document10
DESCRIPTION
aTRANSCRIPT
10. Nokia Lumia 1020
Harry McCracken / TIME
Every modern wireless phone is a cameraphone, but this Lumia is something
new: a phonecamera. Its oversized sensor packs 41 megapixels of resolution;
you can capture the most detailed phone snapshots you’ve ever seen, and zoom
in without reducing your pictures to a blocky mess. (You have to download the
high-res versions to a computer via USB cable, but it’s worth the effort.) Even
iPhone and Android fans who thought they couldn’t care less about Windows
Phones might find themselves smitten with this one.
9. Leap Motion Controller
Leap Motion
This pint-sized USB accessory for Windows PCs and Macs is an $80 preview of
where man-machine interfaces may be headed. Plug it in, plop it on a flat
surface, and you can perform tasks — from playing games to reading New York
Times stories — by waving your hands in the air. It can even detect the angle
your palms and how many fingers you’re sticking out. The technology is also
being built into laptops, starting with HP’s Envy17 Leap Motion SE.
8. Nest Protect
Nest Labs
Silicon Valley startup Nest Labs specializes in making the most mundane
household devices a lot less mundane. In 2012, it introduced a Web-savvy touch-
screen thermostat. And its new product is Nest Protect, a $130 smoke and
carbon-monoxide detector. Rather than emitting an eardrum-shattering squeal,
Protect alerts you to hazards in a calm female voice which says helpful things
like “There’s carbon monoxide in the den.” If it mistakes your smokey cooking
for a fire, you can set it wise with a wave of your arm.
7. Amazon Kindle Fire HDX
Amazon
Amazon’s third-generation Kindle Fire tablets — a $239 seven-inch model and a
$379 8.9-incher — are the first ones which felt truly polished and pleasing from
the day they debuted. As always, they make it as simple as possible to consume
mass quantities of Amazon content — video, music, books, games and more. And
they’ve got one feature that’s a ground-breaking dazzler: Mayday, which lets
you get tech support from a real live Amazon rep who appears on screen and
can take control of your tablet.
6. Microsoft Xbox One
Microsoft
Officially, Microsoft’s Xbox One is a game console, but its aspirations go far
beyond play. With built-in video calls via Skype, integration with cable and
satellite TV boxes and an interface derived from Windows 8, it’s really a living-
room PC. The most intriguing technology is built into the new Kinect sensor,
which understands spoken commands, recognizes faces and can even measure
your heart rate. Some aspects of the One are still rough around the edges, but
it’s going to be fascinating to see where it goes.
5. Apple iPhone 5s
Apple
iPhones with an “s” at the end of their model numbers are supposedly snoozers,
because they focus on refinements to the previous year’s model. But the iPhone
5s introduces two of the best smartphone features which Apple or anyone else
has ever come up with. The Touch ID sensor lets unlock your phone with a quick
press of your finger or thumb. And the camera sports a unique dual-LED flash
which provides subtle, custom lighting for an array of picture-taking scenarios.
4. Pebble Smartwatch
Pebble
Whether smartwatches ever turn into a booming business to rival smartphones
or tablets remains anyone’s guess. But Pebble is off to a promising start. The
$150 wearable gizmo acts as a satellite for your iPhone or Android handset,
receiving snippets such as text-message notifications via Bluetooth and
displaying them on its power-efficient E Ink display. Third-party developers can
write programs to let it do everything from playing games to tracking your
fitness. Did we mention that it tells time?
3. Oculus Rift Development Kit
Virtuix Omni / YouTube
At the moment, Oculus Rift is only available in a $300 kit aimed at game
developers. But once you strap on this virtual-reality headset onto your noggin
and experience it in action, you’ll get itchy for the consumer release, which is
scheduled for 2014. Used with a PC or Android device, Rift will let games create
3D worlds which surround you — you can even look over your shoulder for
enemies lurking behind. If the games live up to the hardware’s potential, it
could be an epoch-shifting landmark.
2. Apple’s new iPads
Apple
Do you want a powerful iPad or a portable one? How about both? At just one
pound and .29-inch thick, the 9.7-inch iPad Air is much svelter than previous
full-sized models. And except for the smaller screen, the 7.9-inch iPad Mini with
Retina has almost exactly the same potent components as its big brother, as
well as the same ten-hour battery life. Both benefit hugely from the App Store’s
475,000 iPad-optimized apps. It’s best tablet you can buy, in two convenient
sizes.
1. Google Chromecast
Jared Newman for TIME
Instead of trying to do everything — like Google’s famously ambitious and
unsuccessful Google TV — this thumb-sized gizmo does one thing, does it as
simply as possible and does it for the impulse-purchase price of $35. Plug it into
one of your TV’s HDMI ports, and you can fling videos and other content from
your laptop, tablet or phone to the big screen, no wires involved. Lots of
companies have built devices to do this; Chromecast is the first one that gets it
right.