Review

  Never be without your music with Altec Lansing Bluetooth Portable Speakers!

Once in a while a piece of technology comes along that blows your mind. For me, a gadget which takes the drain out of a task I dread and makes it simple, easy, and gets me through it fast will score 5 stars in my book, and there is no task I dread more than doing my taxes every year.   That’s why the Neat Receipt mobile scanner is my new best friend, and it’s one of the few I’ve immediately texted about to friends and family for two reasons – one, they know the sad story of my mountain of receipts and my yearly struggle to tame them, and two, I had the joy of telling them I’m actually finished with my taxes a month before the deadline and I’m also caught up on sorting my receipts for next year. Thank you so much Neat Receipt mobile scanner.  

What has been one of the most anticipated RPG launches since its debut in Japan in 2012, Bravely Default is a spiritual successor to Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light, and a kickback to longtime RPG gamers, bringing back elements we’ve not seen for a long time (like job designations.)  With numerous gameplay options and difficulties, and one of the best blended Streetpass systems for the 3DS yet, is this one for the ages?  Read on to find out.

Emmet (Chris Pratt) is just an ordinary Lego minifigure, but once he touches something he’s not supposed to, he becomes the “special” and he’s the only one that can stop bad guy, Lord Business (Will Ferrell), who wants to end the world.

Since we originally visited the Weiser Kevo last fall, it has made its way to store shelves and online at BestBuy.ca, and it’s time to take a little more of an in-depth look at this imaginative device, allowing you to enter your house with just the touch of a finger and the magic of Bluetooth technology.  Is it easy to install?  Easy to program?  How is a home handyman novice like me going to fare with replacing a major lock in the house?  Click on to find out.

Titanfall is hoping to take multiplayer gaming to the next level, and become a huge win for Microsoft’s gaming systems, especially the XBox One.  On March 11th, you’ll get to see if the wait was worth it firsthand, and you’ll get the chance to do it in style too with the special limited edition XBox One controller.  Click on to take an up close and personal look at the controller, which is coming soon to Best Buy.

Many of us have more data than we know what to do with. Digital photos, digital movies, MP3s and old school stuff like documents and spreadsheets can start to take up a lot of space on your PC. On your smartphone or tablet, it’s even worse —a lot of those photos get snapped on a smartphone and with limited storage, it doesn’t take long to fill them up. Cloud storage is always an option, but then you’re at the mercy of the provider and there may be charges associated with the service. Western Digital offers a compelling alternative —a “personal cloud”— with its My Cloud series of network hard drives. I tested a 3TB My Cloud drive and came away convinced that this is the best thing to happen to hard drives since USB.  

Sony’s Vaio series of PC laptops has always won points for style and design and the company has become a leader in producing Windows 8 hybrid machines —portables that combine Windows 8 PC and tablet capabilities. I’ve spent the past week trying out Sony’s latest take on the hybrid form factor. After putting it through its paces, I can assure you that the Vaio Fit 15A is one of the most useful variations yet on the tablet/notebook convertible hybrid, a real looker (especially in the black finish of the test unit) and an able performer. It’s held back a little by a few details —a loud and persistent fan, so-so keyboard, and not so stellar battery life among them— but offers a solid portable computer experience, along with tablet capability, in a single package that just happens to look pretty smashing.  

Is it a megaphone? A new age showerhead? An updated version of the popular 1990’s toy Skip-It? Nope, the JBL Spark is an exceptionally unique wireless speaker designed to be mounted like a hanging lamp – and I recently had the opportunity to take one for a test drive.