Digital Technology for Digital Living.
September 06, 2006
New iPods, iMac due September 12
Planning on attending Apple Expo Paris? Looks like it might be a hot ticket this year. According to ThinkSecret, Apple will use a September 12 media event for Apple Expo Paris to introduce the 2G (second-generation) iPod nano, an updated 5G iPod, movies in the iTunes Store and an upgraded wall-mountable iMac.
Although the “media event” will be held in California near Apple’s Cupterino headquarters, it will be fed via satellite to a London location for members of the European press. Apple Expo Paris kicks off September 12, the same day as the media event, and these new products will supposedly be on display at the show.
iPod Nano
What does Apple have in store for the 2G iPod Nano? If ThinkSecrets sources are correct, an increased storage capacity and multiple colors. When Steve Jobs first announced the iPod Nano, he said it would replace the iPod Mini. Now that the Nano comes in multiple colors, the transformation appears complete.
iPod Video
Don’t get your hopes up too high for the new 5G iPod. The upgraded iPod will just have bigger hard drive capacities at the same price points. More storage for less money is always nice but this new iPod will probably not be the long-awaited touch-screen iPod. Most people believe that Apple will strategically release a 6G iPod at the same time as Microsoft’s new Zune player. Reports of Apple filing for a touch sensitive media player patent first surfaced back in February. If the touch-screen iPod lives up to the rumors, the Zune won’t pose much of a threat. The Zune is more of a “catch up” product than a leap forward in advanced consumer technology.
iTunes Movies
Apple is also expected to formally announce their movie store initiative at the September 12 event. Several major studios have reportedly partnered with Apple to sell movies in the iTunes Store. Both iPod and movie announcements were originally suppose to happen in August but were postponed for unknown reasons. Perhaps Wal-Mart’s recent efforts to muscle out Apple from the downloadable movie business caused the delay.
New iMac
Details surrounding the new iMac are still a little fuzzy. The new upgraded iMac will probably receive Intel’s faster Core 2 Duo processor and a 23-inch screen already used in Apple’s line of Cinema Displays. Also rumored, but not confirmed, is the introduction of an iMac mounting kit. You wanted to wall mount your new iMac above your fireplace mantle right?
methodshop | Comments (0) | General, Music, Portable, PDA, Video, Software
July 17, 2006
Sony PSP-290 GPS Receiver
In a March business briefing, Sony Computer president Ken Kutaragi announced several new accessories for the Sony PSP including a GPS receiver called the PSP-290. Someone at the briefing was able to secretly snap a quick photo of a slide detailing the PSP-290 (photo on left). According to this blurry photo, the tiny silver PSP-290 will attach to the top of the PSP. The unit will have a 1 second update rate and take about 40 seconds to get its first reading when you first turn it on (cold start). The PSP-290 is slated for release sometime in October 2006. No prices were mentioned in the briefing.
If you can’t wait until October, you can try to make your own PSP GPS unit like a PSP homebrew genius named Art. He created a PSP homebrew GPS system (photo on right), called GPSP, by hacking together a Garmin GPS unit with some PSP graphical navigation software. The GPSP software reads the GPS location data and then displays it on the PSP screen.
Art recently made some refinements to his PSP GPS creation and had this to say on QJ.net:
“There is a parts list in the new package, the position fix data is now extracted from an NMEA sentence common to the Garmin and the Sony unit from eBay, the new circuit has no need for the 4.7K resistor tied to +5 Volts because the MCLR is turned off in the pics software. The current limiting resistor is now 22K to better protect the PSP. this is the highest value I tried where it still worked reliably, There are small improvements and bug fixes to the software. The GPSP-V2.zip package is complete, and the original package should be discarded. Cheers, Art.”
GPSP runs on the PSP homebrew code loader software called LUAplayer 0.11 (PSP 1.5 firmware or higher). Once you have LUAplayer installed on your PSP you can download Art’s GPSP homebrew software here: GPSP (GPS front end program for PSP).
Happy hacking!
read more | digg story | methodshop
methodshop | Comments (0) | General, PDA, Toys, Software
February 16, 2006
Touch Sensitive iPod Patent Pictures
Here’s a few patent pictures Apple submitted to the US trademark website.
Is the touch sensitive iPod going to be a reality? You be the judge. After seeing these images, I must say it looks like an iPod to me. And with the increasing popularity of tablet PCs, a touch sensitive iPod would be something that would be very plausible.
However, it is still unclear if we are going to see an Apple tablet, full screen iPod or a combination of both. Nonetheless the multi point touch screen is a major revolution.
Check out the following video to see the possibilities:
http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/multitouchreel.mpg
Also here’s a link to Apple’s Patent Application on the US trademark website:
Mode-based graphical user interfaces for touch sensitive input devices
Learn More: Apple Patents Browse patents held by the Apple Corporation. Patent Genius provides full text on all Apple patents as well as the patent drawings and patent details
methodshop | Comments (0) | General, Music, Portable, PDA, Video, Digital TV, Toys
February 01, 2006
Apple Intel Ad Generates Controversy
The latest Apple/Intel commercial has generated a fair share of controversy.
First, Intel wasn’t happy with the commercial’s voice over. The announcer claims that Intel chips were trapped in dull boring computers until now. Intel has other customers besides Apple, and they didn’t appreciate Apple putting them all down.
However, the controversy didn’t stop there. The Apple/Intel ad is almost a shot-for-shot recreation of a music video for the song “Such Great Heights” by The Postal Service. The band was not happy about the blatant rip-off but they are probably very happy with the result. All the attention around the video has taken it to the #1 download spot on Apple’s iTunes Music Store. Not bad for a video that was released in 2003.
To see a side-by-side comparison of the two videos, check out the Elite Productions website. They did a great job of comparing the two videos.
Related Links:
- Apple Intel Ad
- Postal Service video for “Such Great Heights“
- Side-by-side comparison of the 2 videos
- post on iPastudio.com
methodshop | Comments (1) | General, Music, PDA, Video
December 14, 2005
Digital Day iPod & PSP Trailer
Last Saturday morning, everyone in the blogosphere woke up to the news that MSNBC had purchased advertising on 800 blogs. This was the largest single blogad buy in history. The promotion is for a special day of TV programming taking place on Wednesday, December 14th. The day is unofficially called “Digital Day” and will feature special Internet related TV programming, a live blogger, and interaction with bloggers throughout the day.
Although MSNBC’s intent in purchasing the blogads was to gain TV viewers, most of the press around Digital Day has been about the massive blogad buy and not about the content of the shows. To help raise awareness of the topics being covered on December 14th, MSNBC has put together a special video teaser tape for Digital Day in iPod and Sony PSP video formats.
The subjects being covered on Digital Day range from Oddball Videos and the Porn Industry to more serious topics like Internet Addiction (chat rooms, online gambling, shopping, gaming, etc).
Many of the clips being covered in the Oddball Video segment have probably been in your inbox before. My favorites are the fishing monkey, Pope drinking beer, Elvis impersonator pumping gas and the singing Swedish kid.
Rita Cosby’s coverage of the Porn Industry and Internet Addiction will probably strike a chord with a more sophisticated audience. Call me simple, but I just want to see the funny clips.
You can download the MSNBC “Digital Day” Teaser Tape here:
- MSNBC Digital Day Teaser: iPod Video (17.5 MB)
- MSNBC Digital Day Teaser: Sony PSP Video (11.2 MB)
If you don’t know how to copy videos onto your PSP, then check out this MethodShop.com tutorial: How to Copy Videos onto Your Sony PSP
Program your TiVo’s now. Here are the MSNBC shows to checkout on 12.14.05:
- Oddball Video - Keith Oberman: 8 p.m. ET
- Inside the Valley of Porn - Rita Cosby: 9 p.m. ET
- Internet Addiction - Joe Scarborough: 10 p.m. ET
Related Links:
methodshop | Comments (0) | General, Portable, PDA, Video, Digital TV
December 11, 2005
Free B-Movies for iPod
Have you already ripped all your DVDs and copied them onto your iPod Video?
Need more video content?
Cult of Mac blogger, Leander Kahney, is reporting that Public Domain Torrents has more than 500 public-domain flicks — including cult classics like Night of the Living Dead.
“There’s a lot of silent-era stuff, but also a rich vein of kitsch trash, including clunkers from Ed Wood (Plan 9 from Outer Space), George Romero (Night of the Living Dead) and a Russian psychotronic/cult sci-fi oddity called Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women.”
Leander felt that the IMDB.com review for King of Kong Island was a good example of what you should expect from these movies:
An Italian Spanish Co-production with America’s own Dick Randall involved in the ‘presenting’ - King of Kong Island mixes horror movie, nudie-cutie and jungle adventure with toppings of National Geographic stock footage- all set to a jungle beat of exotica..
If you are unfamiliar with BitTorrent and how to use it, please check out this MethodShop.com BitTorrent tutorial.
B-Movie Torrent Files Mentioned in this Blog Post:
- Plan 9 from Outer Space
- Night of the Living Dead
- Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women
- King of Kong Island
methodshop | Comments (1) | General, Music, Portable, PDA, Video
April 16, 2005
Handheld Tablet PC
From the only Engligh characters on this page, this device appears to have been launches at Japan’s IDF 2005, running Windows XP Tablet Edition on a 600Mhz Pentium M.
Babelfish and Google both failed on translations though…. so the rest of the details are left as a mystery. Perhaps one of our readers has some tricks up their sleeve? Comments welcome!
Random | Comments (1) | Portable, PDA
April 13, 2005
Where is my Gadget?
You should be starting to get excited…. its out there… the technology ingredients are falling into place…
Hard Drive capacities are increasing (This animation is a crack-up)
Liquid lenses will allow small devices to zoom & focus without the need for traditional bulky glass lenses – just like your eye! (well.. for those of us without glasses at least)
WiMAX should provide DSL equivalent speeds (for those of us living close enough to cities anyway).
And then with VOIP we should be able to slash the costs of calls – to anywhere in the world!
Screens are getting more flexible
And there is even some decent software to run the thing with!
Add in to this companies like HTC (the makers of the O2 mini, and other things), Samsung (making phones with hard drives and high resolution, 7Megapixel! cameras), and Archos (who have been pushing the boundaries on portable media products ), along with many, many other companies….
And the final result of all this?
No one knows yet… but its a fair bet that Gadget Lounge readers will be lining up to order one!
Tell us what you’d like to see in your device in the forum.
Random | Comments (1) | General, Mobile Phone, Broadband, Music, Wireless, Portable, PDA, Digital Camera, VOIP
September 23, 2004
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
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
September 08, 2004
Nokia 9300.
We mentioned the other day that Nokia would be releasing he 9300, the smallest of their Communicator range, and today they’ve made that official. It seems they are targeting women with the phone because the size allows easy handbag storage. If you’re a man it doesn’t mean you can’t use it, just that if we see you with one you know what we’ll say. The weight is 167 g and dimensions are 13.2 x 5.1 x 2.1 cm. As rumoured, it doesn’t include Wi-Fi or a camera, but it does have a feast of other applications because it’s a Series 80 phone on Symbian 7. It is tri-band and has BlackBerry support like the 9500 announced yesterday. It’s due in the first quarter of 2005. infoSync has more details, and All About Symbian has the differences between this and it’s big brother, the 9500.
Last week a few people posted a photo of the device, but we realised it was quite obviously a fake, so we didn’t bite.
Gadgetman | Comments (1) | Mobile Phone, Portable, PDA
August 30, 2004
Vodafone’s Future.
Vodafone has a fun site exploring what some devices might be like in the near future. Vodafone Future Site has not-yet-invented devices like personal communicators, visual bracelets, robotic cleaners, virtual billboards, location based digital maps showing a friends location, electronic paper that’s connected to the network, and a heads up display for those ever important family gatherings. It’s a Flash based site that allows you to experience some of the possibilities. Most of this technology isn’t too far off with some of the technology already in the labs, and others that we already own.
Thanks to we make money not art for the link.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | General, Mobile Phone, Music, Wireless, Portable, PDA, Video, VOIP
August 14, 2004
Speculation About Apple Handheld.
Every gadget junkie loves an Apple rumour. The latest centres around a patent lodged in May in the U.K. for a handheld computer. The Register has the story along with a few sketches, that to be honest look like a white slab. Incredibly unexciting. The details however raise a few exciting points to ponder, and perhaps Apple didn’t lie when they said recently that they are not buying 60GB drives for iPods.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | PDA
August 11, 2004
mOlympics Means The Olympics Go Mobile.
For those of us with mobile phones or PDAs capable of internet access, Russell Beattie has launched mOlympics. It’s an Olympics news site that is written specifically so it can be viewed on small mobile devices, with no graphics for a quick download time. The beauty of the design is it also works well via a standard browser, and has links specifically for that purpose. No excuses now for not knowing the latest details. It aggregates news from around the net about the Olympics, presenting it on the one page. It should be invaluable for the next two weeks.
Link thanks to Smart Mobs.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Mobile Phone, PDA
Ultra Wideband By Christmas.
eWeek reports that Freescale Semiconductor Inc. has announced that they have approval from the FCC in the U.S. to manufacture Ultra Wideband chips, and will have them in devices by the end of the year. Given that the Australian Communications Authority self professes to watch and follow their U.S. counterpart, I’m sure they’ll allow the chips into Australia as quickly as they are made and shipped.
Ultra Wideband transmits data over a wide spectrum, but at low power rates, and hence only short distances of about 10 meters. Technologists are bleating that this will allow consumer electronics to transmit wirelessly, like Bluetooth, but at a much greater rate . 110 Mbps initially and up to 1 Gbps in the future, because of the larger bandwidth afforded by the wider spectrum, so transmitting video becomes an option. UWB will no doubt be used in set top boxes, DVD players, TVs, laptops, PDAs, Mobile Phones, etc. making Bluetooth obsolete. MacSlash speculate that this could be the hold up with the new iMacs, and may lead to wireless iPods next year.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Mobile Phone, PVR, Wireless, PDA, Video
iSync 1.5, Still No 7610 Support.
Apple has released iSync 1.5 today. If you thought that it might support the latest smart phone from Nokia, the 7610, then you’re right out of luck. The new release claims to add support for more Sony Ericsson and Motorola phones, and makes us wonder how Nokia has managed to damage the relationship. Fortunately, for those that own one or any other phone not supported, BluePhoneMenu helps make up for some of the missing features like sending SMS and seeing incoming calls, and they’ve just released their new version today. We’re still waiting for true Address Book and iCal syncing though.
Update : (August 11 2004) It now appears possible that Nokia has done nothing wrong, and it’s just Apple’s slow to support Bluetooth phones in general. The Unofficial Apple Weblog points out that the new support for some of the Motorola phones are via USB only.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Mobile Phone, Portable, PDA, Software
August 03, 2004
Siemens SK65 Business Phone.
The Siemens SK65 brings a funky new keypad layout, and integration with BlackBerry push email, push-to-talk, and bluetooth to the Siemens range. The most obvious feature is the new rotating X shaped keypad with a QWERTY key layout for faster messaging. It looks as though the keypad also has support for all the extended punctuation characters without having to hit a button 9 times.
As well as that funky layout, it also has a 2.05″ TFT display with 132×176 pixels and 64k colours, 30 MB of user memory, USB, IR and Bluetooth communications, but forgoes a camera, external storage support and mp3 player.
There will be three versions available, the only difference between them seems to be with the email handling. Two models will have BlackBerry support and the third will use regular ISP based email. It should be available in Europe, the Middle East and Latin America in November, and other areas shortly after. We obviously fall into the ‘other’ areas, unfortunately. No word on pricing yet, and Siemens Australia know less than we do.
Ben | Comments (3) | Mobile Phone, Portable, PDA
July 29, 2004
New HP iPaqs.
There’s still no official word on the HP Australia web site, of course, but the last couple of days has seen news of the launch of the new HP iPAQ range. MTekk has news that they will land here in October.
It looks as though mobile phones and PDAs are going to meet somewhere in the middle, the specifications on the top of the range h6350 (the h6315 is not coming to Australia), are rumoured to include a quad band GSM/GPRS phone, Bluetooth and 802.11b support, built-in VGA camera, an SDIO supporting SD card slot and Windows Mobile 2003.
With specs that impressive, one can also expect an impressive price tag, no doubt. Even though there’s no word on official pricing, we’re not expecting the price to leave us much change from A$1200, if any.
Now that Sony has exited the handheld PC market, maybe we’ll see the two remaining major players (HP and PalmOne) turn up the heat on each other a little. Who will be able to pack more functionality into their devices?
Ben | Comments (0) | Mobile Phone, Portable, PDA
iRemote?
Ever wanted to use your iPod to replace a bunch of IR remotes? No, us either, but in a very cool article, Engadget tell you how to turn your iPod into a universal remote.
Whilst we can’t help but think that it looks like a lot of work, an extra remote around the house to replace the other 8 or 9 that we have can’t go astray, can it?
Ben | Comments (1) | Wireless, Portable, PDA
July 20, 2004
Turn Your Bluetooth Phone Into A Remote For Your Mac.
BoingBoing points to an incredible application for those people with a Bluetooth Phone or PDA and a Apple Mac. Salling Clicker turns your Bluetooth device into a remote control for your computer. It includes the ability to control iTunes, DVD Player, EyeTV, VLC Media Player, iPhoto, Keynote, PowerPoint, Mail, and the list goes on with expandability by AppleScripts. For anyone that plays iTunes on their laptop through their Hi-Fi, downloaded movies or DVDs by plugging it into their TV, gives presentations, or just likes one upping colleagues with their latest toy, it’s worth a look. Just $US19.99 will buy you a license if you get sick of the 30 click limited demo.
As it advertises, “Embrace your laziness!”
Richard | Comments (0) | PDA, Software
