Author Archives: Guest Contributor

Frequently, living digitally is about making the day to day things we use to do our jobs and live our lives better. Note I didn’t say bigger and better, since part of living digitally is also about making everything we have that works just fine as it is as teeny tiny as humanly possible. Not to get off on a tangent, (well not much of one) but I fully expect that one day I will learn to type 60-80 wpm with tweezers that hold special miniature dialing wands that tap keys on a miniature keyboard.

Tangent aside, the goal is for us to make everything better, and for the most part, we do just that with our technology. EXCEPT… when it comes to pirating.
If you look over the history of pirates, which is something I’ve done– albeit not very thoroughly since initially I just liked the hats pirates wear– you’ll notice a disturbing trend.
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Leaving aside the legality/morality of downloading mp3s, I have one major beef: Teenagers or otherwise culturally unfamiliar sorts mislabeling artists.

Not all African-American female vocalists from the ’60s, ’70s or ’80s are Aretha Franklin. Similarly, there were women other than Janis Joplin and Joan Baez recording folksy, bluesy roots back in the day. (Not to mention Janis is not Joan and Joan is not Janis. If there’s a duet with Bob Dylan, it’s 99.9999% Joan, since they mostly lived on the same coast and slept together.)

No one other than Melanie Safka would have ever wanted to record “Brand New Key.” The worst I’ve found so far was Scottish, Christian rockers the Proclaimers one-hit “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” attributed to the Pretenders. Yeah, because female Pretenders front Chrissie Hynde sounds so much like a pair of young Scottish lads.

Except for honest-to-God concert bootlegs, the original ripper must have some sort of CD or source media with an album insert showing at least the artist’s name in front of him/her, and, I don’t know, maybe a little thing called Internet access. So, how does the mislabeling happen?

Are you tired of chipping in with the rest of your family to buy Dad a horrendous looking tie? Tired of the awkward moment where he’s forced to put it on and wear it to work while looking thrilled and saying “Yes, I never knew polka dots went so well with pin stripes”?

Then what you need to take a look at, is the “AMAZING Water Clock”. It’s a great replacement father’s day gift. In many ways, it might be an odd enough present that it is the equivalent of the horrendous tie, but this time your Dad is saved from wearing it in public.

It’s not just a water clock or even THE water clock. It’s the AMAZING water clock. And what is most impressive is that it is powered by water. Which is amazing. Hence the name, which I’ll say one more time since it’s fun… the AMAZING water clock.

What’s cool about this clock is that it runs on pretty much any fluid. So quite easily, it could be the amazing beer clock. Beware though, if you add too much beer, I’ve heard that up to 4 hours can pass and the clock has no idea where they went or if it was telling time during them. I reckon adding beer to the clock might be a waste of good beer anyway.

You can put coffee in the clock though it runs a little faster than average, or you can try plain old water. Beware the plain old water option if you get a girly AMAZING water clock, as it will retain water at least once a month and perhaps tell time erratically.

Bottom line, this clock is fun. Just please don’t put any coke in it. If you do, your clock is likely to become hyper and refuse to sound any alarm you set on account of the fact it’s afraid everyone is out to get it.

My newest Internet hero, weblog read and gadget fantasy is featured in the most recent issue of Fortune,“The Amazing Rise of the Do-It-Yourself Economy.”

Pat Misterovich is designing a Pez mp3 player.

Well, in my case, it wasn’t a utility belt it was a utility car. I recently drove across the country from Cambridge, MA to San Jose, CA, and I couldn’t have done it without my carload of toys.

The first and most obvious gadget was the car itself, an “Aquarius Blue” Volkswagen New Beetle convertible. I bought it because it matches my iPod mini. Continue reading →

As my fellow geeks know, please don’t be offended with the geek reference, we all are in some capacity, that E3 is currently being held in sunny southern California. And with that gaming extraveganza of games, games, more games, hot models, and games, they show the latest and greatest of the upcoming.

The big 3, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have officially announced their next generation consoles. Sony’s Playstation 3, Microsoft’s Xbox 360, and Nintendo’s Revolution promise to make this upcomming generation truly digital.

All three are reported to have backwards compatibility and online access. Nintendo went a bit further to announce that “the evolution’s built-in wireless Internet will provide downloadable access to the thousands of games in company’s 20-year-old library, going back to the original Nintendo Entertainment System” WOWZERS..dorks drooling.

I haven’t been a big Nintendo fan in recent years, although I am guilty of owning all three of the current generation systems, its always exciting to see whats coming next for console gaming.

More indepth coverage to come when it’s announced, I don’t want to bore you with exact specs when the prices haven’t been announced yet. 😉

You may have seen these on an episode of MTV cribs yesterday. But Oakley has some nifty sunglasses out. The Thump, a line of sunglasses with ear buds on the bars where it overlaps your ears, (if my terminology is incorrect, it is because I do not wear glasses). Remarkably, it’s an mp3 player built into your sunglasses. The price is steep, $545 for the below…

“256 megabytes of solid-state NAND flash memory for storing up to 60 songs
The best polarized lenses on the planet
Absolute music freedom with no wires or cords to dangle or tangle
Up to 6 hours of playback time
75MHz DSP with 18-bit Sigma Delta DAC for state-of-the-art audio fidelity
Acoustic expansion speakers with forward/back booming and sideways pivoting
Flip-up lenses with raked-back contours for maximum protection against sun, wind and side impact
Patented XYZ Optics® for razor sharp clarity at all angles of vision, even at lens periphery
Plutonite lens material blocks 100% of all UVA, UVB, UVC and harmful blue light
Durable O Matter® frame with less than 1.8-ounce total weight for all-day comfort
Supports storage of data files along with song files
Includes high-speed USB cable for transferring song files from Mac or Windows PC”

It’s a great start to a very unique idea for an industry that probably has not had a lot of digital technology infused into it. I”m waiting to have camera’s built in with cell phones as well. Listen to some tunes, while you are driving, and you can even tape an accident while it happens, or record a robbery in progress.

The news I’d like to share with you today comes from this article. It talks about Hollywood studios requesting that digital TVs be designed with anti-piracy technology in place. Ok that’s fair, they don’t want people stealing stuff. However, I take issue with their threatening response to the FCC’s comment about how they can’t dictate how televisions or other similar devices are designed. I quote: “Hollywood studios say the ruling, if upheld, would discourage them from producing first-rate shows for over-the-air TV.”

Their comment would sort of imply they were shipping out first-rate shows right now. In which case I say to Hollywood BRING IT! Let’s see the second and third rate shows. If they lack plot, humor, drama, good acting they’re still not shocking me yet.

It would have been a much better threat if Hollywood had said the following: “The ruling, if upheld, would discourage them from continuing to flood the television with non-stop images of scantily clad attractive people attempting to act or avoid being voted off the island.”

They could have gone one further, if they really wanted to get something done. Hollywood COULD have said “In place of our first-rate programming, we will begin flooding over-the-air television with a veritable deluge of scantily clad, horrendously unattractive people.”

Such a threat would have one of two effects. Either a, it would help continue the transition many people are making towards cable and satellite for entertainment or b, it would shut down pirating activities at once.

I hope someone in Congress sees the merit of my solution, seeing as the battle over anti-piracy technology is now in their hands.

If you are looking for an eco friendly alternative to the Mini or Prius, here may lie your solution. The Smart Car, currently zipping through streets in Europe for the past seven years, is going to be imported into the US by a small Santa Clara Ca. Company, Zap. When I was in Switzerland a few years back, I remember seeing this zooming throught the narrow streets, delivering pizzas or transporting people around.

The Zap is 8 feet 2 inches long, or slightly more than half the length of the Prius, and at 1,588 pounds, it is nearly 40 percent lighter than the Mini Cooper. The three-cylinder car appeals to urban dwellers who need to squeeze into small parking spaces and like the stylish colors.

The customizable car will be sold with door panels in a variety of colors that can be switched “within the time it takes to drink a latte,” Campbell said.

In its current form, the Smart could be sold in 45 states, but not in California and four others that adhere to the nation’s toughest emissions standards.

“The European version of the car is rated to get 60 miles per gallon. However, to meet the tougher U.S. emissions standards, the car received an initial Environmental Protection Agency rating of just 37 mpg. He said the company’s internal tests indicate that the modified car should get at least 50 mpg, so it has asked the EPA for a retest.

Nevertheless, it remains to be seen if this small, reletively unsafe car, will be sucessfull in the states, for its been loosing money in Europe for a few years now.

Every now and again a gadget comes along that makes me scratch my head. The Dog LED Tail Light is such a gadget.

This device attaches to the tip of a dog’s (A POOR ABUSED DOG’S) tail and can be programmed to read out a message when the dog wags his tail because he’s pleased to see his owner. Yes, because any animal would be downright thrilled to have a blinky tail.

My only question is does this product come with drugs? I’m not sure how else the dog would climb out of the abyss of humiliation and despair he would find himself in once he understands what his owner has strapped to him THIS time.

Who decided this was a good idea? Was someone sitting around in an office just going, you know what, it’s really not embarrassing enough for the dog (and everyone else) to dress him up in people clothes. We need something more!

My favorite part of the article on the topic is the line that says “clearly some technophile dog owner noticed the gaping void that remains in the growing dog electronics market…” News Flash: SOMETIMES THERE ARE GAPING VOIDS FOR A REASON.

You don’t see people investigating the ‘how about if we make gum taste like dirt, nobody has done that before’ market. Technically, that’s a gaping void right there. Oh there are plenty of others. There’s the ‘how about leg warmers for snakes nobody’s done that before either’ market. Clearly that one’s ridiculous though, because as we all know, leg warmers went out of style after the 80s. My point is, some markets are better left untapped.

The only way it would ever be ok with me to place this device on a dog, would be if the dog got to program the message on it. I bet he wouldn’t pick “I missed you”. I picture more “You’ve got to sleep sometime” and then he’d wag his tail like crazy.

Tom Martin, clever lad that he is, has invented a glass that prevents spiking. Apparently, he got the idea after a friend was sexually assaulted as a result of drinking a spiked beverage.

From what I can tell, the glass is stylish, and cleverly designed. The center of the glass is hollow, and the beverage is contained between the double outer walls of the glass. The walls are so close together, that a special nozzle must be used to pour liquid into them, making it almost impossible to drop a drug into the drink. I hardly ever say this but, I am so impressed. And I bet, because Tom goes to design school in London, that he is probably English. Which would mean he has a sexy accent. Which means he’s completely awesome and gets to be my hero for at least the next two weeks or until I get distracted by something shiny.

Airbus, maker of regular airplanes, has just made it possible for potential purchasers of planes to supersize their order. That’s right, they’ve created the world’s largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380.

The A380, to summarize here, flew around for awhile and then landed in Toulouse, France. I found the entire procedure technologically impressive- they got 308 tons of plane off the ground, and back on the ground again. I’m sure it took a lot of work.

What concerned me about the article I read on the topic however, was the headline “‘Superjumbo’ A380 lands safely”. I’m of course, pleased the plane landed safely, BUT WHY ON GOD’S GREEN EARTH WAS THIS THE SPECIAL PART OF THE FLIGHT? It’s supposed to land safely! What’s next, “‘Oversized’ car with four wheels drives around in a circle without event”?!

I’m sorry, but if they want a pat on the back for landing a plane, which in general, is supposed to have the available feature of safe landing, then I want an article written about how fabulous it is that when I woke up this morning, I continued breathing as I had throughout the night. The plane lands safely really got me thinking though– do they make some planes that don’t land? Is this plane a marvel because Airbus made the biggest plane, or because long ago … perhaps when they designed the Airbus A330 prototype… engineers from the company decided they could save time and money by delaying the addition of the ‘plane is able to land’ feature to a later model?

Some cool features Airbus apparently isn’t going to delay much longer include passenger planes with cocktail bars, double beds and massage parlors. Ok I’m disappointed. Who makes a luxury plane with double beds?! Ca-learly that should be kingsize beds! It’s a superjumbo jet for chrissake. I want to speak to their designer immediately!

Crazier potential features include jacuzzis and mini-casinos. Because there’s nothing more entertaining than being next to a passenger who’s airsick AND having to share a jacuzzi with him at the same time. Except maybe being next to an airsick passenger in a mini-casino at a poker table…. “Um, I… bloorch!” … “The puking guy is bluffing, there’s NO WAY his hand could be that bad. I’m seeing his bet and raising…”

The most hilarious part of the article I read however, was the closing line, where the fuel efficiency of the superjumbo means, ha ha, that the tickets could be cheaper. Yes they COULD BE, except they went and added casinos and beds and other likely Austin Powers-esque features such as shag carpeting and whirling colored lights, which they’ll then have to charge us more for of course.

Want to complain/other? Email thetechdiva@gmail.com.