The gift giving season is fast approaching and with the advent of the iPod, people who didn’t even like music are feeling the pressure to ‘get jiggy with it.’ But what if the ubiquitous Apple mp3 player isn’t up the ally of the budding audiophile on your list? Well, there are certainly alternatives. Cassette tapes, for instance, are DRM free and so long as you’re (only) into the classics, they’re a dime a dozen down at the pawn shop. But what about that other mp3 player, you know, the one created by Frank Herbert…the Zune!

In today’s market, portable music players are compared to one thing and one thing only; the iPod. Even iPods are contrasted with other iPods. So the first thing a potential Zune owner should ask is how does it compare to its in-class Apple counterpart? Generally speaking, critics note that the Zune brand is certainly moving forward by leaps and bounds, but it just doesn’t stack up against the iPod brand. However, there are certain factors that can tip the scales. Most salient is the built-in FM tuner in the Zune. If portable radio is a must have, then the nod must go to Microsoft.

And if you’re a wacky wireless enthusiast, newer Zunes offer wireless syncing with your on-computer library once you step into your house. Because, attaching that USB cable was so 90’s.

On the forefront of Zune news is the 3.1 update that adds three free games (Checkers, Sudoku, and Space Battle) as well as various fixes/patches to the software.

But let’s face the facts. This Christmas it’s all about pushing your dollar as far as it’ll go. And the Zune isn’t going to disappoint there. Microsoft just announced a price cut to the flash-based memory models: $129 to $99 (4GB), $149 to $139 (8GB) and $199 to $179 (16GB).

One thing’s for certain though;going Zune means going against the grain-and that’s got to count for something, right?

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Let’s face it, as great as the iPhone and iPod Touch are, they could both use boosts to their battery life. When yaking over a 3G connection on your iPhone, the battery power plummets faster than Enron stock. And the iPod Touch is no slouch when it comes to power consumption, absolutely obliterating that little green meter into a blank screen when connected to a WiFi network. So it comes as now surprise that third party developers are crafting up power-packs and battery-boosters to supplement your communication and browsing times. Today we’ll look at two designed for the iPhone 3G (however, the Juice Pack also comes in a iPod Touch flavour). mophie’s iPhone 3G Juice Pack and Incase’s Power Slider.

First off is the Juice Pack (pictured above). This buxom battery bolsterer boasts up to 350 additional hours of standby, 6 more hours of 3G talk time (12 for 2G), or 6 more hours of browsing. The design is of the ‘sled’ variety, wherewith you slide your iPhone into a shell that contains the additional power supply. Points for getting the job done, but aesthetics take a hit here and that’ll have to be something you consider along with the $99 price tag.

In contrast we have the Incase Power Slider (pictured below). With 330 additional hours of standby, 5 hours more of 3G (10 hours 2G), or 5 hours more online, the Power Slider is slightly inferior in the battery boosting department. However, in a quid pro quo, what it lacks in battery life, it makes up for in its visual appeal. The Power Slider has a more uniform design, and appears much more naturalistic in contrast with the Juice Pack.

So it comes down, as life so often does, to looks versus power; beauty or brawn. Both make steps towards a more integrated power solution (over some other sloppy peripherals that dangle off the device like a vestigial appendage). But either way, you’re packing more pounds and additional inches onto your device.

The Juice Pack is already on the market, and the Incase Power Slider debuts November 28^th (pricing forthcoming).

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• Unlimited calling anyone?

Ooma. Ring any bells? Well last year a company under that name launched an unlimited VoIP service. The premise was a one-time fee of four hundred buckaroos. Intriguing, no? Well, the original deployment required a rather dated, corded phone and the whole approach has yet to prove itself viable. So this year Ooma is upping the ante with a cordless, and rather aesthetically pleasing, handset and an equally sleek router (both pictured above at CES Unveiled), all for an anticipated $250 and unlimited calling.

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• Minority Report UI becomes reality

File this one under freaking sweet. Ever since Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg paired up for the first time, the computer interfaces have had a single objective; be half as awesome as that Minority Report setup. Well, I think you could make the case that Oblong’s g-speak is actually cooler. What’s more, it’s Minority Report flavour is no coincidence; one of the science advisors that worked on the film, who originally conceived of the interface based on work he’d earlier completed MIT, is one of the founders of Oblong. g-speak is purported to “redresses the dire constriction of human intent imposed by traditional GUIs. Its idiom of spatial immediacy and information responsive to real-world geometry enables a necessary new kind of work: data-intensive, embodied, real-time, predicated on universal human expertise.” Uh, yea. Just watch the video and cue mind blowing.

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• The End of annoying packaging?

No, not DVD shrinking wrapping but that other one, with the impenetrable seals of reinforced plastic that would give Edward Scissor Hands cause for self doubt. Last week Amazon announced a new initiative titled “Frustration Free Packaging” with the hopes of eliminating so-called ‘clamshell’ packaging that you find primarily encasing your tech toys. Well word comes now that Best Buy, Microsoft, and Sony are joining the good fight against frustration, in a bid that will see retailers moving towards more environmentally sound (ie destructible) packaging.

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EA reveals Active for Wii

Many were curious as to what third parties would bring to the fitness table when it comes to the Wii and its motion sensing wonder the Wii-mote. Well good news aerobic addicts, because here comes EA Sports Active. Touted as a ‘personal trainer for your living room’ Active actually manages to stretch (literally in some cases) the use of the motion tracking peripherals for the little white system. The package includes a leg band that allows you to slip the nunchuck into holster just above the knee. In turn, the game tracks your leg movements allowing you to…squat! Pair that with a ‘resistance band’ and you’ve got the lower AND upper body going. The elastic band will provide a weight lifting experience for the user. All in all, the promo video does a pretty decent job of highlighting the potential for the package as well as demonstrating that it can elicit a pretty demanding workout.

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• Blu-ray: Won the battle, but losing the war?
  

The butting heads of two megalithic formats was built up like a titular boxing match and to the victor the spoils. And yet, as Blu-ray clearly came out the champion, its reign might be short lived. And the competition isn’t another competitor, but the looming threat of economic collapse. Analysts are predicting that due to economic uncertainty and the still potent cost of both Blu-ray players and Blu-ray movies, consumers just might stick with the old DVD for at least one more holiday season.

On the Blu-ray quandary, Lori MacPherson, GM of domestic home-entertainment at Disney, had this to say:

“The economy is the biggest challenge, because there are just so many pieces to the Blu-ray puzzle that consumers face. You need the high-definition television set, you need the player, you need the cables, you need the software . . .”

Needless to say, HDTVs, $300 video players, and $30 movies might not make the top of ‘feasible gift list’ this season.

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• Apple Deal-o-Rama?

Generally at this time of year retailers have some decent deals on and with the economic downturn, retailers would at least like folks to leave their homes. But generally the goys and girls over at Cupertino tend to keep their sales rather reserved. Perhaps a $100 off on a product family via an online purchase. But there’s early speculation that Apple’s Friday, 23^rd sale will play host to more than a few out-of-the-norm bargains. Specifics are scant, but there’s no harm in breezing by the Apple site next Friday and see if these ‘speculators’ have their intuitions straight.

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Another day, another blurb about…the iPhone! Huzzah! This one’s about a plot thickening though, so perk your ears up.

Many of those in both the technology and gaming fields have long recognized the potential for the iPhone and iPod Touch as a competitive portable gaming device. Indeed the titular device is primed for gaming; processing power, intuitive controls (touch screen, accelerometer), a preinstalled user base, and a streamlined application delivery system via iTunes. Well, seems one of those hotshots over at Cupertino are thinking along the same lines. Here’s Apple’s vice president of iPod marketing Greg Joswiak:

“There are already so many games and as we look at it, to us it really seems this is the future of gameplay. Whereas a lot of these devices [Nintendo DS and Sony PSP] are more in the past. And a big part of that is not just the device itself, which is easier to carry, and has the touch display and accelerometer which is great for gameplay, but it’s the electronic distribution of the apps as well.”

Joswiak goes on to further compare the iPod Touch with the DS, citing that the “3D graphic power here [in the iPod Touch] is significantly greater” than that of Nintendo’s handheld. Take that number one selling portable gaming device! But hey, those guys are still peddling cartridges! Oh the humanity!

What Apple has done here, by not initially addressing the gaming capacity for the iPhone and iPod Touch, is they’ve donned the garb of the underdog. ‘Oh, look, it can play games too. That’s neat!’ They knew what they had, the potential there. Now their in the process of casting of the façade and ostensibly taking on the big two (PSP and DS) with a massive preinstalled user base. And with the App Store they could literally skyrocket to the forefront of the race overnight.

Just look at ‘Need For Speed Undercover’ [pictured above]. No developer has taken on a Nokia or Samsung handset and said ‘Let’s make a seriously competitive game’ for the simple fact that the hardware (or controls for that matter) weren’t there. Obviously someone was taking the gaming potential of this thing seriously and months ago. If all the pieces fall into place, and a couple of lucky bounces, Apple could have masterminded one heck of a coup d’etat on the handheld gaming industry.

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What do sex, drugs, and electric cars have in common? Why, Neil Young of course (the only Neil Young in fact to be sued by a recording company for releasing an album that wasn’t ‘Neil Young-ish’). So what’s Old Neil up to these days? Why retrofitting old Lincoln guzzlers into electric green-machines. Word on the street is that the retrofit involves a rotary engine from a Mazda RX7 running on CNG (Compressed Natural Gas). That in turn powers the generator, which in turn, charges the car’s batteries. The batteries then make the wheels go round. The setup is registering 50 MPG at the moment, but the crew are aiming for an impressive 100 MPG. And then things get a little outlandish. Young’s business partner, Johnathan Goodwin,was recorded at a conference as saying that he’s working on a small hydrogen fuelled turbine. As the folks over at Autoblog noted, this seems a little excessive when paired with an already complex and heavily modified engine taking up the bulk of the space under the hood. Then Goodwin goes on to claim that a key objective is achieving ‘over-unity’ which would help to generate more energy than what was put in…because thermodynamics don’t rock in the free world.

However, ambitions aside, the whole project has a quite promising air about it. The upstart hybrid company is called LincVolt and it lives under the slogan: “Repowering the American Dream.” And despite the project’s predilection with the Lincoln brand, they will (eventually) be offering this retrofitting service to those that want their own vehicle green-ified.

Given the painfully slow roll-out rate of mainstream hybrids and electric cars, retrofitting just may become a viable alternative to the pumps. And to that end LincVolt have set up a website that keeps folks posted on the latest happenings, with live data streaming from the demo car, to videos of performance, forums for discussing current and new modifications, as well as a suggestion system that is subject to visitor ratings.

You can check out the tricked-out website here.

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Rock Band/Guitar Hero are quickly become as ubiquitous as the iPhone and other tip of the tongue tech toys that populate the headlines in the gadgetry sections of newspapers and websites. And like anything even remotely approaching popularity these things are subject to imitation. You know, the highest form of flattery? Otherwise known as the quickest way to make a buck. Now, it’s hard to place an emphasis on originality. One could argue that Rock Band has taken the ball from Guitar Hero and run with it and with great success; they broke the redundant cycle established by the originators and brought something new to the field. But for every evolutionary step forward, there are countless other stubborn Neanderthals. I think the ethos of Guitar Rock Tour, the latest rhythm/instrument clone to appear on the iPhone, is summed up quite succinctly in their own marketing one-liner on iTunes: “Perform, without musical knowledge, the most popular worldwide hits on your iPhone.”

The game features smooth, entertaining graphics and has a spiffy interface, not to mention several features lifted from its popular big brothers on the consoles. And rather than simulate one instrument, Guitar Rock Tour features both a guitar and drums. Remember, no musical knowledge is needed, so if you can’t distinguish one from the other, all is forgiven. The drums actually just feature two less columns for notes, simulating the binary nature of the instrument…uh wha?

So, decent graphics, multiple instruments, $10 price tag. What’s not to like? Well, for starters, the set list is weak sauce due to its helter skelter approach to genres (note, Helter Skelter is not among them). The tracks range from classics like ‘Smoke on the Water’ to everyday pop in ‘Girlfriend’, all in cover form. But what’s really at the heart of my distaste for this title is that Guitar Rock Tour is just a costumed Neanderthal; a stubborn, redundant bit of software that’s actually an evolutionary step backwards than most side-stepping that goes on in the industry. Publisher GameLoft is actually marketing a game for people that have a product virtually dedicated to music with the tag line that it’s for those “without musical knowledge”!? The iPhone houses music people! It’s not some console that needs to read tracks off a disc; it already contains the consumer’s favourite tunes. Even if someone enjoyed every track in the game, they’d already own the original version (on that same device no less), and should be dissatisfied with some hackneyed cover!

But hey, it’s not all GameLoft’s fault; it’s a systemic problem with the iPhone and access to the music library. However, back in the jailbreaking days there was a little app called Tap Tap Revolution which relied on WiFi to get the necessary tap-files. Assuming your library contained even remotely known songs, you’d likely find a match. That meant your entire music library was open to gaming. My god, you could actually listen to the exact song you felt like at that moment, and game to it at the same time. Now that’s evolutionary!

Guitar Rock Tour DOES NOT work on the iPod Touch at this time.

The Zune Fall Collection

Zune, the red-headed step-child of the mp3 player business, is all set to diversify. To the max! And in this case ‘the max’ = 46 distinct designs etched into the back of your favourite(?) portable music player. Among the new designs is “a Zodiac Series featuring exclusive artwork of Eastern and Western astrology from Catalina Estrada and Iosefatu Sua” according to the Microsoft press release announcing the new line up just in time for the holidays.

Scoot on over to the new Zune Originals site and browse through the lengthy list of customizations. Or if you already own a plain Zune, have you considered stickers?

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• The Coolest Thing to Ever Support Charity

There are modders and then there are master modders and the crafty mind behind this contrivance of a PS3 is certainly the later. Ramon Stokes, whose works can be found over on his website, is a customizer extraordinaire when it comes to case modding and his latest console up for auction is every bit as purdy as his other creations. This one is tricked out for Meta Gear fans, signed by Hideo Kojima himself, bespeckled with laser cut lettering and illuminated by micro LEDs. The controllers themselves maintain the Metal Gear look with equally impressive customizations.

The whole shebang is up on eBay, with 15% of the proceeds going to Child’s Play, the charity that helps bring the joy of gaming to those children confined to hospitals.

Bidding at this moment is a little over $3,000 dollars and ends this evening. 

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• 20 megapixel camera-phones? You bet, says Sony
  

In a recently leaked ‘Feature Race’ document the words 12-20 megapixels are listed next to the camera quality portion for cell phones released in 2012 (coincidence?). The video quality is also listed as “Full HD Resolution”. Is Sony attempting to out-do the entire camera industry by fusing together the latest photography tech with a cell phone? One has to wonder why they’d be pushing the market in that direction, but they’ve certainly been leaning that way with each iteration of the Sony Ericsson CyberShot series of phones.

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