Travel gadgets reviews: The techie life of Brian

Our travel gadgets reviewer, Brian Young, director of On Holiday Group, recommends some apps and gadgets for regular travellers and active holidaymakers.

Our travel gadgets reviewer, Brian Young, director of On Holiday Group, recommends some apps and gadgets for regular travellers and active holidaymakers

MY TAXI (apple/android/windows)
http://www.mytaxi.com/en/home.html

I recently used this free app in Germany. It locates where you are, then finds available taxis in the area. You touch the icon for the nearest taxi and it asks where you wish to go. Once you have selected your booking options and confirmed your address, the app displays the driver’s name, photo, rating, taxi registration number, and how far away it is. It’s available in Barcelona, Germany, Graz, Sydney, Vienna, Warsaw, Washington and Zurich. They are developing it other areas, so keep an eye out for this app. It is brilliant.

Veho 360 portable speaker

http://www.veho-uk.com/main/shop_detail.aspx?article=56

This compact speaker is great if you are travelling. It’s very small, but packs a decent punch and connects to your phone, tablet or laptop. It’s extremely cheap as well, retailing for about £6.99. There are better speakers, such as Jawbones, but these are £100+ and in all honesty, for the times I use speakers on my travels, this little fella is perfect.

Apple TV

http://www.apple.com/uk/appletv/

Forget TV and films, I am talking about using this little black box for your boardroom or meeting rooms. Hook it up via HDMI cable to a flatscreen TV and then if you use iPads, iPhones or Macs at work, simply use Apple TV to project everything on your device onto the screen. Great for presentations or anything where you need a decent-sized screen so lots of people can see the information. It saves on paper and looks great. It can also be used to FaceTime people. It retails at £99.

Dropbox

https://www.dropbox.com/

If you are on the move or have multiple people in your teams then Dropbox is an invaluable tool. It can be used as a central filing system for various departments where all shared data is in one place. People can access Dropbox from laptops, smartphones or tablets, making it really mobile. We used Dropbox for a recent convention where we saved all the presentations and documents relevant to all the meetings there. It also means you can hold data that different people within the business need to access. You get 2Gb of data storage free, which you can upgrade to larger accounts from $9.99 a month.

Hi-Call Bluetooth gloves

http://www.hi-fun.com/en/accessori-iphone-ipod-ipad/hi-call/

These are fun and practical. They have the usual elements in the fingers so you can use a touchscreen device, as well as Bluetooth technology so you can sync it to the phone. When your phone rings, press the pad on the gloves, make the phone sign with your hand – you know the one, thumb up and little finger out, and away you go. When I’m out with the dog on a freezing cold day, I get it. They retail at £49.99 from Firebox.