Buying a GPS

As we're all going to be taking some more car trips with the current airline situation, I'm going to be recommending the Garmin c320. It has a great feature set, and should suit most users. Plan on upgrading the included SD flash card, and the maps.

I'm going with the Palm

Would you believe that Amazon ran out of the iPaq? I'll buy the T/X.

iPaq 1955

If you've been looking for a solid but inexpensive Windows-based PDA for mobile Web browsing, you might want to check out the latest offering from Hewlett-Packard. The company's newest iPAQ is the rx1955, a slim and lightweight mid-range handheld that sports Windows Mobile 5.0, Microsoft's most up-to-date operating system (OS) for mobile devices.

Physically speaking, the rx1955 appears almost identical to its 1900 series predecessors. Often handhelds at this level feature blunt and unimaginative styling, but the rx1955 is svelte and curvy, measuring a mere Read on...

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While the handheld market is rather flat, if I was purchasing a handheld today, this would be the one to purchase. At this price point, I think it is the best deal. I wouldn't buy the Palm T/X with a battery that can't be replaced, and an operating system that probably will not undergo further development.

Joining Forces

Hi All!

As you've probably noticed, I've been a little less active on this site over the last month or two. That has been because I have been working on setting up a more formal relationship with the website TechNudge, and am helping to found TechNudge Live.

Over last year that Popular Technology has amassed around 10,000 page views, which is decent for my first effort at an online website. Unfortunately, it has become too much to do this on my own, and I feel that joining forces is the right decision. We'll be helping to create one of the internet's premier destinations for product reviews, commentary, and daily news.

At this time, I would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to my loyal readership. I will contnue to serve you in the matter that you expect.

You can see my first post over at TechNudge here.

Robot In A Box

Robotis takes a serious robotics kit, with actuators, grippers, sensors and wheels, and packages it up in a toy like format. The kit itself looks like a big Lego box, but at an MSRP of around $900 for the large one, $350 for the small, is in a completely different league.

The Bioloid kit is a hardcore but accessible robotics workshop, make no mistake there. It comes with a C-like programming language, a GUI, 3D modelling software, and an image recognition workshop for the more advanced sensors. You can program it to respond to distance (IR), sound and light as well as pictures.

Now this is one hardcore kit for the geeks that have graduated from their Lego Mindstorms gear. This kit could definitely occupy a few years of my life.

See what's in the box here.

Open Source CPU ???

Wanted: Hardware designers for the GeekPU
Have you any insight on CPU design? Think you've got a good idea that doesn't exist today? Want to see it in operation? Let's put our heads together and see what we can come up with for a new CPU design, to be called "GeekPU."

The funny thing is that these guys are serious! I give them an A for effort, and an A+ for enthusiasm. They want to undertake a year long exercise in designing a new computer CPU. Some of the comments are downright juvenile, but some show some obvious insight, and knowledge of the industry. While this may end up being more of a theoretical exercise, than something to plug into my motherboard, I still think it will be instructive, educational, and probably entertaining to watch what develops over the several months with this. Remember, Apple was started in someone's garage, so don't write these guys off yet.

Smaller SD Cards With LARGE Capacities

Personally, I think that Secure Digital flash cards are plenty small. They are no bigger than a postage stamp, and their biggest shortcoming, in my mind, is that you have to be careful not to lose them! However, in the world of electronics, smaller is always better, and SanDisk is moving in that direction.

At the Las Vegas CES, they are introducing the miniSD card, available in a 2 GB capacity. If that is still too large of a form factor, then the microSD, is even smaller, and will be released in a 1 GB capacity.

Why do we need these smaller cards? Expect them to be used in a new Verizon Wireless broadband multimedia service which is debuting next month. The cards are to provide storage for the Verizon cell phones and their multimedia content. Both miniSD, and microSD can be used in regular SD slots via an adaptor.

At the rate we're going, I expect the nanoSD to be introduced at CES 2007.

CES 2006

The Consumer Electronics Show 2006 out in Las Vegas is the "super bowl" of home electronics. A lot of products get debuted from most of the major manufacturers. Pieced together, you also get quite a glimpse into the direction of the whole electronics industry.

While I can't be there this year, the folks over at Engadget are doing a spectacular job of covering the show. Enjoy!

Picture Search

What's the best way to find the perfect picture on the internet? I'm sure your favorite web savvy amigo would respond with "Google Images." By searching, via text words, you can find the image on a site. This works pretty well, but a text based search engine, for images is perhaps not the best way to go.

I just found out about "Retrievr." (Yes, I spelled it correctly.) Here, you draw a sketch, with colors, and the search will find the image based upon what you drew. This is quite cool, and worked ok for a tool in development still. Google will probably buy it within the hour!

You can read more about it here.

iRadio

Motorola, the world's No. 2 cell phone maker, unveiled Tuesday an ambitious music radio service for cellphones that also plays over car and home stereos.

Motorola iRadio, featuring 435 channels, would be sold by wireless service providers to their subscribers for between $7 and $10 per month — a few dollars cheaper than the satellite radio networks that would be among the phone-based service's immediate rivals.

The iRadio service will include 435 commercial-free radio channels, including genres it identifies as Heavy Metal, Rockin' Cowboys and Angry Women. Its satellite rivals also provide specialized music channels, often without ads.

This service, in some respects, puts Motorola in competition with XM Satellite Radio Holdings and Sirius Satellite Radio, which sell radio subscriptions for car and home radios, according to the report of Reuters.

Motorola expects about 90% of its content to be loaded on phones from the Internet over a personal computer, rather than broadcast over the air, in this case a cellular network.

Overpriced iPod Speakers

Using superior analog technology all but lost in today’s common digital electronics, this is the first tube-based iPod® speaker system, producing a luxurious warmth and clarity prized by audiophiles and previously difficult to reproduce outside of custom-built amplifiers of a handful of live musicians. Developed and built by German audio technicians, the system consists of an aluminum-encased amplifier housing four powerful Class-A tubes which glow gently as they generate warm, low-octave sound that is virtually distortion-free, considered by audiophiles to be the most pleasing to the human ear. The tube amplifier smoothes over distortions found in modern digital recordings while helping to compensate and minimize the quality loss inherent in compressed audio such as MP3s. The matching double-cone, full-range speakers—designed solely for use with this system—faithfully generate warm, realistic tones using a single, highly synchronized chassis per speaker (reducing ill-timed and out of phase audio). In addition to the iPod line-in jack, a second audio-in port allows you to connect additional components such as a CD player or satellite radio. An RCA cable and two highly-insulated 13' triple-core speaker cables with gold-plated connectors are included.

I often think that in audio, you get what you pay for. However, $4000 for a set of iPod speakers is simply ridiculous. If they reproduce the sound so accurately, they'll just reveal the artifacts of the MP3 compression process.

iPod Business Is Good

I wanted to buy a Nano armband (list $29) so I could wear it while working out and/or clip it to my belt, but no joy. Best Buy's stock of Nano-frills had been stripped bare of Nano-wear, so I was left to feed my sudden urge to catch up with the 21st Century of Music with a DLO Transpod Dock, a combination of charging cradle and FM transmitter for the car ($99). You simple take this gizmo, plug it into the car's power outlet (i.e. fag lighter) and then drop the Nano into it, then spend about five minutes futzing with radio station tuning to find an open channel so it can broadcast into the car's radio.

Let's stop and do the maths. One Nano ($199) + USB charger ($29) + Nano armband ($29) + Transpod ($99) = $356. That's about half way to the price of a laptop or a mid-range desktop box! And it's all tiny little plastic bits and pieces clipping away at the wallet in bits and pieces under $100 after you get the initial iPod, be it the Nano all the way up through the 60GB Video iPod. Put another way, I'm going to spend nearly as much money on extras as was spent for the initial device.

Yup, the real dollars are in selling the accessories!