Photo: Sony/Courtesy shot
About the only thing one can do during seven straight days of rain is play with gadgets and then look for more gadgets to replace them. And so we have five more for you Bytehards: a camera-networking app, a way to stream music from your Dropbox account, a DIY movie projector, drum sticks for your iPad, and an MP3 player that doesn’t need a cord to connect to your computer.
Our inbox remains forever open at VultureBytes@gmail.com for all your tips and tricks.
Ever since Arrested Development, the three-camera comedy has lacked a certain modernity. Vulture Bytes has found an app that can change that. It’s time Hollywood started filming and editing its three-camera with multiple iPhones. CollabraCam lets you stream multiple iPhone camera feeds over a local network, letting you shuttle between different feeds while you compose the master video. With Upfronts just ending, you’ve got just enough time to film Three Phones, Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place for pilot season next year.PRICE: $6
This app hooks up to your Dropbox account, takes a look around for the music files, and turns them into actual playable songs, just like music stored on your actual phone. Yes, there are more fully-featured cloud players that are within your reach, with Google and Amazon now debuting their own players. But Dropbox allows you to share your music folders with friends — Legal? Questionable! Point being, if you only have music in the cloud, and you want it to be social, here’s a way to stream it on your iPhone.PRICE: $1
Listen, we know we’re supposed to be telling you about things you can buy, pre-fab. But just watch this video, and tell us that you don’t want to build your own Super 8 film projector out of legos. Now, it’s going to require a pretty solid knowledge of LEGO Technic. But once you figure all that out, you too can brag about how the “friction clutch and gear ratio control the slip of the take-up reel.” Also, think how much of a superfan J.J. Abrams will think you are. This is a far more likely way to show your devotion than, for example, building a digital replica of the Starship Enterprise in a computer game. Wait, somebody’s doing that, too? Well, in that case, take your pick.
This one’s only for those of you comfortable banging on your iPad with sticks. Yes, the sticks have those conductive fiber tips that are also on a lot of the iPad styluses we’ve told you about. But you aren’t drumming on the iPad with those like you are with Pix & Stix. They’re made for music apps like Garage Band. The creators — who also made this cool-looking wall-mount for an iPad — are raising their money in a Kickstarter-ish way, so they’re not definitely going into production. But they’re already more than halfway there. If you’re an iPad composer with a $500 trust fund, take a look.PRICE: $15 for two sticks and one pick.
Vulture Bytes has ranted before about how silly it is that we have to use cords to get our music on our MP3 players. What if we leave them at home? What if we had an MP3 player that had a built-in USB key, so we’d never need a cord again? Wait, actually, that’s exactly what Sony’s just done. Its new line of Walkman players — from what we can tell, strangely for sale only from Europe — are small little things with a USB key on one end and all the music controls right next to it. As always, we recommend you buy it as a token of resistance against Steve Jobs, even if your iPod, iPhone, and iPad already provide more than enough space to hold all your music.PRICE: 25 pounds (~$40) for a 2GB, 30 pounds (~$49) for a 4GB.
