We’ve all got more old gadgets lying around then we’d care to admit. That old iPod? Still got it, and the drawer full of cell phones, yep, I have that too. It’s an old problem by now, how to recycle these things that have to many unknown component parts we don’t know where to start. From computers to digital cameras, lets face it, on our own we have no idea how to start the correct disassembly and discarding of our once-favorite pieces of modern equipment. 

Which is why we in the end are forced to rely on outside services for our gadget-recycling needs, but in case you’re really wondering “why should I recycle it, I’ve got a perfectly good garbage bin right here,” hold up and think. While gadgets are relatively self-contained little devices, they can, and oft times do, use potentially harmful chemical and non-chemical components that, when discarded in say a landfill, can leak into the surrounding environment and do quite a bit of damage.

ASUS Eee PC T91 Touch-Screen

It is the age of touch-screen everything, brought to its culmination in the ever popular iPhone, so it was only a matter of time before the personal touch-screen computer evolved. One example of this type of innovation has come into its own in the ASUS Convertible Eee PC T91. This exceptional model of PC was made specifically to bring the touchscreen feature to the masses.

Unveiled at the 2009 CES, the T91 is labeled as a “multi touch notebook” and features, among other things, a swivel frame, 8.9” LED backlight, is about 1” thick and weighs only 2lbs. As far as tablet PCs go, this one is well designed, but the T91 doesn’t aim to be the biggest and best, instead its target audience is young students who lack the fund for larger, more mainstream laptops like Apple’s mecca of MacBooks. In this vein the T91 is equipped with an optional TV tuner, swivel frame, GPS system, and Windows XP Home. With all this the laptop can easily become a home theatre of navigation system at the drop of a hat, and weighing only 2lbs, is easily transported from home to school, something that can become a chore with conventional laptops.

VYE S37: UMPC With an Optical Drive?

The Vye S37, on the surface, seems like one of the more ideal UMPCs available. It's size is fairly comparable to other UMPCs, it has a 7-inch touchscreen, a tablet mode, and all of the other bells and whistles you expect and need on an Ultra-Mobile Personal Computer. The one thing it's got that no other UMPCs have, however, is one of the first things that was sacrificed when the first UMPCs were developed--an optical drive.

The omission makes sense, really. If you're all about portability and compactness (but don't want the tiny screen of a smart phone) you probably aren't carrying around a stack of data DVDs, so who needs an optical drive to access them? However, if your UMPC does everything else you need it to do, it does seem a little weird to have it be unable to play that discount DVD you found in a bargain bin during some down time on a business trip. The thing is, there's another reason to not

Text Scanner

Countless sci-fi movies have incorporated different iterations of these technologically advantageous tools and I’ve always swooned over them (okay, not swooned but…drooled). So what’s the premise? You have a lot of reading to do and a lot of research to conduct and the whole task just seems daunting. Welcome the Dixau Text Scanner. This little gizmo, when passed over the pages of a book or magazine (or whatever text you can find really. Perhaps even a Shreddies box…), is capable of recognizing and parsing text, making it ideal for transferring notes onto your laptop or desktop.

Such a gadget could become an indispensable tool in a student’s arsenal, being able to transfer section straight from the text into your notes, all clean and neat like. And ultimately that is one of the primary roles of technology: to save time for doing real stuff. For some, transferring notes may be a means of memorization, but for others it’s just a tedious, disconnected task that detracts from actual comprehension time. But I’ve only spoken of the basic aspect of the Dixau.

Inherently constructed into the core of the device is software that will automatically consult secondary sources, such as Google, Wikipedia, and online dictionaries, in order to supplement your understanding of the material. It’s like reading: EVOLVED. In a sense, the Dixau collects answers to any questions you may not even be ready to ask. Definitions, terminology, sources: all the things that would require leg-work, are already being parsed and found through the ‘net. In another, broader, sense the Dixau presents one of the first entries into a highly integrated lifestyle, where the means of gathering and digesting information is greatly facilitated by the simplest of measures: reading and defining terms. What’s offered here, while seemingly simple, is in fact a great step towards cutting out the tedium in tasks so that one can concentrate on the actual deliberation and elaboration of ideas. Nevermind the page flipping and highlighting, don’t bother making a glossary of terms: just concentrate on the ideas. The bigger picture. Like the notion of including a database of prescription drugs on the iPhone for doctors, this relegates boring, menial tasks to technology. And I for one am thankful.

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Converter for the iPhone/iPod Touch

How many times do you find yourself in need of a quick conversion, whether it be currency exchanging, meters to feet, Celsius to Fahrenheit, lbs to kilograms? Or maybe you just want to know how many drams are in a pinch? Er what? The Converter application for the iPhone and iPod Touch offers so many different units to converter to and from that I spent half my time testing it exploring new units of measurement that I’ve never even heard of.

All things considered, a program that offers such a myriad of measurements may suggest a cumbersome interface, after all there are 17 categories alone from which you can select a multitude of different units. Those categories are: Area, Clothing, Currency, Data Storage, Energy, Flow, Fuel Consumption, Kitchen, Length, Power, Pressure, Speed, Temperature, Time, Torque, Volume, and Mass. However, this program offers a simple, streamlined approach. From the main screen you select a category from a list (which also offers easy to identify icons), then a unit to convert from and a unit to convert to. At the base of the main screen is your standard calculator interface from which you enter the amount you want converted. There is even a sliding scale for precision, which adjusts how many decimal places you want the conversion to be accurate to.

Now, I know it’s difficult to get excited over such a simple utility, but that’s the greatest strength of such an application: its simplicity, which adds to it’s practicality. Though it may not be an exciting game, it is very handy. And who knows, maybe it’ll settle a few bar bets too.