Gadget Ogling: Seeing E-Ink Everywhere, Breathing Easy and Brewing Beer

By

Technewsworld.com

W elcome, dear readers, and set aside that last leftover-
turkey sandwich for a short while as we explore the murky
landscape of freshly announced gadgets in this week's Gadget
Dreams and Nightmares.
On the menu in our post-Thanksgiving edition are a pair
of e-ink smart devices, wearables with a health focus, an
intelligent home brewing kit, a kitschy kitchen product, and
perhaps the most useless item we've included in this column
to date.
As ever, these are not reviews, and the ratings reflect only
my interest in using each.
The YotaPhone Strikes Back
I really liked the concept of the YotaPhone when I covered
it last year. Now the dual-screen Android phone is
striking again, with the sequel set to go on sale.
The YotaPhone 2 (pictured below) offers a couple of
fascinating differences: The rear-facing e-ink screen is
controllable by touch, and there's an option to run full
Android on the display as well. That's an extraordinary
way of rethinking what a smartphone can do in 2014.
I would be much more inclined to use a secondary e-ink
screen for checking notifications than a smartwatch, and its
capacity to run anything possible on an Android screen
makes it that much more enticing.
Rating: 4 out of 5 Mirror Images
Sony's Time to Smarten Up
Speaking of e-ink screens, Sony has a new watch that
uses the technology in both the screen and the band.
The FES Watch is not a smartwatch, though that's a
possibility for future models. Instead, it's an experiment,
exploring the possibilities of e-ink in fashion.
I'm neither a watch wearer nor what anyone would call
particularly fashionable, and yet color me intrigued. I'm
compelled by the possibilities of a customizable on-the-fly
watch with a battery charge that lasts longer than half a
day.
As this and the YotaPhone 2 show, the e-ink trend is
heating up, and I'm almost ready to hitch my wagon to it.
Rating: 3 out of 5 Changing Faces
Connected to Health
A pair of portable smartwatches have loftier goals than
measuring how many steps we've taken each day or
barraging us with notifications.
Empatica's Embrace smartwatch collects metrics about the
wearer to help determine stress levels and predict seizures.
Tzoa's Enviro-Tracker, meanwhile, measures nearby air
pollution levels and ultraviolet light exposure.
I have few concerns about Embrace, which gets a hearty
thumbs up from me. However, although Tzoa is trying
something admirable, I fear it's doomed to fail.
Crowdsourcing data is inherently positive, but the watch
seems somewhat ineffective if the company can't convince
many, many people to sign up and feed in information about
air quality. Learning about nearby air quality is great, but
I can't expect Tzoa to point me to an area where breathing
is easier if it doesn't have that data.
If only companies with great ideas like these could
collaborate to combine their tech in the same watch.
Otherwise, we'll all soon be wearing watches up to our
elbows.
Rating: 4 out of 5 Deep Breaths.
Clever Beer
Brewing a batch of beer at home, I'm told, is a
tremendous pleasure. For the uninitiated such as myself, a
device like Brewie seems like a solid entry point.
I'm not exactly certain why this needs a touchscreen and a
smartphone app when it could crib off the technology used by
the likes of Keurig, though. I don't see why it would be
unable to set a cooking process for a particular batch by
reading a sensor or tag on the pouch of oats.
Certainly, my gripe is a First World Problem; I fail to
understand technology that is supposed to make doing
something easier adding a few extra steps.
Also, I'm not truly happy with having to wait at least five
days before drinking the beer, so until technology solves the
fermenting problem, inventors best hop to brewing up
stronger ideas.
Rating: 3 out of 5 Tipples
Waffling Away
If this were not a crowdfunded project and one that were
currently on shelves, The Keyboard Waffle Iron would
make a solid holiday gift for that friend who spends perhaps
a little too much time in front of a computer. A waffle
maker in the shape of a keyboard sounds like the type of
gimmicky item I'd normally hate, but I actually am a fan.
Certainly, if it ever meets its target and goes into
production, at least 90 percent of these things will litter
thrift stores within five years. I'm mostly just excited about
waffles.
Rating: 4 out of 5 Backspaces
Hashtag #Fail
This is it. The lowest valley of the technology landscape.
The fetid, gurgling mulch festering at the base of the tech
bubble.
It's a dedicated hash symbol button connected via USB to
a computer, seemingly to help people create hashtags more
quickly. Just one question: Why?
Why would a presumable digital native forego a valuable
USB port for this? If you're that in need of quick access
to the hash key, why not reassign a useless button such as
Scroll Lock to take up the slack or switch the language of
one's keyboard? Better yet, why not take an extra split
second to hold down the Shift key and hit the hash button?
It will save no one any time whatsoever. I can only hope
that this is secretly an elaborate prank, and that pressing the
button causes one to be sentenced to an immediate,
irrevocable lifetime ban from the Internet.
Rating: 0 out of 5 #nothanks