Wormhole Station connects Windows to Mac to Android to iOS

The PC and Mac advocates have been debating for years over which is superior, with good arguments on both sides; but a third, often overlooked camp exists: people who use both. If you're in that group, then you know how frustrating it can be to have the perks of both machines, but the downside of few easy options for sharing files or peripherals between the two. That's why tech manufacturer j5create has rolled out the Wormhole Switch and the Wormhole Station, which allow file transfers between PC, Mac, Android, and iOS, as well as keyboard and mouse sharing.

The Wormhole Switch may look like a simple USB cord, but actually allows files to be transferred between almost any computer or smart device at USB 2.0 speeds without the need for any extra software. It's as easy as dragging one file to another folder, and can even be used to share a keyboard, mouse, etc. between computers with different operating systems. There are a handful of different models with different functionality:

However the newest product from j5create and a CES 2012 Innovations Award Honoree is the Wormhole Station, which acts as a docking extension for any laptop by using a single USB port. Like the Wormhole Switch, the Station can easily transfer files and share peripherals between Mac, PC, Android, and iOS devices. Sharing a mouse even permits the cursor to pass back and forth between the monitors of separate computers. The compact attachment includes two USB 3.0 ports, which allow for data transfers at a rate of 5Gb/s, as well as slots for various flash memory cards. It's design also elevates a laptop connected to it, allowing for cooler airflow.

The Wormhole Station is available at retailers now for US$109.99.

Doxie Go standalone portable scanner syncs with iOS devices

Apparent is updating its line of portable scanners with the Doxie Go, a lightweight, standalone unit with enough on board storage for up to 600 pages or 2400 photos and the ability to scan directly to an external drive or sync scans to iPad and iPhone without the need for a computer escort.

While Doxie's previous effort - the Doxie U portable scanner - came decorated with pink love hearts that would sit nicely next to a poster of Justin Beiber, the Go takes on a more executive look with its streamlined white finish.

Measuring 10.5" x 1.7" x 2.2" (26.7 cm x 4.35 cm x 5.6 cm) and weighing in at 14.2 oz (403g), the Go has a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that's good for consuming about 100 documents before it needs recharging and scan speed is specced at eight seconds per full-color page, so it's not lightning quick.

The company's included Doxie 2.0 software automatically syncs scans to your computer when connected via USB and is set up for simple transfer to Evernote, Dropbox, Flickr and Google Docs. There's also automatic recognition, cropping, rotation and contrast adjustment, a "software stapler" tool for creating multi-page documents and ABBYY® OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology which is designed to create easily searchable PDFs that can be copied and pasted.

JPEG and PNG files can also be created while an SD slot adds to the Doxie Go's storage expansion options.

Recharging is via USB and a full recharge takes about 2 hours, but if you need to get on the road again in a hurry there's a charging kit available for US$19.

The Doxie Go is slated to hit shelves in late November at a price of $US199.

There's little detail at this stage on the iPhone/iPad Sync Kit except that it enables you to upload scanned files directly into your photo roll. The kit will be released in December and will set you back a further $US39. The ABBYY® OCR functionality will also be available in December as a software upgrade.

Adobe Touch Apps for tablets and Creative Cloud hub unveiled

At the recent Adobe MAX 2011 conference, Adobe announced a lineup of Touch Apps tailored for Android and iOS-based devices, including a touch-operated tablet version of Photoshop. Touch Apps will be available either as standalone products, or as components of a larger web-based service called Adobe Creative Cloud, which was also unveiled.

Offered as a monthly paid service, Adobe Creative Cloud is a set of cloud-based programs and services, intended to become a "creative hub" for professionals. It allows viewing, sharing and syncing of files created by Adobe Touch Apps and Adobe Creative Suite.

Apart from Touch Apps, it will offer web-accessible Adobe Suite tools including Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Premiere Pro, After Effects and new tools such as Adobe Edge and Muse. Adobe Publishing Suite and Adobe Business Catalyst services, as well as the Typekit fonts library, will be also available.

Coming with 20GB of cloud storage, Creative Cloud will require a subscription fee, with pricing details to be announced in November. The service will be available by early 2012.

Designed to work with both finger and stylus input, Adobe Touch Apps include:

• Photoshop Touch - touch-optimized image editing software with some features equal to the desktop version
• Collage - allows the creation of conceptual "moodboards," combining images, drawings and text, in order to capture ideas and concepts
• Debut - allows users to quickly present Adobe Suite projects on a tablet
• Proto - enables the development of interactive wireframes and prototypes for websites and mobile apps on a tablet
• Ideas - vector-based tool for drawing
• Kuler - enables users to generate color themes

Available from November 2011 for Android, Adobe Touch Apps will have an introductory pricing of US$9.99 each. iOS availability will be announced by early 2012 (Ideas is already available for iPad).