AirStash A02, $150, www.airstash.com
The AirStash A02 by Maxell is an odd duck. It's basically a little USB-powered Wi-Fi hot spot with on-board storage. Using a related iPhone or iPad app, you can view the files stored on the AirStash -- music, documents, photos and movies -- essentially adding up to 32GB of extra storage to your phone or tablet.
The device is about as big as a pack of gum and has a single button that turns it on and off. A built-in SD card reader lets you add and remove storage. Using the AirStash app, you connect to the device and start adding and removing files. You can charge the A02 using any USB port and it shows up as a storage device when plugged into a computer.
The device is $150; the app is free.
The AirStash A02 allows you to stream large movie files and documents directly from the device, freeing up space on your iPhone or iPad -- a boon for those who may want to watch movies or store PDFs or documents for viewing on the go. The AirStash lasts seven hours on one charge and it is available now online and in stores.
It may not blow your hair back like other Maxell products, but the AirStash could be one of those quietly useful things that works its way into your tech wardrobe.
FOR SIRI, COMPETITION THAT DOESN'T TALK BACK
Dragon Go, free, www.nuance.com
Siri is a perfectly lovely bit of artificial intelligence, but she isn't always cooperative. Ask Siri to book airplane tickets, make a dinner reservation or find a song on Pandora, and she politely declines.
This is where Dragon Go comes in. It's a less personable but more capable app for people who like to speak instructions to the phone.
Dragon Go, from Nuance Communications, works differently from Siri. For one thing, it doesn't talk back. You issue instructions and it carries them out. Another is that it tells you where it is getting its information. So if you ask it to book a table at a restaurant, it will return findings from OpenTable, the online reservation service.
