The Gadgets Page

About two weeks ago, I got notice that the Powermat system was available for purchase. I went to Powermat.com, read up on it, added one mat and two iPhone cradles to my cart, and then hovered over the buy button for about five minutes. At $180, my highly impulsive gadget-buying urge was tempered, and I didn’t buy it. A week later, Powermat sent me an evaluation kit at no charge for review.

So I plugged in the charging pad, put my iPhone in the charging case, and set it on the pad. The pad chimed its acceptance, a charge LED went on, and the iPhone indicated that it was charging. Having seen Powermat’s viral video, I said (out loud, much to the chagrin of my wife) “It’s f—ing charging!”

After using it for two days, I really like it but I’m still glad I didn’t pay for it. Despite how much I love the idea of it and the clever design, my recommendation is to wait until the price is down by half overall and until they have clip-on adapters or cases for at least three devices you own and use daily.

Clever design aesthetics permeate the entire system. The portable mat is a tri-fold device that comes with a magnetically closing case. There are buttons on the mat to control sound volume and LED brightness. The universal charger is small and comes with a magnetically coupled case that holds four of the seven tips included with it. The power adapter is designed to let you coil the extra cable around the adapter and clip it in, so your charging station looks tidy. Even the boxes that the system comes in exhibit excellent design.

The only missed opportunities I noticed were the lack of a booster battery on the iPhone charge case, which would have sold me on the whole solution when I first looked at it, and the fact that the wireless charge receiver on the iPhone case protrudes about two millimeters from the case, which is annoying to my wife to the point that she’d prefer to use the upright iPod charger. I don’t mind it. In my opinion, the portable pad is a better value than the standard mat because it’s portable and I think it looks better.

The mat contains coils that create a magnetic field. When you place a device that has a compatible coil on it, it induces a current in the device and that current is used to charge the device. Powermat adds some clever engineering to detect when devices are present to shut down when power is not needed, thus saving that 20% of power that would be lost to inefficiency when no device is present.

Unfortunately, you can’t just throw your iPhone on the pad randomly. You have feel around for the (strong) magnetic field and wait for the charge sound or your device might not couple correctly. iPhones are finicky about charge power unfortunately, and about 1/3rd of the time my phone fails to charge even when the mat thinks it should be. Removing and replacing the phone usually fixes it. I have figured out that placing the iPhone quickly with a slight circular wave helps find the right spot to couple better than placing the device straight down on the pad, and now that I’ve gotten good at it, the phone couples about 90% of the time. That’s 10% of the time less often than dropping it on my iPhone upright dock.

But you don’t want to spend $180 on a wireless charger to wind up with a system that is slightly harder to use than dropping your iPhone in a dock. Now, for devices less finicky than the iPhone, such as the Nintendo DSi (Powermat Charging Case for the DSi) and most current Blackberry models (except the Storm) it works a lot better. Its included charger adapter for other devices is light enough that the magnetic field pulls it to the right spot and it works every time.

The Powermat comes with an array of plug-in adapters for other devices. But avoiding the use of plugs is the point of the Powermat, so without a clip-on adapter that stays with the device, there’s little reason to use the Powermat over any other universal wired adapter. If you think of the Powermat as a tidy universal adapter charging station system with the ability to become a wireless charging system for a few of your devices, you’ll be really happy with it. Its plug-in universal adapter can charge nearly all of the devices I use on a weekly basis, including my Mophie Juicepack Air and my stereo Bluetooth headset. Only my Sony cameras and camcorders are left without a solution.

The Powermat is exciting technology. When the initial adopters have paid back the company’s investors and the Powermat company is comfortable reducing the price to be competitive with wired universal chargers, and the number of natively supported devices is in the teens, it’ll be a compelling purchase. Until then, it’s an interesting vision of the future that’s still firmly in the future for most consumers.

This article from MSN talks about the recent occurrence of people being buried with their cell phones or iPods.

• Bury me with my cell phone – Computers- msnbc.com

The funeral directors have noticed this trend, even during the funerals:

“We had a young man die this past summer and they put his cell phone in the casket for the viewing and it rang constantly,” he says. “It was turned to silent, but you could see the phone light up so you knew people were calling. And they were leaving messages. They knew he was dead, but they were still calling.”

Here is the story of a woman who buried her husband with his cell phone and printed his number on his gravestone:

I like the idea of an iPod being buried with a loved one with photos, music and the person’s favorite videos. It’s like a time capsule for the grave robbers of the future. Just like we were able to learn about the life of King Tut from the treasures he was buried with, a full iPod of cherished songs and videos, photos and journal entries, can tell anthropologists about the life of our loved ones.

Unfortunately, I doubt the anthropologists of the future would see such a thing. Grave robbers are still alive today. The iPod would be pilfered by the funeral home staff or graveyard staff far before the historians would get a chance to look at it, and honestly, that’s a better future for an iPod. Being trapped in a coffin with the soup that our bodies eventually become is not the best environment for electronics.

Now that the iPhone 3GS has a video camera, I have been using it FAR more than I used to use my normal camera. It is not as good of a video camera as my Panasonic Lumix was, but it’s ALWAYS with me, so I’m more apt to take video with it. I’m really reluctant to upload my videos to YouTube without some sort of credit for my work (i.e. my name and the URL to my website).

Happily, Michael Verdi came to my rescue. The fantastic author of the book, Secrets of Videoblogging, Michael has figured out a cool way to add a closing credits video all without connecting to your home computer. He even posted a mini-tutorial on Flickr showing how to do it:

The iPhone app that he uses to edit video is called ReelDirector [iTunes Link] made by the people at NexVio. Unfortunately, it only allows you to work with videos in the Camera Roll, but Michael Verdi found a way to work around that as well.

He uses Ecamm Network’s PhoneView to add a movie that he has created to the iPhone’s Camera Roll. The software does a lot more than just allow you to add a movie to the camera roll. You can download and view your call history, save your SMS logs and use your iPhone in Disk Mode.

By using these two software products, Michael Verdi has been able to add credits to his videos that he uploads with his iPhone without having to edit video on his computer at home. He has gone totally mobile. Here is a quick example of video editing and adding a final credit to a video done completely on his iPhone.

If you don’t mind boring credits, ReelDirector does a fair job adding them. I filmed this video with my iPhone, edited it with ReelDirector and used their built in credits.

Thanks again, Michael, for explaining all of this so simply and making video blogging easier for us all.

Last month, Mike and I went to Denver for the iPhone Developers Conference. I walked to the Denver Art Museum using directions on my iPhone to get me there. I also took lots of pictures of the exhibits at the museum using my phone’s camera. By the time I got to the top floor, my phone was dead. Not just low, but DEAD.

I am ashamed at the panic that washed over me at that moment.

I use my phone for EVERYTHING! I didn’t even know how to get back to my hotel without my phone. I couldn’t call Mike to come pick me up. I couldn’t text him to tell him I had a dead phone. I couldn’t do anything! It was the first time in YEARS that I have had a phone completely run out of battery on me. To be fair, I had taken 222 photos at the art museum and used the GPS feature to take me to the museum in the first place. Despite begging every employee at the museum, NO one had an iPod charger (surprising, I know).

Fortunately, the museum had a map of the city with my hotel on it, so I could make my way back the old fashioned way, but the entire walk back, I was cursing myself for not carrying SOMETHING with me to keep my iPhone charged. The first thing that came to mind was the Devotec Solar Charger that I reviewed last year. The minute I got back to Salt Lake City, I pulled it out of its box to see if it worked with my iPhone 3GS. Unfortunately, it doesn’t, so I looked for a replacement.

Here’s what I found:

Silicone Solar Charger Battery Case for iPhones

This charger is a case that stays on your iPhone all the time. It says that it takes less than three hours to charge, but it doesn’t specify whether that is the charging time for its internal battery or the iPhone itself. I like the design of the case, but it DOES add bulk to the phone and the silicone would make it difficult to slide it in and out of a pocket. In my situation in Denver, it wouldn’t have helped me much. I was back and charging my phone in the hotel room within an hour. It might have prevented my phone from dying completely, but it wouldn’t have helped keep it alive to navigate me back to the room.

Additionally, there is no guarantee that this will work on an iPhone 3GS and no reviews from people who had bought it. I decided that this one wouldn’t work for me.

Apple iPhone 3GS Solar Battery Portable Recharger

This charger is VERY small and the internal battery can also be charged by plugging it into a wall. Unfortunately, the specifications don’t say how long the charging time is. Since the solar panel is so small, it MUST be less than three hours (which is the charging time of the previous solar charger with a bigger panel). There are no customer reviews, so buying this charger is like shooting in the dark. I decided against it as well.

Leather Solar Charger Battery Case for iPhones

I just couldn’t bring myself to buy this one because it was so UGLY. Not only does it add alot of bulk, but you have to open it up to answer the phone. I’m usually struggling to get to my phone in time already. I don’t need the added impediment of trying to get a case open as well. Once again, there is no guarantee that this will work with the iPhone 3GS and no stated charging times.

Despite all my searching, I was unable to find a solar charger that was nearly as portable as just carrying around the USB charger and a retractable cable. I’m positive that the museum would have let me plug into a wall plug for a few minutes, at least long enough for me to call or text my husband in desperation. Sadly, solar technology isn’t quite ready for those desperate dead iPhone emergencies. I’m sure that when it is, Apple will build it into all of their products. Until then, I’ll just carry around a petite charger in my purse instead.

TomTom’s usual specialty are in-car GPS navigation systems. They have been making them for years. As soon as the iPhone got a GPS chip, TomTom announced that they were coming out with an iPhone app. Well, the TomTom App [iTunes link] has finally arrived.

Unfortunately for them, they weren’t the first on the market and CERTAINLY weren’t the cheapest. When they did arrive, it was a severe disappointment for many of the people who did shell out the hundred bucks for it. Here are some quotes from the reviews:

None of the TomTom “cool” features exist. This includes things like Traffic, Fuel Prices, Google Search, etc.

Before picking an address from my address book, I have to pick the correct country (state), in order for it to be correct. Shockingly bad.

Navigation seems to be OK, but it doesn’t speak street names?! HELLO!

I’m not sure, but it looks like I have to pay extra for the mount that TomTom bragged about at the Apple event a few months ago. You would think that $99 would include a mount. It’s not like TomTom had to pay anything for the iPhone hardware… who does TomTom think they are?

That car kit that the reviewer was talking about was the only cool thing about the TomTom presentation. Here is a video showing it:

When you check the TomTom site, it’s still “Coming Soon.” Get on the stick, TomTom! Don’t you realize that all we really wanted was that cool car kit?!

Here are a list of some other GPS Navigation software for the iPhone:

• Sygic Mobile Maps US: I purchased this app. When compared to the usability of most iPhone apps, this one is horrible, but when compared to my old Garmin Nuvi, it’s almost as good. Mike and I took a drive from SLC to Denver and had both the Garmin and the Sygic running. The maps were comparable and the directions were clearer than the Garmin at times. As long as I chose a voice that had the letter TTS (text to speech) next to it, the voice would pronounce the street names. The POI (points of interest) were just as useless as my Garmin, so we used the Google Maps feature to find things close by and then plugged the address into the GPS. Best feature was being able to listen to music while the GPS app ran. When directions came, the music faded out for them. It was on “sale” for $40 when I bought it. At that price, it’s an incredible deal.

• AT&T Navigator: AT&T is willing to give you a “free” app with a ten dollars a month fee for access to their maps and navigation. Unfortunately, it only works if you have a cell signal or wifi access. How is that useful when you’re driving from one part of the country to another? Do they actually believe that their coverage is THAT good? Sadly, it isn’t.

• MobileNavigator by Navigon: A very highly rated app, but at $89.99, it’s so close to the TomTom price that it makes it strangely overpriced. We get maps for free from Google Maps, so it’s difficult to justify charging me that much money for them.

• GPS Kit from Garafa: Like the AT&T Navigator, you need a cell signal or wifi access for this application to work. The only difference is that you only have to pay ten bucks once to be disappointed.

• MotionX GPS Drive: Unless you’re willing to pay their $3 monthly fee, it’s not much better than the turn-by-turn directions given by the Google Maps app included in every iPhone.

In the end, the iPhone isn’t quite ready for GPS navigation. The GPS chip is just as strong as my antiquated Garmin, but it isn’t as powerful as the new ones. If you really want to replace your in-car GPS, you’re going to have to wait until the iPhone adds a better GPS chip. Until then, all of these apps are just a shade better than toys.

I’ve been waiting for wireless stereo Bluetooth to become an “actual” reality for years now. The A2DP stereo wireless protocol was developed years ago, but has only recently become ubiquitous amongst players and computers. First attempts at stereo Bluetooth headsets resulted in ridiculously large and uncomfortable headsets with poor battery life that were expensive and poorly supported by devices without an external dongle.

This has all recently changed. With A2DP support now available in iPhone OS 3, Mac OS X, and Windows, I can finally actually use wireless headsets. So I headed down to the Apple store to look at what could be purchased retail, and after looking at the options, I came home with the Altech Lansing BackBeat 906 headphones. I paid $99.

These headphones double as a Bluetooth headset with their built in Microphones. Noise canceling is good—they’re the best Bluetooth headset I’ve used, although I may be biased by hearing the call in both ears, which I like. Annoyingly, the iPhone switches the audio source back to the internal mic and speaker when you take a call while listening to the iPhone, so you have to manually switch it back while you “hello? Hello?” the caller to keep them from hanging up.

Styled like two behind-the-ear BT headsets connected by a cable that runs behind the head, they’re actually the most comfortable wireless headphones or headset that I’ve ever used. They have a silicon waveguide that directs the sound into the ear canal from external earbud style speakers, which is more comfortable than in-the-ear foam inserts. The only usability problem I’ve encountered is that leaning your head back against a pillow will cause the earbuds to move, just as with any behind-the-head headset. Unfortunately they’re too large to fit inside a motorcycle helmet.

Buttons are provided on the headset for call hook (left side) and audio controls (right side). Play/Pause is the main audio control button, with a lever for audio up/down. Holding the up/down lever for two seconds provides next/previous track, and the controls work seamlessly in iTunes and on the iPhone. The headsets come with a Bluetooth adapter compatible with all iPods that have dock connectors (as shown in the photo). iPhones can drive the headsets directly from the built-in Bluetooth and don’t need the plug-in adapter. Bluetooth range is about the same as any BT headset, which is to say you can use it in the same room as the source, but as soon as you round a wall, the signal drops out completely.

Sound quality is quite good–the best I’ve heard via wireless Bluetooth. Interestingly, it’s dramatically better with my iPhone than with my Mac (Unitbody Powerbook 17”) running iTunes. On the Mac, there are audible distortion effects irrespective of the compression level of the music or volume. It’s hard to understand why a completely digital audio stream would be affected, especially considering that I would think the codebase and hardware between the Mac and the iPhone are quite similar. It’s clearly the Mac, however, because on the iPhone audio is clean and crisp at all volumes.

For casual listeners, the Bass is good but not booming. You’ll definitely hear the bass line in 50 Cent’s Candy Shop. The ominous sub-aurals in Batman Begins are vivid, although not as lush as with Sony’s top of the line ear buds. Brass and synthetics are bright, and beats are crunchy and pop. You’ll like these phones.

No Bluetooth wireless headset will satisfy an audiophile. Distortion, bandwidth, and compression effects are all audible, and distortion at higher volumes can be distracting. Bass response lacks depth, and there’s a general flatness and lack of vibrancy and dimension across the dynamic range, leaving horns sounding especially brassy. Noise levels during silence are pronounced, as they would be on worn vinyl. The headphones can get quite loud—maybe a little too loud, but I’ve already lost hearing so it works for me. At peak volume, the distortion can be annoying. You’ll hear noise spikes in the attack of beat transitions and compression artifacts in the tail of white noise envelopes. Distortion at mid level volumes is only mildly apparent. These effects are apparent irrespective of the compression level of the source audio files (I tested up to 320kbps on my iPhone. Even uncompressed audio had distortion on the Mac, but I’m putting that down to a problem in a processing on the Mac since those effects are not apparent on the iPhone).

Fortunately, I’m not an audiophile, so love these little gems. They’re the best Bluetooth headphones I’ve heard and they’re they ideal mate to my iPhone.

There are a hundred kinds of awesome in this photograph.

This is the description from BW Jones:

An image of a bionic brain implant chip taken through the microscope with my iPhone.

BW Jones is a scientist at the University of Utah:

Retinal neurophysiology scientist. My work involves disorders of retinal degeneration and how those diseases affect the intrinsic retinal circuitry including the implications for rescue of vision via gene therapy, and retinal bionic or biological implants.

Since he works with brain implants all the time, it’s probably not a big deal to see one in person, but for the rest of us, just seeing what they look like is awesome. The fact that he took the photo by sticking his iPhone up to a microscope, is ten kinds of awesome.

I love the design of the Ericofon.

It was designed by a team working for Ericsson back in the 1940’s. The design is so beautiful and unique that it is featured in the Museum of Modern Art.

Links about the Ericofon:

• Ericofon – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• MoMA | The Collection | L.M. Ericsson Telephone Company, company design, Hugo Blomberg, Ralph Lysell and Has Gösta Thames. Ericofon Telephone. 1949-54
• ericofon.com: Online museum and place to purchase original Ericofons that still work.
• Scandiphone at Amazon.com: Purchase a brand new phone based on the Ericofon.
• Ericofon – Google Images

It’s surprising to me that this phone was designed over sixty years ago. It is obvious that the “brick” cell phones were based on this design, so it was years ahead of its time.

This video from KhenaKara on YouTube caused a bit of a sensation. He appears to be taking a video with his iPhone 3GS when he accidentally drops it into a swimming pool.

His comments were:

Was trying video on my new iPhone 3G S at the pool and dropped it in the pool. Don’t know if it’s waterproof, but it still works fine. I had a few people comment on seeing a strap in the video. I have a rubber cover and had put a strap through the earpiece hole to avoid just this type of thing. I didn’t have it on my wrist at the time, but believe me, I will from now on!!!! Maybe the rubber cover helped with it not getting damaged.

You can see the wrist strap he was talking about at the 43 second mark. Here is a screen shot of it:

The problems with this video is that it wasn’t uploaded directly from the iPhone, so it was played with in iMovie a bit. I import ALL the video I take into iMovie so I can add headlines and other information, so this is very common. Additionally, the strap is something that is rarely included on an iPhone case. Here is KhenaKara’s video showing the case and strap he was using:

It looks like a typical rubber case with a camera strap added to it. I have a Sanyo Xacti E1 that can easily be dropped in the water and survive because it’s made to do that. It’s impossible to tell if he took this video with a waterproof camera and said it was his iPhone, or if he actually dropped his phone in the pool and lived to tell the tale.

What do you think?

Via: Don’t try this at home

My favorite Palm I ever owned was the Tapwave Zodiac.

A full two years before the release of the Sony PSP, the Zodiac looked like it could be the perfect gaming platform. If only the game manufacturers wrote games for the Palm, the Zodiac would have had a HUGE jumpstart on both the PSP and the Nintendo DS. The only games I saw available for the Zodiac was Duke Nukem and Atari’s Adventure, but apparently there were a bunch of others: Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4; Mototrax; Spyhunter; Madden NFL 2005; DOOM II; and Warfare Incorporated.

Not only was it a good gaming machine, it had EXCELLENT video conversion to play videos. Before the iPhone was even a glimmer in Steve Job’s eye, I was watching bit torrented episodes of television on my Zodiac during my lunch break every day at work. I could also listen to MP3s using their media player. When my Zodiac finally had to be sold, I truly missed the media capabilities it had and was frustrated to no end that I couldn’t recreate that experience with my Palm Treo.

Of course, the Zodiac had all the normal Palm capabilities that any other Palm device had at the time, so there was a calendar, contact manager, notes and to-do list. I loved that I could do everything that my old Palm used to do AND watch videos on it. It wasn’t until I bought my iPhone four years later that I FINALLY was able to have the same capabilities as I had with the Zodiac.

Sadly, Tapwave had serious problems. Not only did they discontinue the Zodiac in 2005, but they also stopped supporting their warranties on their older models. I had severe problems with the directional pad on my first Zodiac. I sent it in to be repaired. It took several months to come back to me. We feared that we might never get it back because the company seemed to be going out of business. When it finally returned, we sold the returned model.

It came with all this stuff:

I loved my Zodiac and I wish Tapwave could have survived long enough to become a dominating company in the gaming market instead of a fond memory and a footnote.