Tag Archives: Radio Suffolk

The Gadget Man – Episode 79 – Motorola Moto G (3rd generation) from Three

This morning I talk to Mark about the Motorola Moto G (3 gen) handset. At £169 sim free it represents fantastic value for money with excellent build quality and specification. To hear more about the phone, listen in to the audio recorded today on BBC Radio Suffolk.

Thanks to Three for the loan of the device, they always go above and beyond the call!

The Gadget Man – Episode 77 – Touchability Grip Gloves from touchscreengloves.co.uk

Touchability GlovesIf you live in the UK, you will have noticed the sudden change in temperature over the past couple of days, whilst this time a few of weeks ago we were basking in warmer than normal October, are now plunged into the depths of winter.

 

Recently, I have taken to cycling to work on an e-bike and aside from a decent coat, hat, waterproof trousers, spare set of clothes and shoes, in this weather; gloves are a MUST!! These days however, gloves get in the way from our obsessive use of touch technology!! Not so, it would seem. Gloves no longer obscure the use of mobile phones and cause breakages with their slippery surfaces, not when they are Touchability Grip Gloves from touchscreengloves.co.uk.

Click to buy from Amazon!!

The gloves I tried were standard knitted type with the addition of silver woven in. The silver gives conductivity and allows the electrical signals from your fingers to travel through the glove material onto your touch screen device. Not only that, the palm side of the gloves had rubber dots attached meaning that even the most slippery phone would stay secure in your hand.

Listen into the stream to hear what I thought of the gloves and head over to www.touchscreengloves.co.uk to see the Grip gloves and their full range of products.

The Gadget Man – Episode 74 – Fuze

Fuze reviewed by Matt Porter
Fuze reviewed by Matt Porter

This morning I chat to Rachel about the Fuze, which is “A programmable computer and electronics workstation, the FUZE, with FUZE BASIC, is an ideal platform for learning and teaching computational thinking and computer programming and provides a safe environment to experiment with simple electronics.”

It has been really interesting testing the Fuze and I will be reviewing here in more detail in the next few days, for now enjoy the audio.

 

 

The Gadget Man – Episode 71 – Edifier MP211 Wireless Bluetooth Speaker with NFC + The Rolling Stones

This week I have been able to sample the audio delights of bluetooth streaming with the Edifier MP211 Wireless Bluetooth Speaker with NFC. This is a very nice wireless speaker solution for people looking for a mobile solution to playing their music quickly and easily.

The Gadget Man - Episode 71 - Edifier MP211 Wireless Bluetooth Speaker with NFC plus The Rolling Stones

 

 

 

 

 

Listen in to the stream to find out all about it, full review of the product coming up shortly.

 

The Gadget man Episode 58 Volvo V60 D6 Twin Engine Plugin Hybrid

This week we move back to hybrid cars with the Volvo V60 D6 Twin Engine Plug in Hybrid vehicle. The D6 is unique as it is a Diesel – Electric Hybrid rather than the standard Petrol Electric that we are used to.

This is a very powerful snappy car, at full ‘Power’ mode it is outputting a combined 280bhp and you certainly feel it. Along with beautiful ride, upholstery and fuel efficiency, I can see this being very popular in the company car sector.

We will be reviewing it in greater detail soon online, but in the meantime, listen in the the stream from Monday 13th July.

 

The Gadget Man – Episode 57 – KTM eStreet P electric bike

KTM eStreet P Electric Bike
KTM eStreet P Electric Bike

Great fun was had this week as I was out on about testing one of my favourite forms of transport! Yes, I was testing an super electric bike from those clever people at KTM.

I even brought the bike into the studio to show everyone and nearly managed to run over a musician in the green room.

IMAG0009 KTM eStreet P Electric BikeThe KTM eStreet P is a really nice electric bike which makes great use of pedal assistance with the 250w motor giving you up to 400% assistance. I’m really impressed with the bike and I will be reviewing it in full later this week. For now listen in to the stream and find out about this very nice eBike.

Massive thanks to Louise Johnson at KTM Industries UK for all her help in getting the bike to me.

The Gadget Man – Episode 56 – EE Power Bar

powerbar1This morning I chat to Mark about the EE Power Bar. The Power Bar is a rechargeable battery pack which can supply power to your phone on demand. Like other battery packs, the Power Bar is recharged via USB cable. You can use the included usb cable to charge your phone, or you can plug other USB cables to charge your iPhone.

It also has a torch and flashing light function, which is useful if you are scrabbling around in the dark.

If you are an EE customer, you can pick up a free Power Bar, you have to send a text message to get a redeem code from EE first and this text costs 35p.

The really great thing about the Power Bar is that if you are out and about and you have used up all your charge, you can simply nip into an EE shop and they will swap your flat Power Bar with a fully charged unit, great if you are a heavy phone user.

It’s a nice little gadget and the fact it is almost free is even better.

The Gadget Man – Episode 54 – Aquamassage XL-250 Pro from InvigR8 Ipswich

This week I talk to Mark about the Aqua-Massage XL-250 Pro, a dry hydro-massage system. The massage is dry because the water used to massage your body from top to bottom is safely sealed away behind a waterproof membrane.

This means, that other than removing your shoes, you can stay fully clothed when having your massage. As you can see from the video below, the Aqua Massage uses a high pressure water system to massage your body, these massages can be fully customisable to your needs and is mean’t to be up to 4 times more efficient that a normal massage, plus you don’t need to get undress or have to shower afterwards.

In fact after a restful drink of chilled water, we were ready to get back to work. This makes for a very useful option for todays time precious world, you can benefit from a full massage, but without taking hours out of your day.

A 15 minute Aqua Massage is available from InvigR8 for for £15, we thought it was amazing value for money and we think you will to!

What’s more, InvigR8 are giving away 5 FREE 15 Sessions on the AquaMassage, to win the chance to try out this amazing equipment, enter use the widget below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Terms and Conditions of Entry

To enter, please visit InvigR8 on Facebook to find out more about their business, for an additional chance to win, follow us on Twitter.

There are 5 sessions to give away, please only enter if you are able to visit their Spa in Ipswich, Suffolk, United Kingdom. There is no cash alternative to this prize. If you are the lucky winner, you will be emailed with your special password which you will need to quote when contacting InvigrR8 to book your massage session.

This competition is NOT affiliated with the BBC or it’s partners and is being delivered by InvigR8 Ipswich. The competition opens on Monday 15th June 2015 and closes at midnight on Friday 19th June 2015.

The winners will be published here

Thanks to Kay and Richard for allowing us to try out the Aqua Massage.

The Gadget Man – Episode 52 – Google Cardboard and Google I/O 2015

Google Cardboard V1 can be assembled in 6 steps
Google Cardboard V1 can be assembled in 6 steps

This week I talk about Google Cardboard and Google I/O Extended from Adastral Park. The event was the brainchild of Mark Thomas at Coderus, they are situated on the Innovation Martlesham also.

Google I/O Extended are events which enable people to experience the keynotes of I/O in Silicon Valley in their own countries. BT provided some amazing facilities to web cast the event to a large auditorium and Coderus were on hand to demonstrate some amazing Google products such as Chromecast and the Nexus Player. We also enjoyed Google themed cupcakes and sandwiches which were delicious.

After the keynotes were finished, there was a question and answer session hosted by Jim Milne from Innovation Martlesham and featured guest speakers from the tech area to answer questions and queries about the direction that Google is taking and there were some very interesting discussions about the nurturing role we can all take with young people to help encourage a new generation of UK based IT expertise.

For those of us that waited until the very end of the evening, we were very pleasantly surprised to receive our very own Google Cardboard to take away.

Google Cardboard is a VR system developed by Google engineers David Coz and Damien Henry in their 20% time. It was first released at Google I/O 2014 developers conference.

DSCF7619
Google Cardboard

This year, Google have updated ‘Cardboard’ to support phones of up to 6 inches screen size and now it works with the Apple iPhone (but check your screen size is big enough!). Google Cardboard headsets cost about £12 to construct and the plans and specifications are freely available to buy online for about a tenner.

They are very simple to use, you install the Google Cardboard app on your smartphone, then slide it into the back of the ‘device’. There is normally an NFC tag with the headset which automatically identifies itself and tells your phone it is ready to work in ‘3d’.

The two lenses built into Cardboard focus onto the screen on the phone and produces the impression of stereoscopic 3d.

The apps are the real gem in the whole idea and there are hundreds available and most provide and incredibly immersive experience, it’s a fantastic opportunity to try out VR and at a low entry cost it means it’s accessible to everyone with compatible smartphone.

Thanks to Mark Thomas and everyone at Coderus for the evening, it was very interesting. You can find out more about the company by visiting their website here or following them on Twitter here

 

The Gadget Man – Episode 46 – Porsche 919 LMP with Mark Webber

We had a wonderful day at the World Endurance Championship’s 6 Hours of Silverstone last weekend. Not only were we guests of the wonderful people at Porsche Motorsports, we were also able to chat to the Technicians and Drivers and find out more about how the idea of Hybrid power translates to the worlds fastest racecars.

Matt Porter interviews Mark Webber about the Porsche 919 LMP1
Matt Porter interviews Mark Webber about the Porsche 919 LMP1

During our day, we were able to speak to former Formula 1 driver Mark Webber who is now racing the Porsche 919 LMP1. We also spoke at length to Alexander Hitzinger who is in charge for the 919’s development as Technical Director for the LMP1 and Michael Christensen who is the works driver for the Porsche 911 RSR.

I would like to thank the ever amazing Mark Webber for his patience after a long day! Sam Lloyd at Lloyd Bell Productions and Nick Perry at Porsche Cars Great Britain for their help making the day so memorable.

Massive thanks to Paul Shalan for attending with me and taking so many AMAZING photographs!!

You can listen to this weeks episode at the top of the page or below.