Touchscreens have become almost standard across so many smartphones and tablets thanks to the intuitive and easy way that they allow us to browse the Internet and use apps. Most of us, however, have had issues with a touchscreen, “fat finger” syndrome — i tapping the wrong part of a screen — being the most common, and boy is it frustrating. But now, there is a new solution that could soon spare us from such touchscreen mishaps, and helps us use the screens more effectively.
May we present…the LunaTik Touch Pen .
The product is a Kickstarter initiative to build a product that combines the features of a stylus with the ‘offline’ capabilities of a regular biro-type pen.
Right now, LunaTik Pen has raised more than $40,000 of crowdsourced funds, however it must raise an additional $30,000 over the next 90 days to make it a reality and begin shipping the product in April 2012.
The initiative is a follow-up from the hugely successful and innovative TikTok+LunaTik Watch — which turns an Apple iPod Nano into a watch — which raised almost $1 million in pledges through Kickstarter in 2010.
Here’s what Scott Wilson , the Chicago-based head of the initiative, says:
Aside from the idea behind the pen — which could help greatly improve the user-experience on touchscreen devices — we particularly like that there will be two versions of the device.
The LunaTik Alloy Touch Pen is the premium product, which includes “an aircraft grade aluminum barrel, a die cast clip that is hard coated with PVD plating and a high grade silicone rubber grip”.
For those of us who go through pens on a near-daily basis, the LunaTik Plastic Touch Pen is a less expensive, and more dispensable option to get the best of digital and paper-based uses. The plastic version also comes in a wide selection of colours and designs, which could make it an ideal present, although sadly not in time for Christmas 2011.
You can find more details at the link below. Wilson has provided a breakdown of how the funds will spent and, crucially, you can also leave a donation if you want to see the product become a reality next year.
➤ LunaTik Touch Pen | via @hnfirehose
SteelSeries Diablo 3 headset review – Evil looks meet beautiful sound
SteelSeries has made a name for itself in the high-end computer gaming market. The company’s latest release is a co-branded mouse and headset for the release of Blizzard’s Diablo 3 title. We got our hands on both of them, and took an in-depth look. Do they live up to the hype? Read on to find out.
This time, we’re going to take a look at the SteelSeries Diablo III Headset . At an MSRP of $119, it’s firmly in the market with some other high-end names like Razer, Logitech, Asus and Audio-Technica. To keep pace, it’s going to need not only great sound, but also some convincing features.
The first thing that you’ll likely notice when you take the D3 out of the box is the suspension design for the headband. Widely used by professional audio companies like AKG , this allows the headset to fit a wide variety of head sizes without the need to adjust the ear cups along a band as you would with most headphones. Instead, the headband is attached to wires which will, as you place the cups over your ears, allow the band to adjust to your head size automatically.
The D3 is a USB headset. There is a shorter (3 foot) cord attached to the headset itself, but an extension cable, providing an additional six feet of length, is included. Smartly, SteelSeries supplies software for the vast majority of its devices that is compatible with both Windows and OS X, and the D3 is no exception. As is common with SteelSeries peripherals, the attached cable is covered in a woven sheath, adding a bit of extra protection against snags.
Plugging up the D3, chances are good that your computer will automatically recognize the headset and treat it as one. If you want to get highly involved, though, you’ll need to do a software download from the SteelSeries website of the SteelSeries Engine. This singular piece of software will be the management hub for all of your plugged SteelSeries peripherals.
There aren’t many controls or settings for the headset, but you can choose to set an equalizer curve to tailor the sound to your liking. You can also adjust the illumination effect and intensity, because yes, there are LEDs all over this headset.
The company states that there are 30 LEDs, in total. As you can see, the ear cups have LED illumination, and there are three marks down the side of the band, representing Diablo 3, which light up as well. The LEDs don’t pulse to sound, but rather fade in and out at the rate that you specify in the settings. As such, they avoid being annoying, but you can choose to shut them off entirely if you want.
The D3 carries over the same retractable microphone that we saw in the Siberia Neckband for iOS . It’s a noise-cancelling microphone which, if you’ve ever heard someone in a Ventrilo server who didn’t have one, you’ll know why this is important. It does an admirable job of blocking out ambient sounds, but it has a bit less fidelity than I’d like to see, with sound close to that of a telephone headset.
Now, what really matters is the sound of the headset itself. First off, it’s worth noting that this isn’t a studio-quality headset. It sounds good, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that you’re going to do professional audio monitoring with the D3. Listening to music, you’ll likely find (as I did) that low frequencies are a bit over-emphasized while the sparkling highs that you might expect will be somewhat missing.
Fortunately the software-based equalizer does help matters, somewhat. It requires a bit of caution, though, as software-based solutions tend to clip easily and this one is no exception. Turn up one of the bands too high and you’ll be greeted with a crunchy, harsh sound in your ears.
Game sounds, conversely, are fantastic. With traditional high-end headphones, you tend to hear every imperfection in a game. Audible pops, stops and starts are common, because of the nature by which gaming soundtracks are stitched together. It’s a funny thing, but headphones and headsets with slightly-less accurate reproduction actually tend to sound better in games, because those imperfections aren’t as obvious.
In all, low and mid-frequency sounds are punchy, and highs are clear enough in game to keep all but the most picky of audiophile happy. I tested the D3 with World of Warcraft, Call of Duty 4 and Team Fortress 2. In every instance, I was well pleased with what I heard, and the audio lived up to what I’d expect from a headset in this price range.
An inline volume control, as well as microphone mute switch, keep the D3 on par with features that we’d expect to see. What really sets this headset apart, however, is its extraordinary comfort and light weight. The leather-padded cushions fit over even sizable ears like my own and the auto-adjusting headband removes the annoyance that you can find sometimes when you have ear cups that don’t fit quite right because of pre-assigned detents on other headphones.
Add the comfort and sound quality to the features like that retractable microphone and OS X compatibility and the SteelSeries Diablo 3 Headset is a winner. Yes, it’s pricey, but understandably so. I’ve seen cheaper, but not better. Conversely, anything better has cost far more. The Diablo 3 Headset is aimed at the hardcore gamer. For people who buy $100 mice and $400 graphics cards, $119 for a great headset is just another day at the office.
Samsung surpasses 1,000 TV apps as downloads top 10 million
Samsung has reported another milestone in its attempt to bring applications and services to consumers’ televisions by announcing that it has surpassed 1,000 apps on its Samsung Apps TV store, also noting that it has now facilitated over 10 million downloads since the platform launched.
Sammyhub reports that the television-centric app store is now handling around 50,000 downloads each day, as users begin to realise the potential of third-party tools and services that can extend the capabilities of their TVs.
In May, we reported that Samsung had surpassed the 5 million downloads barrier, just over a year after the store launched. It’s taken the Korean manufacturer just under five months to more than double its download count, with downloads currently hovering around the 11 million download mark.
At the time, the most popular applications included YouTube, Google Maps, Accuweather, Vimeo – the trend seems to not have changed in the five months that have passed, with the same apps holding their positions at the top of the charts.