Hawt Gadgets

The number of people who own mobile phones have surpass the number of people who own a PC worldwide. There might be a single computer for a household but there is most certainly to be 2 or more mobile phones per household. The good thing about mobile phones is that it is easily carried around and it stays with the owner almost every single time. As a calendar is a useful part of a mobile phone, Google thinks its Calendar service should be accessed through mobile phones as well as other mobile devices. This will certainly ease all your planning and schedules instead of booting up a PC just to check on a birthday.

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I’m late to talk about this one, but today is Google Developer Day. It’s wild that thousands of developers are converging in Mountain View alone, and Google is doing presentations in 10 cities around the world. The Mountain View sessions are being held in the San Jose Convention Center, and you can see the full schedule here. If you’re reading this post, you’re probably not at the event though, so you’ll want to check out the streaming webcasts.

There’s a bunch to talk about, too. There’s a new version of the Google Web Toolkit, which lets you program in Java and then convert your code to AJAX/JavaScript for free. Even more fun is Google Gears. Google Gears is a plug-in that lets online web apps store data locally, and that lets you do neat things like an offline version of Googler Reader (which I’ll be trying out when I fly up to SMX Seattle soon).

By the way, note that the Google Gears blog post is by Aaron Boodman and another Googler. That name might sound familiar. Aaron Boodman is the guy that did Greasemonkey, which (in my opinion) is one of the most wicked-cool Firefox extensions in the world. Aaron and several other Googlers are providing Google Gears under an open-source license. They’ll be collecting feedback from across the web (plus companies like Adobe) to try to make Google Gears an open standard that any web app can use.

Kudos to the folks that organized and will speak at Developer Day, the Google Reader team for putting together an offline version of Reader, and especially the Google Gears folks for making some really useful code and releasing it with an open-source license. There’s a ton of other great sessions today too, from Patrick Riley talking about Custom Search Engines to Jeff Dean talking about Google’s infrastructure (including MapReduce, the Google File System, and BigTable). Good stuff.

Palm made an announcement yesterday introducing the Foleo. It is billed as a smartphone companion, but it borders on the size of a notebook computer. It costs $499 (after $100 rebate), making it a hilariously expensive accessory or an amazingly inexpensive laptop.

• Palm, Inc. - Products - Foleo

Sadly, it looks like the Foleo is merely a hilariously expensive Treo accessory. It is a machine that runs the Linux operating system, not Windows, and connects to the Internet through your phone to bring the web and your email to full size. Unless there are some amazing features that they are hiding up their sleeves, it looks like they expect you to pay 600 bucks for a wireless keyboard.

Are they daft or do they not realize that I can already get online with my laptop and my Treo? Their crippled Bluetooth implementation doesn’t let it be wireless, but I have no problem pulling out a cord to connect my phone to my computer. With the Foleo, I can’t edit video, retouch photos or play Second Life, but with my tiny Acer notebook, I can do all that plus email for only 500 bucks. They brag about only weighing 2.5 pounds, but my Acer weighs a mere 5.3 pounds. The Foleo is too big for your pocket and most purses, so you’re going to need to carry it around in a bag anyway. Might as well carry around a REAL computer and not this crippled monstrosity they are trying to pass off on you.

Palm keeps dropping the ball. The iPhone comes out next month and they are going to have serious competition from a company that understands how people use their phones. This latest move just makes it easier and easier for people to give up their Treos and choose the iPhone.

Via: Foleo | Palm’s New Smartphone Companion | Treonauts

The sun is beating down on us every day. Why aren’t we all taking advantage of that wasted energy by installing solar cells on the top of our houses or buildings? Bob Boehm from The University of Nevada’s Center for Energy Research explains why:

• Ryan Is Hungry - Solar Las Vegas: Center for Energy Research - 03.07.2007

If you’re tempted to stop watching, fast forward to 4:36 minutes into the video. He talks about a really cool way to light your home or office using fiber optics and concentrated light from the sun. It’s far better than a skylight because it redirects the light to where you need it. Why doesn’t every office have this? I want to know specifics. How much would it cost to include this into my home?

This video is from Ryan Is Hungry, a weblog that brings green-friendly ideas to you on a regular basis. If you are interested in finding more efficient ways to live on this planet, they have enough ideas to fill your mind.

I picked up Games ‘n Music up at Walmart for about $35. It was just inexpensive enough to try out for fun. It is a game card that allows you to play videos, music and homebrew games on your Nintendo DS. It came with a 128 MB Micro SD card loaded with 25 games. The included card was enough to hold two hours worth of video, but I bought a 2 GB card and now I can play almost 11 hours of video on Nintendo.

You can see a video demonstrating Games n’ Music here:

As you can see, the video looks really good. Their software to convert video is amazingly fast. I used the lowest quality conversion and it still looks really good on the screen. Sadly, the video player leaves something to be desired. You can’t fast forward or reverse the video. If you go out of the video you’re watching and then go back in, it will restart you at the beginning of the video instead of where you were last and there is no way to fast forward to where you were before.

The MP3 player is a little better because it allows you to scan through the song. It also allows you to skip to the next song. Unfortunately, there is no good organization for the music and it doesn’t read song title from the MP3 data.

The games that come with it are utter crap. Sorry, but there is no nice way to say it. They are not worth the small storage space that they take on your card. They don’t use any of the buttons on the DS, even if the game would be better played with the button controls than a touch screen. There is no way to get out of the games without turning off your Nintendo. You can’t reset or hold down the start button to escape them.

I have been able to run some homebrew software using this card, but honestly, I haven’t been able to find anything good out there. I don’t know if this card is making them crash or if they are just substandard and crash all the time. I guess when it comes to online software available for free, you get what you pay for.

I compared the video quality of the Nintendo DS running Games n’ Music with the Video iPod and the Samsung U-740. You can see how each of them handled this Galaticast video.

The Games n’ Music conversion “squishes” wide videos to make them fit on the DS screen instead of letterboxing them like the iPod and the Samsung U-740 did. I feel like that should bother me, but honestly it doesn’t. My standards for video go way down when I’m watching it on a tiny screen. The cool thing is I can load up my card, keep my DS in my purse and pull it out to watch a video whenever I want. I could do the same thing with my Treo, but it is SO difficult and time consuming to get video to work on my Treo. It’s as easy with Games n’ Music as it is with the iPod. I just wish they would let me download a fix for the video player.

Official Website: Datel Design & Development Ltd - Games N Music

I hope everyone in the U.S. is having a safe Memorial Day. My wife and I were out of town last week and got back on Friday. A couple people on my 2007 vacation suggestions page mentioned Mexico, and that’s where we decided to go. We found a resort in Los Cabos on the Baja peninsula and just relaxed down there for a week by the beach. The weather was perfect for reading summer books. Here’s the view (my wife took this picture):

When I look at my personal Google Reader trends page I can see where I’ve been reading fewer feed items during May, and then no feeds at all last week, followed by a couple catch-up days:

I’m still on vacation this week. The first work-related thing I’ll do is talk with webmasters for SMX Seattle 2007 next week. I’ve never been to Seattle/Kirkland/Redmond/Bellevue before, so I may try to go up a little early and see the Google office up there. I’d love to see where the Google webmaster console magic happens.

My stomach was sick when I watched him put his iPod in the blender and let the machine pulverize it.

These videos are a commercial for The Total Blender, made by BlendTec. You can see their website and the full array of videos here:

• Will It Blend? Presented by BlendTec

The premise is that if the blender will blend your iPod, then it certainly won’t have trouble with the ice cubes in your smoothie. I’m all about a good blender when I’m on a smoothie kick and then it will gather dust when I’m not. Of course, if I was using my blender to dispose of my old gadgets, then maybe it would get more use.

The first commercial car to be powered by compressed air could be about to hit the production lines, as Indian automaker Tata Motors prepares to build ex-Formula One engineer Guy Nègre's design. We're not certain if it's the same air car that we hit just under three years ago, but if it is, it's about time! The City Cat runs on nothing but compressed air -- which can be refueled at "air stations," and overnight using a built-in compressor -- with a not too shabby top speed of 68MPH and a range of 125 miles. The Air Car designers are working on a hybrid version that can compress air while it's operating, potentially making cross-India journeys possible: Toyota Prius, eat your hybrid heart out. As EcoGeek points out, the game ain't up just yet for completely emissions free travel since the problem of the source of the electricity (usually acquired from fossil fuels) has yet to be solved. Plus, the fugly design really doesn't do it any favours: why does "green" have to mean "gah?"

If you (or your wallet) aren't quite ready to succumb to the DSLR urge just yet, but yearn for a solid megazoom to bridge the gap between your pocket-friendly P&S and that future money pit you're sure to eventually end up with, Sony's DSC-H9 offers an enticing list of options including a 15x optically stabilized zoom lens. Reviewers over at Megapixel were quite pleased with the "comprehensive bundle" that Sony includes in the package, and while the svelte three-inch flip-up LCD monitor, ridiculously long zoom, and "good image quality for printing past the widest angle" were praised, there seemed to be a negative vibe about the whole shebang. Among the lengthy list of digs were complaints that the compression was too strong, noticeable barrel distortion, purple fringing, and pincushion effects marred image quality, and a "convoluted menu system" kept operators on the verge of frustration. As if those weren't damaging enough, the battery was said to drain faster than other Sony digicams, and the plastic enclosure was dubbed "too slippery" for their preferences. Of course, it's not unusual to see these megazooms suffer in one area or another while still offering incredible closeups for a relatively low price, but we'd recommend perusing the read link for yourself before pulling the trigger on the H9.

The crew over at GPSMagazine has certainly been busy of late, as just days after putting the Maestro 3100 through its paces, reviewers are now giving the same treatment to LG's LN740. The device seemed to handle the challenges fairly well, and while the options in the four-inch NAV category are nearly endless, the LN740 did a decent job of standing out. One of the most noticeable praises came from the "unsurpassed routing engine" that was said to outdo competitive offerings from Garmin, Magellan, and TomTom. Moreover, the GUI was highly regarded, and the sheer multitude of POIs and flexible routing options made the unit "a top contender" in the oversaturated realm. Of course, LG's device did suffer from a few drawbacks, as the lackluster display, omitted Bluetooth, and the "virtually useless" music player and photo viewer weren't looked kindly upon. Still, reviewers found enough here to love to dub the LN740 "impressive," and if you just so happen to be eying a mid- to high-end GPS with a manageable size, these reviewers suggest you give this one "serious consideration."

While not quite as wildly popular as iPod sound systems, you shouldn't have any trouble locating an iPod mixer these days, but Bird Electron is aiming to give you yet another interesting option. The retro-styled micro mixer DJ-4 sports a minuscule stainless steel enclosure, a couple of electric guitar volume knobs, two 3.5-millimeter auxiliary inputs, and a 3.5millimeter stereo output. Of course, the iPod inclusion is more of a marketing gimmick than anything, as the company itself admits that any audio source can be used without issue. Regardless, this nifty (albeit limited) device should hit the Japanese market next week for ¥9,600 ($79)

As the field of devices that let caregivers step away and give the elderly more independence expands, it was just a matter of time before digital pill boxes hit the mainstream. The aptly-dubbed med-minder holds one's pills in separated compartments to divvy up the days, and send out audible alerts (as well as flashing LEDs) when it's time to take them, records the time of opening in its built-in memory, uploads the usage data automatically to a server, and allows for access to personal chart trackers that show if any days were skipped over or taken late. The 5- x 3.5- x 1-inch box stays permanently connected to both a telephone and AC outlet, and once a day it dials up a toll free number to deliver the latest statistics. The box can apparently be ordered right now for $169, but if your great grandmother figures out that she can just crack the lid and dump the pills, you're still back to square one