Technology Reseller v09

technolog y reseller.co.uk 27 INNOVATIONS Sound barrier New from Nimans is the Polycom VoxBox USB/Bluetooth speakerphone. Featuring Polycom ‘NoiseBlock’ technology to eliminate non-speech background noise, the portable unit brings together a quartet of directional microphones with a three-metre pick up range. Windows exclusive stylus Adonit INK, a fine point stylus created for Windows powered tablets and devices, is now available in the UK. Certified by Microsoft, the Adonit INK has a 1mm, pressure-sensitive tip that emulates real handwriting with variable line widths and a convenient palm rejection feature that lets users write naturally without inadvertently making extra marks on the page. The INK offers 80 hours of battery life and a full charge time of just 45 minutes by USB. www.adonit.net Low light highlight Samsung’s new Galaxy S9 and S9+ smartphones come with an advanced camera featuring a Dual Aperture lens for low light image capture, Super Slow motion video and AR Emoji. The Galaxy S9 and S9+ feature the Super AMOLED Infinity Display first introduced on the Galaxy S8; expandable memory (to 400GB with a Micro SD Card); IP687 water and dust resistance; wireless charging; and Knox 3.1, Samsung’s latest defence-grade security platform. www.samsung.com Multimode devices Lenovo has expanded its 2-in-1 family with the Yoga 730, available with 13 and 15-inch screens, and the 14-inch Yoga 530. The Windows 10-based convertibles boast a 360-degree hinge that transitions easily from tablet mode to laptop mode and back again. Key features include up to 8th Generation Intel Core i7 processing, a fingerprint reader and Active Pen support. The Yoga 730 harnesses the power of AI, with both Cortana and Alexa built-in. www. lenovo.com Lasting power The TC25 from Zebra Technologies is a rugged smartphone designed for field workers in small and medium-sized businesses. It has a durable exterior, all-day battery life and powerful onboard processor for running job tracking, navigation and messaging applications. Accessories include a hand-strap, holster, snap-on power pack and snap-on trigger handle. www.zebra.com Clear recordings Philips Dictation has introduced a wireless version of its SpeechMike Premium voice recorder that lets users move around up to five metres from the docking station The SpeechMike Premium Air features a studio-quality microphone and a built-in triple layer noise reduction filter for the most accurate speech recognition results. It can be used with the Philips speech-to-text service, SpeechLive, which automatically transcribes speech into Word documents using Philips SpeechExec Pro 10 software integrated with Dragon Professional. Alternatively, users can use the SpeechLive voice recorder app to record, edit, and send dictation files for transcription anywhere in the world. www.speechlive.com World’s fastest Western Digital has released the world’s fastest UHS-I flash memory card. At 160MB/s, the 400GB SanDisk Extreme UHS-I microSDXC card is more than 50% faster than current SanDisk Extreme UHS-I microSD cards. www.sandisk.com Compare and contrast Google has launched two tools to help businesses assess the effectiveness of their mobile sites. A Speed Scorecard allows them to measure the speed of their mobile site and compare it to the top brands, while an Impact Calculator shows how much revenue they could gain by improving page speed. www.thinkwithgoogle.com/feature/ mobile/ CRM uncovered Zia Voice is a conversational AI for sales teams that adds speech and chat capabilities to Zoho’s AI-powered sales assistant. Through simple chat and voice messages, Zia can provide answers to standard CRM information like the number of new leads created, average deal revenue and monthly forecasts. Zia can also analyse the progress of deals in the pipeline and suggest the likelihood of closure, ensuring that salespeople spend their time on the deals that have the greatest chance of being completed. www.zoho.eu Heads-up on headsets Sennheiser has launched HeadSetup Pro Manager, a cloud-based IT management solution that facilitates the tracking, monitoring, updating and configuration of multiple Sennheiser devices from a single, easy to use dashboard. IT departments can receive an overview of active and inactive audio devices; push out software updates to all headsets; centrally configure settings; and create reports on headset usage. www.sennheiser.com A head for figures Online accounting software provider Intuit Quickbooks has launched a conversational chatbot for QuickBooks Self-Employed and QuickBooks (Beta) to help users navigate their finances. QB Assistant reveals key financial data points, from tax obligations and expense tracking to cash flow and profitability, using data-driven insights and natural language processing to understand what information the user is after. www.quickbooks.co.uk