Now a Crazy Smartphone Laser for Your Cat!

There is no dearth of crazy gadgets in the world today. In fact, if one were to take a look at the numerous gadgets available today, more than half of them will promptly be categorized as useless. Even research today, while ongoing in many important medical and technological sectors, is also ongoing in making silly gadgets and devices that are a complete luxury to indulge in for a select few. One such gadget that is currently trending in the latest gadget news is a new device that converts your smartphone into a laser.

It’s a known fact that cats love lasers. Gone are the days when a ball of yarn sufficed to entertain your feline. Now, the easiest way to get your cat on its feet is by using a laser pointer that makes it jump and do all it can to catch the red pin point beam. Hence, seeing scope in a seemingly obvious idea, a group has started a campaign on Kickstarter to make a device called Obi. This is essentially a small laser toy that resembles a Bluetooth headset, and which is designed to entertain your cat.

You can control the Obi using either one of your iOS devices, either an iPhone or an iPad. You can control the laser pointer by drawing and aiming it on your device’s screen. There are also other different settings that can help to control the Obi, like it can turn itself on and then shine the light as required when in auto mode as well. It also has the ability to make different noises to help attract attention for your cat. You can also adjust the setting to make sure that the laser always points only at a specific area in a blank wall, so as to ensure that your cat doesn’t cause havoc and turn your entire house upside down in a bid to catch the laser.

As is the case with such luxurious gadgets that are meant for a very specific niche market, the Obi doesn’t come cheap. This device is set to cost about $80, with the Kickstarter project already collecting one-third of its set target. There is still around a month left before the project closes, so chances of such a gadget hitting the market and making it to the latest gadget news by the year end are high.

A large number of gadgets are being made and ideated spurred on by pet lovers. Animal enthusiasts will go to any length to take care and entertain their pets and so, they don’t mind spending on such gadgets. Cat videos are already a rage on the Internet. There is no dearth of cute cat videos or fans of the same. Proud owners of felines try to get their cats to do crazy things and strike cute poses, hoping to become famous. The hopefully soon to be launch Obi will be yet another source of entertainment for cats the world over and if filmed properly, possibly a source of entertainment for fans of cat videos too.

Are eBook Readers Redundant in Today’s Times?

Books are one of the few joys in life that really have no parallel. People can be as ignorant as they want but a good book lures even the most bored and disinterested people toward it. An excellent and compelling storyline makes it possible for people to actually live in that story. Seeing the craze that people have for books and stories, technology enthusiasts wanted to come up with ways in which books could be read, without the need to carry a 1000 page book around, and to keep the light in the room on all night. This is what spurred eBook readers to become a part of mainstream devices among the latest electronic gadgets. An exclusive device, low power consuming, which allows you to read without disturbing people around was the dream for book lovers a few years ago. However, seeing how fickle and fast moving technology is, after all these years, is it possible that eBook readers have become redundant?

It is no secret, as several sources of the latest gadgets news too have reported, that the sales of eBook readers have seen a slump off late. People aren’t as fascinated by eBook readers as they used to be. There are several reasons for this, the foremost one being that many of the latest electronic gadgets can do everything that eBook readers can do, and then some more. Smartphones and tablets can easily carry as many eBooks as required and come with great lighting, allowing you to catch up on your reading anytime and anywhere.

In fact, since most smartphones today have a screen stretching 5 inches anyway, it doesn’t make sense to carry a 7 inch device just for reading. Thus, for users, it seems silly and it means that besides your smartphone, laptop, tablet and smartwatch, there is an additional eBook reader that you need to carry around all the time just to read. Carrying and charging an extra device is a cumbersome venture, especially when you other gadgets will be competing for the charging plug.

stacked books with a tablet on top

Furthermore, several eBook reader brands today, seeing the shift in people’s preferences toward smartphones, are releasing apps which allow users to read eBooks on their smartphones. It made headlines in the latest gadgets news when Amazon Kindle and the Nook, two premier eBook reader brands, came out with apps for both Android and iOS devices. Thus, this further makes it easy to enjoy similar experiences on your smartphones and tablets. Also, let’s not forget the cost factor – a good eBook Reader can cost as much as a budget smartphone, which means you will really need to put aside some cash for it if you want it.

Another way of looking at the matter is that many book lovers stress that no device in the world can really replace the feel of a good book, with its pages and smell. The favourite repeatedly read books, with dog eared pages and cracked spines, are a source of pride for many book enthusiasts. Hence, in the end, perhaps it is time for eBook reader brands to re-think their strategy, as people are now becoming weary of carrying multiple devices, which are becoming more of a burden than a convenience.

Should Microsoft Just Give up Already?

Smartphones have come a long way and overtime, more than the number of handsets, it is the extent of innovation that has dominated this market. The sea of change that smartphones has seen in the past mere half a decade is ridiculously astounding. The latest mobile phone news today is dominated by extensive stories of innovation and fairytales where unknown brands and names have managed to garner attention and sales. Hence, as long as you have innovation on your side, you will surely be able to get enough sales. Unfortunately, it isn’t a fairytale for everyone involved, as even a veteran in the mobile phone market, such as Nokia and Microsoft have been having a rough time simply staying afloat in the smartphone market.

The recent turn of events for Microsoft has not been pleasant and the company has had to take some drastic measures to undo the damage done with Microsoft’s much talked about buyout of Nokia. Of course, Microsoft will never admit that this was an outright disaster and that it should never have entered into territory it was never familiar with to begin with. What’s more, rather than pairing up with a strong player, it opted to take the support of Nokia, a brand that was one that had already seen its golden days well behind it. So, the only thing that could have saved a union of a dying and a novice brand coming together would have been drastic innovation.

This union should have led to handsets that would storm the latest mobile phone news forums and steal focus from other Android and iOS devices. Unfortunately, that was not going to happen as neither brand really contributed significantly to any kind of revolutionary changes. Instead, the Lumia series continued along the same line and the tiled pattern didn’t impress users.

There’s no denying that Microsoft did try at least some tricks before giving up. It released many Lumia phones, consequently getting rid of the Nokia tag altogether in the process. When the Lumia Denim update was announced, along with many Lumia handset releases, while it did make it to handheld news, where it didn’t make it was into shops and the eventual hands of users. Thus, Microsoft has perhaps begun to face the harsh reality that it really has no chance of making it big in the smartphone sector if things go on like this.

 

Of course, the smartphone sector is a fickle one and you should be willing to enter it only if you are willing to modernize, transform and move at the insane pace that the market moves at. Satya Nadella can always argue that the smartphone market was very different at the time of their Nokia buyout than what it is today, a claim that any channel of handheld news will affirm. However, despite all the excuses that Microsoft can possibly dish out, the truth remains that it may be the end of the road for Nokia and Microsoft altogether in the mobile phone sector.