Microvision has been working on a crazy little laser-based projector. And when I say little, I mean itty-bitty. Teeny tiny. Seriously, the entire thing looks to be about the size of a stack of three quarters (it’s the funny little squarish bit to the right of the phone). And supposedly, in a darkened room, it will project an image up to 100 inches across. Continue reading →
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Well, here we have it, straight from Spain. One of the first Google Phone (Goophone, G-Phone, whatever the nom du jour is) prototypes. This particular unit was built by ARM (a chip maker out of Britain), and was, as you can see, given the catchy brand name “HT723G700457″. Thrice. I’m not sure why they felt it advantageous to imprint that little gem three times. I guess it’s a brand they really want to imprint on people.
Anyway, it sounds like a pretty cool little gadget. It runs Gmail for email, Google Maps for navigation, and of course the default home page for the browser is, you guessed it, Google. I wonder if any manufacturers plan on building free GPS nav functionality into their phones using Google Maps. I’d even be happy with the pseudo-gps cell phone tower nav people have been talking about lately. I hope so. That would be a killer app, if you ask me. Continue reading →
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This coming week is the Mobile World Congress, and according to some reports there’s going to be something like 10-12 “Google Phones” there. I use the term Google Phone loosely, because almost all of the rumored phones are simply phones based on Google’s mobile phone OS, Android.
Android is an intriguing little bit of code. It’s something Google developed in conjunction with the Open Handset Alliance. Based upon Linux, the intent of Android is to develop and open mobile OS that can be used by any handset manufacturer. It sound pretty cool, but there are bigger things on the horizon.
The real star of the show (as far as we’re concerned), and the question mark in everyone’s mind is whether Google will actually have its very own prototype handset to show off to the world there at the show. There are an awful lot of people who seem to think Google’s going to have one there for us to see. We’ve speculated about the possibily of a “Goophone” in the past. I guess we’ll know Monday.
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I got the Zune 80 just a day or two after it was released. Generally speaking, I’m not a big fan of all things Microsoft, but the Zune has really been a treat. Microsoft has been trying to develop the Zune into an iPod-killer (or a reasonable-alternative-to-iPod, or at bare minimum a not-overly-embarrased-in-the-presence-of-an-iPod). Now I really can’t compare the Zune to the entire line of iPods with any authority, but if you saw my recent rant against the iPod Touch, you’ll not be surprised when I say the Zune is head and shoulders better than the Touch.
Argue with me all you want, I stand by my guns. The Zune 80, for starters, has 10 times the storage for $50 less. Also, you might have a chance of finding a Zune on sale, where Apple’s communist-level price control bosses won’t allow anything Apple to sell for one penny cheaper than MSRP until they’re good and ready. Steve Jobs is a control Nazi.
Really, though, there’s more to it than price and storage. When I’m really feeling honest with myself I might be willing to admit that the 16GB iPod Touch really has about all the storage I could realistically use. At this point I only have some 8-9GB on the Zune anyway. Other things that I appreciate are the presence of more than one button. Three to be exact, but one does many things. Also, it does a bang-up job of playing music. Which, when it comes down to it, is the reason I want an mp3 player. I don’t really care to have 9 billion functions, none of which are really well implemented. And it’s not just gagging to be stolen, at least not as much as the Touch. Since I listen to NPR a lot (embarrasingly so), the FM radio is much appreciated. Oh, and the interface is pretty. And simple. And gets the job done without any fuss. And without drawing attention to itself.
In the end, that’s what does if for me more than anything. The Zune 80 is simple, gets the job done, and doesn’t draw unnecessary attention to itself. If you want the flash and the glitz, go for the iPod Touch, but the Zune is the player for me.
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I have an old 20GB iPod and even though I have a lot of music on there, I am only taking up half of the space available. So there’s another 10GB kicking around doing nothing and so I decided to start putting some useful iPod tools on there for when I’m on the move. Some of that space was allocated for installing one of my favourite websites - Wikipedia.Yes that’s right. Thanks to iPodLinux, you can now have the entire Wikipedia encylopedia on your iPod. Clocking in at only 1.7 GB of space, it is a very handy tool if you have the sudden uncontrollable urge while out at the shops to discover the capital of Mongolia or the mating habits of eels. The Wikipedia file is updated approximately once every 6 months so you won’t have the most up-to-date version but hey it’s free and Mongolia isn’t going to change their capital anytime soon.
It’s very easy to set this up but the actual Wikipedia file is so huge that it takes a long time to download. I have been waiting for 35 minutes and the download is only at 40%. So be prepared to wait a while for the file to be finished.
1. First connect your iPod to your computer and fire up iTunes. Then make sure the box “enabling disk use” is ticked. This is extremely important otherwise you won’t be able to move any files on there. Then close down iTunes.
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I recently sold my iPod Touch through Craigslist. I’d had it for a month, and couldn’t stand it any longer. I’m normally a pretty big fan of Apple products; my desktop computer is a Mac Mini, and I lust after the new Macbook Air, but the iPod Touch really isn’t as wonderful as Apple would have you believe. Desirable, yes, but wonderful, no. I attribute the desirability to Apple’s incredible marketing and design departments, not it’s functionality. What it comes down to is the following:
It’s an mp3 player, not the cure for cancer – The way Steve Jobs has hyped the gadget, you’d think the iPod Touch would cure cancer, bring world peace, bring an end to the global hunger epidemic, and bring comfort to the huddled masses. Obviously, it does none of that. But it does play mp3s. I think Steve Jobs set the expectation for the poor thing way too high, so it should come as no surprise that it doesn’t quite live up to the hype.
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