to hook onto Fast charging speeds In a rush to get down to the shops? Chevrolet says you can buy a special fast charger to get 90 miles of range in just 30 minutes of charging Regenerative braking paddle One of the neat features on the Bolt EV is a regenerative braking paddle you can use instead of the foot pedal, which uses energy from braking to charge the battery Coming…

Charge it up As with all electric cars, you can get it charged up at public stations. Use a domestic 240-volt socket, though, and the battery will take ten hours to reach 80 per cent capacity Renewable materials The interior of the car is high-end as you’d expect from a luxury car maker but it’s also sustainable since a lot of the materials are from renewable and recycled sources. The production process uses 70 per cent less water than normal too Built-in navigator There’s a BMW i Remote app that syncs with the vehicle and keeps an eye on the battery. Start charging and you’ll be able to see its progress in real time as you sip your cup of Joe Extend the range It may go against the ethos…

Massive ranges These sensors aim to calculate how far an object is from the car, and they can currently do so in an impressive 200m range Bulky systems It’s quite common for current systems to be bulky. The sensors found in Google’s self-driving car sit on top of its roof, where it rotates Shine bright The LIDAR system is like a camera, and it uses an array of 64 laser beams to generate 3D images of things going on around the car The premise of LIDAR is pretty simple: laser light is beamed at a surface up to 150,000 pulses a second, while an individual sensor works out how long it takes for every pulse to react and bounce back. After this, the technology can calculate the distance between itself…

Data light Optical computers can gather light from a range of existing technologies, including LEDs and lasers No to electricity Just like Li-Fi, optical computers also substitute electrical currents. Instead, it uses the photons from visible light or infrared LEDs Beating the competition There may be plenty of supercomputers out there, but optical computing can perform a billion calculations per second Optical computing may not be dominating the world yet, but this super-fast technology is just around the corner. It uses lasers or diodes to generate photons, which can allow for higher bandwidth than electrodes. The latter are common in conventional computational methods. These chips can look just like conventional ones, but the main difference is that instead of transferring electrons around the chip, light is moved around. The benefit…

“It’s lightweight and sits snugly on your head” Sunnycam Activ This lightweight wearable camera can record 1080p video with a 90-degree field of view, and it has changeable lenses so it can be worn indoors as well as out. £120 | $145 sunnycam.com Indoor and outdoor lenses Lenses are easy to change over: just pinch the inner side of the lens and pull down. More lenses can be bought form Sunnycam’s website Unrestricted recording Unlike Snapchat’s Spectacles that can only take ten second videos, the Sunnycam records as long as the battery lets it. It supports microSD cards up to 64GB allowing for eight hours of video Vibrating notifications The glasses will vibrate twice when recording and when it stops it will vibrate once but for three seconds – you…

Day 1 The device was easy to set up and the instructions that came with it were straightforward enough. The only issue was the actual naming of the app you had to download, as the instructions had the name of a different app. Once I had found and downloaded the correct app, the step-by-step set-up process within it made pairing devices and selecting music relatively pain-free. Day 2 The mood lighting and environment monitor are nice features and the projection worked well, but the product is a little misleading as it is described itself as being an animation when it was a still image. Also, the projection is a little bright and the volume went from silent to quite loud, so maybe it would have been an idea to have…

Plantronics BackBeat Go 2 These earbuds are minimalistic in design, but they come with a pocket-size charging case that gives the earphones a total battery life of up to 14.5 hours. £70 | £100 plantronics.com Jaybird Freedom The Freedoms are Jaybird’s smallest earbuds yet, this makes them fit almost every size of ear. They also come with a charging clip that doubles the device’s battery life. £170 | $180 jaybirdsport.com Philips ActionFit SHQ7900 These earbuds have rubber hooks so that they have a firm hold of your ears. Be aware that they are a little leaky so you may end up sharing your tunes with others. £70 | $85 Philips.com Beoplay H5 Bang and Olufsen’s earphones have been designed for both casual listening as well as fitness so they come…

Neato Botvac Connected This robot cleans the house, going from room to room. It has two modes: Eco which is quiet and energy-saving or Turbo which gets those pesky pet hairs. £730 | $800 neatorobotics.com Amazon Echo The smart speaker contains a genie-like virtual assistant called Alexa, and your wish is her command. As well as searching the web, she can remote control compatible gadgets. £150 | $180 amazon.com 01 Let’s start Open up the Amazon Alexa app on your smartphone and navigate your way to the Skills tab, search for Neato and then press the ‘Enable Skill’ button. Once this has been enabled all that is left is for you to give the robot order by saying, “Alexa, ask Neato to start cleaning,” and the Botvac will begin to…

Battery blues  When in handheld mode the battery lasts between two to six hours depending on the game. Legend of Zelda, for example, lasts around a short three hours Share screenshots  The left Joy-Con controller has a ‘share’ button that will capture a screenshot that can then be shared to social media It’s a hybrid  The key selling point of the device is it can go from traditional home console to a handheld device you can play on the move almost instantaneously Multiplayer capabilities  Up to eight consoles can be connected in local wireless gameplay or online over Wi-Fi, although online will eventually require a subscription fee Joy-Con controller  The two Joy-Con controllers can be detached from the console and then connected to a controller grip, used independently in each…

01 Best for insane gaming While only a concept, our inner gamer squealed when Razer revealed ‘Project Valerie’. Initially it looks like just another gaming laptop, but then two more 17.3-inch monitors slid out of either side of the main screen. Each display would offer 4K quality, adding up to an eye-popping 12K panorama. This much GPU would be powered by a cutting-edge Intel Kaby Lake processor and Nividia’s 1080 graphics card. The only downside is that if this ever comes to market – and that’s a big if – it would cost a lot. Razer Project Valerie TBC | razerzone.com 02 Best non-wrist wearable While Sony’s crazy thin E Ink smartwatch concept came close, the best wearable at CES 2017 wasn’t for your wrist. The Motiv Ring comes with…

01 Pocket Tripod The Pocket Tripod is the size of two credit cards put together, so it can easily fit inside a purse or wallet. To use it, all you need to do is take it out, twist it around and you’re good to go. £20 | $25 | pocket-tripod.com 02 Unleashed Attach this tiny device to your DSLR camera and use its companion app to remotely take images, shoot video or change the camera’s settings, such as aperture, shutter speed and exposure. £170 | $215 | foolography.com 03 FocusShifter Focus pulls are hard to pull off correctly, but the FocusShifter is here to help. Fitting onto any camera lens, it has a board that you can use a dry-erase pen on to mark your focus points. £40 | $50…

Self-driving technology The FF 91 comes with an array of cameras and sensors on board, including Lidar – a radar-like system that uses lasers to map out a complete 3D space Valet parking Though it didn’t work during its live demo, the FF91 is intended to park itself. You can also summon the vehicle from its parking spot with a tap of an app or schedule a pick up at a desired time and location Unique modular design Faraday Future’s Variable Platform Architecture (VPA) uses a modular structure for safety and a low centre of gravity, with the battery located under the cars floor Smart roof dimming There are a whole host of extras built with passengers in mind, such as smart roof dimming, depending on the weather outside and…

Lots of space The Pacifica has more room than any of vehicle in its class with 200 cubic feet (six cubic metres) of interior volume and bags of legroom for passengers in the third row Active Noise Cancellation Four microphones are used to pick up any wind or road noise so that the stereo is able to counteract it with some opposite-tuned frequencies, making it the quietest minivan around Give it juice Although the vehicle can switch to a petrol engine when the lithium-ion battery drains, it takes just a couple of hours for it to be fully recharged Regenerating braking Kinetic energy keeps a car moving forward. Hit the brake and most of it converts to heat. With a brake booster, the wasted energy is converted into electricity to…

Star Wars Propel Battle Drone A drone with a Star Wars sheen, Propel has created something magical. Detailed and capable of speeds of 35mph+, the drones do the epic saga justice. £200 | $200 propelsw.com 01 May the Force be with you! One of the Propel Battle Drone’s best features is that it allows you to engage in virtual dogfights with fellow drone owners, which works by the infrared transmitters at the front of the ship sending a signal. The instruction manual recommends doing so in a wide-open space of 200-300 feet. 02 I can’t shake him! The number of lives you have (three is the default) will show up on your controller. Using Li-Fi technology, the drones effectively share data when they shoot each other via a laser blast,…

Wilson X The Wilson X is a smart football packed with built-in accelerometers and sensors that measure throwing and catching metrics before sending the data to your smartphone. £160 | $200 wilson.com Built to last Not only is synthetic leather great for your grip when throwing, it’s sturdy enough to provide a tough exterior that protects the plethora of intricate sensors contained within Preserving battery life Built-in sensors are permanently in sleep mode until awakened, helping your battery last longer. Between charges, you can expect to rack up to a whopping 200,000 throws If you know the difference between your run-and-shoot offence to your bull rush defence, then chances are that you’ll be a pretty big fan of hand egg – sorry – American football. The sport is growing at…

Have a root around your cupboards and get up into your loft. There’s a very good chance you will come across a few floppy disks, some old Nokia phones and an entanglement of wires with no obvious purpose. Dig deep enough and you may even discover a dust-laden Amstrad GX4000 console or a beaten-up Betamax player. Truth is, we amass a lot of gadgets which become obsolete very quickly (some, such as that GX4000, sooner rather than later). But just as Sony finally ditched that Betamax format a year ago, it’s time you had bit of a clear out too. Lots of devices we once thought were cutting edge have now been replaced. And we’re not just talking about so-called ‘smart’ devices here either. While it’s true that smart thermostats,…

“Memrise has a website which has a couple of extra features” How long in total do you think it would take to learn a new language? Tens of hours? Years? Decades? With Memrise, it could take as little as 20 minutes a day to learn five new words, after a month that’s 150 words, and by the end of the year you’ll be practically a native speaker. Memrise is a free language-learning platform that through engaging lessons, repetition and regular tests it helps your brain to remember information for longer than if you were to study it. The platform primarily teaches languages, but there are other subjects such as identifying country’s flags, multiplications and general trivia. Using the platform is like playing a game, you earn experience points, level up,…

Size matters A DVD’s diameter is 12cm whilst a LaserDisc’s is 12 inches, the same as some vinyl records The LaserDisc turtle If a single-sided disc was inserted the wrong side up, a still image of a turtle lying on its back would appear Dual-sided discs An average LaserDisc side would last 30-64 minutes, so every movie would require you to stop and flip the disc over Different viewing options LaserDisc players were versatile and could play footage forwards, backwards, in slow motion or even frame by frame Losing control The controls on the device only limited you to pausing, playing and ejecting discs, forcing users to use the remote control The LaserDisc touched down in 1978, providing users with a new way to watch films – on a 12-inch,…