Gadgetory

more and more Android devices are becoming compatible with a little-known technology called USB on-the-go or USB OTG it lets you tune your phone or tablet into a USB host and connect standard USB accessories like flash drives hard drives gaming controllers keyboards and more by now I'm sure you're wondering how the heck you're supposed to connect a USB device like this into a micro USB port like this well the secret is this 2 dollar USB OTG adapter you can find it online at a place like Amazon for a few bucks or less like I mentioned though it's not compatible with every phone and tablet and in some cases only handful of USB accessories will work with your phone but the Samsung Galaxy s3 coupled with the OTG adapter works with an impressive number of USB devices why don't I demo a few starting with a USB flash drive when you plug a flash drive in the phone will immediately display the contents from here you can play back or view any media you have on the drive you can also move data from the USB drive to your phone's SD card by tapping and holding the file you want to move other storage devices including memory card readers will also work with the adapter so in theory you could shoot photos with your digital camera and quickly transfer them to your Android phone for editing and uploading on an app like Instagram if you do a lot of typing on the go you'll be happy to hear that with the adapter you can connect a keyboard to your Android plug it in fire up a notepad and you can start typing as usual you can even use shortcuts like control a and control Z but what really surprised me is that when you plug a mouse into the USB port even a wireless mouse a pointer shows up on the screen from there you can use the mouse just as you would your finger you can swipe through pages select icons and more I can't think of any practical applications for this but it is pretty cool ok this one is crazy and awesome you connect a ps3 controller to your Android and not only navigate the interface like swipe through pages and apps but you can also play games just plug the controller into the USB port and launch a game like Super Sonic not every game works with this so you'll have to do some testing to find out if your favorite games will work but in Sonic for example I can use my ps3 controller the way I would a psycho controller running jumping all those actions work swiftly with this setup from what I hear the Xbox controller works too but I haven't tested that yet so those are just a few ways this $2 cable can make your Android device a whole lot more useful and fun my advice is to try other devices - like a USB microphone or even a MIDI keyboard for you musicians if you discover any cool uses please let me know on Twitter and check out my blog on how to see Netcom for the complete guide to the USB OTG adapter for C net I'm Sharon Vaknin