What’s not to love about the latest technology and the hottest trendy products? Our Cutting Edge section keeps you on the vanguard of electronic wizardry with our featured gallery of gadgets that are newly launched or coming soon to a store or website near you.

SOFT IS THE NEW HARD

If you want to protect your iPad then forget hard cases—go with soft and floppy. The G-Form iPad Extreme Sleeve 2 ($70) is soft, flexible, lightweight, and water-resistant, with enough room to hold your iPad 2 with a Smart Cover. Best of all, it uses Reactive Protection Technology, a combination of PORON XRD material and proprietary G-Form design, to absorb all kinds of impact. In its tests, the company says, an iPad nestled in the sleeve survived the impact of a 12-pound bowling ball. (A Macbook within an Extreme Sleeve for Laptops ($70 – $80) survived a 20-foot drop.)

WIDESCREEN ON-THE-GO

The Samsung Infuse 4G ($200 – $550), available from AT&T, is great for anyone who loves to consume media anywhere and everywhere. Its 4.5-inch Super AMOLED Plus touchscreen features 50% more sub-pixels for better contrast. You can even easily read this smartphone’s display in bright sunlight. This is also the thinnest 4G smartphone currently available—only 8.99mm thick. The phone runs Android 2.2 and comes preloaded with social media widgets to let you start sharing right away.

MAKE TIME DISAPPEAR

The Mutewatch ($259), from a Swedish startup of the same name, keeps the time hidden until you want to see it. Simply tap on the touchscreen to reveal the time and just swipe across to access the alarm or timer. Forget using tiny buttons or small dials – the touchscreen makes navigating the watch a breeze. You can set an alarm by tapping on the top of a number to go up or on the bottom to go down. Also, the alarm vibrates rather than beeps and can be shut off with a pinching motion.

A PEN FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

The HTC Flyer ($500) is a unique entrant into the ever-expanding tablet market, because it was designed to work with the HTC Scribe Digital Pen ($80). You can use the pen to draw, write, paint, retouch pictures, sign digital documents, and even add voiceover to a storybook you are working on. The HTC Flyer also offers superior note-taking with Time Mark, which lets you tap on a note you were taking at any point during a meeting to hear the audio that was recorded at that time. This Wi-Fi tablet has a 7-inch touchscreen, a 5.0-megapixel camera, and runs Android 2.3.

NEW LOOK NOOK

Barnes and Noble’s redesigned Nook ($139 for Wi-Fi) has a 6-inch touchscreen that lets you flip pages, highlight text, and look up words, all with the touch of a finger. This version also offers crisper and clearer text, thanks to 50% more contrast. You can lend and borrow books with Nook Friends. You can even borrow and read eBooks from your local library. An improved battery life lets you keep reading for up to two months on one charge.

Ads

You May Also Like

Movers & Shakers

MAHONEY AND KUCHEMAN Boston Scientific Corporation named Michael F. Mahoney the new company president, ...

What Do Weight Watchers and the Grameen Bank Have In Common?

In 1983, Muhammad Yunus founded the Grameen Bank to provide credit and banking services ...