Digital Technology for Digital Living.
September 30, 2004
L-Mail.
Who would have thought that you can actually send mail to people who don’t have an internet connection. That’s right, a none digital form of communication. What’ll they think of next, news on paper delivered to your door. Yeah right.
Never sent a letter before, don’t you worry your pretty little head, simply type the message in your browser, format it, and L-Mail will print it and send it for you. Prices depend on the destination country, so sending a letter to Australia isn’t that economical at about $AU2.00 (£.80), but $AU1.45 to the U.S. aint so bad.
According to The Register they have posting locations in Sydney, British Columbia, Madrid, Edinburgh, Leicester, London, Ellensburg, and New York, but the service covers the globe.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | General, Software
OzEmail’s Metrowide Wireless.
OzEmail has announced their new Metrowide Wireless plan which is price comparable to other home broadband solutions. Unlimited downloads, shaped from 12GB, starting at $AU49.95. Upfront costs include a $AU99 setup fee and the modem. Desktop modems cost $AU215 and a laptop PCMCIA card will set you back $AU249. Right now, because it’s powered by iBurst the service is available in Metropolitan Sydney, CBD, Eastern suburb, Lower North Shore, Parramatta and in Queensland’s Gold Coast. Other states and areas are planned.
The plans consist of the Portable Broadband Range, OzE Metro Saver 256/64Kbps ($AU49.95), OzE Metro Explorer 512/128Kbps ($AU64.95) and OzE Metro Flyer 1Mbps/256kbps ($AU99.95), and the Mobile Broadband Range, OzE Mobile Express 1Mbps/1024kbps ($AU99 and shaped after 1GB) and OzE Mobile Flyer 1Mbps/1024kbps ($AU199). The difference between the Portable and the Mobile range is the ability to roam while online using the Mobile service.
Currently it works with Windows XP/2000, with Mac OS X planned for late October.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Broadband, Wireless
September 29, 2004
Nokia’s LifeBlog, $50 License Fee.
Nokia Lifeblog, an application we mentioned a couple of months ago, has moved out of beta to a 1.0 release. Rather than it be a feature of their phones that encourages people to use a Nokia, the company has decided to charge for the software. At $AU50 (29.95 Euros) we can’t see it taking off. Not only that, but the upgrade path for people using the beta isn’t trivial. Currently it stores photos, MMS and SSM in diary form on the phone and to a Windows PC. Perhaps we’ll see greater value when extra features appear, like the Six Apart announcement suggests.
Link thanks to Lifeblog via Mobitopia.
Gadgetman | Comments (1) | Mobile Phone, Software
Aussies To Get Faster ADSL In The Near Future.
Whirlpool has a great article, prime reading for all bandwidth fiends. In the next year several Australian ISPs will be rolling out ADSL2 and ADSL2+ which “provide greater range and higher speeds than the current DSL standard”. Whirlpool does us all a great service of not only explaining the differences, but also the details of the ISPs and modem vendors who’ll adopt the standards.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Broadband
September 27, 2004
PSP To Get Native MP3 Support
Sony’s handheld gaming device, the PSP, will have native MP3 support in addition to it’s ATRAC decoding. It’s about time that Sony acknowledged that users don’t want to have to transcode their music collections to play on different devices. It’s a waste of space and processing time.
Whether this means that other Sony products in the pipeline will support MP3 as well as ATRAC remains to be seen, but it’s a positive move, and not before time.
Ben | Comments (0) | Music, Portable
Engin Voice Box For Sale At Dick Smith.
ARNnet has a story on Dick Smith stocking the Engin Voice Box, a Voice Over IP phone system that has the potential to reduce the cost of phone calls.
From Dick Smith’s web site :
- The Engin Voice Box can be attached to an analog, cordless or dect telephone, allowing you to make and receive phone calls as you normally would. Using Engin, you can start saving money when you make calls to other Engin customers, landlines, mobiles and international destinations
- To be able to use the Engin Voice Box you need a broadband internet connection; a modem or router; an Engin Voice Box and a credit card
- Plans start from as low as $19.95 a month
- 10c local calls untimed anytime
- 10c intercapital calls untimed anytime
- Free calls to Engin customers worldwide
- No call connection fees
- On line real time billing
- Current Engin areas where a Local geographic telephone number are allocated are Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Canberra, Gosford, Newcastle, and the Gold Coast, excludes Hobart.
It also has the ability to record voicemail, filter calls, caller id and forwarding.
An alternative to the hardware is a software version, they’ve sourced from Xten, that works on Windows (98, ME, 2000, XP) or Mac.
VOIP services are hitting the market thick and fast at the moment, by the end of the year we’ll have several competing services, well before Telstra’s release, which they claim won’t save people money. Though the call costs are less, it still requires that you have a broadband connection, which usually means you need to pay Telstra for a phone line anyway.
The Engin Voice Box is for sale now on Dick Smith’s web site for $AU149.
Gadgetman | Comments (1) | Broadband, Software, VOIP
ATO’s eBay Crackdown.
If you’re an eBay “PowerSeller”, someone selling more than $AU2000 worth through the online marketplace, be prepared for a letter from the Australian Tax Office. Australian IT has an article on the ATO requesting the details of these type of sellers from the company.
“The ATO request for information does not cover most sellers on eBay, who earn only a small dollar amount from their sales.
Those sellers can usually claim their eBay use is a hobby and any income is not taxable.”
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | General, Software
Play Station 2 Model SCPH-70000.
Gadget Lounge wonders why Sony would redesign its current PS2 when everyone is more interested in their next generation game console, which is rumoured to be on the way late next year. We know they did it with the PSOne, but surely they’d want to focus all resources on the head to head battle between the XBox “Next” and the PS3. The only reason we can think of is that it’ll be later than next year, and their extending the shelf life of the current model.
Other than slimming it down (obvious from the photo), the new PS2, actually called the SCPH-70000, has built in ethernet and a dial-up port. However, they’ve removed the expansion slot, and given there is no internal hard-drive it means some games that require one, can’t be played on the new model.
Smart House has the release date for the mini-PS2 as October 29, though given the U.S. release date is November 1 and Japan is November 3, it makes us think the news might be wrong.
Gadgetman | Comments (2) | Console
iPod Panics.
Panic stations this morning. When your iPod turns on with a blank display you start to wonder where you’ll get the money for a new one. All settled down again when we reset the little mite and it came back good as new.
QDN has a interesting experience with their iPod, when they’d given up on the old battery and suddenly they returned to a generous charge. One of the comments makes a good suggestion when they point to Battery Universities “How to prolong lithium-based batteries” article.
In related news, the Australian Defence Department has banned the device.
Anyone else with some interesting stories to tell about their iPod?
Gadgetman | Comments (1) | Music, Portable
September 23, 2004
Nokia’s 6670, GPS Module, Remote Camera and Wireless Headset.
Nokia announced a new phone today, the 6670. It appears to be just a Nokia 7610 with a more conventional case. Series 60, GSM 900/1800/1900, 65,536 colours (176×208 pixels), and 1 megapixel camera.
They also announced a few other products including a funky GPS Module, a Remote Camera that sends images via MMS, and a new Wireless Headset (HS-11W).
The GPS Module (due next year) connects wirelessly to a compatible mobile phones (Nokia 3650, 3660, 6260, 6600, 6630, 6670, 7610, 9300, 9500, N-Gage, N-Gage QD, including other Symbian based products supporting Bluetooth specification 1.1 and Serial Port Profile and NMEA 0183 compatible software) , PDA or PC using Bluetooth wireless technology. The “compact portable GPS receiver enables the use of a range of location-based applications and services, of which some offer turn-by-turn route guidance to a selected destination.”
The Remote Camera is a great idea. Using a built in motion or temperature detector it can send a text message, image or video with sound via MMS to a phone. To do this it uses it’s own transceiver (GSM 900/1800) so it can be used anywhere there is a GSM signal.
No pricing is available yet.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Mobile Phone, Wireless, Digital Camera, Peripherals
BlackBerry How To.
With all the recent news about BlackBerrys in Australia, it seems opportune that RIM Road has an excerpt from How to Do Everything with Your BlackBerry by Curt Simmons. In this case it is Chapter 7, Managing E-Mail. As well as being a good how to, it offers insight into the usability of the BlackBerry device.
Link thanks to MobileWhack.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Wireless, Portable, PDA
iPod’s Scroll Wheel.
For those of us in love with our iPod, CNet has a nice article on the development behind the scroll wheel technology.
“After the first iPod caught on, Apple started thinking of ways to improve it. Here’s where Synaptics comes into the equation. The company had already worked with Apple on its iBooks. So when Apple was looking for a way to make the iPod thinner and lighter, it elected to try out a touch-sensitive design from Synaptics. Aside from creating a more pocket-friendly iPod, the new design also prevented any potential grime from gumming up the scroll wheel’s inner workings. (I’ve never heard of this happening, but apparently it was a concern.)”
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Music, Portable
Sydney Ferries Go Wireless
ZD Net have had a chat with the marketing director of Personal Broadband Australia about the possibility of the NSW State Transit Authority combining iBurst with wireless access points on ferries to turn them into wireless hotspots. No news on which ISP might be gearing up to introduce such a service, but a technology trial has already been completed by the sounds of it. For more, read the article at ZD Net.
Link via e3.
Ben | Comments (0) | Wireless
September 20, 2004
BlackBerrys For All Of Us.
Geekzone points out that Vodafone Australia has released a BlackBerry service for the individual or small and medium enterprises. Mainly because the service requires hardware installed at the corporate side the service hasn’t been available to individuals. “BlackBerry Internet Email is an internet-based email interface that can retrieve email from up to 10 ISPs or other email accounts. BlackBerry Internet Email will redirect email wirelessly to your BlackBerry Handheld so you can send, receive, forward and reply to messages while you’re on the go.”
Pricing comes in two flavours, $29.95 per month for up to 500 emails (1Mb of data) or $49.95 per month for unlimited emails (subject to reasonable use policy). The BlackBerry Handheld from Vodafone retails at $AU799 and is available from Vodafone stores nationwide, but future Nokia’s will also include the feature.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Mobile Phone, Wireless, Portable, PDA
Free Freo Wi-Fi.
Graeme Sutherland and Jack Pearson have been running a free Wi-Fi service at Fremantle’s cafe strip for a few months now. They’ve just started a web site that provides the latest news on the project and other free Wi-Fi in Western Australia.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Broadband, Wireless
September 16, 2004
Advanced Cranial Hardware.
The crew at Oakley sure know how to release hardware. Not only have they published the new Oakley Thump details on their web site, but they’ve got the soft vault and soft box cases, world wall charger with international adapters, replacement USB cable and car charger available. Even their USB Logo rocks.
For those that missed the news about the Thump in August, it’s a pair of sunglasses with in-built music player. It comes in seven different colours, with 128MB or 256MB of memory, and the ear pieces and lenses flip up so you can wear them inside, outside, when speaking with people or on the phone. It’ll play MP3, WMA, WMA with DRM, and WAV, and will work with a Mac and Windows computers. It uses a lithium-ion polymer battery providing up to six hours of continuous play. Neat, but it won’t replace our iPods.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Music
The Lucky, But Slow, Country.
Also from smh.com.au, a greatarticle that gives everyone in Oz a good idea of what broadband is available in the rest of the world.
“Consumers in France, Italy and Austria are routinely getting 4mbps speeds over their copper wires. In Korea, a quarter of all broadband subscribers are getting 25mbps on fibre; in Japan there are a million people getting a 100mbps.”
“In Paris, the French phone company is offering 17 TV channels on broadband as part of its standard internet/telephony package.”
Bring it on.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Broadband
Podboard.
smh.com.au has a review of the swiss made podboard. It’s more a frame for a piece of art than a stand for the iPod, and it seems to do both jobs nicely. Although it comes in the good old Mac brushed metal style, it can be customised with skins by using the online templates. It’s available for $AU50, but not until November. Not even floating around on ebay yet given the short supply.
Also reviewed is a 43-inch plasma display and a marvelous idea of a bottle-opener fridge magnet.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Music
Intel WiMax Due In The Next Year.
Intel has started testing WiMax devices, and says that they’ll start shipping them in the next year. WiMax is a much touted wireless technology because of it’s ability to extend the range extensively. Wikipedia explains that it “provides up to 50 km (31 miles) of linear service area range and allows users connectivity without a direct line of sight to a base station. The technology also provides shared data rates up to 70 Mbit/s”. NEWS.com.au reports that “Mr Maloney, who declined to elaborate on current business conditions, said WiMax chips would be built into notebook computers starting in 2006 and in handsets in 2007.”
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Wireless, Portable
Media Centre Won’t Ship With AN EPG.
Just as Gadget Lounge predicted, and Petestrash commented, Microsoft’s Windows Media Centre will not ship with a program guide. This is key, without it, the device is just a glorified video recorder. Ok the data will be digital, and this provides better quality, more flexibility, and the ability to record a lot more. But without the ease of use that a program guide affords, it just isn’t as compelling. Our bet is that the networks, Seven, Nine and Ten aren’t budging and aren’t making it easy for Microsoft to license the data.
DCN discusses the news. “Anderson says while the EPG will be disabled in the new Media Center machines, users will still be able to manually record TV programs by entering in dates and times themselves, rather than choosing it through a simple EPG menu”. Just like a common video recorder, really.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | PVR, Software
