Different Airline Yields New Ideas

I normally fly United for my travels, but on this trip I ended up on US Airways via United's code sharing program. For the most part the flight the US Air flight process was similar to United's and other then the fact that the gates listed by United and US Air didn't match (and no one at US Air seem to care about this discrepancy) it was a normal flight.

One small thing that did vary between US Air and United was the in-flight magazine. Both magazines are fine at what they do, but because I hadn't read the US Airways magazine I took the opportunity to read through it.

So why have a shared this seemingly non-technology news to the Technology Plumbing audience? Well mainly, because there were some very interesting articles and ads in the magazine that I want to share with you, so lets get our journey off the ground:

Jabra's new HALO bluetooth headset looks to provide a beautifully designed, very light weight set of headphones that promise a great listening experience up to 30 feet away from the source for around $130. While I can't give you any first hand feedback (though I would if Jabra wants to lend me the headphones) the picture and accompanying story makes me want to look at them as a possible replacement for my current Bose headphones.

Next up in "The Gist" section of the magazine was a new palm-sized projector from Cinemin called the Swivel. As you might surmise from the name of the projector that one of its features is that it can swivel up to 90-degrees allow the images to be projected in any direction for around $350. It provides compatibility with iPods, iPhones and laptops so it is nice way to project images without having to worry about carrying or finding a more "full-size" projector. Now it should be mentioned that at this size, you will need a darkened room to clearly see the image and the image resolution is limited to 480 x 320 so don't expect the same type of results you will get from larger projectors.

As we make our approach to landing this blog post, let me next bring up the relatively new Link product from long time lockset manufacturer Schlage. This remotely controlled lock set lets you open and lock Link controlled doors. This type of functionality is designed to allow you to deal with folks who need access to your home or business without having to give them a key or any access codes. The idea is the contractor contacts the owner when they are at the building and the owner remotely opens the door for the contractor. When the work is complete, the contractor leaves and the owner locks up the property. It is a nice example of using technology to deal with an age-old issue.

To bring this post to a final landing I hope that not only have I provided some new ideas for my readers to consider, but also suggest that sometimes breaking a routine can lead to some new insight for some new sources of information.