The Gadgets Page

At first, I was shocked when I saw young kids with cell phones, but I see it more and more every day. I actually understand why parents would allow their children to have cell phones. It makes them more accessible and are handy in an emergency. I remember many a cold day searching for a pay phone so I could call my mom. A cell phone would have come in handy back then.

This article tries to address the factors that should be weighed when deciding whether a child is worthy of getting a gadget.

• Happy News – Parents weigh when kids should get gadgets – Associated Press

It talks about maturity levels and mentions that there really is no hard and set rule. They do have a word of advice if you do decide to get a gadget for a child:

“Setting such limits is important, experts say. Just as parents make rules for use of the family car, they should set limits on use of computers, and gadgets.”

I’m always wary when the mysterious “Experts” say anything, but I think it’s sound advice. More importantly, I would have liked to see more advice on knowing when a child is ready for such a device. One indicator is whether they are willing to put their money where their mouth is.

My mom was always willing to get us the gadgets we wanted, but I think she had a test for us. She would tell me that if I wanted something, I would have to save up my allowance for it. By the time I got about fifty percent of the money, she would be willing to chip in the other fifty percent. Sometimes, on particularly big purchases, she would tell me up front that if I could save half the money, she would pay the other half. That always worked. When I was saving up those dollars to buy the Barbie Star Traveler, I had to weigh every penny to see if it was worth it. I think if parents did the same thing as my mom did, they would KNOW that their child really wanted the gadget and was worthy of it.

I expect quite a bit from a digital watch. I’m a regular user of features like countdown timer and stopwatch, and when I find a full-featured watch that actually looks good, I jump at the chance to buy it. Nike’s Oregon Digital has all of the features I need and a good design, and aside from a couple of minor inconveniences it’s a great watch. Read on for the full review.

(Continue Reading…)

Here is a unique use for your camera phone that might actually help you lose weight.

• My Food Phone

Here’s how it works:

• Every day, you take pictures of every meal and snack and upload them to your account.
• Once a week, you will receive a video message from their nutritionist with recommendations on how to eat healthier.
• You can keep track of your meals in visual form online along with your weight, BMI, waist to hip ratio and lots of other items that you may want to track.

They charge between $99 and $149 a month for this service, which is near the cost of hiring a nutritionist once a month to look over your food logs. It’s a really good idea, but it’s something that you could do on your own just as easily.

You could use your camera phone as your food journal and use it to calculate your calorie intake every day. By doing a little of the homework yourself, you could save the $149 a month.

Julie at The Gadgeteer has posted reviews of the two new Palm handhelds released last month:

• Palm Z22 Review
• Palm Tungsten TX Review

Both reviews are worth a read if you’re looking for a new PDA and aren’t interested in a smartphone. Quick summary: The Z22 is a nice entry-level handheld for $99 and its iPod-like design sensibility doesn’t hurt. The TX, while adding WiFi support to the feature list of the previous top-of-the-line T5, has less memory and a slower processor, so it’s perhaps not the ideal upgrade.

Between the strange LifeDrive and this lackluster entry in the high-end PDA market, I think Palm has truly lost touch with the market for non-smartphone PDAs. I’m not sure if that market will still exist in a few years, but if it does, I’m afraid Palm will still be way behind the times.

We wrote about the My Musix MP3 player a couple of months ago. It’s a 1GB player made exclusively for Radio Shack and priced at a cheap $99. This year’s holiday season will probably be remembered as the time when cheap but usable MP3 players started showing up all over the place, starting with this lovely model made exclusively for Walmart.

Like Radio Shack’s entry, the ilo 1GB MP3 Player has 1GB of memory and costs $99, but while the My Musix player takes SD cards and comes with a 1GB card, this one has 1G built-in plus an SD card slot. Also, unlike Radio Shack’s model, the ilo comes in red, white, blue, yellow, and Pepto Bismol ™ Pink. It runs on one AAA battery.

It also comes with twelve preloaded tracks from Alien Crime Syndicate, The Fitness, Maggie’s Choice, and The Grift. I had assumed these would turn out to be unknown bands chosen because they could be included without paying royalties, but was surprised to find that Amazon carries albums from all four—so I guess I’m out of touch. But regardless of popularity, kudos to Walmart for including some songs. One of the barriers to MP3 players becoming mainstream is the fact that you have to install software, rip CDs, and so on before you can listen, and the default songs will make it easy to try it out right after ripping off the wrapping paper.

One more thing: this player supports Microsoft’s PlaysForSure DRM, which means it will work with downloaded music from Yahoo Music or Walmart’s own music store. I don’t believe it works with subscription music, though.

[via Engadget]

[Update 11/30/2005: This player does have an SD card slot. It’s also out of stock at Walmart.com, but maybe your local store has one.]

On Monday, Salt Lake City finally got an Apple store. Mike and I usually have to drive all the way to Vegas to sidle up to a Genius Bar. Now, we have it right in the heart of our city. The locals were very excited about the opening and camped out in the 27° weather to be the first in line. There is a link to a V-Cast of the event on Blurbomat’s site:

• Blurbomat | Meth

I like Apple products. I think they have the best design around, barely narrowing Sony out of the picture. I just don’t need any iPods, PowerBooks, or iMacs right now. I usually save those purchases for a trip to Vegas or San Diego. Being able to walk in and buy an Apple product straight from the source in my hometown is a strange feeling for me.

All I know is that I’m avoiding the crowds until after the Christmas Season.

The minute I found out this game existed, I called my local video game shop to see if they had it in stock. Karaoke Revolution Party for the Xbox is a surprising combination between Karaoke Revolution, a Konami game where your signing is judged based on timing and pitch, and Dance Dance Revolution, another Konami game where your dancing is judged based on timing and steps. I couldn’t wait to get this game home.

Anyone who has ever seen Madonna perform knows that singing while dancing are very difficult to do at the same time. That’s why Britney Spears and Ashley Simpson lipsync at important performances like the MTV Video Awards and SNL appearances. If you are busting your butt well enough to dance, there is hardly any breath left to sing.

That’s what makes the Dance and Singing challenge so difficult on this game. You have to watch the screen for arrows (which run along the bottom of the screen instead of scrolling up like DDR) AND watch the screen for the words of the song. I was unable to really do well on the songs that I hadn’t memorized the words for. It wasn’t too hard for me to play, but I knew most of the songs by heart and I’ve been playing DDR for years. Once I was able to get used to the sideways scrolling, I was able to play pretty well, but I still haven’t earned a Gold or Platinum on any of the songs.

In addition to the Song and Dance mode, there are One Microphone and Two Microphone Party options that add more variation to the game. They allow people to sing duets and “true” duets, where the parts are different from each other. The fact that they allow two microphones on this game makes it so much more fun than the previous Karaoke Revolution for the Xbox was.

One thing I miss from the old game was the game mode that allowed you to have a singing career. You had to earn at least a gold medal in each arena in order to complete the “career.” I played karaoke all by myself for hours until I got a gold or platinum on every single song in the list. I miss that mode on the new game, but I like being able to sing with someone else using two microphones.

Both games allow for customization of your avatar, although the newer game, Karaoke Revolution Party, has far more customization, including making your avatar fat, which is something that not even Yahoo! Avatars has figured out yet.

Like many other Xbox games, there is a lot of content available for download on Xbox Live. There is currently one song pack that is free to download and approximately twenty others available for $5 a piece. I haven’t gotten sick of the songs that are on the game yet, but when that happens, I’m going to download them all.

I’m loving this game right now and I’ve been trying to convince people to play it with me on the duet modes. Not too many people are willing, so I guess I’m just going to stay at home, earning Gold and Platinum records on all of the songs. Alone or with friends, it’s a fun game.

The box says that I will get up to 8 months of battery life on this cordless mouse. I’ve only owned it for a month and all of a sudden, I don’t care if I get 8 months or not. I’ve never had a cordless mouse before and my mouse-life is entirely different now that I have one.

I didn’t realize how much of a pain in the butt that cord was. Now that my mouse is cordless, I don’t have that weird drifting that happens when I let go of the mouse. It stays put. The cord minder that I had kept the mouse from being pulled off the keyboard drawer by the cord, but there is no risk of that now. The only risk is of me dropping it.

The Logitech LX7 has the features that I refused to live without: scroll wheel and five buttons. In addition to that, there is a tilt wheel that lets me scroll side-to-side for those horribly designed websites that don’t resize for my screen or those really big photos that need editing. This mouse is also ambidextrous, so I could use it with my left hand if my right hand got sore or overworked. Another feature that I didn’t realize I’d like so much is that I can pick up the mouse without accidentally pushing the “back” button. I had trouble with that with my previous mouse and didn’t even try to choose a mouse that placed the “back” and “forward” buttons on the top of the mouse instead of the side. I actually thought that was going to be a detriment, but after a little re-training, I’ve been really happy.

I had trouble with the mouse tracking on my woodgrain desk. I had to reintroduce a mouse pad so I could get a good feel for the mouse. At first, I thought it was broken, but once I brought the mouse pad up from the dusty basement, it worked perfectly.

It has an on/off switch underneath the mouse (you can see it on the top picture). I haven’t tried to conserve battery life by turning it off, though. The eight month battery life estimate is supposed to based on leaving it on all the time and I could get more battery life by switching it off. I don’t really feel like fussing with that, so I’ll see how long these Duracells last.

So far, I really love this mouse. It’s a huge step up from my wired Belkin mouse I had before. Lets see if it lives up to its promises on battery life in a couple months.

Scosche has created the ultimate iPod remote control aptly named, The Schoche Remote Control Your iPod From Your Wrist. I can’t imagine using this with the Nano, but larger iPods could benefit from hiding in the backpack and being controlled by a remote like this. At the price, however, I think I’ll just get my iPod out and change the song.

Via: Engadget – Scosche remote puts iPod controls on your wrist

My dog, Sid, can pull me on my bicycle going 12 mph for over five miles before he starts to slow down. The only problem with exercising him this way is that he’s a little excitable and if he sees another dog, he’ll just pull me over and head toward the other dog. This dog scooter looks a little safer.

• The Original Dog Powered Scooter

For someone who has a large and energy-filled dog, this looks like a feasible way to exercise your dog without killing yourself, either by being pulled over on your bike or trying to keep up with him. Inventions like this make me want to invent my own doggie harness that can be attached to my bike. They bring out the inventor in me.

Via: Give The Dog A Bone, Let Him Walk You Home – Gizmodo