At last some updates for the Canon 7D, for me the 7D has been my favorite camera/DSLR period. Its simple enough that I can use it and complex enough that it can do so much. I especially love its video recording features and I hope they have upgraded it for this time around. There are two updates one is for the Canon 70D and the other is the 7D Mark II. I hope the changes for the 7D Mark II are so much that it makes it worth it for me to upgrade. I have had my camera since Dec of 2009 and I still think its fantastic, I just want more for the video features and I hope they deliver on it. For now these are just a few rumors, I’m hoping for more news soon, come on Canon make us happy.

EOS 70D

• Digic 5
• 18mp
• 100% viewfinder with grid lines like 7D
• 19 AF Points from 7D
• Continuous AF in LiveView & Video Recording
• September Announcement

7D Mark II

• Dual Digic 5
• 100% viewfinder
• 61 Point AF from 5D Mark III
• Announced after 70D

Link: FStoppers

Whenever I travel anywhere I end up carrying with me a bunch of wires to charge or connect all the different gadgets I’m carrying with me. Sometimes I organize them and sometimes I toss them in and they turn into a mess. After seeing these cool Aviiq wires I thought they were very cool, short and simple and they clip on to the side of your bag and about the size of a pen.These cables feature a built-in clip that holds them securely in place, a flat, tangle-free cord, a standard USB plug on one end, and your choice of mini USB, micro USB, or Apple 30-pin connectors on the other, and they are color coded so you know which one you are grabbing out of the bag. For set of two for $30 – $20 depending on the combination of the set its pretty reasonable.

Link: Aviiq

The first time I saw the Nike Fuel was on my friend’s hand in mid march, and I was intrigued by it, I have seen a lot of those tools that tell you how much you have burned or how much you have walked but nothing like this. A simple designed product that can quantify your actions throughout the day. I know I was skeptic at first and I take the numbers with a bit of skepticism but it does something very well for me, it motivates me to move. There are types of information presented on the Nike Fuel Band, the time, Nike Fuel, Calories Burnt, and the Steps you have taken for the day. It adjusts your daily record based on the time that you program it for which I think is pretty cool. The LED’s give you an indication of how much fuel you have piled up for the day, and it does keep a decent record, the funny part is I know some people cheat, like they give their kids the fuel band to run around with so they don’t feel like they didn’t achieve anything for the day. Its hilarious that they feel the need to do that, this thing does make people move.

The Best part about is that it is somewhat water proof, I have done everything but swim in it, and I’m tempted to try it even though it says its not recommended I have online that some people have swam in it. And I love when you hit your goals for the day, you have 2000, 3000, or 5000 Nike Fuel goals and you have to enter your height and weight, and these numbers calculate based on the gyroscopes in the wrist band. People have argued with me that the numbers are exactly correct, but what they don’t understand is that it doesn’t matter, what matters is that with the Nike Fuel numbers you get a feel for your lazy days and you active days. You connect it to the USB to charge and it downloads all the information and sends it over to the Nike Website and presented in much higher detail the first picture, there is the month of March and I have hit the 3K Nike Daily Fuel Goal only 10 times which isn’t too bad but I think I can do better. Whats great is that the timing was perfect, just as I started going to the gym I got this product. It honestly just makes you less lazy, you just stare at the number and know how lazy you are. It’s a wristband that always measures your activity as you go about your day. With the Fuelband, you can quantify the consequences of your lifestyle. Honestly I think everyone should get one, especially people with iPhones since it wirelessly syncs the information to your iPhone, for me I have to plug it into the USB to upload the Data.

• Price $150 (Got It for $180 Off Ebay)
• Sensors: 3-axis accelerometer, ambient light sensor
• Display: 100 white LED lights, 20 color LED lights – Very cool and futuristic looking
• Size: 5.79-inch (S), 6.77-inch (M), 7.76-inch (L) – I Got a Medium, fits me perfectly

Link: NIKE
Rating:

The cloud dashboard for your mobile phone

Simply enough its a service that lets you manage your phone calls, text messages and contacts from a remote browser. Discover a new way of managing your phone calls, text messages and contacts remotely from the browser. Currently its working for Android only, and I think some sort of integration with Nokia, not iPhone integration because of the way the application works.

• Syncs your contacts, messages, and history to this application which you can control online
• They give you lots of statistics about the people you call, who you call the most, the number of messages sent, if you like statistics you will love this program
• The only thing to keep in mind is that they do have access to your phone, your messages, and you phone book which can be a bit freaky but it seems to be a legitimate company
• The simple idea for me is that if my phone is somewhere in the same building but I’m on the laptop, I can see who is calling and answer or reply, its a very cool and simple concept

Link: PhoneDeck

Every once in a while I do this, I get something that has been on my to buy list as soon as its out even though I wanted to do abit more research. It seems this I will be doing a lot of testing with these two lovely products. Usually I think of Dubai Duty Free as a rip off that I can always get things cheaper online and I am better off getting it from Amazon. But when I saw the items in front of me I had to take a look of them, then I walked off and thought that I will get them later.

• Canon G1X
• HTC One X

After a little while of thinking I thought to check the prices in Amazon and in Dubai Duty Free just to make sure and this is the simple breakdown for the HTC One X its $645 on Amazon & $681 in Dubai Duty Free, for the Canon G1X its $799 on Amazon & $815 in Dubai Duty Free. I couldn’t believe, the difference was so small, I always thought the difference would be huge but I was surprised it was so little, at that point I had to do very little thinking and the one thing that was stopping me from making a purchase was no longer there. It seems everything I purchased had a an X in it, and I have to say that I am currently very happy but my credit card took a hit with this purchase. For now my appetite for electronics has been satisfied and I will be posting a review or a decent write up on both, the camera will be first of course, I was snapping pics with it since I got it.

I have always wanted to control my media devices from my Android device or my iPad, and usually for my universal remote needs I use the Logitech Harmony One. This time around they have come up with the perfect little device and you don’t have to attach anything to your Android or Apple device to make it work, The Logitech Harmony Link ($100) is the solution. This sleek system consists of a small black transmitter that connects to your home network via Wi-Fi, letting you control your entire system from your Android or iOS device without the need for any dongles or other attachments. The hardware can be hidden in the cabinet and you can still control it, in my case I don’t have any TV guides to use but I do have all my different Activities that I have. If you have use any Logitech device before then this is very familiar to setup. There seems to be some negative reviews regarding its limitations but still its pretty good to get some activities going, I might get it to try it out.

Link: Logitech

I tend to find watches attractive and I always look at my watch or the computer , I always like feeling that I have more time to accomplish what I need. I usually try and get a cool watch to hang on the wall, and somewhat readable so I can tell the time. This exquisite piece of engineering is made in Germany by Biegert & Funk, the QLOCKTWO clock reconsiders the way we view time – not with numbers, but with words. An interesting blend of art, function, and technology tt has a quadratic matrix of letters (presenting in a super clean sans serif font) – where some of the letters are illuminated. I honestly love it even though its a bit on the pricey side for $1100.

This is QLOCKTWO, the fourth dimension squared. A clock that tells time in words. It has a quadratic matrix of letters, where some of the letters are illuminated. The time is displayed as text in five minute intervals. If you need to have a more exact time, look in the corner at the illuminated dots. QLOCKTWO has a brightness sensor; with its help the illuminating power of the letters is automatically adjusted.

Link: Beigert&Funk

This is the 4th Generation USB power bank for the latest iPad 3 “the new ipad” and iPad 2. It will never let your smart phones and Tablet PCs run out of battery. This compact and ultra long-lasting backup battery will be your perfect power solution on the go. When you travel, there’s no need to charge your devices through an electrical outlet, the iCruiser IMP1000 is the ultimate power source!

These days these amazing phones barely last 10 hours in a day, previously the Nokias and Ericssons would last a good 3 to 4 days before need a charge, I remember I would have just one charger but now I have to have a charger in the office, in the car, in the hallway, in every room, its ridiculous. Phone technology has advanced so much yet batteries haven’t changed much in the last two decades. Since I tend to travel a lot for work one of the things I get annoyed with is my phone running out of battery half way through a full day, and so after doing a bit of research the Trent 11000 was my choice and a great one at that. I charge the phones usually on the plane when I’m not using them, and that hour or two of charging brings it back to 100%. The Trent IMP1000 is like redbull but for electronics, it keeps giving it that kick. There are smaller versions but I opted for the larger one to charge my Kindle or iPad as well as my phones.

Pros:

• USB connection, so you can connect any type of wire to it, MicroUSD, MacroUSB, Apple, anything really
• Can charge your phone several times over
• I charged it 3 months ago and it still has a very large amount of charge, doesn’t dissipate battery when not used
• Charges Phones very quickly (iPhone & Android)
• Charges iPads relatively quickly

Cons:

• Its Bulky
• Slow to Charge Itself
• Its a Bit Heavy

Link: Amazon

Rating:

Synology keep coming out with more and more lovely machines, they just unveiled their first ever 8 bay NAS server in the shape of the DiskStation DS1812+, a high-speed/high-capacity device targeting prosumers and SMBs. It can expand to a total of 18 Drives with the help of two DX510s, so with its current drives it can handle up to 32 TB without the expansion drives which is a ridiculous amount of space.

The new model is powered by a 2.13 GHz, dual-core processor and includes support for USB 3.0, high speed network transfers with link aggregation as well as support for emerging 4TB hard drives. RAM is expandable, up to 3GB.

According to Synology’s internal tests, transfer speeds average 202 MB/sec read and 194 MB/sec write speeds in a RAID 5 configuration. I still have the DS1511+ and still about 40% storage left but this looks very enticing, for some reason these days I’m attracted to desk type storage. There is a 12 bay version but I thought it was overkill and this one seemed more reasonable. I know others have mentioned the homebrew software which you can install for storage, I have used those before but honestly Synology does both the hardware and software so well that I don’t waste any of my time on it, it just work all the time with almost no issues at all. This one is price at $999 which isn’t bad at all but the current problem is that 4TB drives are priced at $300 which are a bit over the top so, it the drives which will eat up your wallet. But as a storage solution this is probably the best out there at the moment.

Link: Synology

I have been looking forward to getting my hands on the Lytro for a very long since its built on a new type of photography technology, basically allowing you to focus the picture after taking it. I had very high hopes for it be amazing, especially since its very oddly designed, not your regular camera, but I was waiting for some reviews to make a decision, and this is honestly the best and most thorough review I have seen by far. After watching the video and reading at article at the verge I don’t think I will be getting the current incarnation of the Lytro since it has a few drawbacks and limitations which can be overcome over time, so I’m gonna wait for a little while for next generation of this camera before making a purchase. Check the link below for the full article.

Link: TheVerge