Always-on forecasts for lovers of the outdoors
WEATHER
It’s good to see Cambridge-based Ambient Devices (http://ambientdevices.com) is back to designing good-looking equipment, after a brief run of bland gadgets that allow you to glimpse fast-changing weather forecasts and sports scores.
Ambient’s BaseBall Scorecast, 7-Day Forecaster, and MarketMaven gadgets are particularly ugly, compared with Ambient’s weather forecasting umbrella, with its color-changing handle. (The Forecaster does have a cool background to its LCD, which shifts colors to alert you to approaching storm clouds or a break in the weather.
Ambient’s latest device is the Mist Clock Radio with Weather Forecaster (about $200). As any ambient device should, it provides an instant, hands-free picture of current weather conditions, and what lies ahead.
The Mist is not some gorgeous color-shifting orb. But it is more attractive than your run-of-the mill clock radio: Its rounded corners, colorful, chunky, popup buttons (for alarm clock status), and its honeycomb-grilled speaker give the Mist the look of a C. Crane shortwave or an iPhone base station.
The Mist gathers its data from Ambient’s radio network data service. That means the device needs no PC or internet connection to function. The data service delivers AccuWeather forecasts for up to 150 US cities to the Mist. Its display is jammed with data: current time and temperature, precipitation figures, and images that hint at current conditions.
The Mist is likely to impress the less technologically inclined. After all, anyone can configure his iPhone or iPod Touch to yield similar information at a glance (a finger touch, or two, notwithstanding). But for the old gardener or fisherman, the Mist should prove to be a reliable planning partner.
Home entertainment
For this gaming PC, a price to match its performance
It looks like this summer is going to be another long (may the gods help me) “staycation’’ for the Baards. And that’s putting pressure on our home entertainment setup. The TV room in our wee Milton saltbox is already stuffed with gaming consoles, tape and disk players, and an HDTV converter box.I am also planning to add a digital video recorder to the mix, so that my wife, Lisa, and I can rip through seasons three and four of “Battlestar Galactica’’ before the series’ prequel, “Caprica,’’ comes to cable TV next season.
Alas, this leaves no room in our budget for the gaming PC that I was drooling over. But if you’ve got a couple grand laying around, the Axess HD Gamer (about $1,800, at www.maingear.com) can replace several of the boxes in your living room with one, sleek, black obelisk. It comes loaded with Windows Vista Home Premium, and its hardware supports 3D gaming.
The device also comes with a Phantom Lapboard, mouse, and remote control - extras that mark this hog as a true gamer’s PC.
The box also has a 1080p HD video output (it has an HDMI port), and it includes a Blu-ray and DVD player. You can also tap into Netflix and other video services via the Axess HD Gamer’s Ethernet connection. (You can customize the PC to include Wi-Fi when you place your order.) 