The Gadgets Page

Unlike the Cola Wars and the Burger Wars, the Toothbrush War has gone largely unnoticed. It has only resided in my peripheral vision, confusing my toothbrush selection because the brush in my medicine cabinet doesn’t exist anymore and I must choose a new one from the wall of toothbrushes. I was faced with that choice last week and this time I selected the Aquafresh Extreme Clean toothbrush.

I can’t say that all the new technology has changed my brushing experience. I bought a medium brush, but it feels like a soft-bristled brush. My teeth feel just as clean as they did with my boring toothbrush. Those orange plastic bits aren’t bothersome, but I haven’t noticed any benefit in the cleanliness of my teeth. I think their primary function is to look really cool.

The casualties in the Toothbrush War have been swept under the rug, unnoticed. I can no longer find a Firm toothbrush. Every once in a while, I can find one in a store brand, but on the whole, firm bristles are dead. The compact head “Reach” toothbrush is difficult to find anymore, we fear its extinction. It’s impossible to buy a toothbrush with all white bristles unless you go with the store brand.

I can’t take sides in the Toothbrush War. All I can do is stand and gaze at the wall of toothbrushes in disbelief.

I did a review of Andamiro Entertainment’s Pump It Up: Exceed on Starling Fitness (Starling Fitness » Pump It Up: Exceed for the Xbox). It is a very active game and can be used for a good workout, but how does it stand up as a game?

Like, Dance Dance Revolution (DDR), Pump It Up (PIU) uses a dance pad to control the game. Instead of four arrows (up, down, left and right), PIU has four arrows on the diagonals and a middle button, which makes the play more complicated than DDR. You cannot use the fancy metal dance pad that works with DDR for PIU, so you are pretty much stuck with the pad that came with the game, which is a very thin pad. Here are directions for a mod that you can do to make it nice and soft on your feet, however:

• DDRUK: Modify the MadCatz Xbox Dance Mat

PIU has the same problems as the DDR line: They do not allow different players to create thier own personal profiles, where each one has their own “grades” for the songs. That is incredibly frustrating with two DDR players in the house. You never really know if that perfect score (an “S” on PIU) is yours or your little brother’s unless you go to the trouble of writing down your personal bests. That’s a waste, because the individual profiles are built right into the Xbox console. It would take a small programming feat to solve that problem.

Additionally, they have added the chore of having to unlock the songs in various modes. There are some songs that are locked in Home Mode, but not in Arcade. Some that are locked in the Arcade Mode, but not the Sudden Death Mode. And still others that are locked in the Arcade Mode, but not the Home Mode. If I want to come home, stick in the game and play without it kicking me out if I can’t do it, there are very few songs that I can practice with that come in the Home Mode. I find this irritating, but it’s all about the dancing for me, not about “winning” the game. For me, winning doesn’t constitute unlocking all the songs. It’s earning an “S” for every song.

The music selection is far different than the DDR line. There are more songs in Spanish than in any oriental language, which is strange since Andamiro is a Korean company. There is one Elvis remix that is kind of fun to play and “Name of the Game” by The Crystal Method. Here is a link to the complete song list:

• IGN Boards – Pump It Up Exceed SE Song List

All in all, I have enjoyed playing it. If you like dancing games it will be a challenging change of pace. If you are a beginner, it’s an interesting introduction, but I would probably recommend DDR: Ultramix 2 over PIU.

When Nintendo released the DS (Dual Screen) as a response to the PSP, I thought: “They’ve lost it. They don’t understand that their core market is ten year olds who need a cheap, small, rugged game player, not 30 year olds who can afford a delicate $300 toy.” Well, the Game Boy micro shows that they’ve figured that out. After struggling to attract developers and sell the DS for six months, Nintendo has switched tracks and come out with what may be the perfect casual game playing device for grown ups.

At $99, it’s cheap enough for a casual purchase. About the size of an iPod Nano (but twice as thick), the GBA Micro is literally as small as a device could be and still allow me to play it. It’s the same hardware as the Game Boy Advance SP and plays all Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color games. The only difference is that it’s about 1/3 the size and weight. GBA cartridges fit entirely inside the device (the slot occupies about 1/3 of the volume of the device). Battery life is about as good as a GBA SP, surprisingly. The replaceable faceplates are a brilliant idea—no more worry about scratches ruining your device. If the iPod nano had replaceable faceplates, Apple wouldn’t have egg on their face right now over the scratching problem.

My wife instantly adopted the micro—it fits in her purse and pocket easily. While the kids like it, the form factor isn’t nearly as important to them, and frankly the GBA SP is quite a bit sturdier. So I’d consider the Game Boy Micro to be the player for the kid in every adult. It’s small enough to carry with you and play without attracting too much attention.

Applies to GZ-MG20U, GZ-MG30U, GZ-MG40U, GZ-MG50U

• Read our original review

Well, I’ve been using the JVC Everio as my primary camcorder for a month now, so it’s time to update the site with my experiences.

The camera startup time is about five seconds—pretty much the same as any modern camcorder. You don’t need to worry much about getting setup in advance.

Video quality is fantastic. While you can observe some video artifacts if you pan the camera rapidly at basic quality, the video is essentially perfect at medium, high, and ultra quality. You can’t see any defects on an NTSC television at these resolutions. The Ultra-resolution mode is 9.8Mb/sec, the maximum standard for DVD and MPEG-2. At this quality, the video is very close to raw uncompressed DV in quality. I’ve been very happy with the video quality—the real-time MPEG2 compression engine in the camera is superior to that of my Sony DVD Handycam and my Phillips console DVD burner—and better than any of the software compressors I’ve used. It’s as close to professional as you’re going to get.

One negative: The auto exposure mode frequently seems washed out. I’ve found that I have to use the spot exposure mode to be happy with the exposure settings–Auto exposure and the varous fixed modes (cloudy, sport, etc.) don’t seem to be well calibrated and they vary too much while you’re shooting.

Editing videos is pretty easy. Both the Mac and PC packages are easy to use and relatively powerful—CaptyEx for the Mac is the best non-linear MPEG-2 editor (i.e., no wasted time transcoding) I’ve seen for less than $1000. Since you’ve got to use your PC to burn the video anyway, you might as well spend some time cutting out the garbage. I’ve actually been using the included software to edit commercials out of DVDs burned on my TiVo.

Erik Dp asked “Can material stored on two separate discs be merged into one disc with the editing programs? (I don’t want to store too much raw material on my computer if a “best of”-disc has to be created.)”. The included editing software can be used to edit existing DVD material, if that’s what you’re asking. So if you’ve already burned your video to DVD and you later want to create a compilation disk, that’s no problem. You will have to copy the .VOB files back onto your PC and rename them to MPG in order to edit them, but that’s easy to do. The editing programs will allow you to cut and paste video pretty much however you want. You can keep many hours of video on the camera depending on the hard disk size and the quality of video you are recording (Generally a full day of ultra-quality or a week’s worth of basic quality) , before you have to start moving it off to DVD.

Not having to worry about changing tapes or DVDs is fantastic! It makes this camera considerably cheaper than tape or disc based cameras because you don’t have to buy media. With DVDs blanks down to about 0.50/each, this camera costs far less to operate than MiniDV or Mini-DVD camcorders—and it’s future proof: Current dual-layer 9GB DVDs and future ultra-high capacity Blu-Ray or DVD HD burners for PCs will work with MPEG2 video from this camera.

Turning the camera off before unplugging the USB cable reliably solves the disk corruption issue that I mentioned in the original article. When you turn the camera off, you can see that it accesses the hard disk for a few seconds, probably to flush an internal hard disk cache. Never unplug the camera without turning it off first.

If you’re a Mac user, Don’t bother purchasing CaptyDVD to author. Just use Toast 7 Titanium. Rename your VOB files to end in MPG and drag them into the Toast video window. Click burn, and you’ll have your DVD in about 20 minutes. Plus, unlike CaptyDVD, Toast 7 is useful for a lot of other burning needs.

Buy a JVC 1400mAh battery (BN-VF714U). The battery that comes with the camera only lasts about a half an hour. This one lasts about five. The Cellboost disposeable camcorder battery for JVC also works well as an emergency power source (it plugs into the DC adapter port) and costs about $12 at Fry’s/Outpost Electronics.

Lenmark aftermarket batteries do not work in the camera. They lack a security chip that JVC builds into newer cameras to force you to use JVC batteries. Sony does the same thing, and they both claim that it’s necessary for their smart battery power measurement to work, which is simply not true.

In summary, this is the best casual use camcorder I’ve ever used. If you’re a PC user and not afraid of burning DVDs, this is definitely the camcorder for you.

Treonauts, a great Palm-related weblog, has posted a good review of PalmOS GPS devices. The following devices are covered:

• TomTom Navigator 5 Bundle
• Emtac + GPS
• Palm GPS Navigator

The devices seem about the same, but they vary in bundled software and accessories. The short version: it looks like you can have a pretty good GPS unit on your Palm for $250-300.

The iPod Nano is “Impossibly Small.” It’s so impossibly small that you can’t even feel it in your shirt pocket when you throw your clothes into the wash.

• MacMerc.com: iPod nano vs. washing machine – by Jon Gales

Fortunately for him, his Nano completely recovered. The damage seen in the photo eventually evaporated and the screen is fully operational.

Those little guys are tougher than I would have thought. I wonder if it would have faired as well if it had fell in the toilet. I guess only time will tell until someone makes that error.

Digipower’s DPS-9000 power pack is a universal battery that attaches to many (but not all) different digial cameras and camcorders. It attaches to the camera via a tripod mount. With the high cost of replacement OEM batteries, is this a viable alternative? We tested one for a couple of weeks to find out.

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I’ve never seen anyone complain about this, but I used to have a devil of a time with heart rate monitors. I would strap them around my chest, but I usually wouldn’t get an accurate reading until I was dripping wet with sweat. I tried wetting the contacts with water, but it didn’t seem to do much good.

A few weeks ago, I got my answer from a Black Eyed Peas song. I happened to be running and frustrated with my heart rate reading when the song, “Disco Club,” came on my random mix. The lyric that helped me was, “Rub it on your belly like an ultrasound.” They usually use some product like KY Jelly or Astroglide with ultrasound devices to get a better reading. I thought that it might work for my heart rate monitor.

The next time I exercised, I applied a thin coating of Astroglide to the contacts of the heart rate monitor. From the moment I put it on, I got an accurate reading. No more frustration while I’m waiting to get sweaty enough to get a correct reading.

The ThinkOutside Bluetooth keyboard is designed to be a true keyboard for PDAs, mobile phones, and Tablet PCs that don’t have their own keyboards. Does it work? Is it as good as a regular keyboard? We put one to a long term test. Read on for the report.

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Logitech has released a series of Bluetooth wireless headphones for iPod, PC, and MP3 players. The three types are essentially the same stereo Bluetooth headphones with three different adapters; the headphones are also resold by HP and Toshiba—we haven’t figured out who actually makes them yet. We tested them with an iPod, Archos 420 video player, and Powerbook.

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