The Hour

Consumer Testing

Gadgets galore for music lovers and more

16 June 2009, 22:26

Gadget guru Colin Kelly joins The Hour with three new technological innovations which are sure to appeal to the music lovers out there (and the plagiarists).

In homes across Scotland music LPs are stacked in a box and placed out of sight, rarely listened to any more, if ever. Fortunately, a new all-in-one gizmo provides the solution of transferring the old classics onto CD without the use of a computer.

Priced at around £299, the Ion LP 2 CD is the fastest and easiest way to convert vinyl records to CD. By placing a record on the turntable and pressing play the internal CD burner will record one or more copies to disc.

The music copier/converter has auto track detection, so it really is matter of just sitting back and relaxing while the LP 2 CD does the work.

There is also a computer connection which allows direct import of music to iTunes, iPod or MP3 players.

While on the subject, the Scottish made K-Box is a portable speaker system with a difference.

Similar in size to the iPhone, the K-Box can connect to any laptop, portable gaming device, MP3 player, mobile phone or TV and using its unique internal gel technology will convert any surface it is laid on into a giant audio speaker. The portable boom box provides a better sound output than the average portable speaker system and is priced at £39.99.

Finally, for those who spend the day in office typing up pages of text from paper documents help is at hand. Rest those tired fingers and pick up an InfoScan3 Lite. By rolling the pen over a printed page of text it will automatically store the text, more than 500 pages, or scan directly into any Windows based application.

The pen has the ability to recognise English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese and can display any text stored on the LCD display. The InfoScan3 Lite retails for around £89.99.

Last updated: 17 June 2009, 07:23