Since many companies like to keep future new releases under tight wraps so they don’t short-circuit sales of their current products, we can’t predict what all the new hot gadgets will be this year. But we did see a fair amount of intriguing stuff at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas and we know that plenty of sequels to today’s popular products are on the way–whether the company wants you to know it or not.
On long train rides, one of the hardest parts thing to figure out is when to get off. It doesn’t help that there are no announcements made at the various stations. So what I did was to use my iPhone as a GPS navigator to determine my location. But here’s the catch–the iPhone does not allow you to turn off the cell service and leave the GPS on to save power. As such, I had to depend on my USB battery pack to power the device on overnight rides. Suffice to say, without this iPhone and USB charger combo, my journey might have taken even longer after enduring a 14-hour train delay and 24-hour train ride. Another wonderful use for the USB battery pack was when I went to the mountains in Sikkim. This genius thought that all of India was hot so the mountain air should make for pleasant weather. Wrong! It was so cold that oil turned to butter in a matter of minutes and, furthermore, I was monumentally under clothed. In this instance, I kicked my self for laughing at USB-powered mittens and boots, as I could have powered them with my battery pack to keep frostbite away.
