popSLATE gives your iPhone a second (not so useful) screen

Like most smartphone users, I unlock my screen incessantly so I usually run out of battery when I most need it. But popSLATE promises to be the rehab for my swipe-screen addiction. It’s a smartphone case with an in-built E Ink screen that can personalize the back of an iPhone 6. I could use it to flaunt my favorite pictures or if I run out of battery, at say, an airport, I’d be able to flip my phone over to scan my boarding pass. It seemed like the perfect solution for my excessive phone usage. So I turned the back of my phone into a second, always-on screen for about a week.

If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because popSLATE is the product of a two-year old Indiegogo campaign that raised a little over $219,000. At the time, it promised to be a unique smartphone case with a 4-inch second screen for an iPhone 5. But the company failed to deliver. Now, they’re shipping the pending product to their backers, only this time it’s suited for an iPhone 6.

At first sight, it’s bulky for a case that’s not a juice pack so it adds weight to an otherwise slim device. But its excuse is that it has a mind of its own — it syncs with your iPhone but also works independently. It doesn’t show you notifications or new emails, but it can store up to eight images (or screenshots) that you can swap with an inconspicuous button depending on your schedule or mood. The possibilities for personalization seemed immense, but at $130, it needed to do a lot more than offer black and white images to justify it’s high price point.

Setting it up was the easiest part: slide the phone into it, download the popSLATE app and a couple of quick prompts later the phone is paired to the case via Bluetooth. Its biggest selling point is that it doesn’t need your iPhone’s battery. It comes with its own internal battery that lasts for at least a week on a single charge. The E Ink screen uses power only when you refresh an image, which in my case wasn’t as often as I thought it would be so I didn’t need to charge it once. But ironically, with my Bluetooth on for days, it drained my phone earlier than usual on most days.

The app tries hard to be a social network. It lets you link your Instagram account for quick access to your favorite square-format pictures or take new images so you can “pop” them to the back of your phone. It automatically shares those images on its network, but you can choose to opt out. There’s a follow feature so you can set up a community but it’s missing a crucial feature — you can’t like or comment on anything so there’s no validation or interaction. You can only “re-pop” the black and white images but it’s not half as satisfying as a red-heart on your Instagram.

popSLATE is essentially a protective case that wants to make use of the real estate that’s wasted on the back of your phone. But it’s not like a Yotaphone 2 that has a fully functional second E Ink screen on the back. This one doesn’t replicate the experience of your main screen. It needs you to remember what you might need to access when your phone runs out of juice and then “pop” it. The information I sent to the back was handy, but it wasn’t always clear. Some street names in a Google Maps screenshot were illegible and my calendar was blotchy too. I did play around with the images, though. Most of them looked great with a vintage vibe when converted to E ink. So at the very least, I figured those artsy shots would be a great conversation starter. But popSLATE didn’t grab any attention from people around me. It was probably the dull grey tones that didn’t pique anyone’s curiosity. But then, maybe, people are already too jaded from looking at smartphone cases that aspire to do more than just protect your phone.

A week into it, I hardly remembered to flip my phone over. And even when I did, I found no real use for the display. Every time I saw the low-res monochromatic images on the back, I found myself missing my vibrant (eyesight weakening) screen that was waiting to be unlocked.

Filed under: Cellphones

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Making beats with Teenage Engineering’s pocket-sized synthesizers

When I first heard about Teenage Engineering’s Pocket Operators at last year’s Moogfest, I was pretty skeptical. A card-sized digital synth in your pocket? Sure, it sounds cool. And yes, the folks at Teenage Engineering certainly have the know-how to make something like that happen, but I needed to get my hands on one to be sure. After spending the last few weeks pushing buttons and turning knobs on the battery-powered loop makers, I can say without a doubt that spending $59 on one of these bad boys is a decision you won’t regret — even for a novice like me.

The three Pocket Operators are, individually, a drum machine (PO-12 Rhythm), a bass synth (PO-14 Sub) and a melody maker (PO-16 Factory) — and each costs $59. Aside from the panel of multi-function buttons and a pair of knobs, each unit has a display that lets you know what tempo, mode and other tools you’ve selected. It also provides a great animation when you’re playing back a created track. The audio stuff is awesome, but the moving pictures are a really nice touch, especially for a set of pocketable instruments that folks at any skill level can enjoy.

How do they sound? Excellent. I was shocked at how great the audio is, and you can pipe it into a more robust audio editor like Adobe Audition or GarageBand. When you loop all three with 3.5mm cables, five sync modes determine how the signal from each is processed. The five presets toggle stereo, mono and sync for the input/output signal. This is how you decide if you want to send the signal to the next unit or output stereo audio to headphones, a speaker or a laptop. No matter what, the first Pocket Operator in the setup will be the so-called master, so it’s the one that’s used to control tempo. Of course, you could also sort the loops and record them individually before combining them with audio software. When I wasn’t routing them to a computer, my preferred setup with all three synced was just a pair of B&O H6 headphones. If I’m honest, these were a nice chance to step away from the keyboard for a bit. Don’t take my word for it though; here they are in action:

The PO-12, PO-14 and PO-16 come preloaded with a library of samples (16 total), so you can start making noise with the gadgets as quickly as you can install a pair of AAA batteries around back. For the individual parts, each one packs 16 sounds and 16 effects that can be set to either one of the three tempo presets (Hip-Hop, Disco or Techno), or tweaked to anywhere between 60 and 206 bpm (beats per minute). There’s a write mode too, which allows you to tweak the pre-loaded sequences or make your own from scratch using the built-in 16-step sequencer capable of banking, you guessed it, 16 loops.

I must admit that I wasn’t so adventurous at first, and I spent a considerable amount of time putting together the included audio from each to compose different sounds. Once I got a handle on some of the individual noises each Pocket Operator was capable of, I moved on to building my own loops from the ground up. I found that while you can sync the trio to play tones simultaneously, the best way to layer loops on top of each other (so I could easily keep track) was to record a 15-second loop for each in Audition. From there, it was a matter of muting and rearranging to find some combination of noise that I liked — and that wouldn’t make my dog cower in fear.

In the weeks that I’ve spent tinkering with these things during my spare time, I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface of all their possibilities. They’re certainly capable of producing loops and larger compositions for projects much more refined than a bit of goofing off. If you’re thinking about producing tunes at home, but don’t want to commit a load of money to the hobby just yet, try one of these. There are certainly worse things you could blow $60 on. You might stumble upon a love for making music from the comforts of your desk that you haven’t yet discovered.

Filed under: Misc

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What is Quick Charge and how do I use it with my Android device?

Quick Charge is a feature in your Android phone’s processor that enables it to charge up to 75% faster than normal. How does it do that you wonder? Well in your standard wall adapter there is a little piece called a flow regulator, and what the flow regulator does is it prevents the unregulated AC power from the wall from frying your battery and possibly ruining your phone. Now with Quick Charge, from Qualcomm, you can charge your phone quicker because of a faster regulator on both the charger and in your phone’s CPU. This in turn enables people to spend much more time not tied down to their charger.

Now you may be wondering what you need to have in order to use this wonderful feature. This part is two fold, first you need a Quick Charge compatible device. Most flagship devices including, but not limited to, the HTC One M8, the Sony Xperia Z3, the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, the Google Nexus 6, and the Motorola Moto X 2014 to name a few, all have the required Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU in them. The other part may be a little tricky, depends on whether or not you still have your charger that came with your phone when you bought it. Now there are other chargers that are Quick Charge Certified, and an easy way to spot those that are Quick Charge Certified have either “Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0″ on the side or a little marking that looks like a ‘Q’ with a lightening bolt tail. Now this is not limited strictly to wall adapters: Quick Charge can also be found in car chargers as well, just look for the little marking. Now that you have both of those aforementioned items the next part is quite literally plugging your phone in to charge.

For more information on Quick Charge 2.0 click here.

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