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How to buy tech gifts for other people’s kids
Gift giving for kids has gotten a lot more complicated over the past two decades or so. Gone are the days when you could just buy a doll or toy truck and know that it would be enjoyed by the child and fairly noncontroversial with the parents. A lot of that recent complication comes from how tech-heavy toys have gotten, from robot kits to drones to AR-enabled playsets. And that's before you even consider video games and consoles like Xbox or PlayStation. When it's your kid it's a little easier: After all, you should know what they like, what they'll take care of and what rules you've set for them. But what about your best friends' kids, your nieces and nephews or young cousins? While there's no silver bullet gift since every kid is different, there are some general guidelines you can follow when purchasing a tech gift for kids, one that won't have the other adults glaring at you or the kids tossing it to the side in favor of something shinier.
PowerUp Toys is motorizing more paper vehicles
PowerUp Toys, the makers of a smartphone-controlled paper airplane kit, is at Toy Fair 2019 with three new gizmos to occupy your free time. The company has an updated version of its popular plane kit with dual propellers, a new motorization kit that can power other origami vehicles and an accessory that can turn a smartphone into augmented reality goggles.
The best toys and coding kits to give as gifts
Last year, we included a kid-focused section in our holiday gift guide for the first time, and this year we've brought it back. We have all sorts of options sure to please any kid on your list, including interactive robots from Anki and Ozobot, games like Root and Disney Villainous and educational choices such as the Harry Potter Coding Kit and the latest batch of LittleBits' Inventor Kits. From Augmoto (for the kid that loves racing) to Pomsies pets (for those that want something cute and cuddly) there's really something for everybody.
PowerUp releases its phone-controlled paper airplane
PowerUp first previewed its smartphone-controlled paper airplane back in 2014, but now it's finally available to everyone. The startup has announced that a retail version of its Dart aircraft will ship in February, and is running a pre-order campaign for barebones (just the propeller module and two templates) and standard (wheels and Japanese aerobatic papers) kits that start at $29 and $37 respectively. Higher-priced packs offer additional modules and stands for your aeronautics-minded friends.
UE's Blast and Megablast join the Alexa smart speaker family
These days, the launch of yet more speakers with Alexa onboard isn't the most exciting announcement. However, these aren't stout smart home speakers or a mere software update, but an entirely new line for Ultimate Ears -- a long-standing favorite for its speakers' audio output and resilience. Today, the company introduces the Blast and Megablast, the network-capable and Alexa-enabled siblings of UE's Boom 2 and Megaboom. This new line was built explicitly for the Amazon Alexa ecosystem of apps and features, and along with the Power Up charging base, offers always-on functionality to cater to your verbal demands. Unlike many other options though, this one also includes an on-board battery for portability.
Engadget UK giveaway: Win a PowerUp FPV plane courtesy of Mobilefun.co.uk
We know the feeling: You wake up on Christmas morning to a lovingly wrapped selection of socks and scarves. You need these things, of course, but everyone likes to have a little fun around the holidays, don't they? Perhaps we can keep the Christmas spirit alive with the late present of a PowerUp FPV plane. You can control this paper plane on steroids using your phone, or slot your handset into the supplied cardboard VR viewer for the full first-person cockpit experience. We've got two of these to give away thanks to our friends at Mobilefun.co.uk, and if you're looking for a last-minute Christmas gift, Mobilefun is offering free delivery on the cheaper PowerUp 3.0 plane when you order through the retailer's iOS app. As always, please give the rules a quick read before entering this week's giveaway via the Rafflecopter widget below.
12 tech gifts for the geekiest people in your life
There's one in every family: The uber geek who pretty much has it all when it comes to tech basics. They don't need a laptop or a fancy TV. But don't worry, there's always some gap in their collection of gadgets that you can easily fill. And remember, the more niche the product, the better gift it is for these folks. You could get them started on building out their smart home with a lock like August or Kevo. Or maybe they need a central hub to control their sprawling network of connected goods from, like an Amazon Echo Dot. If the nerd in your life is too young for a smart home, you can always pick them up a high-tech take on the paper airplane or a box of tinker toys like LittleBits, to get them start on their journey to become the next great inventor. For our full list of recommendations in all categories, don't forget to stop by our main Holiday Gift Guide hub.
What goes down at a Vegas drone rodeo?
The Mandalay Bay hotel and conference center sits toward the south end of the Las Vegas strip. Inside it, past all the smokey slot machines and brightly lit restaurants, you'll find sharks rubbing shoulders with Michael Jackson. It is the very essence of Vegas. It's also the pick up point for this year's drone rodeo -- a spin off event from CES proper out in the desert, away from the hustle and bustle of the show floor.
PowerUp's smartphone-controlled paper plane makes us jealous of modern kids
So, it turns out that people really like paper airplanes, and by that we don't mean the M.I.A. song, although that's pretty neat too. No, we're talking about PowerUp's Bluetooth propellor kit for paper planes that enables you to steer your origami aircraft. Creator Shai Goitein had already developed a propellor kit for kids, but took to Kickstarter to raise funds for a smartphone-controlled model with a rudder, and was staggered when it managed to raise its $50,000 goal in just seven hours. In fact, the current figure is hovering just beneath the million-dollar mark, and there's still 14 days worth of funding left to go.
Paper airplanes finally get the smartphone remote control they deserve
Thank you, PowerUp. Apparently the last time we had the opportunity to write about paper airplanes was back in 2011, when a Seattle doctor built a tiny one using a da Vinci surgical robot. This time out, it's a Kickstarter project that brings smartphone control to the notoriously staid world of paper airplanes. The gadget's setup is pretty simple, all said. At the front is a Bluetooth module and battery, while the back contains the propeller and rudder. Build a paper airplane, attach the PowerUp up and boom, you've got RC aircraft you can control with your smartphone. Creator Shai Goitein has taken the project to Kickstarter in an attempt to score $50,000 in funding. A pledge of $30 will get one of these little fliers in your hands, come May of next year. That's plenty of time to practice your folding skills.
TUAW Bits and Pieces: review followups
TUAW Bits and Pieces returns to items we've previously reviewed here on TUAW, offering updates about their usability over time or providing new information we've found since the original post. Antec PowerUp 6000 I've been testing the Antec PowerUp 6000 portable power supply over an extended time, to make sure that I didn't encounter any of the issues that Amazon reviewers reported in terms of battery life. I'm pleased to report that the unit is still working strong and seems to have delivered solid value for me. In my original post, Antec wrote, "We haven't seen that many returns or failures on the PowerUp line. In the case of those two customers on Amazon (and anyone who reports issues or problems) our tech support and customer service reach out to them to either return or replace the unit." Given my extended tests, I don't believe I'd have any issues recommending the unit, especially given Antec's support policy. TableTote I first wrote about the TableTote portable table several years ago, when my daughter was in the hospital for a skiing accident. At that time, numerous readers asked me where they could pick up one. At that time, it was a bit hard to track these down. Now, however, they seem to be regularly stocked on Amazon. Retailing for $30, the stand folds up to a size between a large book and a very small briefcase. It's quite light weight (under 3 pounds) and provides a great workspace for those of us trying to get work done while at the doctor's office or at an airport. As Steve Sande can attest, my learning curve for putting this table together was not the smoothest. I soon discovered that you have to hold the legs at the very end (with the plastic spacers) and insert them that way, rather than trying to push them into place and expect them to snap in. When we were sitting outside the Aspen Grove Apple Store for some product release or another, I provided him with endless hours of amusement until I figured out the trick for getting this table to go together. Now, several years later, I wouldn't live without it. It's one of my favorite accessories, perfect for placing my MacBook Air or iPad. Plants vs Zombies 2 I thought I'd add a note here to this product follow up post now that I've had a lot more time to spend with Plants vs Zombies 2. I've been learning the ropes and really getting down & dirty with the app. Although I really do quite like many of the updates (almost as much as I hate the IAP hard sell), a lot of the game play feels more like hard work than enjoyable exploration. There's a difference between fun level grinding, where you tangibly see your characters and situation improve, and a game that keeps telling you to go back and start again at the beginning: over and over again. After working through each level once, PvZ 2 challenges you to repeat those levels three more times to earn additional stars. These repeats add new challenges (limiting min or max sun, limiting the number of plants you can lose, or limiting the spaces you can plant on), it all feels a lot more like a do over than new adventures. That's a pity because some of the new plants really are adorably clever and the new strategies are intriguing. Unfortunately, those strategies (for example, bok choy with a potato in front of it) just get used over and over and over again. Will I keep playing? Yup -- at least until I find something else to play with -- but am I disappointed? Yes. As much as I loathe the evil that is Candy Crush, that game knows how to keep introducing new sadistic challenges to keep the investment of interest high. Share Bucket To my surprise, Share Bucket, which I reviewed on TUAW a short while ago, has remained on my desktop. It is getting used regularly. It wasn't an app that really shone in terms of polish or features, but it's one that's really filling in a need. Recently updated to version 1.2, Share Bucket now supports imgur and has added various drawing enhancements and bug fixes. The interface feels stronger and I'm really pleased that the devs are responding to user feedback and keeping the app in active development. Planter When I recently reviewed Post Haste, TUAW mainstay Brett Terpstra dropped me a note about a similar product he's built. His Planter app accepts simple, indented text files and uses those to define a directory tree structure, building folders of nested directories as deep as you need them to be. Like Post Haste, this helps you to establish templated folders for creative and development projects that use common tree structures.
Engadget visits Nokia House, walks down memory lane (video)
It's not the first time Engadget editors have stepped foot at Nokia House -- the company's HQ in Espoo, Finland -- but it's always a treat, and our visit this week is no exception. Today we took a walk down memory lane, and spent some time with several Nokia handsets -- from one of the very first mobile phones to the Lumia 920. We played with some of the more iconic models and designs, such as the 1011 (first GSM handset), 1610, 7700 / 7710 (S90), 7280 (lipstick phone), 770 / N800 tablets, N-Gage / QD, 3300, 8800, 8110 (from the Matrix movie), N93 / N93i, N91, N92, N76, N95 and finally the 7650 (the first handset running Symbian). In addition, we also got to handle some of the Lumia 820 and 920 accessories, including the Fatboy wireless charging pillow and JBL-branded Power Up speakers. Check out the gallery below then hit the break for our hands-on video. Oh, and don't forget to tune in tomorrow for our live Q&A with Nokia's CEO Stephen Elop.%Gallery-166392% Update: That music-centric handset which uses an IBM Microdrive is the N91 (not N90) and was announced in 2005 (not 1995), and that flip-phone is the N76 (not the N75) -- sorry for the slip in the video. Zach Honig contributed to this report.
JBL intros Power Up speaker to charge your Nokia Lumia 920, pair over NFC
JBL just kicked out a pair of new accessories to go with that new Nokia Lumia 920. The Power Up speaker does more than just start Bluetooth music sharing over NFC -- it has a Qi wireless charging point so that you can just leave your shiny new Windows Phone on top for an extra jolt of energy without looking for that FatBoy pillow. We'll provide more details as they emerge following Nokia's special event.%Gallery-164395% Dana Wollman contributed to this report.
TUAW's Daily App: Call of Atlantis
I am really looking forward to Puzzle Quest 2, since I was such a fan of the first game on XBLA. But until that comes out, Call of Atlantis is a polished gem-matcher that combines match-3 gameplay with a little bit of story and adventure. I believe it started out as a PC game, but you wouldn't be able to tell -- the graphics look like they were designed for the iPhone, and the gameplay fits perfectly on a mobile device. If you've played any match-3 games, you already know the score here -- switch icons on a board to match up three of the same kind, and those will disappear, bringing more into play. But Call of Atlantis mixes things up a bit by providing items to grab -- the idea on each stage is to get certain parts of a larger item (or special powerup items) to the bottom of the screen, and off the board. Complete all the pieces of the main item and the level is over. Matching four or five of a kind will power up a meter that will help clear the board out, and collecting powerup items like Bombs will clear out part of a board for you as well. It's simple gameplay, but a strategy quickly unfolds -- do you clear that enticing five of a kind, or go for the quick three right below the item you need to collect? And while there is an overarching story of Gods and Atlantis, complete with art and voiceover, it's just icing on the cake of sweet, sweet gameplay. Call of Atlantis is a steal at 99 cents -- it's a budget title that feels and plays like a much more expensive game.
Wii Balance Board Power Up Charging Stand from Mad Catz just dares you to revert to AAs
There's just something so defiant about this "Power Up" charging stand from Mad Catz -- it seems specifically designed to take up as much cubic footage as possible, and even the name is domineering. The stand is bizarrely formed in the likeness of a miniature Wii Balance Board, with a replacement battery pack included in the kit with contact charging points to take out all the exertion of flipping the B-Board and swapping out batteries. A foot pedal release mechanism pops the Balance Board out of the stand, and there are a couple of free-spirited USB ports on the thing for charging up whatever other awkwardly-shaped gadgetry you might have around the house.[Via Unplggd]
SMG video update: Powerups, galaxies, and a live orchestra
The Super Mario Galaxy media frenzy continues with a bucketful of new videos. Naturally, we're emptying that bucket over your head, partly to douse you with fresh movies, but mostly for comedic effect.You'll find the streaming clips in the Japanese site's powerups and galaxies sections, yelling out with orange word balloons, "New!" You can watch them past the post break, too. Also on the list of updates for today, the third volume of Iwata Asks (Super Mario Galaxy edition) has some great footage of a live orchestra recording one of the game's songs while Koji Kondo and Shigeru Miyamoto watch, an overturned tea table likely nearby. According to the interview, 28 tracks in all have been recorded by the orchestra.It's likely just us -- in fact, we're sure of it -- but there's something about Super Mario Galaxy's main theme that reminds us of the Perfect Strangers opening credits, particularly the part where the song crescendos, "Staaanding tall!" Also, the action-platformer's music makes us break out into the "Dance of Joy" whenever we hear it, causing us to jump into the arms of anyone nearby. It's really quite embarrassing for everyone involved.
Ohio town spits fire over Mario question cube "attack"
Though you may be in a heap of trouble with your home town rag and residents, oh five teenage girls from Portage County, Ohio, we salute you and your April Fool's prank: dropping or suspending seventeen Mario Bros. question cubes around town. Now, granted, if we saw something like that on April first in our fair city of New York, it might seem a lot more commonplace than Ravenna, Ohio, but the point still stands -- if you think Al Qaeda ever played SMB, you've probably forgotten that those games inspire the good in people, remember? The controller smashing huffy puffy video game addicted 11 year old good in people, in fact. Unfortunately that didn't stop the HAZMAT and Fire Department crews from stepping in to defuse the situation, so to speak, and for it the five girls could face serious criminal charges. Too bad, because if those guys would have just jumped up and hit them from beneath they might instead have walked away with a sweet power-up (or an extra man).[Via Joystiq]
