Category: gadgets and technology

The New York Times has an article today on WozNet, a new wireless location-monitoring technology created by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak’s new company, Wheels of Zeus… [MacMinute]

WozNet, he said, will include a home-base station that has the ability to track the location of dozens or even hundreds of small wireless devices that can be attached to people, pets or property. The tags — expected to cost less than $25 each to produce — will be able to generate alerts, notifying the owner by phone or e-mail message when a child arrives at school, a dog leaves the yard or a car leaves the parking lot.

“We started out with the idea of a product to keep track of stuff,” said Mr. Wozniak, the 52-year-old engineer who was the technical brains behind the first Apple computer in 1976. “We ended up inventing a new class of wireless network.” [New York Times]

Sony Japan has taken the wraps of the new Clie, expected to be officially announced in San Francisco tomorrow. TheClie PEG-UX50has a mini laptop like design with a swivel screen and built in keyboard. The device has a integrated in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless as well as a digital camera. [PalmInfocenter]

This is one bad ass unit! 480×320 (half VGA) screen, bluetooth and wifi… The keyboard looks very usable and the swivel screen is super cool.

As if you needed another reason to like the Treo 600…[infoSync]

Good Technology releases new messaging software and adds partners as it looks to attract more enterprise customers by broadening the device and network compatibility of its software. [CNET News.com]

Good seems like a very cool company and their software solves a tough problem. You can receive attachments via wireless device – theirs or RIM and soon Handspring/Palm (Treo 600!!). This makes life easier for the mobile worker as the usual hurdle of being as productive while moving about can be solved since the Good server sits behind the firewall.

Unlike the RIM software, Good seeks to make the same device actually easier to use. The best part is that it works on existing devices and soon will even be working on Palm so as a user you can have a choice, while your CTO can still manage a controlled back-end. I love the idea of using this in the future, I just hope they support Notes. My company is making the switch and while there are a host of Blackberries deployed, no one currently gets attachment, which tends to be a killer as you are traveling.

America Online is launching another feature tomorrow. This one’s aimed at users of TiVo, the digital video recorder for television. AOL members with TiVo boxes will be able to program them via AOL by typing in the keyword “TV Listings,” clicking on the show they want to record and clicking “record to my TiVo DVR.” The free AOL service requires a Series 2 TiVo recording device.

Washington Post

I don’t have a Series2 box to try this out on yet, but it sounds like being an AOL customer allows access to the remote programming found in the $99 TiVO Home Media Option. Since I use the SliMP3 for streaming music to my stereo and beyond I’ve found the price a bit steep just to do remote programming, but would still love to have that option. Still means buying a new TiVo, which will have to certainly pass through my wife.

With a hand-held computer and a $40 wireless card, anyone can pull up user names, passwords and lots of other confidential information. [New York Times: Technology]

The PDA Usage Survey 2003 found that PDA owners commonly download the entire contents of their personal and business lives onto their handheld computers. Many leave the information unencrypted and without password protection, the survey found.

Sensitive information commonly stored unprotected on PDAs includes corporate information, bank accounts, credit cards, social security numbers, inland revenue information, business and personal names and addresses. [The Register]

We’re incredulous that this is actually legal: a box from Nextedi called the TVBrick Home Server that hooks up to your television and then via a home network streams the channels onto the Internet so that “family members” in other countries can watch their favorite TV shows from back home. The manufacturer says that since a password is required for access to the streams, and since sharing television programming “within the same family” is legal in Europe and Japan, everything is on the up and up. Anyone know for sure if this is true? Read [Via Gen Kanai]… [Gizmodo]

PCMagazine has posted a preliminary review of a preproduction Handspring Treo 600. PCMag says the Treo 600 improves on the original in almost every way. [PalmInfocenter]

Pixo makes the OS for the iPod…

Sun executives said the acquisition will help Sun gain a toehold in digital rights management, or DRM. Pixo’s server-based software lets IT staff manage content, customize user interfaces and enable fast downloads of digital content, including Java applications. Sun expects to offer the Pixo technology to those in its Sun Developer Network Mobility Program and other initiatives.

[CRN]

This almost too meta for us: sneaked photos of the P810, Sony Ericsson’s successor to the P800, taken, appropriately enough, with the digital camera of a P800. No details available, except that the P810 should have a 1.3 megapixel digital camera built-in and a thin metal body like the T610.
Read [Gizmodo]