Gmail has long had keyboard shortcuts, though learning them can be difficult. Enter the Gboard, a specialized mini-keyboard for Google's e-mail service. It debuts this Friday at an asking price of $19.99.
The Gboard consists of 19 colored keys set in a standard size numpad-only keyboard. Clicking on any one of these performs that particular keyboard shortcut. Included are Gmail-specific features such as starring messages, starting a search, and jumping between message threads. Outside of Gmail they simply act as normal keyboard buttons, and will type in whatever letter or number corresponds with that shortcut.
The device is powered by USB and requires no special software or drivers, however users need to first enable keyboard shortcuts within Gmail's settings before using it. Also worth noting is that it was created not by Google, but by Charlie Mason, a film producer from Venice, Calif. This is his first foray into the computer hardware business.
The Gboard consists of 19 keys, all of which act as shortcuts within Google's Gmail Web mail service.
(Credit: James Martin / CNET)This really is a product that users will either love or hate. Those who have mastered Gmail's shortcuts will see little need to buy special hardware and find a spare USB port to plug it into. Meanwhile, newbie users may be unwilling to take the plunge on such a specific peripheral for a program that works only within another program (the browser). The Gboard runs the risk of being an unappealing prospect to both parties.
It's also not the first attempt at easing the process of learning and remembering shortcuts. This time last year Google offered users a free pack of color-coded shortcut stickers that could be tacked onto any keyboard. There have also long been specialized keyboards for video and audio editing as well as graphical design--all of which provide similar, color-coded keys. Users who don't want to commit, or tack stickers on their keyboard, also have the option of buying a silicone keyboard mat, though no such thing has been created for Gmail.
Considering there are a total of 69 Gmail shortcuts (with more on the way if Google graduates some of its experimental features from its labs section) the Gboard could just be the first step toward creating a full-size (100 plus key) version. In the meantime, its early December release and low price tag make for a good stocking stuffer if you've got a Gmail lover in your family.
The good:
• No setup required
• Color coding is logical and makes it easy to learn the keys
• Good build quality and feel; keys are flat like on a laptop
• At $19.99 it's not that expensive. Most numeric-only keyboards cost about the same.
The bad:
• Does not come close to including all of Gmail's shortcuts
• Could be rendered less useful if Gmail's shortcuts change
• Only comes in one color (black)
The new Roku Channel Store now has 13 free content channels.
(Credit: Roku)Aiming to expand beyond movies and baseball, set-top box maker Roku is adding 10 new content channels ranging from social networking to music and podcasts.
Roku, which makes a small, wireless device that can stream content from the Web direct to any TV screen, is expanding from 3 channels to 13, as expected. Channels for Blip.tv, Facebook Photos, Flickr, FrameChannel, Mediafly, MobileTribe, Motionbox, Pandora, Revision3, and TWiT will join the current lineup of Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, and, more recently, MLB.TV. All of them will be available in the newly christened Roku Channel Store.... Read more
The new FreeAgent Theater+ from Seagate.
(Credit: Seagate)Seagate on Tuesday announced the FreeAgent Theater+ HD media player. The device enables users to take digital-media content from their PCs and play it on their televisions. All the content is controlled with an included remote.
The FreeAgent Theater+ connects to USB-attached storage drives through two USB ports. Once Seagate's device is connected to a PC, users can load the attached drive with movies, videos, music, and pictures. The FreeAgent Theater+ sports both HDMI and Component output, allowing users to watch up to 1080p content on their HDTV. It also has composite inputs for those with standard-definition televisions.
Although it works with any drive, the FreeAgent Theater+ is designed to work with Seagate's FreeAgent Go portable drives. Those drives can be slid into the device's dock, making it a bit more convenient to transfer the device.
To make it easier to transfer files, the FreeAgent Theater+ can connect to a home network via its Ethernet port. According to Seagate, it intends to release a USB wireless adapter in October to enable users to connect to their home networks wirelessly. The adapter will support 802.11n connectivity and cost $69.99.
Seagate's new player features several video formats, including H.264, MPEG-1, MPEG-4, DivX HD, and Xvid HD. It accepts AAC, MP3, FLAC, WMA, OGG, and more on the audio side.
Whether or not Seagate's new product can fix some of its past mistakes is still unknown. The company's previous device, the Seagate FreeAgent Theater, was the lowest-rated USB-ready digital-media player in a CNET Reviews roundup from April. Competing products from Iomega and Western Digital scored higher.
The Seagate FreeAgent Theater+ is available now for preorder at $149.99. For $289.99, consumers can pick up the FreeAgent Theater+ and a 500GB FreeAgent Go drive.
CNET plans to have an official review of the FreeAgent Theater+ later this month.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Notebook Cooling Base, available in July, will cost $30.
(Credit: Microsoft)Microsoft is introducing a new technology to help keep laptops cooler. Unfortunately, it's not software.
The company on Tuesday introduced its first Notebook Cooling Base, an inch-thick stand with built-in fan. Available in white and black, the laptop-chiller is powered over a USB connection.
The product will sell for $30 when it hits the market in July and represents a new direction for Microsoft's hardware unit, which is best known for its mice and keyboards.
At one point, the company sold wireless networking gear, though it got out of that business in 2004.
Microsoft on Tuesday also announced new colors for its trendy-looking Arc Mouse. Later this month, the $50 mouse will be available in the decidedly non-beige shades of frost white, eggplant purple, deep olive green, and marine blue. It's already on the market in red and black.
The $50 Arc Mouse will be available in frost white, eggplant purple, deep olive green, and marine blue.
(Credit: Microsoft )Sure, PMA was lots of fun, but there was plenty of other stuff going on here at Crave this week. Here's some of the best and some of the worst.
(Credit:
Apple)
• We took a look at the new 24-inch iMacs from Apple--and liked what we saw.
• We brought you news of "trashy" lingerie made from recycled materials. We won't tell if you click.
• Strangely, it seems Amazon wants to help the iPhone be the Kindle killer with its own Kindle app. It works, but there's some strangeness.
• We can rebuild him: Meet the quasi-bionic eye camera. Do not want, but kind of do want. Chinese DVD pirates, take note.
The foyer of my new mansion.
(Credit: Frank McKinney)• Craver Justin Yu channeled his inner Shania Twain in putting down the new Mac Mini. In a nutshell: $200 gets you a decent laptop with more features.
• We also covered the next place I will live. No, really, I'm working on the financing. Bloggers can get great loans for eco-mansions in this economy, right?
• I'll take one of these amazing eco-friendly supercars to go with it. You've got to have the complete package these days.
See anything we missed? We're not perfect, it can happen. If so, get to us at Crave at cnet dot com and we'll take a look.
Do not attempt to adjust your monitor: yes, the eMachines you see to the left of this copy is just as boring as it appears. It's a budget system that costs $380, so we're not expecting world-class design, but eMachines doesn't even make it pretty on the inside. There's ample room for expansion, but the core components aren't blowing up skirts:
- 2.1GHz AMD Athlon Dual Core Processor 4050e
- 3GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM
- 128MB shared NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE integrated graphics chip
- 320GB, 7,200 rpm hard drive
- dual-layer DVD burner
- Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (32-bit
The 32-bit Windows is really the final nail on this machine's coffin. With so many other systems in a price comparison ship with the 64-bit OS, that can speed up your machine by utilizing its memory to full capacity, especially in a busy multitasking environment. Check out the full review if you want to experience the ET1161-07's shameful performance scores, but if you really want to stretch your dollar the furthest, we actually recommend Acer's newest machine, the Aspire X1700. We don't have a full review up, but it's in the works to publish next week and trust us when we say that it's worth ponying up the extra $100.
Correction 7:45 a.m. PST: I got the sensor bar and the Wiimote's duties mixed up. Names notwithstanding, the sensor bar has the infrared LEDs, and the Wiimote actually has the cameras that detect the signals.
I support the hardware-hacking philosophy on principle, but most of the movement's labors have left me uninspired. That all changed when I started seeing the uses that Carnegie Mellon researcher Johnny Chung Lee has found for the Nintendo Wii's infrared remote control.
In a collection of videos, notable for their lucid explanations, the Ph.D. graduate student from CMU's Human-Computer Interaction Institute shows exactly how versatile the "Wiimote" system can be. Among the uses he convincingly demonstrates: a virtual-reality head tracker; a virtual whiteboard on a wall, tabletop, and laptop screen; and a Minority Report-style arm-waving and finger-pointing multitouch user interface.
The Nintendo game device includes a bar-shaped device, ordinarily placed atop a TV screen, with two LEDs, or light-emitting diodes. It emits infrared light that the Wiimote can detect within a 45-degree field of view. Lee uses a computer to process data from those components and dramatically expand their utility.
By attaching the sensor bar to his head and the Wiimote to a TV, he was able to construct a system that knows where his head is located. That information is then fed into an algorithm that changes the perspective of an image on a monitor. The result is a very convincing 3D feel that looks like it would be a great fit for video games.
The whiteboard application relies on use of a pen with an infrared LED in its tip. After a quick calibration--the subject of Lee's thesis--a computer can track where Lee is "drawing" on a wall, tabletop, and laptop screen.
Perhaps the most mainstream potential comes with Lee's Wiimote-based multitouch user interface.
Lee attaches small reflectors to his fingertips, which the sensor bar can track. The result is a user interface that can respond to gestures such as pinching and swiping. And by tracking four points, it enables the "multitouch" abilities that are all the rage with Apple's iPhone and MacBook Air as well as the Microsoft Surface "Milan" project.
Lee's open-source work has traveled beyond his own domain. Cynergy Labs' Maestro project shows the Wiimote-based multitouch system in action. And his work has spawned a discussion site called Wiimote Project.
Lee also is notable for another practical design, a poor man's steadycam.
After a busy first day in Las Vegas, here are the highlights from the editors covering computers and PC hardware at the show.
CPUs and GPUs
Intel, AMD toss in their chips at CES
Mobile Penryn: Early test results
ATI releases new laptop graphics
Nvidia announces new chipsets, Hybrid SLI
New PC platforms from Intel will face hurdles
Laptops
Toshiba jumps on the Penryn bandwagon
Samsung upgrades Q1 ultramobile PC
Asus shows off fashion-forward U2E
Hands on with the HP Pavilion tx2000
Dell updates high-end XPS M1530
PCs and networking
Asus reveals a small-form-factor PC
Gateway expands its gaming desktop lineup
Netgear brings NAS to you, the home user
Hardware junkies looking for the latest news and releases from CES 2008, I would direct your attention here. Also, coming up tomorrow, we'll nominate three finalists in this and other categories for CNET's Best of CES awards.
View complete CES 2008 coverage from CNET.
The CradlePoint WiPipe, attached to a Verizon EVDO USB Modem
(Credit: Rafe Needleman / CNET)An odd little device made me a hero tonight. We were in the middle of a what turned out to be a 13-hour blackout in my San Francisco neighborhood, and my wife was getting antsy since she couldn't get her laptop online to work. She had some battery power left, but no connection. (My computer has cellular, but I'd rather let my wife drive my car than use my laptop.)
But I had brought home a demo unit of the Cradlepoint PHS300, a battery-powered cellular-to-WiiFi router. With a Verizon USB EVDO modem plugged into it, it turned my house into a battery-powered hot spot even though we had no power to our cable modem.
Setting it up took no time at all. Other cool features, which we didn't use, include a built-in chat function for people sharing the connection, and flexible security and administration utilities.
The use cases for this device are limited. It's an expensive networking backup, for example. While the device itself is $179, you'll also need a cellular data plan and modem to use it, and that usually costs about $60 a month. Individuals who need to guarantee themselves that they'll always have Internet access should get a laptop or modem that connects directly to a cellular data network; there's no need to use Wi-Fi as an intermediary. But if you need to quickly pop up a hot spot for several people to use, it's worth looking at.
Today it is possible to mash together Web services into a passable site with only a hobbyist's knowledge of programming. Tools like Yahoo Pipes get you started with the concepts, and then the APIs for products like Google Maps make things like the Chicago Crime Map buildable without requiring a large investment in original technology.
The same has not been true for hardware, but Peter Semmelhack at Bug Labs wants to change that. The company is releasing a hardware development system made of sensing and input modules that snap into a low-cost central Linux-based core, allowing you to mash up your own gadget. The main core, the BugBase, is bit larger than an iPhone. The modules that snap into it are half that size and a standard BugBase has four ports for modules.
Special-purpose modules snap into the BugBase.
(Credit: Bug Labs)Say you want to make some sort of gizmo for your car that records location and acceleration and displays stats on a screen. You could try to write a program for an existing GPS gadget, or you could snap together the necessary Bug Labs modules, write your own code in the Bug Labs system for your device, and go from there.
Bug Labs' system is meant for prototyping, and all the pieces of it are open-source. This means that once you've got your gadget working, you can use the Bug Labs hardware schematics as the basis for your own mass-produced version of the gadget in question. (You can also use the actual Bug circuit boards in your products, since they screw together nicely even when liberated from their plastic snap cases. However, this would be an expensive way to produce hardware.) The development environment is Eclipse. I'm not familiar with it, but it's open-source and looks to be philosophically similar to the Bug hardware--that is, highly modular.
All input/output to the modules is done via Internet protocols, and each hardware component has its own URL. This will make building mesh or networked devices that aren't physically connected to each other relatively easy, and it also means that all Bug-based gizmos are, by default, Web appliances.
The first four modules, and the base.
(Credit: Bug Labs)Bug Labs may get into the business of helping developers make Bug-based prototypes into actual mass consumer products, by embedding Bug-standard hardware with developers' code in more permanent cases.
But you can also just get a bunch of modules and hack around in them for fun (the first modules are: GPS, camera, touch-sensitive LCD, and accelerometer; the company plans to release four new modules each quarter). Bug Labs is very much like Lego Mindstorms: A collection of hardware modules you can snap together and then program. You don't need to sell your work to have a whole lot of fun with this system.
Bug Labs hardware should be available by the end of the year.
See also HeathKit (historical) and CompuLab. Also, Engadget has more Bug specs.
