Another Music Format: Does Anyone Care?

Yes, once again there is another attempt to bring out a new music format. One that will not play in existing players. And one that cannot be copied (yet). I think the music industry perpetually does not get it. How many times are we supposed to repurchase the same song: LP's, 8 tracks, cassettes, CD's, mp3's, and now Dual Discs. I'm sure it will end up with DAT, and minidiscs.

I've been reading a lot of information about the new Dual Disc format and how the RIAA hopes it will make more people buy music on discs rather than download it on the Internet. Frankly I can't see any benefit that these discs bring to the table other than some 5.1 surround sound on the DVD side. Of course you'll need a DVD player to listen to it, but is this enough?

I think there are three issues that the RIAA is going to have to overcome here. First, is this content really value added? Do people really want to see behind the scenes footage from last years concerts? Will people watch again and again? Second, the price has to come WAY down. If the RIAA is going to take a page out of the MPAA and their DVD products, they need to lower prices. DVD's are much cheaper than most VHS releases were 10 years ago AND you get much more content that people actually do watch. Paying $18 for "The Incredibles" and the same for a Jennifer Lopez album, "Rebirth" makes no sense to me considering how much more you get with the movie. Third, will people actually notice? I've seen no ads for this format in stores or even on the Internet.

Again the RIAA fails to understand the market (how many 13 year old girls care that the new Simple Plan Dual Disc has 5.1 surround sound) and continues to waste everyones time with these wacky proposals.

Internet Telephony

We've been hearing about this for years, but it finally is gaining some traction. Gone are the days of soundcards and complicated software. Now is the time of dedicated hardware devices, with inexpensive calling plans. Telephone is being slowly revolutionized.

A few years ago, a buzz began spreading about Internet telephony, a technology allowing telephone conversations to be made across the Internet rather than exclusively over regular phone lines.

Such calls, made at little or no expense to the caller, were portrayed as a threat to the established phone companies. But the vision exceeded the actual experience, which early users likened to listening through mud.

More recently, Internet phone technology - also known as voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP - made inroads into businesses using heavy-duty equipment from companies like Cisco.

Now, thanks to providers like Vonage and others, it has found its way into the home. The service is sometimes choppy, but costs are low and quality is satisfactory for routine calls. Moreover, Internet protocol lends itself to inexpensive videoconferencing as well, useful for informal video chats between friends or business associates.

For those with high-speed connections, Internet calling and videoconferencing are finally taking off. And as their use grows, so does the selection of tools. The latest Apple operating system, released last week, incorporates improved tools for online video chatting. And this week a new offering from Motorola, the Ojo, offers Internet picture-phone ability without a computer.

Extending Your WiFi Connection

If that wireless connection doesn't quite reach to the corner of the backyard, here's the step by step guide to making it happen. It's a little pieced together, but should work reasonably well.

I hope this post gives you some ideas as how to easily setup an access point outside your home. Maybe you have a park across the way that you’d love to work at, but can’t because you need to be connected… this project can surely make it possible.

Hard drives

Check out this nice review article on the issues of adding some storage to your system. With hard drives so inexpensive, why not?

If your multimegabyte music, picture, and video files have your current hard drive bursting at the seams, it may be time to upgrade. Today, high-capacity hard drives are more convenient than DVD drives, and they have become amazingly affordable--a 200GB drive can now cost less than $100. Hard drives are a breeze to install, with a few minor caveats. Here are some important things to consider before you pop your PC's hood.

Palm + iPod= LifeDrive

Palm is looking to upgrade its offerings in a big way. Big in the memory department. While my Handspring deluxe has 8 mb of memory, we're talking a 4 GB hard drive. This will enable it to hold a realistic number of music files, and to leave your iPod mini at home. Adding wifi to the device will also enhance its usability. Glad to see that Palm is waking up and planning something serious here. No w only if the price tag was a little more affordable.

The No. 1 handheld maker will introduce LifeDrive Mobile Manager on May 18, according to sources familiar with the company's plans. The $499 device will come with a 4GB Hitachi Microdrive and two flavors of wireless networking--Bluetooth and 802.11b Wi-Fi.

Combined with organizer features, the music-playing handheld could compete with Apple Computer's $199 4GB iPod Mini.

PalmOne is aiming to establish a new line of multimedia players featuring software for playing music and displaying pictures. LifeDrive will be a new line for PalmOne, but the hard drive may find its way into other products while carrying over the LifeDrive name, according to sources. Plans for such a move are still tentative.

Two New Drives From Sony

I have felt that everything Sony is rather overpriced. That said, they are coming out with some new DVD recordable drives, and they feature 4x DVD-R dual layer recording.

The internal DRU-800A and external DRX-800UL models can burn up to four hours of high-quality video or up to 8.5 GB of data, music and/or images onto a single DVD-R DL disc.


The 800 series marks Sony's ninth generation of dual format DVD burners and also features 4X DVD+R DL, 16X DVD±R, 8X DVD+RW, 6X DVD-RW, 48X CD-R and 24X CD-RW recording.


In addition, the DRU-800A and DRX-800UL drives come bundled with a software package from Nero® for burning and authoring home movies, creating digital scrapbooks, and backing up crucial data.

Seagate USB Pocket Drive Review

This is a new product out from Seagate. For those of you who have outgrown your USB flash drives, this is the drive for you as it comes in a 5 GB capacity. Of course, the review keeps me wondering how fast the device reads and writes at compared to USB 2.0 flash based drives. Stay tuned.

Well you must be wondering why no performance charts or benchmarks were conducted. I find that need to be rather irrelevant with a component like this. The goal of the Pocket Hard Drive is to provide high portable storage. It's aimed for high flexibility and not high performance. Sure the drive spins at 3,600RPM and comes with 2MB of cache but the main wonder highlight of the drive is the ease of use. With majority of systems operating under Windows XP, the drive is simply plug-n-play. The high storage makes the Pocket Drive a much better choice than pen drives. Compress a movie and transfer it over to the Pocket Drive, head over to a friend's place and enjoy a movie night. Those who work with high demanding tasks that requires high storage can couple the Pocket Drive with a laptop to achieve true portability. Basically with a Pocket Drive in hand, you can do just about anything on the go. You can keep all your precious pictures and music, bring your work with you, and even watch a movie. Forget those small pen drives that run out of space so fast. The Seagate Pocket Drive is a much better choice.

Bluetooth and Wireless Networks To Combine

Between Bluetooth, wifi in flavors a, b, g, and now n, plus new players like WiMax and Zigbee, there was bound to be some combining of things. After all, as electronics get ever smaller, there isn't room for so many antennas.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group is expected to announce Wednesday that it will work with ultrawideband developers to make their wireless networking technologies compatible. The move will allow developers and eventually consumers to take advantage of the high transfer rates of the ultrawideband technology--between 100 megabits and 200 megabits over a 10- to 20-foot range--on the broad array of devices that now include Bluetooth technology. Such devices include cell phones, other handhelds and cars.

There are a number of incompatible networking technologies, such as Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Bluetooth, ultrawideband and Near Field Communications, which have some similar uses but are better tuned for different situations. For example, Wi-Fi has a good range and throughput and can be used in most wireless networking situations, but it can consume a significant amount of battery life in portable devices. Bluetooth has low power consumption and is viewed as a better networking fit in devices such as cell phones.

Combining the efforts of Bluetooth and ultrawideband supporters is a natural evolution for the wireless networking market, analysts say.

iPod Shuffle + Duct Tape = Case ????

I like a good hack as much as the next guy, but takes things a little too far. While this is inventive, don't go picking up girls with it- they won't be impressed. On the other hand, if you ride the subway, this may keep those pesky thieves disinterested.

15-20$ for an ipod shuffle case is a little nuts, and when I bought my shuffle such cases were a month off anyway. I had already scuffed the side against my cellphone (not my keys, my CELLPHONE) and realized some form of protection was in order.

I recall the duct tape ipod case that had made the rounds a while back, and realized that given the size of the shuffle, making one for this thing would be simple. Plus you could simply trace the edges onto a sheet of paper, cut it out, and cover it with duct tape and be done with it. You don't need a hole for the buttons as, so long as you knew where they were, you could press them through the tape.

iAudio 5 Review

More of a first look than a real review. The battery life was disappointing, but the price was high.

How much more can they fit into such a small device? This JetAudio iAudio 5 device is a wonder for the MP3 playing addicts. I can remember 10 years ago when pagers were twice the size of the newer MP3 players. Now JetAudio packed in a 1GB player, which uses multiple formats, into a bigger Altoid size case. The cons are that these new devices are colorful and allow people to have different looking players. The battery life is lower than desired and expected and isn't even rechargeable. The construction of the total device is a little cheap for the price, yet you are still looking at 1GB of memory.
Consumer Price: $199

Octave 5 in 1 Multipod Review

This device has a lot of potential, but fails to deliver. Its subpar camera, and USB 1.1 (ancient) interface hamper an otherwise good idea. If they could address the shortcomings, and add a larger memory, it would definitely find its way onto my keychain. It would be useful to have its core functions with me for whenever.

I’ve always wanted to become a spy complete with cool smallish gizmos that have a whole lot of functions. The ultimate gadget is the one that knocks your socks off with more functions than you can possibly think of, all contained inside a tiny device no larger than your index finger. Enter the 5-in1 Multipod from Octave Systems Inc. This item promises to have the following five features all combined into one handy package: 1) digital still camera, 2) digital video camera, 3) web camera, 4) voice recorder, and 5) USB flash drive key. I tested all these different functions and provide my review below. Initially, I thought the design could have been better, for example I had to read the PDF manual to determine what mode the device started in and how to change it. After glancing over the included Adobe PDF help file, operation of the Multipod was very straightforward.

New XBox = Media Hub

Bill Gates must have read the previous story, and he wants his hardware to run your living room. No real specifics in this story, but with Microsoft involved, let's hope we don't get the "blue screen of death" when turning on the TV to watch the news.

Gates, Microsoft's chairman and co-founder, was vague on specific features of Xenon but said the company's consoles would be evolving to include improved communications tools for making multiplayer online gaming more convivial

Your New Living Room

MSNBC has a nice piece on the components coming together for the living room of the future. More than just DVD players, it goes into audio, and new large screen TV's, as well as the cables to connect it all. Start saving for the Christmas season now.

The newest component to enter the living room is the so-called “media server” -- basically a giant hard drive on which you can store both video and audio files. At the moment media servers are still evolving out of the personal computer world, as with Hewlett Packard’s top-of-the-line z557 Digital Entertainment Center. Media servers can offer a multitude of functions, ranging from an HD television tuner and DVR functionality to DVD recording and playback. One caveat, however: when users begin to play their MP3 files through the living room’s high quality surround sound systems, the results may prove distinctly disappointing. As media servers catch on, expect a big market for upgraded audio files in the years ahead.

The remainder of this decade will see an unprecedented makeover of living room entertainment -- an even bigger shift than the introduction of audio CDs produced back in the Eighties. The key concept to keep in mind is that everything will be connected. In the living room of the future, each component needs to play well -- and also to play well with others.

Spring Price Cuts

Ah, spring is in the air. AMD made some price cuts today, most notable its Athlon 64 4000+ processor. The serious folks are still waiting for the dual core chips to released in the 2nd half of the year.

AMD SAID it has cut the price of the Athlon 64 4000+ and at the same time made changes to prices for the 754 Sempron 2600+, 2800+, 3000+ and 3100+.

It told its resellers to contact distributors for the pricing, but has made changes to the price list on its web site, which you can nearly always find here.

That shows the 4000+ listed as $482.

Handwriting Capture Devices

A nice look at 2 digital handwriting systems. Let's just say, don't throw your Bic away just yet. If the Logitech product didn't need special paper, I would be a lot more enthusiastic for it.

ACECAD’s system is, to put it bluntly, just too bulky to be practical. The plasticky nature of the pen makes you hanker after something a little more luxurious, while the slightly erratic nature of the pen stroke capture is annoying.

Logitech’s io2 is by far the more elegant way of capturing your scribbles digitally. It imitates the experience of writing perfectly and seamlessly integrates this with digital capture. Better still if you have neat, consistent handwriting it will turn your script into typed-up notes too.

The success or failure of products like Logitech’s, however, ultimately relies on the cost and, more importantly, the availability of the special paper involved. If you could simply pop into a local Ryman’s and pick up a fresh pad when you need it, the system would be viable. But unfortunately that’s a long way from being the case.

For now it’s probably best to wait and see how things develop before taking the plunge and making your investment. But if a digital pen sounds like the thing you’ve desperately been waiting for, of these two the more expensive Logitech is the system to go for.