My friend Tom test-driving some monitor specs (not the real name) at Macworld. George –who took this photos– says it’s like looking at a 100 inch, plasma TV screen. Note the ear buds. Tom’s on his third viewing of Girl Geeks Gone Goofy (R).
Category Archives: Gadgets & Apps
First Bluetooth webcam?
So says Ecamm who showed this little bugger at Macworld. George saw it and says the video and audio are pretty good. And if you plug in a little dongle, you can increase the bluetooth range to 100 feet. Standard 640×480 H.264 video with 48 kHz AAC stereo audio and a promised four hours of talk time. Looks like it’s about the size of a deck of playing cards.
iLife ’09
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Of all the things I enjoy doing on the computer, messing with images (still and video) has to be near the top of the list. You’ve heard me and others talk about how the Mac –or, more accurately, the software running on a Mac– makes working with media easier and more fun.
Today at Macworld, Apple made a number of announcements, as they do every year, including a new version of iLife, the suite of applications for working with photos, movies, music, etc.
The brief video tours of iPhoto and iMovie illustrate why we Mac users get so excited we pee our pants. My copy is on the way.
Gmail users can view PDF files w/o downloading
I hate clicking a link and discover it’s to a PDF file and Acrobat Reader begins its torturous load. Or a PDF comes as an attachment to an email and I just want to quickly peek at the document. That hasn’t been a problem since moving to Mac.
And now Gmail users can view a PDF file without downloading it, thanks to a new “View” link. Clicking “View” quickly opens the PDF inside your browser, complete with the graphics and formatting you expect to see in a PDF.
When I’m asked, “Why do you like Gmail better than Outlook?” I struggle to give them a useful answer. It’s really a hundred little things like the feature above.
IowaScanStream.com
Kudos to the folks behind IowaScanStream.com (“Streaming the Iowa Public Safety Bands to the World”). They didn’t stop with streaming audio (on USTREAM) of radio call traffic from the Des Moines police and fire departments. That’s just the old broadcast model, taken to the web.
They added a Twitter feed, manned by someone with a sense of humor (as much as good taste allows). Here are the tweets from the last couple of hours. I flagged a couple of my favorites.
“Police cautiously en route.”
No idea what the business model is, or if there is one. Or how many people they have manning the scanners. Most of us don’t have time to listen but we can follow the madcap murder and mayhem thanks to IowaScanStream.com.
Flip HD
If you’d like to see/hear a side-by-side comparison, I’ve put both videos on this page. The first thing that jumps out at me is how much better the audio is on the Casio, even though it’s using a built-in mic like the Flip. And I think the quality of the video is a little better but that could be a function of how the two device encode for YouTube.
If you want to see the original, uncompressed video from the Flip, you can download the first 30 seconds (35 MB!). It’s not bad. NYT tech columnist David Pogue likes it, too. According to Pure Digital, (the makers of the Flip?) the little camera has 30% of the camcorder market.
ABC News iPhone app
From LifeHacker: “The latest entry into news-based iPhone apps, ABC News offers top stories, location-specific news alerts, and videos from shows like Good Morning America and 20/20.”
What does this mean for local ABC affiliates? Why won’t every news organization offer an app like this? Will I still turn on the ABC World News when I get home in the evening, or will I already have seen the news?
Scott Adams: Future of your phone
This post by Scott Adams illustrates why I think owning a smart phone is important. He makes some predictions about future applications:
WHATS-HIS-FACE: This application would let you discreetly take an iPhone photo of an acquaintance whose name you can’t remember then it uses face recognition to search for the name online. Someday everyone will have a Facebook-like web page, so searching for faces will be feasible.
DOCTOR-IN-A-BOX: Someday you’ll be able to take an iPhone picture of your suspicious moles, abrasions, fungus, or whatever and get an instant automated diagnosis and suggested treatment.
WHAT’S-IT-LIKE-THERE? Imagine wondering how long the line is to an event, or what a particular forest fire looks like, for example. You send a query through your iPhone for anyone who is in that area, according to GPS tracking, and ask for a look. A kind stranger takes your query, sets his phone to stream video, and gives you the view from his perspective. You would have eyes anywhere there are people.
BRAIN-EXTENDER: Google and Wikipedia are already brain extenders. You can find almost any information you want and quickly. But imagine how much cooler it would be if your iPhone headset was continuously monitoring your conversations and answering your questions as they arise, or whispering suggestions in your ear. That application seems likely to me.
Before dismissing these, think about how unlikely it would have sounded if someone had told you it was possible to have have your phone “listen” to a song and tell you the name and artist.
As I get more familiar with the iPhone, I find myself thinking more about my use of –and relationship with– The Web. More and more of my time is spent in “the cloud.” Typepad, Gmail, Flickr, YouTube. My laptop, desktop and phone have become a means to “get to” and interact with my stuff out there.
The iPhone makes you aware of how much time you were not connected. Even with the MacBook at my side.
I overheard some of the regulars at the Towne Grill trying to come up with the name of some actor in a TV show. I couldn’t remember either but looked down at the iPhone and thought how easy it would be to google the answer. But that wouldn’t have been in the spirit of the discussion.
Putting aside the warnings of the The Matrix, Terminator and countless other movies and books… I find myself thinking of the web as one big old computer that we all use. And when it becomes smarter than we are (and self-aware) I want to be connected. All the time.
Google News Reader on iPhone
I have difficulty eating unless I am reading something. It can be anything. The back of a cereal box I’ve read 100 times before, a phone bill, anything.
I used to buy USA Today each morning but stopped a couple of years ago. Since then I have book with me or stories from the web, printed out the night before. When eating breakfast at home, I sometime just flip open the Mac. Not practical at the Town Grill.
But the iPhone… with Google’s News Reader app? Hard to resist. Flip the phone to landscape orientation and the stories are easy to read and flip through.
Only marginally related…
I’ve been making more phone calls since getting the iPhone. Old friends I haven’t spoken to in years. I’ve been thinking about why I didn’t call them on the tracfone (which expires today, I believe). The reason, I’ve concluded, is that it was too hard to enter all those phone numbers. I just never got around to it. Since the iPhone syncs with damned near evertything on the MacBook… there’s very little data entry on the phone. And you know what, I love associating a photo with each contact. Yeah, this is old stuff to long-time mobile users, but still new and fun for me.
You are what you ring
There are just so many ways to be an asshole with a mobile phone. You can be the jerk that lets you know he’s hot shit by barking orders to the folks back at the office. Or the dildo that can’t remember to turn off the ringer in a movie or conference, no matter how many times he’s reminded.
I’m still a mobile newbie but my plan is to excuse myself when I get a call while with others, and step away to quietly take the call or arrange to call them back.
And then there are ring tones. No way around it, your ringtone says something about you. I know this from the disdainful looks I always got when my Tracfone busted out with one of the classic tones.
The new iPhone comes with some nice ringtones but none of them are really me. (Well, maybe the quacking duck) Fortunately, I stumbled across the Zen collection from iRing Pro.
These aren’t ring “tunes.”
These aren‘t some 11-year-olds’ ringtones. You’ll find no annoying songs, or silly sound effects. The Zen Collection consists of smart, attractive, livable alerts engineered to ensure universal appeal, and provide a high tolerance for routine use and repetition.I heard you the first time.
iRingPro iPhone Ringtones are timed with moderately longer pauses between ring repeats. So there is no hurried fumbling, no urgency. You have time to see who’s calling, often before the second ring. You’re in control, not your phone.You are what you ring.
A phone’s ring broadcasts many things about its user. iRingPro iPhone Ringtones ensure that what is perceived when your phone rings is technically advanced, considerate, and envyingly fashionable. Now, more than ever, a professional presence can make the difference.
Also from their website: “You own the best phone money can buy, we believe it should sound like it.” Hell, yeah.