The Gadgets Page

The news in the air is that Palm is dead. They created the Palm Pilot and STARTED the palm computing revolution a decade ago, but what are they doing lately? With their stock plummeting, there are people out there saying that Palm is dead. Even Joy of Tech commented on it:

• The Joy of Tech comic… Desert Palm.

Considering that Palm was at CES for only one day, didn’t have a booth on the convention floor and only a suite at the Venetian, I’m not surprised by the lackluster earnings. They MUST have known that they were hurting for funds and that’s why they skimped on CES this year.

Here are Kevin Rose’s thoughts on this subject:

Palm IS dead, but they have been dead for a LONG time. It just took the tech world nearly three years to NOTICE their decaying corpse. I knew they were dead when I wrote this entry about putting video on the Treo.

• Gadgets Page » How To Put Your DVD on Your iPod or Treo

It took me a LONG time to just figure out how to convert a movie file and put it on my Treo. If you look at my face in that video, you can just SEE the frustration and exhaustion from dealing with this issue. Instead of an easy way that just worked, I had to jump through hoops, search for software and even write a whole tutorial so I would remember how to do it again.

When Apple released the iPhone and I was able to just download a movie and immediately put it on my phone, I heard the death rattle of Palm from across the country. I imagined all those years of being betrayed by Palm. They made machines that had the capability of playing music and video, but made it so convoluted, complicated and inconvenient that I was never able to get it to work consistently.

That was in JULY of 2007! Palm died a long time ago, folks. It just took you guys three years to notice the smell.

As useless as Teledynamics was for the normal consumer, they had the foresight to show off these beautiful steampunk phones from Paramount Collections.

This is the Paramount Collections 1892 Eiffel Tower Reproduction Phone

This is the Paramount Collections American Eagle 1911S Reproduction Phone.

If you are looking for an interesting land line phone, Paramount Collections has an entire line of them:

• Paramount Collections Biscuit Barrel 1893 Reproduction Phone Black at Amazon.com
• Paramount Collections Antique Wall 1903 Reproduction Phone at Amazon.com
• Paramount Collections Roman Column 1897 Reproduction Phone at Amazon.com
• Paramount Collections Viscount 1920 Reproduction Phone at Amazon.com
• Paramount Collections Classic Christie 1921A Decorator Phone Black at Amazon.com

I wish I still had a land line just so I could have one of these gorgeous steampunk phones in my home.

Kevin Rose, of Digg Fame, has jumped into the credit card payment fray with his investment in Square. Here he is, showing it off:

With a Square device and an iPhone, you can accept credit card payments just like any merchant. It’s pretty impressive, actually.

I can accept credit card payments using PayPal, but they don’t have an easy way for me to process a transaction on the go. If I want to accept credit card payments, I need to have a laptop AND wi-fi. They do have a PayPal iPhone App [iTunes Link], but it doesn’t allow me to accept payments with it. It would be nice if they included that feature in a future update.

There are applications at iTunes that let you accept credit card payments, like Swipe Credit Card Terminal [iTunes Link], but you have to type in all the information by hand instead of being able to easily swipe their card. Additionally, they require you to sign up for a merchant account. How Square will handle that issue hasn’t been revealed.

Square looks like a really good idea, but until we know the details, like what fees they will charge, I’m holding off my judgment.

E-book readers, like Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader, had a huge amount of sales this last Christmas season—in fact, our smackdown between the two recently became our most popular post, and the Kindle was Amazon’s best-selling single item. We saw about 20 new entrants into this market at CES. Nonetheless, I think the current generation of e-book readers won’t be flying off the shelves by next Christmas.

Yes, the Apple iPad is probably one reason. But I think e-book readers have been flawed from the beginning. Here’s why.

They use black-and-white e-ink displays.

The Sony Reader was the first popular gadget to make use of e-ink technology, an alternative to LCD displays that looks more like paper, has longer battery life, and doesn’t require a backlight. This was seen as innovative, and copied by the Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s new Nook. But I think it’s time we started wondering why anyone would buy a device with a black-and-white display in 2010.

The phone in your pocket probably has a nice color LCD display that can display perfectly readable text. The Amazon Kindle app certainly looks great on my iPhone. Why buy a book reader that’s stuck in Gutenberg-era black-and-white? Paper books have had colorful illustrations since about 1890. Why can’t electronic books?

E-ink advocates talk about better contrast and better battery life, but I like the contrast on the iPhone screen better than the grey-on-light-grey displays of the e-book readers. And only the most devoted of readers will stare at a Kindle’s screen long enough to notice the supposed benefits to the eyes, or to take advantage of the long battery life. Most of us don’t read for more than 1-2 hours at a time.

And don’t say “but you can read in bright sunlight!”. Who the heck does that? People who enjoy sunlight have better things to do than read, and nerds like me who read for hours on end rarely see sunlight.

They aren’t good Web browsers.

While I still read books regularly, I do far more reading on the Web. Why would I want a reading device that can’t also read Web pages? The Kindle has a very limited Web browser on a black-and-white screen, and the Sony Reader has none at all. Neither one has Wi-fi access.

This is the 21st century. The Web should be as readable as a book, and when an e-book mentions a URL I should be able to click on it and see that page.

They can’t show video.

You can watch videos on a Sony PSP, on a phone, or even on a watch. Why on earth would a device that gives me access to books not also include video? Or even audio? Or even color pictures?

I’m as much of a literary elitist as anyone. I enjoy reading Shakespeare and Dickens, and I certainly don’t want books to be replaced with video. I don’t even want the cheesy “bonus video content” that e-novels of the future will undoubtedly be bundled with. But think about non-fiction books—what if a computer book could include a video to show you how to use software? What if a book on how to play the guitar could include audio examples? Old-fashioned paper books already have this feature, thanks to the high-tech approach of sticking a CD inside the front cover. Why can’t 21st century e-books do the same thing?

And anyway, it’s a device with a screen. Let me watch a TV show when I’m done reading my book.

Maybe they’re not really doomed yet.

There’s one reason I think people will still be buying Kindles and Readers next Christmas. Someone (probably Apple) will introduce a device that does all of the things I’m asking for. But given the current cost of things like 10″ color LCD screens, that device will be expensive. Maybe the Kindle, Reader, and Nook will survive for a few years as low-cost alternatives for people who don’t want to spend $900 on a “real” e-book reader.

I hope I’m right about that. I really want an e-book reader myself, but I don’t want the limited, monochrome, low-cost alternative. I want the real thing, and I’m willing to pay for it.

Apple has a special announcement planned for this Wednesday, January 27th, and the rumors are that they will release a tablet device of some sort. At these times it is customary for gadget blogs to make fools of themselves by predicting what Apple will announce, so here’s my attempt.

• The tablet will run iPhone OS, and will essentially be a giant iPod Touch. Probably with more memory than the current iPhones and Touches, but no hard drive.
• Steve Jobs will focus on three areas of use for the new device: reading books, watching videos, and running any app from the existing App Store. He’ll show off some new games that use the full screen.
• The tablet will cost $1000 and every single technology blog and media outlet will complain about this, saying that netbooks are cheaper, that you can buy a “real” computer for the same price, and that Apple won’t sell many tablets. They’ll be hilariously wrong.
• There will be no keyboard, and initially no external one to attach. The virtual keyboard will resemble the iPhone’s. Everyone will complain about this, but Apple won’t care because they designed the device primarily for consuming media, not creating it.
• It will have a backlit color LCD screen (probably 10″). Steve will make fun of e-ink devices on stage.
• A new iPhone OS and SDK will be announced, and support for the tablet’s big screen will be the biggest change. They might also support multitasking, since running multiple iPhone-sized apps on the tablet’s big screen makes sense.
• Apple will announce deals with publishers for e-books. I suspect they’ll emphasize newspapers, magazines, and college textbooks. The New York Times will be shown as an example, followed by a novel with an embedded video interview with the author to show off how much better it is than a Kindle.
• I wouldn’t be surprised if the “regular” book support comes from a licensing agreement with Amazon. You might think the Kindle is the tablet’s competition, but I think Amazon wants to sell books, not hardware platforms.
• I think cell-phone data access will be built in. I hope it’s optional and doesn’t cost $30 a month.
• The name: When Apple changed their baseline notebook computer’s name from “iBook” to “Macbook”, my theory at the time was that they wanted to eventually use “iBook” for an e-book reader. While I doubt the tablet will be just for reading books, I still think “iBook” is a great name for it, and it will fit their new naming scheme: the Macbook runs MacOS and the iBook runs the iPhone OS.

Please note that my predictions are not based on “confidential sources”. I just made them up, and most of them are probably wrong. But whatever the outcome, I hope Apple does something insanely great.

If you ride your bike often, the Cy-Fi Wireless Speaker might be a good option for you. You can connect your iPod or iPhone to it and it will play your music and act as a hands-free speakerphone. Here is a video from CES showcasing it.

It comes in both Black and Silver designs:

• Cy-Fi Wireless Sports Speaker for iPod (Black) at Amazon.com
• Cy-Fi Wireless Sports Speaker for iPod (Silver) at Amazon.com

Here is the commercial for it:

When I was riding my bike to work everyday, this would have been a godsend for me. I used to listen to my MP3 player with earbuds, but that made it so I couldn’t hear around me as well. Something like the Cy-Fi wireless speaker would have let me hear the cars around me AND my music.

When I owned a Palm, there were literally dozens of keyboards that I could purchase for use with it. It’s surprising to me that the iPhone doesn’t have that option. If you have a jailbroken iPhone, you can use it with any Bluetooth keyboard, but if you don’t want to break your user license agreement, then you are kind of out of luck.

It looks like ION is trying to rectify that problem. At CES this year, they were showing a prototype of a new keyboard called iType, which works with your iPhone.

The iPhone docks into the keyboard for typing.

It’s a pretty nice sized keyboard that is light and easy to type on.

Unfortunately, you need to use their app to type with it. It doesn’t take the place of the onscreen keyboard in all applications. You have to type in their application and then you can copy and paste to email or any other writing intensive app you use.

Here is a video showing how the keyboard acts with their application.

I would love a full-sized keyboard that works with my iPhone, but the iType won’t work for me. Unless I can type with the keyboard in any app, it’s useless.

The creators of tough phones, Sonim Technologies, challenged Dan Simmons of the BBC to see if he could break their phone.

I love the look of shock on their faces when the LCD screen actually breaks. Unbreakable is a mighty big claim, so it’s no surprise that Dan was able to prove them wrong. In the end, Sonim phones are tougher than normal phones, but the moniker of unbreakable is a little bit of a stretch.

Sharper Image isn’t really a company that I think of when someone mentions a beautiful clock, but this year, they did an excellent job of creating an iPhone dock that grabbed my attention.

I didn’t get a chance to play with the dock much, but it does have speakers.

It looks like there are controls at the top to control your music.

This dock isn’t available on the Sharper Image website yet and they didn’t have an estimate on the price yet. The people at the booth weren’t able to tell me what app the iPhone was running, either. I’m a clock app junkie and it looked completely new to me, so maybe Sharper Image has an app that they will make available as well.

I’m looking forward to seeing this in the real world soon!

When I downloaded the update to Bejeweled 2 [iTunes link] about a month ago, I found that there was a new game that had been added. It was called Bejeweled Blitz. Although it looked very similar to my normal Bejeweled game, it had some very different features. Firstly, the game only lasted a minute. I only had sixty quick seconds to make as many matches as I could before the entire game exploded in a sparkling array of jewels. You might think that I would play LESS because the game only lasts a minute, but the exact opposite is true. Since a game is only one minute, I can tell myself, “One more game,” for minutes upon minutes. An hour later, I’m still playing and I’m still telling myself, “Just one more game.”

The more significant difference between normal Bejeweled and Bejeweled Blitz, however, was that it is connected to my Facebook friends, so I can compete against everyone I know. I cannot tell you the joy I have when I beat my friends and see myself at the top of the list. I know it’s just a silly game, but that competitive spirit in me is an angry beast when I can’t beat someone. I actually considered unfriending some people on Facebook just because I couldn’t beat them. I didn’t and boy am I glad I didn’t because when I actually beat their score, I feel like I’m the king of the world. Sure, it’s an imaginary world filled with diamonds, but I’m the king of it, if only for a brief moment before Ernie kicks my butt again.

I Think It’s Just Random

“I’m beginning to think the high scores are just random. When I get a high score, it feels the same to me as when I get a low score,” Dan said.

My entire family is playing this game either on Facebook or on their iPhones. We were discussing the high scores at great length.

Mike replied, “I would think it was random too, except that Laura ALWAYS beats me.”

I chimed in, “And Ernie always beats me. It’s not just random.”

“So, how are you getting such high scores?” They all wanted to know. (Continue Reading…)