Tech toys
Gannett News Service
A desk for your car
You can eat in your car, make phone calls in your car and now, thanks to Express Desk, type in your car.
The Express Desk isn't really a desk per se. It's a vinyl-coated wire contraption that turns your car's steering wheel into a temporary desk for your laptop. The $39.95 device from Mobile Office Enterprise comes with curved handlebars that fit over the top of the steering wheel and Velcro straps that hold the laptop in place. The angle and height of the desk can be changed by adjusting the steering wheel up or down.
The makers of the device warn, however, that it's "NOT TO BE USED WHEN DRIVING."
The Express Desk works best when your car is safely parked in a driveway.
Information: www.mobiledesk.com
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Printing on the run
A new portable printer from Hewlett-Packard gives digital photo buffs an easy way to print pictures — even if they're not near their computers or cameras.
The HP Photosmart 100 Photo Printer can read images directly from a camera's CompactFlash (Type 1), SmartMedia or Sony Memory Stick memory card. It then can print 4-by 6-color photos of those images with a sharp-looking resolution of 2,400- by-1,200 dots per inch. The $179 printer also can print images from a Windows PC with a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port.
The printer, which weighs less than 3 pounds and measures 8.5 inches wide by 4.2 inches deep by 4.5 inches high with its paper tray closed, is compact enough to tote in an overnight bag or a backpack. The printer comes with with an AC adapter and a print cartridge. It supports the Digital Photo Order Form (DPOF) system.
Information: www.hp.com
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Portable noise buster
Some people can tune out office noises. Others can't. For the latter group, Cambridge Sound Management has created a portable, $99 gadget that is supposed to block out the sounds of whirring printers, chattering colleagues and ringing phones.
When turned on, the Sonet Acoustic Privacy System makes a gentle whooshing sound, which supposedly will make you forget about all of those "other" annoying noises.
The device, which resembles a small computer speaker, measures just 6 inches by 3 inches by 1.5 inches. It comes with adhesive-backed Velcro pads that can be used to attach it to a wall.
Information: www.officebuzz.com
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Games for young 'uns
To meet the demands of pint-sized gamers, THQ and BBC Multimedia have released video games based on "Bob the Builder," a popular BBC cartoon for preschoolers that airs on Nickelodeon.
In "Bob the Builder: Fix It Fun!" for Game Boy Color, players find missing fence pieces, repair broken roof tiles, pick apples off a tree and perform seven other tasks. In "Bob the Builder: Can We Fix It?" for PlayStation and the PC, youngsters complete similar tasks as they interact with Scoop the Backhoe, Dizzy the Cement Mixer and other cartoon favorites.
The Game Boy Color title costs $29.99. The PlayStation and PC titles are $14.99 and $19.95, respectively. All are designed for children ages 3 to 6.
Information: www.thq.com and www.bbcmultimedia.com
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MP3 and CDs, too
Panasonic has just released a portable CD player that can play tunes in the popular MP3 music format. Besides playing traditional audio CDs, the SL-MP50 can play CD-recordable and CD-rewritable discs containing MP3 files downloaded from a computer.
The player also comes with some other convenient features, including an Album Skip control that lets you jump from one album or folder of music to the next; a liquid crystal display (LCD) that can help you keep track of what you're hearing, and a Resume button that picks up the music that was playing when you last turned it off.
The company says the device can play about 30 hours of CD music and 15 hours of MP3 music before its two AA batteries run out of juice. It also sports a special design that helps eliminate annoying skips.
The player, which comes with a set of stereo headphones, costs $139.95.
Information: www.panasonic.com
