Page 29 - Computeractive - January 2, 2018 UK

TRACKING D EVICE ❘ £25 from A mazon www.snipca.com/26362
Tha t w a s t h e n…
TrackRPixel T h i s i s n o w !

For l osers How t echnologyhas c hanged

Zip d rive
WHAT WAS I T?
Launched i n 1 994 by ybyy
Iomega, the Z ip drive ( pictured) c ould
read and w rite r emovable m agnetic
disks t hat looked a b it like 1.44MB 3.5in
floppies b ut could s tore a h uge 100MB
each. It wasn’t t he first high-capacity
The TrackR Pixel i s a l ittle p lastic Pixel g ives up the g host, a n ew removable-disk system, but it was
fob c ontaining a B luetooth chip to flat C R2016 c ell ( £6 for 1 0 simple and c heap enough t o a ppeal
which y our s martphone will connect from Amazon www.snipca. to consumers.
when close b y . Y o u c an put it on a com/26361) w ill bring it
keyring or stick i t t o a n o bject. The back t o l ife. HOW H A V E T HINGS CHANGED?
point i s t hat w hen i t g oes o ut of range, Setting u p t he Pixel i s e asy . As In 1999, I sraeli company M -Systems
its app c an tell you w here you h ad it last, with the T ile, the a pp tells you r oughly patented an 8MB SSD built i nto a U SB
making whatever it’s attached to very where t he TrackR was l ast d etected v ia stick. It stored data o n flash memory
difficult to lose. your phone’s GPS, t hen h elps you fi nd it rather than a m echanically r otating
with a s ignal-strength meter and t he magneticdisk.Floppies r emained the
It stops y ou losing option of playing a l oud n oise on the favoured medium for e veryday
Pixel’s t iny s peaker. I t o nly w
backups, but as USB ports became
orks at short
your possessions, b ut range, so the a pp will lose track o f i t a s commonplace i t w as easier to share
soon as you
ove a way, a nd other u sers
m
files with other users o n a ‘ stick’
you m ay lose patience will only l ocate i t i f t hey p ass c lose to – a nd USB stick capacities k ept d oubling
m
onths. T oday, a USB 3.0
every few
it and
f or long e nough to register. It’s
with its u nreliability a b it slower to connect t han t he Tile, b ut 128GB stick costs a round £ 30, s toring
does the j ob. 1,280 times as much as an original Zip
Y o u c an set a S eparation Alert to warn disk for t he same price.
What’s even better, t here’s a l arge you i nstantly if you m ove o ut of range, These days, e xternal h ard d rives o ffer
community o f T rackR u sers (this i s a n ew but this can give a l ot of false a larms. A nd the l owest costs p er gigabyte, w hile Morn/Wikimedia CC-BY-SA 3.0
version, b ut they’ve b een i n b usiness a you c an use t he Pixel b ackwards to call a online storage has replaced physical
while n ow) t hat s erve as extra fi nders. lost phone, w hich m akes a s ound even if devices f or many sharing and b ackup
When you a ctivate Crowd L ocate, their it’s on silent – a nd this doesn’t r equire an purposes.
phones w ill look for y our P ixel too. If internet connection. H owever, t his w as
they find i t, the a pp will tell you, b ut not erratic in our t ests.
them. I t’s a c lever i dea, and w hen w e NEXT ISSUE ONSALE
Weds
logged on in London we found n early SPECIFICATIONS 3 J an
5,000 TrackRs n earby , which i s Bluetooth LE tag •• Up to 30-metre range •• Requires Asus ZenBook UX410UA
obile device with iOS 8 o r A ndroid 4.4 or higher
a m
reassuring. J ust t ry not to mislay with Bluetooth LE •• 5.6x26x26mm ( HxWxD) Sleek W indows 10
anything in the O rkney i slands. www.snipca.com/26360 laptop for l ess
It’s a s imilar concept to the T ile ( www. than £600
snipca.com/19841, see o ur review , Issue VERDICT: We like the r eplaceable
489), with one c rucial difference – t he battery and t he TrackR c ommunity, b ut
Pixel h as a r eplaceable it’s more r eluctant t o b e f ound than its
battery . All v ersions of the rival t he Tile
Tile so far a re disposable ★★★☆☆
as soon as their p ower
New New
Ne
runs out, w hich i s ALTERNATIVE: Tile Mate £19 It’s slightlyig ly Ne Y ear, new P C
typically a fter about a bigger and h as a fi xed Top d esktop PC picks
year. Th is means you’re battery, b ut connected for u nder £800
paying 20-odd quid again faster for u s; other These and uch more…
uch more…
These and m m
(minus a 5 0 p er cent sizes and s hapes a re
discount if you t rade in also available Subscribe to Computeractive at
the o ld one). When the www.getcomputeractive.co.uk
20 December 2017 – 2 J anuary 2 018 29