If you’re leery of RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) due to your work or play sessions, then getting an alternative keyboard would be your best bet. As long as the alternative doesn’t come in meter sizes or must be operated by hopping around to reach each letter.

Adopting new technology is always a difficult process – it’s fortunate that a slew of products to compensate for this always show up to ease this transition. The problem is, most look horrible and doesn’t work that well. In the case of Solid State Drives (SSD) as a replacement for the regular, mechanical spinning drives, the rate of adoption is especially low – mainly due to SSD’s high price and a compromise in size versus its admittedly higher performance.

As exciting, cutting-edge technologies go, the 3M developed mini projector made for handphones is a mixed bag. Nearly as small as a regular camera mechanism found in current handheld devices, this unit does exactly as its name implies – projects media onto a (preferably) flat surface.

                                              3M mini projector module.

It’s always difficult to strike a balance. That’s why we have lawyers dividing “white” right and “black” wrong into a million different shades of grey. HTC attempts to stick to one particular shade of grey with the release of the Advantage X7510, and its up to you whether this product is right or wrong for you.

Going to the hospital is never a good experience for anyone (even with the valiant doctors and nurses doing their best to make things pleasant) – especially if the patient is a little kid with nothing to look forward to but bed, doctors in white lab coats and visits from relatives. Microsoft and the non-profit organization Companions in Courage is aiming to minimize the hurt by providing the young patients with a very powerful distraction: Xbox360 kiosks.

The green revolution is upon us. Nearly all corporations, especially in the tech industry, have some kind of green program going on and extolling their parent companies efforts in the field. This revolution applies both ways though. On our way to the idea of a totally interactive home controlled by a home AI smarter than your dog, it is only natural that we don’t immediately have the mind-machine interface that can tell your mood from when you wake up and fixes your coffee before you climb out of bed. Nor do we have a HAL-like talking computer to brief us on our day. We start from the periphery, and this is what we have.

                                             With just three (fake) leaves, taking care of this should be as easy as pressing a button.
 

As kitchen appliances go, this glorified filter/cleaner combination takes the cake for ostentatious displays of excess, but I mean that in a good way. I had no idea what it was for when I first laid eyes on it, but my second thought after this was that I wouldn’t mind owning one, nonetheless.

If Dr. Seuss wrote on a Macbook Pro and was born a few decades closer to the present, this wouldn’t be too out of place. As it is though, this “Body-Laptop Interface” is too much of a good thing – privacy, and too little of something else – err.. street-cred? Regardless, I wouldn’t want to sport that “Interface” in public, on-the-go productivity be damned.

                                             Watch out for overheating laptop!

We’re getting there. Like answering the kids in the backseat nearing the end of a long trip, or proofing the final page of that thousand-page thesis, we can say the same to the development of the powered exoskeleton. I know, I know, the intro was a bit off to the left field, but I couldn’t help pointing this out since a new movie called “Iron Man” is coming out soon in theatres – something firmly entrenched in the science fiction pulp culture of the 1960’s but is now being shown, right here in 2008, where the “Real” Iron Man is out walking around in Utah. Present reality and the science fiction of the 60’s collide.

                                             The Exoskeleton's creator, Steve Jacobsen. To the right. 

Plugging in your devices is as utilitarian as it goes. As our devices ramp up the style and move into the same “accessory status” as jewelry and handbags, it gets harder to maintain the veneer of sophistication when it comes time to plug in and recharge or synchronize. I mean, have you seen one of those huge power plugs recently? They’re not real pretty, especially for a stylish device.

                                             Understated simplicity, or overpriced box?
 

Ever felt like your daily routine’s weighing you down? Think how much worse it is for kids, with their never-ending schedule of schoolwork, piano lessons, basketball games, and doting parents insisting on the best care they can afford for their kids.

                                              A daily chore not always appreciated nor enjoyed.
 

You have to wonder why it took so long. HP’s Elite Auto Focus Webcam finally reaches the 3-megapixel sensor level and breaks the 2MP barrier – for webcams at least. Webcams have been with us for so long, and is so familiar to even the most novice of computer users that this iconic piece of equipment tends to become a little lost behind the high-tech specs of other computer parts.

                                             No, it's not a projector. It's HP's new Elite Webcam.

Confused motorists and permanently lost drivers rejoice! Do you find yourself squinting at a street sign which is turned juuust enough by a vandal for you to not be able to see it from the stoplights? Or perhaps you’re one of thousands who get lost after getting diverted to unfamiliar roads by the MMDA/PLDT/Meralco/Flooding/Fiesta/People Power Presentation. In whichever case, many solutions exist, most of which I doubt will be of any assistance in our tortuous network of roads and alleyways.

                                              Hopefully, this is just a representation of where to drive, instead of a recommendation of driving on the middle of the road...

Not to further confuse followers of technology minutiae and the merely curious, but the memory gods has seen fit to further muddle up the waters with a new kind of memory technology to add to the confusing alphabet soup of memory types like RAM, DDR, NAND, SSD, DRAM and the like. This time, this new addition is potentially something to really look forward to.

A heads-up to any and all potential buyers of entry-level but infinitely practical notebooks – a well-known laptop from a well-known company, specifically Intel’s Classmate PC, has been re-named and has appeared in some Philippine store shelves. Nothing alarmist about this post, as this is all above-board and legal.

                                             Neo Xplore X1 sporting the distinctive Classmate PC strap. Photo courtesy of bravekn1ght.