Gadgets of the Future

PANONO – Panoramic Ball Camera

Like taking photographs..? Or are you just another selfie-o-holic..! Well in both the cases you don’t need a D-SLR anymore. The Panono ball camera takes selfies to a whole new level. By now we all know what a panoramic view is and when I say ‘panoramic ball camera’ it does exactly as it suggests: A ball that easily fits in your palm, embedded with 36 cameras and just ready to be tossed up in the air to take pictures..!!

Panono ball camera

The Panono ball camera comes with 36 cameras and an accelerometer. When you toss the ball up in the air, the accelerometer triggers all the 36 cameras at the highest point and the moment is captured 360^o x 360^o. The 36 images, each from a different angle, are stitched together to form a full-spherical panorama. Each camera is of 108 megapixels giving the image incredible details. So much that you can even see the things that you didn’t notice while taking the picture. Now that’s a cool way of taking pictures..!! Moreover, the Panono app for iPhone and Android enables you to view your images right away. All you need to do is move your mobile up and down and all round as if you are in that spherical image and relive the moment.

Specs:

Diameter – 11cm | Weight – 300 grams | Camera Resolution – 108 megapixels | Price – Expected around $549 | Release Date – Second half of 2014.

Website – http://www.panono.com/ballcamera/

3D Printers

From a Xerox machine to FAX to a Desktop Printer, technology never ceased to amaze us. And just as we were settling down with the super-fast LaserJet printer here comes the 3D Printer..!

You can take a moment or two to let the idea of 3D printing sink in. And that would be perfectly fine because it completely shatters our conventional idea of printing! A 3D printer makes a 3-dimensional solid object from the digital model of virtually any shape fed to it. It basically stacks up successive layers of the material in a desired shape to make the whole object.

A chocolaty output from ChefJet

If you are thinking about its applications, how about this: Imagine you are about to give a presentation, everyone is looking at the screen which is blank and you say “Chuck PowerPoint, that’s too mainstream, I have an actual 3D model for you!” How cool would that be!! It can be used to make different prototypes, artifacts, replicas, study model etc. A 3D printer by ChefJet enables you to have the output medium to be flavored. It can be chocolate, vanilla, mint flavored sugar. With this you can have chocolates and candies of any desired shape! Truly, the only limitation to its application will be your imagination. Architects would definitely fall in love with this idea of model building.

Smartwatch

I remember watching James Bond movies and being awestruck not only by those sizzling Bond Girls but also by those seemingly impossible Bond Gadgets. Be it a jet pack, a cool convertible water-bike or even a wrist watch which Bond uses to communicate with the Headquarters. Suddenly all those don’t seem fantasies anymore. Thanks to the all new and upcoming smartwatches available to us.

It had only just begun that mobiles had started replacing almost every other mundane device that we use and a wrist watch was amongst the early prey. However the watches have decided to bounce back by using the same technique of providing much more than its fundamental functions. A wrist watch with its own OS is definitely ‘The Thing’. The concept of smartwatches was made popular by Sony Ericsson’s LiveView but with a price tag of $79 and some limited functions it could not make a mark. However this concept attracted the focus of other developers and as a result we got smartwatches from Samsung, Pebble, Qualcomm etc. With these smartwatches you can check your messages, e-mails, Facebook & twitter updates, connect or receive a call, listen to music or even take pictures! And all of this with a swipe or two on your wrist watch. Oh yes! And it does tell time too..! Here are some of the latest and upcoming smartwatches:

Sony SmartWatch 2

OS: Android 4.0

Display: 1.6” LCD

Apps: Call Handling, SMS, Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Music handling, Calendar etc.

Bluetooth 3.0

Camera: N/A

It can be paired with all Android Devices.

Processor: 180MHz

It is water-resistant.

Price: Rs. 7,990

Samsung Galaxy Gear

OS: Android 4.0

Display: 1.63” super AMOLED

Apps: Call Handling, SMS, Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Music handling, Calendar etc.

Bluetooth 4.0

Camera: 1.9MP, resolution of 1280 x 960, recording for 15 sec.

It can only be paired with limited Galaxy devices.

It has 800MHz processor, 512 MB RAM and 4GB internal memory.

Price: Rs. 15,300

Pebble Smartwatch

OS: Pebble OS

Display: 1.26” LED backlight

Apps: Notification, Music control, Watch faces, fitness, alarm etc and more on pebble appstore.

Bluetooth 4.0

Camera: N/A

It is compatible with both iPhone and Android.

It is waterproof.

Processor: up to 80MHz. It has 1GB Flash memory.

Price: $150

i'm Watch

OS: i’m Droid 2

Display: 1.54” TFT

Apps: Notification, Call handling, SMS, email etc and more apps on i’market.

Bluetooth 4.0

Camera: N/A

It is compatible with Android 4.0+ iOS4+ and Blackberry 10+

It has a 3.5mm jack.

It has 128MB RAM and 4GB Flash Drive.

Price: Rs 24,999

After the Google Glass, it is rumored that we will see a Google Smartwatch too..! So stay tuned J