Category: gadgets and technology

Sounds like a very cool demo and I certainly like the sound of the UC.?
In my work with Intel, I’ve gotten wind and seen some cool stuff as well though it usually lives in presentation rather than live and in person.

Lastly, the Universal Communicator was a great idea, but I dare anyone at Intel to get it past the cellphone carriers. With five different radio
signals built in seamlessly, you could easily switch from a VoIP call, to a GSM call, then move to WiFi and to a GPS network—all without any interruption. Except explain to me why any carrier would want to switch you from a paid call to a free one? I certainly can’t. Maybe Intel has some inside deals working.

The Future of Intel–Kinda – Gizmodo

Engadget scored some pics and a hands-on of Ruby another potentially slick micro-PC Handheld.

Technorati Tags: intel, gadgets

Seems like things have finally heated up in the race for the ultimate communicator – and nice timing for Palm now that they’ve all but left the race.

In lane 1, the Treo 700w which will run Windows Mobile 5. Many are already aware and comfortable with the hardware and I am sure it will be quite nice given my own usage with a Treo 600 and Treo 650. I keep hearing good things about the latest rev in mobile Windows, and I think this phone will attract quite a few Blackberry users, though it’s unclear whether Blackberry mail is supported so this may actually be a tricky one for corporate buyers. Microsoft has Exchange 2003 sync in the box which is pretty good, but not BB. This will apparently support EV-DO data through Verizon which is excellent as you’ll get a nice mobile broadband connection for all your data needs…

In lane 2, the Motorola Q phone…will also run Windows Mobile 5. It’s coming from the same team that brought the RAZR and looks very slim and sexy. MOT is billing it as the thinest QWERTY phone and perhaps it will be… Again no BB sync, though Exchange is an attractive alternative. You get a very rich feature set in a sleek and slim package… not clear yet whether this is a true 3G capable phone working on either EV-DO and UTMS / HSPDA or what. MOT is apparently pushing to get this out by the end of the year in 2005 knowing things are heating up in the space.

Lane 3 holds the dark horse only because Nokia has not had much success selling smartphones. Regardless, the Nokia E61 looks very slick. You get it all in this baby, except for a camera, which will allow corporate appeal. The features are seemingly endless here… WCDMA, WLAN – allowing for both data and VOIP functions, full office compatibility (the others have this as well) and multimedia.

All in all an interesting group. I am definitely intrigued by both the Nokia and MOT phones… they looks very cool. I“m more inclined towards the Nokia only because I’ve steered pretty clear of mobile Windows, though these days it looks like it will be pretty hard to avoid. I’ve skipped over the latest and pending devices from RIM because I use one now and find they are more limited than other platforms with a significant over-balance on email. My blackberry is good on calendar and phone as well, but really sucks on ToDo list management and there is a much more limited list of applications to consider adding in…

I think we’ll have to wait on most of these to see not only who carries them, but what limitations are imposed as a result. It’s going to be a good race to watch… and certainly participate in as well – gotta have the goods.

Technorati Tags: Windows Mobile, Treo, Nokia

While a bit dated, this is an extremely helpful overview of Nikon lens technology and terms. If you use a Nikon SLR or DSLR, you should definitely check this out.

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Chris Lanier posts an interesting reply to the ongoing dialog on HD on MCE which is summed up nicely in the last few paragraphs of here:

Thomas’ idea of the “closed box inside of an open box” is what PVP-OPM (Protected Media Path) is all about. You have an open box that is your PC, and with the framework in Vista and hardware that will take advantage of it, you have your closed box. The reason it looks like Microsoft might not care about HDTV, is because Media Center is of course built on-top of Windows XP. Windows XP doesn’t provide the framework to enable these solutions to work. In fact, the changes are so drastic in the framework that it’s doubtful Microsoft could apply them in XP at all. Windows Vista will change all of this!

Windows Vista, as I keep saying, will bring a world of new opportunities to the PC and hopefully will provide Thomas (and everyone else) with the platform he wants with the features he wants. If you look at some of the functionality that Vista will be able provide it easy to see that Microsoft does care about HD, and they are working towards solutions for Media Center and the PC in general.

PVP-OPM and related technologies should bring CableCARD support. HD-DVD will provide Managed Copies to your hard drive. You will be able to stream DVD’s (the ones you own now!) around your home network to other devices. You might even be able to rip them to your hard drive (legally) too. Media Center will provide the central location to manage and explore all of your content using a remote and a polished interface. Media Center Extenders and the Xbox 360 will bring the ability to move the content to other rooms in your home without needing a PC in each room. There will be even more that can happen once Vista is released too!

It stinks that we can’t have this functionality now, but wait until Windows Vista ships and I can bet some of the current issues will be addressed! [Chris Lanier’s Blog]

If we all just waited for Vista to buy a new system I don’t think HP, Dell, Gateway, Microsoft or Intel would be too psyched. Think about all the lost sales due to waiting on a product which has been coming soon for years. Sure, it’s on the books for end of 2006, but that’s 3 big purchase cycles away!

I don’t think things will change sooner, I guess my point is that you have to be careful stating stuff like this or you can really impact the goals of quite a few companies all playing on the collective team. Sure most users or potential buyers don’t spend their time surfing developer and enthusiast blogs, but more are and they can certainly be influenced.

HD is important, it’s not the only thing, but it’s important nonetheless. Personally I will probably be waiting to see what happens. MCE today is close, not not there for me on a variety of fronts. There is no way I would go back to SD for TV and I can’t live with the music library management issues either.

Technorati Tags: MediaCenter, Vista, HDTV

CNet lists the Top 10 worst products. Quite the list of things people thought would be damn good, but mainly sucked.

Recently, Thomas Hawk opened an interesting dialog via blog on the limitations of MCE and gets some good though defensive replies from Charlie Owen of the e-Home group at MS.

It’s all good stuff… at least it’s a healthy dialog, but continues to bring up the weakness of the platform for power users. I’d really like to see MCE (or a system from Apple) succeed in this category but it has to work for more than just simple users. Tivo (outside of DirectTV and $1000) does not support HDTV. MCE supports OTA HDTV, but can’t handle cable or sat connections at all. This is largely due to restrictions from the carriers and possibly the content owners since a PC is a more of an open system than your cable box which is a prefered system.

Beyond HD, there are some major limitations for those users with large music libraries as well. Apparently this will be fixed with Vista, but windows users have been waiting for quite a while as it is for this and there’s no reason to believe that it will be fixed for real until the day it happens. I am not sure if the limitations are simply UI (likely) but there’s got to be a way to handle this from a 10′ perspective. I don’t necessarily want to use a keyboard to queue up a playlist…

The rest of MCE I think I could tolerate. It’s the best thing from an integrated system perspective going now. Though hopefully things across many fronts will improve soon.

If you’ve got scratches on your Nano, Todd Dailey tells you how to restore things with a simple can of Brasso.

Engadget scores a pic of what certainly looks like iTunes running on Windows Mobile. If it’s real, it could make for a very interesting future Treo…