Sure, gadgets may be very important in the ultimate travel kit, but what good are they without something amazing to carry them in? 

Their ultimate Travel Fashion Kit includes two of the best pieces of luggage you can get - the Tumi Arrivé De Gaulle International rolling carry-on and the Tumi Lucca City Tote. Worth $1700, they are just part of this great package.

What about a pen and pad that remembers everything you write. What if while you are writing these notes it is also recording what is said and you can go back to what was say moments before you wrote the note?

That would be really nice huh?

Well in this era of tablets and smartphones, I still find that writing and accessing my notes in a written form is still quite productive and easy to find. So for a few years now I have extolled the benefits of the Livescribe smart pen.

One issue with the Livescribe is that I had to dock it with my computer (only one computer) and transfer the information. I could then sync it to an internet cloud note-taking solution like Evernote. I could go weeks between syncs and sometimes be in need of what I had jotted down but it hadn't made it to the cloud yet!

Answer solved: Livescribe Sky is a new version that has wi-fi built into the pen itself. And now I can send my notes directly to Evernote. This is exactly what I needed.

PogoConnect is planned to ship next month with pre-orders beginning on October 1st. This high-tech pressure sensitive pen will run you $79. I have been looking for a viable solution for taking handwritten notes and create sketches on an iPad and this looks like the most viable stylus-type of solution to come to market.

I will provide more details when we take delivery of one in the coming weeks. In the meantime, check out Ten One Designs PogoConnect product page.

Below is a list of compatible apps that work well with this new type of stylus...

Larry Pacey, award-winning designer tracks the latest news on consumer products, electronics, appliances, smart devices, networking and the gadget lifestyle.

For the latest news follow me on: ------------------------------ OR ------------------------------- Follow me on Twitter @WouldntMindThis Please comment below and share your thoughts. If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to email me at wouldntmind@gmail.com. Just my 2-cents, Larry

Walt Mossberg's AllThingsD.com confirms there will be two separate Apple product introductions this fall. The iPhone 5 in September and the iPad Mini in October.

I had previously mentioned in my Exciting Products Yet To Launch This Fall 2012 piece a couple weeks ago that they would both be at the September 12 media event.

Instead Apple will focus consumers on the smartphone at the September 12th event before rolling out the smaller (7") iTablet during the iPod refresh event. And while nothing is certain until the events, even the iPad Mini name is sounding more and more like it is a keeper.

Personally, I am due for an upgrade and am looking forward to the iPhone 5 introduction as I am still toting around a iPhone 4...never justifying the 4s upgrade. I'm certain the 5 will be a solid improvement over my current iPhone. As for the new, smaller iPad...I'm on the fence. Truth be told, like I have mentioned in past articles, I am almost preferring my Macbook Air on many occasions...where the iPad is really just my surfing, media consumption and games platform. Any content generation is largely left to my laptop.

But you never know what Apple might have up their sleeve with these introductions??? More as information comes available.

Larry Pacey, award-winning designer tracks the latest news on consumer products, electronics, appliances, smart devices, networking and the gadget lifestyle.

For the latest news follow me on: ------------------------------ OR ------------------------------- Follow me on Twitter @WouldntMindThis Please comment below and share your thoughts. If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to email me at wouldntmind@gmail.com. Just my 2-cents, Larry

I am pretty excited about the forthcoming Pogo Connect stylus for iPad and iPhone. While there has been a slew of stylus'...none have really excited me. After using each of them, I was largely disappointed. Granted I am not an artist but I just felt like I was squishing a rubber or felt nub around to get some dimensionality into whatever I tried to sketch.


The good news is that there is a new set of solutions on the horizon that offer a path to provide greater control over the sensitivity and tactile nature of using a stylus on a tablet. Ten One Design (the makers of the basic but popular Pogo Sketch) is about to launch a Bluetooth 4.0, pressure sensitive stylus that communicates the pressure of the pen to the application wirelessly on the iOS device.

Artists have enjoyed this capability with some high-end graphics tablets and will surely enjoy this advancement but for me the best benefit of this type of solution is that the application can ignore all touch inputs except for the pen. If you have used a stylus to take notes on a multi-touch tablet, you probably have had the experience of your wrist touching the display and drawing something on the screen. This stylus can address this and turn note-taking into a joy.

I am really looking forward to this and some other intelligent stylus solutions to see how my tablet experience evolves. I will let you know when the price and availability is announced shortly.

Below is a video quickly highlighting the Pogo Connect's sensitivity at play...

Nintendo will have a web broadcast to disclose more exciting information around their Nintendo Wii successor the Nintendo Wii U. This system is expected to include a "second screen" tablet-like controller that allows games and applications to display additional information on your portable display.

We've seen this device in action across an assortment of electronic and entertainment tradeshows for the past year and are very interested to see the system at this week's E3 show with content nearly ready for the commercial launch.

Check it out today...Sunday, June 3rd @ 3pm PDT.


You will be able to find more editorial and detailed commentary on the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) at WouldntMind.com.

Larry Pacey, award-winning designer tracks the latest news on consumer products, electronics, appliances, smart devices, networking and the gadget lifestyle.

For the latest news follow me on: ------------------------------ OR ------------------------------- Follow me on Twitter @WouldntMindThis Please comment below and share your thoughts. If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to email me at wouldntmind@gmail.com. Just my 2-cents, Larry

There is a great website for kids and adults studying certain topics called QUIZLET.com. My son uses it regular to make flash-card sets to help him study. Here is an example game focusing on the U.S State Capitals...

We've heard a good bit about the new iPad 3 of late. Rave reviews about it's impressive display and fast 4G-LTE wireless speeds. I posted my own early thoughts about my purchase in the article titled "Not happy with my iPad 3 purchase". And while the new iPad is a marvel of modern capabilities, I guess that technology can also outpace some people's ability to adopt new products.

This comedy piece from Germany successfully crosses the language barrier and is definitely worth watching for a good laugh...

Larry Pacey, award-winning designer tracks the latest news on consumer products, electronics, appliances, smart devices, networking and the gadget lifestyle.

For the latest news follow me on: ------------------------------ OR ------------------------------- Follow me on Twitter @WouldntMindThis Please comment below and share your thoughts. If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to email me at wouldntmind@gmail.com. Just my 2-cents, Larry

I have not ventured to write much about the wide range of different cell phones provided from all the different cell carriers. The tech specs, features, operator customizations and software bundles is so confusing I wouldn't even try to sort out the differences. Heck, the same phone has different names on different carriers!

But it looks like the crew over at SNL took it upon themselves to cover all the tech mumbo-jumbo like 4G-LTE, a 1,000 different HTC handset versions and all the rest. So much noise that is leaving the "non-tech geek" so confused. If this doesn't clear it up for you...I don't know what could help ;-)

Larry Pacey, award-winning designer tracks the latest news on consumer products, electronics, appliances, smart devices, networking and the gadget lifestyle.

For the latest news follow me on: ------------------------------ OR ------------------------------- Follow me on Twitter @WouldntMindThis Please comment below and share your thoughts. If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to email me at wouldntmind@gmail.com. Just my 2-cents, Larry

Looks like the crew over at allthingd.com have gotten word that Apple will be hosting an event the first week on March. The event will be held in San Francisco, presumably at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. This is the large hall that Apple announces BIG THINGS like the iPad 2 in early March last year.

We'll have to wait a bit for great clarification as we get closer to the date but expect more computing power, enhanced graphics capabilities and a higher resolution screen for great image clarity especially with small text and the like.

Still more questions than answers like...What will it be called? What resolution? How does older software look? How easily will it be to convert software to fit the new resolution? What new graphics capabilities such as 3D rendering enhancements, multi-tasking and the like.

Obviously Apple needs to continue to innovate in this space as the competitive products are maturing. Amazon's Fire fills a niche with its low powered, low cost Kindle Fire and ASUS with their high-powered Transformer Prime.

More as information starts to flow in...

Larry Pacey, award-winning designer tracks the latest news on consumer products, electronics, appliances, smart devices, networking and the gadget lifestyle.

For the latest news follow me on: ------------------------------ OR ------------------------------- Follow me on Twitter @WouldntMindThis Please comment below and share your thoughts. If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to email me at wouldntmind@gmail.com. Just my 2-cents, Larry

So let's break it down a bit...

Nikon D4
The Nikon D4 ($6,000 body w/o lens) is an update to the 2007 D3. This is Nikon's high-end, full-frame sensor camera and is a beast to behold. This version provides a modest uptick in resolution and frame-rate and adds a hefty dose of horsepower in the auto-focus, high-iso, low light category as well as video capture. Nikon has really suffered behind Canon in the area of video capture and this is a their attempt to steal some of that thunder away. I'd have to venture to say that Nikon is targeting professional news and sports photographers for the most part. If you are into landscape photography and the like, you'll probably be more interested in the new D800 I'll talk about in a bit due to its substantially higher resolution.

I'm not going to get into the technicals, I did cover that in my original write-up when the D4 was announced last month. Look for its release in February and more details after getting to spend more time with the camera beyond my 15 minutes at CES.

Nikon COOLPIX P510

Nikon COOLPIX Line-up
Nikon's latest COOLPIX line-up is becoming available for pre-order online. One standout in the line-up is the new COOLPIX P510 superzoom camera featuring a 16.1 megapixel sensor (geek note: 1/2.3-inch CMOS) and a spectacular 42x Zoom NIKKOR ED Glass Lens.

We are talking about a camera that can shoot from 24mm wide-angle then zoom to an amazing 1,000mm to capture distant images. In addition it has the ability to do close-up macro mode allowing you to focus as close as 0.4 inches away from the lens for real close-ups.

To put this level of zoom into perspective, check out the picture to the right.


Expect the P510 to be shipping on March 22nd at $430. Be sure to check out all the new Nikon COOLPIX cameras.

Nikon D800
And the big news of the day is the introduction of the Nikon D800...the pro-sumer, full-frame sensor replacement for the aged D700. The D800, like the D4 mentioned above are FX-Format sensors. This means that they accept pretty much all of Nikon's lenses including full-frame or cropped sensor (DX) lenses as well as old film camera lenses. Of course, if you use a cropped DX lens you are only using a small part of the full sensor inside of the D800 but at least you are not throwing the lens away.

The excitement around this camera starts with its all-new 36.3 million-pixel resolution sensor and its EXPEED3 processing unit designed to handle all those pixels.

• Wide sensitivity range of ISO 100 to 6400, expandable to Lo 1 (ISO 50 equivalent) or Hi 2 (ISO 25600 equivalent)
• 51-point AF system with enhanced performance in subject acquisition and focusing in low-light situations
• Glass pentaprism viewfinder with approx. 100% frame coverage (FX format) 
• Approx. 921k-dot, wide-viewing angle, 8-cm (3.2-in.) LCD monitor 
• Newly developed shutter unit tested for over 200,000 cycles; shutter speed up to 1/8,000
• Continuous shooting at approx. 4 fps* (FX, 5:4) and approx. 5 fps* (1.2x, DX)
  • *With EN-EL15 Rechargeable Li-ion Battery
• MB-D12 Multi-Power Battery Pack (optional) that enables high-speed continuous shooting at approx. 6 fps* in DX format
  • *When using batteries other than EN-EL15 Rechargeable Li-ion Battery.
• The D800E option is a unique alternative that realizes the sharpest images possible but can introduce moire patterns if not careful

Not only does this system focus on high-pixel photography but it has a strong focus on video clearly targeting the Canon 5DMKII and 7D's dominance on the DSLR cinematography realm...

"Recording of 1920 x 1080p/30-fps full-HD movies is supported, and users can choose to record using the FX-based movie format or the DX-based movie format according to recording conditions. The FX-based movie format offers a shallow depth-of-field with an emphasis on blur characteristics while the DX-based movie format enables recording of movies that bring subjects closer when lenses with short focal lengths are used. The D800 is also equipped with a headphone jack and supports precise adjustment of microphone sensitivity. In addition, it supports simultaneous display of movies or the movie live view display in the camera monitor and on an external monitor. Further, the D800 responds to the needs of professionals who require uncompressed movie files with the ability to record movies directly to an external HDMI recorder in movie live view mode."

Matter of fact, some early video we have seen really shows a lot of promise. Here's a film short produced with the D800.


The D800 seems to really fill a Nikon market gap nicely, providing amateurs and professional studio/landscape photographers with a nice-sized, powerful full-frame camera. Nikon has provided some sample photography and more details if you are interested in checking them out.

Nikon's great comeback
Don't get me wrong. Nikon makes great camera gear. The Nikon D5100 is a wonderful DSLR for under $1,000. Definitely one of my favorites pick of the last year. And of course, loyal Nikon purchasers have always had something new and interesting to keep their eye on. But Nikon has lacked a bit of sex appeal of late to help them garner new consumers or steal people away from Canon or the other manufacturers camps. After reading all the hot news captured here, you have to give Nikon credit, in the last 30 days they have provided details on a really powerful line-up for 2012! I am glad to see Nikon back in the game with some impressive gear. Canon has really dominated the innovation in this space for quite some time. Speaking of time, I guess time will tell if these latest introductions will all pan out well and deliver on the promise but I'm looking forward to testing some of these out in the coming months and providing you with more insights as they unfold.

Looks like a good year for photography lovers!

Larry Pacey, award-winning designer tracks the latest news on consumer products, electronics, appliances, smart devices, networking and the gadget lifestyle.

For the latest news follow me on: ------------------------------ OR ------------------------------- Follow me on Twitter @WouldntMindThis Please comment below and share your thoughts. If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to email me at wouldntmind@gmail.com. Just my 2-cents, Larry

The Ferris Bueller reenactment by Matthew Broderick for the new Honda CRV generated a lot of buzz leading up to the Super Bowl. Here's a side by side, scene by scene comparison...

Larry Pacey, award-winning designer tracks the latest news on consumer products, electronics, appliances, smart devices, networking and the gadget lifestyle.

For the latest news follow me on: ------------------------------ OR ------------------------------- Follow me on Twitter @WouldntMindThis Please comment below and share your thoughts. If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to email me at wouldntmind@gmail.com. Just my 2-cents, Larry

At CES 2012 I mentioned the introduction of a new Fujifilm high-end interchangeable lens camera featuring an all-new 16 megapixel image sensor. The lenses available are all high-quality, fixed-zoom primes (18mm, 35mm and 60mm). This mid-sized camera is targeting a goal of image quality comparable to high-end digital SLR cameras.

This is not an inexpensive camera with a retail price of $1,700 for the body and lenses that range from $600-650 each!


Fujifilm is definitely targeting someone really into photography. As to where this camera fits in the universe we will have to see after I can spend more time with this new camera and get some good test shots.

You can read more from my Fujifilm X-Pro 1 hands-on at CES.

Larry Pacey, award-winning designer tracks the latest news on consumer products, electronics, appliances, smart devices, networking and the gadget lifestyle.

For the latest news follow me on: ------------------------------ OR ------------------------------- Follow me on Twitter @WouldntMindThis Please comment below and share your thoughts. If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to email me at wouldntmind@gmail.com. Just my 2-cents, Larry

Nintendo is going pink new standalone option for that special loved ones this Valentine's Day. Starting Feb. 10, a Pearl Pink edition of the Nintendo 3DS™ hand-held system - previously available only as part of a limited-edition bundle - will be available at a retail price of $169.99. In addition to free Wi-Fi access at thousands of locations across the nation, fun augmented-reality features and the ability to enjoy games and videos in 3D without the need for special glasses, Nintendo 3DS has a host of built-in social features that can keep users connected to their special someone throughout the year.

The new Swapnote™ application, which is available for download from the Nintendo eShop at no cost, lets users create and send customized 3D notes to their sweethearts from their Nintendo 3DS.

The Nintendo Pearl Pink bundle version offers the adorable virtual pets nintendogs™ + cats game to make this an even sweeter deal this Valentine's Day.

Just make sure your loved one is into high-tech games as a gift. In the past I have learned the hard way it is not always the case! :-)

Larry Pacey, award-winning designer tracks the latest news on consumer products, electronics, appliances, smart devices, networking and the gadget lifestyle.

For the latest news follow me on: ------------------------------ OR ------------------------------- Follow me on Twitter @WouldntMindThis Please comment below and share your thoughts. If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to email me at wouldntmind@gmail.com. Just my 2-cents, Larry

Sony's head of videogaming division, Kaz Hirai confirms there will be no new platform at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo. For years Kaz has stated that he expected the Playstation3 to have a 10-year lifecycle. The 10-year anniversary of the PS3 would be coming up in 2016. If that is the case, the PS4 would come to market a 2 to 3 years prior to allow for one platform to wind down while the newer gaming console builds up momentum.

This echoes statements from Sony Computer Entertainment's President Andrew House who has said earlier that there would be no new hardware platform at the June show. Andrew went so far as to say last December that Sony is "just entering into this great period for PS3".

Nintendo's New Wii U

It will be interesting so see how the coming years unfold with new platforms due from Sony's competitors. It is still unclear if Microsoft will show it's hand at E3 this year but we are certain that Nintendo's Wii U featuring a new "second screen" tablet-style controller will be front in center at the show.

What are you expecting will be Microsoft's or Sony's big features in their next-generation consoles?

Larry Pacey, award-winning designer tracks the latest news on consumer products, electronics, appliances, smart devices, networking and the gadget lifestyle.

For the latest news follow me on: ------------------------------ OR ------------------------------- Follow me on Twitter @WouldntMindThis Please comment below and share your thoughts. If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to email me at wouldntmind@gmail.com. Just my 2-cents, Larry

You've heard be talk about the Withings Wi-Fi scale and how it will monitor your daily weigh-ins and will even post the results to their central online service for tracking your weight discretely. OR it can automatically post it to Facebook or Twitter if you are so inclined.

I really love the device for its simple elegance of execution. It is smart. Smart devices always impress me. You can create multiple profiles for everyone in the family and hen you stand on the device, it even figures out which member of the family is standing on it and posts the results to that individuals history. All of this is done wirelesses...no fuss!

Well, Withings is introducing another scale. This one is the Withings Smart Baby Scale and it is compatible with the WiScale app already available for the original scale. The babies weight is automatically recorded the same as the original version and features the ability to monitor the weigh-ins via the app, emailed to a preset list of recipients or posted to Facebook and/or Twitter to keep doctors, friends or family up to date with baby's progress.

You can remove the basket as the infant grows into a toddler for extended use. And think of all that blackmail material you will have when junior grows up! Priceless ;-)

Look for the scale to be available by June 2012 and the app is free on iTunes.

You can check out the other great Health 2.0 products from Withings including the Withings Wi-Fi Scale and Blood Pressure Monitor already available on Amazon...