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Have you seen these gadgets? Look what we spotted at the big CeBIT expo in Sydney

Don’t miss part two of our photo gallery of the most interesting, clever and sometimes fascinating technology at CeBIT in Sydney's Darling Harbour.

By William Maher on May 31 2013, 11:12AM

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If you're still lugging around a laptop, then here's a much, much lighter alternative. It's an iPad mini, with Belkin's new Ultimate Keyboard Case. You wouldn't want to setup a spreadsheet or type a very long plan on it, but it'll do nicely for emails and light-work. How thin is it? Click the next photo to see...

The great thing about these keyboards is there's no cumbersome flaps and bits of plastic - you just pop the iPad mini into a slot in the keyboard.

If you're paranoid about your iPad getting scratched, keep in mind that while this keyboard acts as a cover for the iPad screen, but there's nothing protecting the back of it.

There are so many iPad keyboards to choose from - which is the best? We like the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover. Our first impressions of this Belkin model are very good too. This is the full size iPad keyboard.

Here is a very interesting gadget: it's a light switch, but with one important difference. Click the next photo to see why it's so special...

Hidden inside the light switch is electronics that make it possible to control this light remotely using an iPhone app. Cynics will no doubt think of this as yet another example of technology making us lazy. But there's more to it than that. You can use this to turn off your lights if you've accidentally left them on - even if you've left the country to go on holidays or a business trip. Or turn off your heater, so your building doesn't burn down. You can also set a schedule, so the light turns off when no-one is around. But there's another trick that's even more interesting. Click the next photo...

Realise you've left the heater on, and you've gone to work for the day? If it's plugged into this wall socket, you can turn it off from your phone. Amazingly, you can be in another city and turn off your heater. And set a schedule, so your heater comes on just before you get home. It's called the Belkin WeMo Switch. And that's not all...there's even a motion sensor you can hook up, so that your lights (or your heater) can turn on when they detect you walk into the room. You can also have it setup so that you when you walk into a room, it activates multiple appliances - turning on lights, heating and TV.

Say you have a classroom or conference full of people, and you want to make a presentation where you draw on the screen. This podium lets you sit an iPad in it, with the iPad camera pointing at the object you want to show. The image is sent to a big screen, and you can draw on the image as you talk.

Here you can see someone "drawing" on the screen - if you look at the top of the photo, you can see everything mirrored on the big monitor.

Electricity prices are more expensive than they used to be. This box plugs into your wall - when you turn off your TV with the remote, a signal is sent to this box, which in turn shuts off the power completely, so that the unit doesn't even have standby power. There are various gadgets like this for keeping your power bill down around the house and at work.

This odd-looking stunt is advertising a very clever software trick that we'd guess a lot of businesses don't know about. Instead of keeping and filing reams of invoices and forms, you can scan them using special software that files them away digitally. The software will "read" what's on the paper, in some cases even handwritten notes, and understand how to file it. Various office printer/scanners have this function built-in, but you can buy special software for this job that's a lot more advanced.

In the future, more shops and businesses might even scrap paper for customers to fill in. Here you can see someone signing up for a cable TV package - not with paper, but by circling and ticking the boxes on the screen. This is a special form built for a Wacom tablet.

We all rely on scribbled signatures as a form of trust - but write your signature on this gadget and it's examining it very closely. What you're looking at is a Wacom "esignature" pad. It doesn't just take a digital copy of your signature, but it analyses how hard you're pressing and how fast you write it. Next time you visit the same business, they'll know if it's really you.

This company bills itself as Australia's "fastest, easiest, most cost-effective translation company". They can handle more than 80 languages and have more than 5,000 translators. They charge per hour or per word. Interestingly, this isn't just about translating business documents or speeches - the company can take data in and out of software and web sites.

Here's a handy gadget - it's a mini WiFi printer for the iPad from Brother. You've been able to buy mini printers for the iPad before, but this PJ-673 PocketJet is Brother's first that uses WiFi. Interestingly, it doesn't need toner or ink. Brother is an advertiser on BIT, but we decided to share this with you anyway as we think it's interesting.

Despite all the hype about the cloud, sometimes it's the old-fashioned ways that get the job done. This company has delivery drivers who literally get in a vehicle and bring your backups to your front door if something goes wrong. We chatted to them at the show - they warned businesses to think about how fast they'll get their data back from online backup if they need to do a restore. The company, which is called Tape Management Services (TMS), has storage facilities in capital cities.

Here's an interesting printer - it prints ID badges. Say you need loyalty cards, or discount vouchers, or even ID cards for your staff - this little printer can do it. It's called Badgy and it's advertised on the Officeworks web site.

We worry about recovering data if something goes wrong with our computers - but what about destroying it? Meet the Sledgehammer Hard Drive Destroyer, a machine that destroys hard drives from laptops, desktop computers and servers. Press a button and it punches a hole through the drive with 490K PSI of force. You get a before and after photo as proof. Click the next photo to see the result....

Here's what a drive that's been put through the Sledgehammer looks like. It's not the only trick used to make sure no-one can see your old files. The Sydney company that operates and sells the Sledgehammer in Australia, Data Recovery Tools AustraliaPacific, also puts drives through another important process. Click the next photo to see what it is....

Before they go through physical "trauma", drives are erased. This black box writes "1"s all over the drive, then "0"s. Next, it writes random "1"s and "0"s. Finally, it repeats this seven times (or more if you want). It's a good idea to have hard drives from work erased and destroyed before throwing them out.

Here's a manual version of the Sledgehammer. Push down the arm to put a hole through the drive. SSDs are trickier - they get put through a shredder.

Late last year a Canadian authority lost a portable hard drive that reportedly had hundreds of thousands of names and contact details on it. For this reason, you can actually buy USB keys and hard drives with a PIN pad on them. If someone doesn't type in the PIN, they can't see the data.

Here's a hard drive version. Interestingly, the encryption keys aren't stored on the drive - they are generated on a chip each time.

Scan an invoice with this software and it can recognise the ABN and can put all the details into your accounts payable system and even software like MYOB. It won't solve paperwork, but it's yet another way of being more efficient.

We're not sure how we feel about this - it's a full-HD quality 1080p security camera. Great for crystal clear footage of anyone breaking into your building, but not so comforting if you don't like the idea of being watched. This camera even has an interchangeable lens for an ideal view.

This small black box is a GPS vehicle tracker. It has two-way audio, sensors, can log data, and even engine-stop and speeding functions. It's designed for fleets of trucks, but there's smaller versions for other vehicles.

Remember the gadget we showed you earlier which lets you turn off a light or a heater from your phone? This system lets you turn off your entire house or office. The idea is you can set a budget. If your power bill hits that limit, it sends you a text message and you can turn off circuits using a phone app.

Motion sensitive lights aren't new, but sometimes you have to walk right into a room in the dark before they turn on. This company has lights use a special trick so that they turn on before you enter the room. They're also LED, which we're told is excellent for smooth dimming and not flickering. This company is aiming its lights at warehouses, offices as well as other locations.

Here's a way to market your business that will take a lot of work, but we can bet your rivals aren't doing it. It's an app for creating your own magazine on the iPad. Someone at work will need to be the editor, but if you have some very close customers or partners you could get them involved as bloggers. It's called Issue.

Did you see Part 1 of this photo gallery? Click here.

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Have you seen these gadgets? Look what we spotted at the big CeBIT expo in Sydney

Don’t miss part two of our photo gallery of the most interesting, clever and sometimes fascinating technology at CeBIT in Sydney's Darling Harbour.

Related Articles

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