Gadgets

On its own, the Unit 1 bag is a sleek, slimline and very nice-looking laptop sleeve (or paper-notebook sleeve, if you must). But add in Unit 2 and Unit 3 and it transforms into something a lot more useful, and yet still just as eye-friendly.

The company is called Unit Portables, and the bags are modular, with connections that are robust enough not to be snatched off by a passing pickpocket. The extra pouches can be bought and deployed as you need them, both inside and out, for complete customization.

Google gave everyone attending its developer conference a free Android tablet.

Now, a couple enterprising attendees have already listed the swag on eBay, where the tablets are nearing a bid price of $1,000.

The tablet is a limited edition Galaxy Tab 10.1, with a special white backing adorned with a repeating image of the Android mascot. It’s running Android 3.0 “Honeycomb,” making it only the second tablet to run that version of the operating system (after the Motorola Xoom) that we’ve seen in the office.

Did you ever wonder what happens to those film canisters after you drop them off at the lab? What? You don’t know what I’m talking about? OK. Let me start over.

Many years ago, back through the swirling mists of time, cameras saved their pictures on a special kind of memory card. It was called “film”, and came in long strips, rolled up into a brightly-colored, metal-and-plastic tin. The clever thing about film is that it was both an SD card and sensor rolled into one.

U.S. carriers have started blocking an app that allows Android smartphone users free wireless tethering for other web-ready devices.

The application, “Wireless Tether for Root Users,” is still available on the Android Market. But if you have a phone that’s on the Verizon, AT&T or T-Mobile networks, you won’t be able to download or install it.

Try and access the app from the Android Market, and when prompted to choose a device on which to install it, you’ll only be able to select Sprint-carried devices or Wi-Fi–only products.

AirLocation is an iOS app that sends GPS data from your iPhone to your Wi-Fi-only iPad. To use it, you activate the Personal Hotspot on the iPhone, connect the iPad to the hotspot and run the app on both devices. Now you can use proper, accurate GPS data to track yourself on the iPad’s large screen. It won’t let you use any arbitrary iPad app with GPS, but once the iPad knows where it is you can flip to, say, Foursquare to check in.

It’s certainly a great idea, as using maps on the iPad is way nicer than peeking at the iPhone’s small screen.

Sony has shown off a pair of tablets that will launch later this year. The S1 is little more than yet another Honeycomb tablet in a Sony-designed box, with a 9.4-inch widescreen display and a wedge-shaped case.

Way more interesting is the S2, a clamshell tablet with two 5.5-inch screens. Each section has a rounded back, making it look like a squashed burrito when closed. When open, you can use it as a tablet with a black stripe down the middle, or each screen can display different content, similar to the dual-screen Nintendo DS consoles.

iPhone and iPad customers were spooked Wednesday to find out that their devices have recorded a detailed history of their geographical locations for the past year in an unprotected file. But it turns out that Apple already explained its location-collection practices in a detailed letter — almost a year ago.

And even though Apple has provided an explanation, there’s still a problem — the fact that this file containing the data is so easily accessible to anyone, and the fact that this data is stored in such an intricate manner that doesn’t seem to benefit the customer.

Monocomplex Design’s Tack range is beach furniture with a clever twist. Instead of desperately trying not to sink into the sand, the Tack chair and bench are big spikes which slide into the soft surface like golf tees and sit there, solid.

The lightweight plastic chairs also have handles for easy removal.

People take more photos now than possibly ever before, so why is it I still don’t get to see any of the pictures they take at my awesome parties? All those frames exposed, and the only ones I ever see are the ones from my own camera.

“We’ll e-mail them to you,” they say. Thanks, but no you won’t. And if you do, they’ll be tiny shrunken JPEGs.

With the debut of the Iconia Tab A500, Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Acer is the latest to throw its hat into the tablet ring.

As of Friday morning, the 10.1-inch, Android 3.0-powered A500 is up for pre-order on Best Buy’s website for $450. It will be ready for purchase in Best Buy retail stores beginning April 24.

The price is less than the cheapest iPad 2, which costs $500 for a Wi-Fi only, 16-GB model. The Iconia A500 also has 16 GB of storage.

Most comparable tablets have had difficulty matching the iPad’s price.