Unplggd: Hard-Working Docking Station

One strategy for preventing the loss of portable devices like the iPad or smartphones around the house is designating a “landing station“. Most people just drop their phones and tablets on their desk or kitchen counter, but setting up a specific spot with a holder is a better idea if you’ve got a habit of always misplacing your device even though you swear, “I put it right here”…

Constructed of oiled oak harvested from German forests, both the Objekten DOCK Box and Dock Tray are available in light and dark oak versions, and each providing a handsome way to not only display/view your favorite screened device, but also offering the “landing station” to keep clutter at bay and decrease the chances of “now where did I put that _____?!”

By Gregory Han

Unplggd: Eric Nakamura’s Top 10 Home Office Tech

Eric Nakamura wears many hats: publisher and co-founder of Giant Robot, longtime arbiter of art and culture, gallery/store/restaurant owner, and popular blogger reporting about the unique and unusual from Asia and America. Regularly on the forefront of art, design and pop culture, Eric’s Tech Top 10 may surprise you with its mix of new and old…and nary a mention of any robotic companions.

Canon T2i DSLR: It changed the way I do things. I always thought that the great point and shoots were good enough, but they really weren’t. The photography with this camera is solid and the video is sharp. This Canon opened a lot of doors and that’s what you hope technology will do for you. The lens is a Tamron 2.8 17-50. I used to think a lens like this would suck, but no, it’s solid and great. I used to worry about it’s non compactness, but you get used to it and it’s no big deal to have a camera on you these days. You never know when the alien ship will land and having a camera might be a good idea.

Read more

Unplggd: Stylish Home Office Tech Gifts

Admit it, visiting the museum is always a little better when you know they’ve got an ace gift shop waiting at the end of your day of cultural enrichment. It’s okay, museums often do an excellent job of curating hard to source items related to the history of art and design. Cultural institutions like MOMA male for a surprisingly great source for tech related gifts throughout the year, oftentimes offering import items you might have seen here or at other design blogs, but can’t be found at regular retailers. Here are 12 tech items we pulled from the catalogs of four of our fav modern museums …
Read more

Unplggd: Perfect Printer for a Small Home Office

Everyone is talking about the “cloud”, but one company, Berg, is trying to put a happy face to the amorphous concept with the announcement of a technological throwback: a printer. The Little Printer is a wireless connected printing device designed to work less like a sheet-by-sheet household printer and more like a miniature printing press of Tweet-proportions, delivering bite-size daily subscriptions to content you want to receive from the cloud. News, puzzles, messages from friends, a word of the day, horoscopes, the weather report…all configured from your smartphone.

“In your front room, Little Printer wirelessly connects (with no configuration) to a small box that plugs into your broadband router. It’s this same box that will enable our other planned products in the BERG Cloud family. There’s no PC required, your phone is your remote control. We think of BERG Cloud as the nervous system for connected products. It’s built to run at scale, and could as easily operate the Web-enabled signage of a city block, as the playful home electronics of the future. Not to mention the smart product prototypes that we work with our clients on, in the other side of our design studio.”

Right now, Berg and their BERG Cloud partners are Arup, foursquare, Google, the Guardian, and Nike, with pre-order email notification signup open for the planned 2012 launch.

Unplggd: Creative Home Offices

A few weeks back unplggd’s editor Gregory Han was invited to answer the following questions: What defines a workspace and what technologies do I find impressive today? One of our favourite bloggers, Design Milk, posed these questions to a panel composed of designers, artists, creatives, and yours truly, including Joey Roth of ceramic speakers, the always impeccable design spotter Tina Roth Eisenberg of swissmiss, Gretchen Jones, fashion designer and winner of ModKat, the most stylish litterboxes out there.

• Check out the full post over at DEFINING THE DESIGNER WORKSPACE.

Unplggd: Touch Sensitive Wall Organizer

Jiyoung Seo‘s touch sensitive Modular Wall Storage Unit is called SAI, Korean for “between”, and seems in the lineage of the classic Utensilo wall organizer. Tap the silicone blocks and they light up like you’re a contestant of your very own organizing game show. Watch it in action below.

By Gregory Han.

Unplggd: Scanners for the Home Office

These are the next generation scanners. Faster, better and cheaper. Some of them are using a new kind of technology that we think it will take over in the nest couple of years. Read on to find out what it is.

Lexmark Genesis This scanner doesn’t rely on a slow moving cathode lamp, but instead, it works with a 10 megapixel camera, that will rip a 300 dpi image in few seconds and after it’s done, it will send it to your computer via its built in WiFi. And guess what? the Lexmark Genesis also works as a printer, churning 33 pages per minute and 4″x6′s” in only 26 seconds.

NeatDesk Scanner This automatic document feeder will help you declutter your desk with very easy to use one button scan/archive. You can scan up to 10 receipts, business cards and documents at once or your choice of one big 50 page document. We love that, when scanning business cards, it will automatically populate your address books.

Doxie Document Scanner This one wins on the portability race. It’s so simple to use that even a cave man could do it. We love that it makes sharing your photos and images super easy. It scans directly to the cloud, sending your images directly to Flickr, iPhoto, Picasa and even Tumblr and much more. The price point of $149 makes this, a very affordable alternative to the bigger ones.

By Joel Pirela.

Unplggd: Distraction-Free Desktop

Consider Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, one representing the intellectual side, the other our most base inclinations. It’s often the case our Dr. Jekyll is unable to get work done because Mr. Hyde wants to browse Pinterest and jettison some angry avian projectiles. Unfortunately, dealing with a case of short attention span is worse now thanks to online access, the myriad of diversionary entertainment options, and even that smartphone you keep checking every few seconds. Distractions like these divide attention, time, and therefore affect the quality of work you do. However there’s one trick that can keep you on the straight and narrow to build better work habits.

It’s all too easy to get distracted from work on the computer. But there’s a simple technique to help regain focus: create a new User account, one specifically designed for getting work done. That means creating a desktop stripped of extraneous bookmarks, applications, music and movie files, plug-ins, extensions…unless they’re designed for task management or your work related projects. Think of this desktop as your work persona. Creating a dedicated account for work related tasks is like having a work outfit compared to the comfy-cozy sweatpants of leisurely online time.

Read more

Unplggd: Hard Working Office Devices

Device makers are cramming more products into single devices. Our phone is quickly, if not already, replacing many technologies that we used to keep separate (Good bye point and shoot, hello 8 megapixel iPhone 5, hopefully with a larger sensor.). If not now, then take a look at the WVIL and tell us that’s not a multi-use device you’d be interested in. When done right consolidation is great for space, especially when traveling because we have less to lug around. But this swiss-army-knife approach isn’t limited to devices. We like these accessories that do a good job of pulling double duty as well.

1. ZAGG Keyboard Case
This case is made of anodized aluminum so it looks like it was made for your iPad. Once you take your iPad out it can sit in the case in horizontal or vertical position and the case is then usable as a wireless keyboard. No more lugging around a separate keyboard in its own case.

2. Sceltevie Bag Hanger
This purse hanger, which looks like a pair of sunglasses, a guitar or a bow, doubles as a smart phone stand. It’s small enough to keep in your bag or pocket and is sturdy enough for both purposes.

3. Oona
One of the coolest projects on Kickstarter, the Oona is a multipurpose smartphone stand. It lets you stick your device basically anywhere with a flat surface: on the fridge, as a gps stand in your car, while working on a white board. The part we really like is the threaded hole in the bottom that allows you to use a tripod with your phone. It’s also made of airplane grade aluminum so it’ll take beating.

4. The Minimalist
We like carrying the least amount possible. We ditched our wallet for a credit card holder a while back. Soon we’ll be able to ditch everything for Google Wallet, if they include our bank and more merchandizers that is, but until then the Minimalist is a great option. It marries our credit card holder with our iPhone case meaning less stuff floating around in our pocket.

5. Logitech Tablet Speaker
The speakers on most tablets are ok. The sound isn’t exactly high fidelity (that’s why you have nice headphones right?) and sometimes we don’t want to wear headphones or attach a scoop just to hear at a louder volume. The Logitech tablet speaker not only gives you better sound for any tablet with a headphone jack, but it also acts as a stand, making the on screen keyboard that much easier to use (below).

What’s your favorite multi-purpose device accessory? Tell us in the comments.

By Jeff Heaton.

Unplggd: iPad Cases

It’s been a little while since we’ve done a roundup of iPad 2 cases and since then we have had the time to test quite a few. With so many options out there for the device there is something for everyone. Read on for some of our favourites and why we think they are well worth it.

Speck iGuy Not only is this case incredibly adorable it is also really durable. This is the case you want if your child is going to be using the iPad. Built with the iPad 2 in mind, the rear camera is usable and the arms on the case make it easy the easiest to shoot video with out of any case that we’ve tried. The case fits both versions of the iPad and has a plug to close up the camera hole if using the device with a first generation iPad. Available in 3 colours. $39.95

Read more