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Roger Hislop

Roger is a tech fan that is hot, hot, hot for well designed, clever, beautiful things that make our lives a little bit more amazing. He spends a lot of time geeking out in a house littered with bits of cable and electronics. He owns his own oscilloscope ferchrissakes. He was in tech PR for twelve years, so can spot flimsy claims and weasel words from gadget manufacturers at 1,000 paces. He amuses himself writing about gadgets, bikes and cars for a couple of mags.

RECENT POSTS

• Not a Review: Verbatim Netbook USB drive so small it’s almost not even there

  Not a cricket chirped. Not a tumbleweed rustled in the chill wind. I sat contemplating the tiny little Verbatim Netbook USB solid state drive squatting on the mound of the fleshy part of my thumb. It sure is tiny -- imagine you take the metal bit of a USB plug in hand, and with a sharp lightsaber cut off everything but a little plastic nubbin to grab hold of, and you would have the Netbook USB drive. I looked up, bemused. ...
  
  

• Hi-tech personalities: the winners and losers of 2011

  We’ve reached the end of 2011 – and it’s time to look back on the winners and losers of the year. Those who made our gadget life more awesome, and those that ruined it for everyone. Those that rock, and those that suck. So, without further ado, Gearburn’s Geared and Burned personalities of 2011. Burned Leo Apotheker of HP He was bounced out of HP in disgrace, consoled only by the $25-million payout he trousered for less than a year’s work (a healthy ...
  
  

• Do I upgrade? iPhone 4 vs 4S

  The iPhone 4S launched in October, and now here we are in December, ready for its South Africa launch (tomorrow, Fri 16th). Is it worth upgrading? Or switching from another mobile brand? Gearburn does the world's most concise iPhone 4S upgrade guide. Power The 4S is a lot more powerful than the iPhone 4. Moves from single-core A4 to a 1 GHz dual core A5. First-for-iPhone dual core graphics co-processor. You can also now get an iPhone 4S with a thumping big ...
  
  

• Gearburn Award: Best Innovation in Hardware 2011

  As a gadget site we’re not looking at core hardware innovations that shake the world, we’re looking at the awesome innovations that knocked our socks off. Often the impact of radical innovations doesn't become apparent for a few years. Accurate, reliable capacitive touch-screens, for example. So we’re reaching a bit, but these are the innovations we think you’ll look back on in a year and say, “Wow – that’s where our gadget world leaped forward.” Third Runner Up – In-device WiFi This ...
  
  

• Review: Energizer ‘energi to go’ USB charging kits

  If you travel much at all you know the sick feeling of dread, panic and ennui that swallows your will to live – you’re in the middle of you don’t know where, and your GPS on your phone is rapidly sucking down the last minutes of your battery life. And you still don’t know where you are. But inside your phone, it’s just a battery, right? So it makes sense a battery company comes to the rescue: Energizer’s ‘energi ...
  
  

• Review: Gobii HD Action Cam – at least it’s not expensive

  When we first pulled the Gobii HD Action Camera from its box, there was a lot of mirth in the Gearburn office. Mocking, unfriendly derision. And then we played with it for a while, and even the flinty hearts of Gearburn melted a little. It’s a weird shape, and the plastic feels cracktastic, but it is quite functional and IP68 sealed: no dust, complete, immersion in water. How deep? No idea, they don’t say. The outright urge to Burn it faded ...
  
  

• Root PlayBook, get Android Market

  Reports last week showed a trio of hackers breaking the BlackBerry PlayBook security and getting root - now they've released the tools that allow brave users to get Android Market working using their DingleBerry tool. Breaking the walled gardens of recent tablet launches has proved a fun game for hackers, with the Kindle Fire rooted and opened up only two days post-launch. Not much more for us to say in terms of the PlayBook hack, so here's their post and ...
  
  

• LG throws ultrathin Xnote Z330 hat into ultrabook ring

  Ultrabooks are hot, hot, hot right now. Netbooks are in serious decline, and some manufacturers are getting out. No, it’s ultrabooks all the way, a category created by Apple with the Macbook Air. Now it’s all super-skinny bodies with 13” displays, solid state drives and full-blooded guts. The LG Xnote Z330 is the first from the Korean manufacturer, and currently the sveltest at 1.2kg and 14mm thick, in a minimalist Air-style case. The small one feature is the “Shuriken” display tech ...
  
  

• Clock ticking: cheap 50x faster memory

  Every year or two there’s an announcement from researchers of some MASSIVE REVOLUTION in storage. So here we go with a new crop – this time there’s three. Glass, class and sparse. And all promise to be out in the market in a year or two. The first is the least interesting: an ultra-sparse interface for flash memory-based hard drives – an ultra-skinny standard, removable Serial-ATA hard drive unit measuring only 51x30x4mm and eight grammes, and can be bought in up ...
  
  

• Eight household items your smartphone’s made redundant

  There are items common only a few decades ago we'd simply not recognise if they were put in front of us. A fleem. A wringer. A carpet beater. A warming pan. Our kids are going to look the same way at these eight devices – all replaced by the smartphone. 1. Remote control - Have media centre, have smartphone? Then download something like Gmote (Android) or Air Mouse (iPhone). Sit on your couch, browse your collection, pick what you want. ...
  
  

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