If that isn’t cool enough, the furniture giant also revealed via press kits in the recent Milan Design week event that they would be also producing and selling a digital camera. What makes Ikea’s digital camera unique is that it will be made out of cardboard. The cardboard digital camera will feature a swing-out USB plug, a viewfinder, shutter key and erase button. It will run on two AA batteries and can hold up to 40 pictures via the built-in memory stick. For now there are now details regarding the sensor, lens, storage capacity, pricing or availability.

Here’s a demo video of the Ikea Cardboard Digital Camera

Product Photos:

Since the camera is made of cardboard, its safe to assume that the product was built to be disposable. However, unlike other conventional disposable cameras, the Ikea cardboard camera is digital so logically it’s reusable – the user can download the photos, clear out the memory and reuse it.

What do you think of Ikea’s cardboard digital camera? Would you purchase one? Please share your thoughts via the comments below.

If your work involves lots of travel, you may find yourself needing a mobile printer. In the past, the smaller size and weight always involved a trade-off on quality. You would either need to carry something bulky or be content with low-quality prints. However, innovative printing technology continues to move forward, and the Canon Pixma iP100 is a great example.

The iP100 replaces Canon’s iP90v that was nearly the same weight and size. (The new model is actually a tiny bit bigger and heavier than the iP90v.) All together the iP100 is about a quarter the size and weight of the Canon PIXMA MX340, which is your typical All-in-One printer in terms of specs. Without the optional battery or Bluetooth adaptor, the iP100 weighs 4.3 lbs. It is 2.4 inches tall, 7.2 inches deep, and 12.7 inches wide, making it small enough to fit easily into a laptop bag, though you will certainly feel the bulk. It is meaningfully smaller than its closest competitor, the HP Officejet 100 (3.3 inches tall, 6.9 inches deep and 13.7 inches wide with a weight of 5.1 lbs.). The iP100 folds down into a conveniently shielded shape with a nice, matte-silver finish, making it almost feel like something you want to carry with you. Of course, the printer has a built-in battery for printing on the go.

Product Photos:

Specifications:

• Printer Type: Photo Printer
• Print Speed (Up to): 4″ x 6″ borderless photo: approx. 50 seconds, Black:ESAT Approx: 9.0 ipm2, Color:ESAT Approx: 5.9 ipm2
• Number of Nozzles: Black: 320, Color: 1,536, Total: 1,856
• Print Resolution (Up to): Black:600 x 600 dpi1, Color:9600 x 2400 dpi1
• OS Compatibility: Windows®7, Windows Vista™, Windows XP/2000 and Mac OS® X v.10.3.9 to 10.5.x7
• Standard Interfaces: PictBridge (Cable not included)5, USB 2.0 Hi-Speed, IrDA, Bluetooth® v2.0 + EDR4(optional)
• Paper Sizes: Credit Card (2.13″ x 3.39″), 4″ x 6,” 4″ x 8,” 5″ x 7,” 8″ x 10,” Letter, Legal, U.S. #10 Envelopes, Photo Stickers
• Noise Level Approx: 38.5 dB(A) in the best quality mode
• Physical Dimensions: 12.7″(W) x 2.4″(H) x 7.2″(D)
• Weight: 4.4 lbs.
• Power Consumption: 9W (1.5W Standby)
• Software Included: CD-ROM including Printer Driver, Setup Software and User’s Guide, Easy-PhotoPrint EX

Where the iP100 performs impressively is with printing quality. The iP100 doubles resolution from the iP90v that came before it, though its HP competitor has slightly better print quality than the Canon. Still, the quality on both printers is excellent and equivalent or better than typical prints from a drugstore.

The Canon is also significantly faster than its competition, boasting more than 7 pages per minute on printed text and a full color 4×6 in only 55 seconds at photo lab quality. (These speeds are even better than some full-sized printers available on the market).

The sheet feeder on the iP100 holds 50 pages, and you can expect to print about 249 pages for each ink cartridge. The printer uses Canon’s ChromoLife cartridges which sell for $17. At this rate, printing multiple pages with the iP100 isn’t the most economical option, but Canon has included some software options to help with this problem. The printer driver allows you to choose between composite mode (generating black with all of the colors) and “save black ink” minimizes the black in text and grayscale graphics. Still, you shouldn’t ever expect mobile printers and ink jets to have the long-term life of laser toners.

There are several disadvantages for the Pixma iP100. First, since the key selling point is mobility, Canon should have at least offered a carrying case for the printer. This would significantly increase its usability for most people, with very little technical innovation or additional expense. The Canon also lacks Wifi connectivity or a media card reader. You can print with Bluetooth, using the optional adaptor that plugs into the printer’s USB port ($50). Of course, IrDA IR (infared) and wired printing are built in. You can also buy an external battery that will add another 290 pages of printing ($100). The optional car charger is also sold separately ($90).

Put all of these things together and you come to the biggest liability of the printer – price. At $250, the Canon Pixma iP100 is not worth the cost unless you are really serious about working on the go. Add in the optional accessories and your cost can go up very quickly. On the other hand, competing models are about the same price, though with less value. If you really do need top quality on the road, the Canon Pixma iP100 is certainly the one you’ll want at your side.

For those of you who work on your mobile office or are always on the go, what is your mobile printer of choice or what other printing solutions do you use? Please share your thoughts via the comments section below.

Last year, I bought a Toshiba Mini Notebook NB505-N508BL to replace my wife’s Asus Eee 1005HAB after it broke. The Toshiba netbook was pretty good and did what it was supposed to do. However when my wife would use it to do some video editing for her presentations, the netbook would either lag or hang. Netbooks were made for simple tasks like browsing the Internet, typing emails and documents but not extensive tasks like video editing.

I decided to get her a new computer and purchased a Lenovo U400-09932TU notebook. The regular retail price for the model that I got was $1,549.00 but with the ecoupon worth $620, I ended up paying only $929. The deal included expedited free shipping so I received the package just four days after the purchase. Today I’m gonna share the unboxing photos I took a few days ago.

Unboxing Photos:

Tech Specs:
Processor: 2nd generation Intel Core i7-2620M Processor( 2.70 GHz 1333 MHz 4 MB)
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 6470M 1GB
Memory/RAM: 8.0GB PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM 1333 MHz
Chipset: Mobile Intel HM65 Express Chipset
Display: 14.0″ HD Glossy with integrated camera 1366×768
Hard Drive: 500GB (5400 rpm)
Battery: 4 Cell Li-Polymer
Network Card: Intel 1030 BGN+BT Wireless
Camera: Integrated 1.3MP Camera
Ports: Two USB 2.0, one USB 3.0, external monitor (HDMI), ethernet (RJ-45)

I’ve only tried using the Lenovo U400-09932TU for basic stuff – web browsing, playing mp3s, etc. I still have to perform extensive testing (photo manipulation, video editing, play extensive graphics games, etc.) before I can write my full review, so expect it about a week from now. However, based on the design, usability and what I’ve seen so far, I can say that the Lenovo U400 is a pretty awesome notebook.

The wearable computing project involves augmented-reality glasses that features a cellphone, a camera, a microphone, Internet access to send/receive data in real-time and integrates with Google’s services like Google+, Google Maps, Google Latitude, etc. The interface is very simple and only displays relevant information.

Photos:

Below is a video entitled “One Day” that demonstrates how Project Glass works.

Several Google employees including co-founder Sergey Brin have already been spotted using these augmented-reality glasses. As of now, there isn’t much information about the project and the device itself except for the stuff that we’ve seen on the YouTube video (Android OS, GPS, camera, accelerometer, camera and audio input/outputs) so it would be interesting to monitor the project developments in the coming days.

I’m not sure if there are other companies who are working on the same kind of stuff but with Google’s Project Glass, we can see a glimpse of what we will be using/doing in the near future. This type of wearable computing technology is a practical idea because not only does it provide users more mobility and flexibility but it also integrates several different technologies and gadgets into one. You can use it make phone calls, look up stuff on the Internet and take a picture without having to take out your smartphone or camera.

What do you think of Google’s Project Glass? Would you like to have this kind of technology now? What other ways would a device/technology like this be of use to you or our society? Please share your thoughts.

The Leapster Explorer was working fine a few days back so I asked my son if he dropped it recently. He said he didn’t so I assumed that it was most likely a problem with the speaker, volume buttons or something with the hardware. I was able to fix it and restore the sound by opening up the device and manually adjusting the volume. If your child’s Leapster Explorer is experiencing the same issue, don’t worry because today I’ll be sharing with you the step-by-step process on how to fix it.

1. Turn off the Leapster Explorer and take out any game cartridges.

2. Take out the battery pack.

3. Remove all the screws on the back of the device. Make sure you keep the screws together in a secure place so you won’t lose them.

4. Pull out the back cover.

5. Locate the volume switches and take out the button.

6. Take the battery pack and hold it down to the board.

7. Turn the device on by pressing the power button.

8. Get a small pointed device like a screwdriver and use it to press on the volume increase contact point.

9. Increase the volume/sound to desired level.

10. Turn off the device and put everything back in place – volume button, back cover, screws, battery pack.

I’m not sure what caused the issue and why the volume increase button stopped working. This procedure is a simple hack and doesn’t really fix the issue with the volume buttons but it does do the job of restoring the Leapster Explorer’s volume/sound. Also, this procedure only works if the problem is with the volume switch. It won’t work if the speakers. wires or circuit board are broken. Hope this short and simple tutorial helps if you come across the same problem.