But for tech aficionados, this is an exciting time for a much different reason. It’s time for the seventh annual Pogie Awards!
These awards, presented each year in the cafetorium of the James A. Garfield Middle School in The Dalles, Ore., celebrate innovation in technology. As always, these awards don’t go to the best products of the year; what could be more boring? Instead, the Pogies celebrate the best ideas of the year: ingenious features that somehow made it out of committee and into real-world products, even if the resulting products aren’t that great.
VERBATIM STAY ‘N’ STORE 16-GIGABYTE FLASH DRIVE ($25). Imagine a USB flash drive so small, you can barely even tell it’s there. You leave it plugged into your laptop all the time. It’s like adding storage without having to open up your machine.
The Stay ‘n’ Store is not particularly fast. But it’s a quick, easy, convenient way to take the strain off an overstuffed hard drive.
GOWATCHIT.COM In the new Blockbuster-storeless world, where are we supposed to get our movies? At the moment, the answer is “Unclear.” Netflix and Amazon stream some movies; Vudu and iTunes sell some recent ones; Redbox offers a few movies in DVD vending machines; Netflix still mails DVDs. But no source has all movies. Some movies aren’t available in any format. And trying to find a particular movie among all of these sources is time-consuming homework.
At Gowatchit.com, you can find out right now where, how and if a movie is available with one quick search. You can also ask to be notified when it becomes available. (Why aren’t all movies available through all channels? The movie companies these days must have some irrational fear of giving the customers what they want.)
SOUNDRACER ($32). Imagine plugging a small pod into your car’s cigarette lighter — and turning your boring suburbmobile into a thrilling, far more expensive sports car. Well, at least your car will sound like that thrilling sports car. As you accelerate, slow down, shift, cruise and idle, appropriate sounds emerge from your sound system. All the sonic pleasure of a roaring V8 engine — for $32.
As one of its Amazon reviews puts it, “Yes, it’s a little flimsy. Yes, sometimes it doesn’t work right. But when it does work, it is awesome.”
HTC RHYME ($200 with two-year Verizon contract). At first glance, the Rhyme looks like JAAC (just another Android cellphone). But its quest to win women’s hearts expresses itself in a truly brilliant way: it comes with a light-up, clip-on “charm” on a long thin wire that plugs into the headphone jack.
The idea is that you can carry the phone inside your purse or bag, and clip the small cube-shape charm onto the outside. When a call or text message comes in, or when you’ve missed a call, blinking patterns signal you to fish out the phone.
The Rhyme also comes with a second killer idea: a wireless charging stand. When you set the phone into this stand, it charges magnetically and instantly fires up the alarm-clock app. It’s a great runner-up idea, even if it’s modeled on the Motorola Droid’s bedside dock, a 2009 Pogie award winner.
EPSON MEGAPLEX MG850HD ($650). The Megaplex is a handsome, bright projector for boardrooms, home theaters and so on. It does all the usual projectory things — it even has an iPod/iPad/iPhone charging jack that lets you watch your videos and photo slide shows on a wall or a screen.
The Pogie award-winning feature here, though, is a customizable start-up screen. You can add your contact information here, perhaps an “if found, please call” message, or, in a school or business situation, a message like, “For tech support, call Chaz in IT, extension 381.” When the projector turns on, this start-up message is the first thing that appears.
Frankly, an “If found, please call” start-up message should be available on every cellphone, music player, tablet, laptop and remote control.
ICOOKBOOK ($5). When you’re cooking, your hands get grubby, sticky and wet — not the ideal situation for handling electronics. This recipe app (for iPad, iPhone or Android) adds a screamingly obvious feature: hands-free page turning. You can turn pages (and start or stop cooking timers) with voice commands.
E-mail: pogue@nytimes.com
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=9266cff0a3666052a9e88e42e69c02b0
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