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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.
- 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
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 promovideo
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.”
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.
Designs feature all normal play, pause, stop and skip features as well as a hold button alongside a thin horizontal trackpad for volume and menu navigation while a small silver the Apple logo will act as the home button. The iBangle does not feature a screen, however. Instead auditory directions are given for menu navigation. Further features include the use of wireless in-ear headphones, further minimizing the design and keeping cord tangles out of the way.
But the best features seems to be the adjustable size brought about by a thin inflatable lining that increases and decreases pressure around the wrist for a comfortable, slip-free hold on any wrist. This also increases the usefulness of the horizontal trackpad, preventing it from hanging limp on the wrist or slipping off.
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.”
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?
No, there isn’t some sort of retro-wave of old-school
Polaroid cameras rushing to market. This new shoot and print combo is based on
that fancy new printer technology called Zink (an amalgamation of the words
‘zero’ and ‘ink,’ very crafty). The new technology uses special paper that
changes colour under certain degrees of heat. Slap a five megapixel camera on
the front of it and you’ve got yourself the xiao TIP-521 (pictured above). Not
exactly a catchy name (especially considering the parent company is a toy
manufacturer) nor is there a set launch date. Polaroid is said to be launching
their camera-printer hybrid sometime in 2009.
- David takes to the offence against Goliath (preemptively)
list of top free iPhone apps that have accumulated over the past few months.
Filling out their list is the likes of FlyCast:
“It doesn't matter if you own the
eight-gigabyte or 16-GB version of the iPhone 3G because if you have the free
FlyTunes (flytunes.fm) installed, you can access a never-ending stream of music
as if it were installed on the phone itself.” And Midomi: “you can hold the
iPhone 3G up to a speaker for Midomi to identify music, but it also lets you
use your voice to find out who sang a particular song. This includes singing a
line or two, by humming a few bars or by saying keywords.” But they’ve
overlooked a few apps in the process.
the Peek Handheld hasn’t garnered a lot of headline space, but it’s certainly
worth a look. First off, the Peek is a handheld device with a full fledged
QWERTY keyboard that handle one thing and one thing only: email. So what’s so
appealing about that? Well, for one it simplifies what can be a surprisingly
complicated process of finding a decent device that makes email accessible as
well as securing a viable wireless plan. The Peek comes in under $100 and is being
sold with unlimited use on T-Mobile for $20/month.
But the real question is: do you really
need one? On the one hand it’s relatively cost-effective but on the other it
only handles email. And the latter seems to be the critical response, as CNET’sreview
