Staple
Latest
Stands du jour: TwoHands & MonkeyDo iPad stands impress
When it comes to iPad stands, there are more options out there in the market than you can shake a stick at. If you're just looking for utility, you needn't look farther than a used roll of duct tape. Ugly but it works. Today's market is about combining utility with beautiful design and I found a couple of items from Staples that are sure to please. Of the two, the felix MonkeyDo is by far the cuter. Available from Staples for US$19.99 ($14.99 sale price until December 15), this is a stand that will fit the quirkiest aesthetics. Made of strong plastic, the stand fits classic iPads in landscape and portrait positions. (I tested with the iPad 1 and 2. I was unable to test with a mini.) As adorable as the MonkeyDo is, you can't really see the cute monkey after inserting the iPad. Only its little toes and fingers show in practical use. So a lot of the kawaii goes away when the unit is used as designed. In terms of fit, the portrait position worked a lot better than landscape for repeated removal and insertion. You really need to make your monkey streeeeeeeeetch to get the landscape iPad in place. In both orientations, the presentation was secure and the fingers did not interfere with the screen. I found the MonkeyDo to be a cute, solid product; one I have no qualms recommending. I liked the MonkeyDo; I adored the Felix TwoHands. Retailing at $29.99 at Staples (and on sale for $14.99 until December 15), this stand works like a dream. Based on a springed hinge, you open the stand with a simple squeeze. It adapts to nearly every tablet you throw at it (I tested with iPads, Kindles and an iPhone), and it's so easy to use. Its two arms have the same kind of cute hand detail used for the MonkeyDo, but with much sturdier plastic. They grasp a tablet at any height you choose, so you can set angles from super-shallow to completely upright. When not in use, the stand snaps shut, with a minimal profile that you can store away in your desk or even a super-generous pencil cup. After a few days of use by myself and my family, I picked up the phone, confirmed that I could buy at my local Denver store at the online price and ran out and bought a few to keep. Highly recommended.
Best Buy to expand iPad availability, sales cannibalizing laptops by up to 50%
Here's another report of the iPad stealing attention and money away from more traditional computing. Best Buy's CEO Brian Dunn tells the Wall Street Journal that the iPad has "cannibalized" sales of laptops by up to 50%, meaning that customers in the big box retail store have gone for Apple's tablet rather than a traditional keyboard-and-screen computer. That's pretty astounding, although if you think about the period Best Buy has just been through, with back-to-school students and parents shopping for consumer technology, it's not surprising to think that lots of people would go for a brand-new iPad over a similarly-priced laptop. Best Buy is also expanding its iPad coverage, bringing the Apple product to all of its over 1,000 U.S. stores by the end of this month. The big retailer is in the midst of a transition, moving away from previously huge libraries of DVDs and CDs and towards consumer electronics and end-user entertainment devices. It's still projecting higher revenues, but one analyst says that Best Buy is really aiming for "tablets, e-readers and probably the higher-end digital cameras." That means that it makes a lot of sense for them to get in close to Apple and the iPad. [via MacRumors]
DIY nailguns wrecking all sorts of havoc on hands
We typically take for granted that anyone with enough technical know-how to go out and tackle some of the DIY creations we've seen would also take extra caution when handling soldering irons, hammers, and other potentially hazardous power tools, but apparently, folks are throwing caution to the wind when concocting their own nailguns. We'll admit, we certainly didn't realize that home crafted, high-powered staplers were becoming all the rage, but according to a recent report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "injuries involving nailguns have risen 200-percent since 1991." Notably, around 40-percent of the 37,000 reported nailgun injuries last year were purportedly due to consumer negligence while not on the job, leaving us to assume that it's the haphazard consumers boosting the stats. Still, these issues pale in comparison to the mayhem we'd be dealing with if railgun equipment somehow slipped into local hardware shops.[Via El Reg]
