Using WiFi signals to charge your gadgets

Posted on January 17, 2010 by Mark Urbin

I really like this device from RCA.  It taps WiFi signals and converts the signal to electricity.

The claim is, using only WiFi signals at CES, it was able to charge a BlackBerry from 30% to full in about 90 minutes.  The Airnergy Charger has a battery, so it can suck up power while you are getting your caffeine fix at Starbucks and use to charge your gadget later on.  RCA says that the Airnergy Charger will be available this summer for a mere $40, which is about half  the cost of the Mophie Charger I’m currently using.

Filed under: alternate energy, Gadget | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Nerd Bling

Posted on January 16, 2010 by Mark Urbin

OK,I admit that I’m using the title from the latest episode of TWiT. It just describes this product so well.

The Orb Bluetooth headset/ring. Not only is this trendy nerd jewelry, it has some nice tech included.  Bone conduction and Flexible Organic Light Emitting Device screen that allows you to look at a ring on your finger and see caller ID, voice to text info and more.

Yup, Nerd Bling.

Filed under: cell phone tech, Gadget | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Best tech rumor I’ve heard lately…

Posted on January 15, 2010 by Mark Urbin

From what I’ve read, there was nothing really eye popping at CES this year.  Some cool stuff, but nothing to really thrill anyone.

Apple is having their own press announcement next month.  So of course, Apple tablet rumors have been running hot and heavy again.  I heard the name “iSlate” dropped several times.

My favorite rumor was on a recent episode of TWiT, where one pundit quoted his inside Apple source as saying that there will be a lot of Kindle’s on e-Bay after this announcement.

Filed under: Apple, Etext Reader, Gadget, tech rumors | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

Two new Android phones

Posted on January 8, 2010 by Mark Urbin

AT&T is finally carrying an Android based phone, this one is made by Dell, and called the Mini 3. This phone has been selling overseas already, so the specs are pretty well known. 3.5-inch 640×360 display, Bluetooth, 3 megapixel auto-focus camera with flash, microSD, and GPS.   Two things catch my eye, no WiFi and and microSD support.  So that is the bad and good points right off the bat.  No WiFi was one of the major complaints about the Crackberry Storm.

The inclusion of a microSD slot is a big, big plus.  The lack of an additional memory source is the biggest strike against the iPhone hardware, IMNSHO.

The other new Android phone is Google’s own Nexus 1.  We’ll see how long that name lasts.  The estate of Philip K. Dick is already taking legal action against the name.  Otherwise, this is an impressive bit of hardware. It sports a one-gigahertz processor, a 3.7-inch display, a five-megapixel camera, light and proximity sensors, and dual microphones that allow for noise cancellation.  Woot! This phone also has a removable battery!  The serious road warrior can pack a spare for emergencies.  The phone itself only has 512 Meg of flash memory, but it comes with a 4 Gig microSD card.  The phone will support up to 32 Gig in that slot, so expansion is available.

You can buy an unlocked phone direct from Google fro $529.

Filed under: Android, cell phone tech, Gadget, Google, solar power | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a comment »

iTunes for the UI Fail!

Posted on December 31, 2009 by Mark Urbin

Approaching the two hour mark for what should be a simple iPhone sync.

I flushed the primary drive of my desktop, loaded Windows 7 and and started reinstalling software. All my data is on another drive, so it should be a fairly straightforward process.   To Windows 7’s credit, it has been. Up until I hit iTunes, software from the UI Uber-geniuses at Apple.

I installed iTunes, it found my old information in the my documents folder tree (part of that keeping all the data on a separate drive things), but was treating this as a new instance of iTunes, instead of the continuation of the old one.

I manage my music and movies manually, and sync podcasts and apps.  If I tried to change the default setting to that configuration, I got dire warnings from iTunes that it would erase my phone data and replace it. After a bit of digging, I did the non-intuitive action of transferring my ‘purchases’ from the iPhone to this instance of iTunes.  They I made the selection to sync the podcasts I wanted synced and got the dire warnings again.  I bit the bullet, hit sync, and here I am two hours later, still waiting for iTunes to figure this out.

I’ve made the selection not to send usage data to Apple at least three times, each time, careful to hit the “don’t ask this questions again” button.

I’m still no closer to having Dr. Tiki and the gang loaded on my iPhone. So much for Apple’s ease of use and well known attention to detail in order to improve the user experience.

In this case they have screwed that pouch so hard that poor mutt can’t walk.

Epic Fail for the vaunted Apple UI here.

Filed under: Apple, Gadget, iPhone, Smart Phone | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Abandoned technology

Posted on December 29, 2009 by Mark Urbin

As my readers know, I was a big PDA user. Mostly Palm devices, several of which I still have in good working order, including a Palm i705 and a Palm LifeDrive.  The LifeDrive was a really slick bit of technology with a three Gig hard drive, a SD slot, and both WiFi and Bluetooth support.   I still use it now and then and have a lot of legacy data still stored on it.   All that data is synced to my desktop running XP, and I have some desktop apps to get at the data stored in third party software.  BrainForest for example, a good data organizational tool that was developed for the Palm platform.

Recently I upgraded my laptop to Window 7 (32bit).  This was full, format the drive install. So I started the process of installing the applications on the freshly wiped and loaded system.  Everything went fine until I loaded the Palm Desktop software and tried to synch the LifeDrive.

Windows 7, has been really good at recognizing stuff that gets plugged into it, turned up its nose at my LifeDrive.  I visited the Palm site and it’s seems that they have written off their PDA line.  Not a bad business decision, since the future is in Smart Phones, but I need to get that data exported and accessible before I upgrade my desktop to Windows 7.

Palm’s story is that the software for the desktop and the PDA drivers are now owned by a separate company and it up to them to provide support for Windows 7.   Next step would be to try synching with my LINUX system.  I know there is Palm PDA support in multiple LINUX apps.

Filed under: Gadget, Palm, PDA, Windows7 | Tagged: , , , , | 5 Comments »

I am so getting a few of these.

Posted on December 6, 2009 by Mark Urbin

Power outlets with two USB power points.  There are couple of spots in the house were this would be really useful, especially for charging iPhones.   What is nice about this model is that the adapters don’t draw power when nothing is plugged in, unlike a wall wart.

The rumor is that these will run for $10 and be available in early 2010.

Filed under: Gadget | Tagged: , , | 6 Comments »

The Droid

Posted on November 16, 2009 by Mark Urbin

Verizon has finally gotten what could a be a viable iPhone replacement.  A phone running the latest version of Google’s Andorid OS and a growing supply of applitions.

I haven’t got my hands on one yet, but I’ve read a few reviews that state it stands up quite well in head to head comparisons with the iPhone.  The biggest complaint I’ve heard is that the iPhone has a much deeper pool of applications available.  Not suprising, but I expect the number of Android apps to grow quickly.

Verizon is also pushing its much wider 3G coverage heavily, but it’s still not a GSM network.  That topic has been discussed here, and I’m sure it will again, but I’m still a fan of GSM networks.  It is my opinion that Verizon is going to have to bite that bullet sooner or later.

The Droid phone and its OS have another advantage, open source.  The iPhone is locked down tight by Apple.  It controls your apps, what they can do, and how much data you can transfer over the cell phone network.  An Android based phone, with a SIM slot, is much more flexible.

Filed under: Android, Apple, cell phone tech, Gadget, Google, iPhone, Operating Systems, Smart Phone | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Barnes and Noble enters the e-book reader market

Posted on October 23, 2009 by Mark Urbin

Barnes and Noble has announced the Nook, their e-book reader.

This is in direct competition to Amazon’s Kindle.  It’s a very similar bit of technology, the major difference being that the B&N Nook will allow users to “share” e-books with other Nook users.  It works this way.  You purchase an ebook from B&N on your Nook.  You like it.  You think your buddy, who also has a Nook, would like it. So you can “loan” that book to said buddy.  It will be available to be read on his Nook for two weeks.  My bet is that this will generate a lot a ebook sales.

Now, some may argue that Amazon already owns the  mind share for e-book readers, having crushed the Sony E-Reader in the market.  The Kindle took off because Amazon was already seen as a major e-retailer of books and they had the ability to buy books immediately on the Kindle using mobile Internet technology.  Sony wasn’t known as a book seller and they had no such “instant buy” option.  The Nook has a similar broadband connection to the Kindle and B&N is seen as a major retailer of books by the public.  The fact that B&N has a much larger ebook library than Amazon doesn’t hurt either.

There are two major flaws I can see with the Nook.  First, the whole DRM thing. Second is that it only supports three formats, EPUB, eReader and PDF.  A few more, including unencrypted Mobipocket, would be nice.

Amazon has responded, quietly, with the announcement that they will release free “Kindle software” for the PC platform, so people can read Amazon’s DRM crippled ebooks on their desktop or notebook computers.  MAC and LINUX users are not supported in this release.  Amazon is also selling refurbish (i.e. used) first gen Kindles for $150.

Filed under: etext, Etext Reader, Gadget | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

Apple’s Announcement

Posted on September 19, 2009 by Mark Urbin

Apple made a long anticipated product launch on 9/9/09. What was missing was more interesting than what was announced.

What was announced was interesting. An iPod touch with 64 Gig of memory, but no camera, and a Nano iPod with not just a camera, but a video camera and a FM radio. The Nano’s camera is VGA quality, not HD. The FM radio is a nice touch, but Microsoft is releasing a Zune with a HD FM radio soon.

The 64 Gig iPod touch is interesting, it takes a lot of video to fill up that much RAM. The strictly internal memory in the Apple devices is a solid money maker for Apple. What they charging for additional RAM is no where near what a SD card of the same size would cost. It would also provide a conduit for data in and out of their devices, which isn’t going to happen as long as Steve Jobs has anything to say about it.

What was missing was the Beatles catalog on iTunes and a tablet sized iTouch. The ‘iTablet’ would have made a big splash, and killed the Kindle. The resolution wouldn’t have matched the E-Ink display that the Kindle uses, but the increased functionality would have been the deciding factor. Apps would have to be rewritten to take advantage of the larger screen size, but I think the development community would step up to the challenge. I’m sure that Amazon would update their e-reader app for that platform, even if they understood that it would result in much reduced Kindle sales. Amazon would do so they wouldn’t lose a big chunk of the e-book market that they currently dominate.

Filed under: Apple, Gadget, tech rumors | Tagged: , | 5 Comments »

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