Tag Archives: technology

Well, this news is right on time, considering I finally broke down and bought a HD DVD player last month. It figures I’d bet on the wrong horse. The high-definition DVD war is all but over. Hollywood’s squabble over which of two technologies will replace standard DVDs skewed in the direction of the Sony Corporation on Friday, with Warner Brothers …

I just saw a taxi ad for VoiceMailSucks.com, a site which promises “SimulScribe utilizes cutting edge voice recognition technology to convert your voicemail messages into text. We deliver your transcribed voicemail, along with the original audio, to your mobile phone, PDA, and/or email account. This process streamlines your communication flow, saving you both time and money.” Anybody here use this? …

Yesterday Amazon’s Jeff Bezos launched Kindle, their new $400 e-reader that he claims will become the iPod of books. Previous e-readers have failed to catch on, but the Kindle, which can hold 200 books, does have some nifty features, including the ability to wirelessly download books, blogs, magazines (Time Magazine: $1.99/mo), and newspapers (New York Times: $13.99/mo.) New content is …

The Smart Car finally goes on sale in U.S. dealerships in a few weeks. Father Tony has had the convertible model on order for months, he plans on using it to zip between the gay bars of Hells Kitchen and the East Village, I imagine. Designed by Mercedes, it seems the perfect vehicle for Manhattan, but I’m not sure I’d …

Anybody out there own a cell-phone jammer yet? Man, I would love to have one of these suckers. As cellphone use has skyrocketed, making it hard to avoid hearing half a conversation in many public places, a small but growing band of rebels is turning to a blunt countermeasure: the cellphone jammer, a gadget that renders nearby mobile devices impotent. …

Last night I tinkered around with Spiral Frog, the just-launched and super-hyped “free” music and video download service lauded on some sites as the music industry’s savior from illegal downloading. The site is supported by advertising (banners and sidebars, but mercifully – no rolling stock) and the ad revenue is shared with their music company partners. So far the only …

In an attempt to staunch the flow of red ink, the music industry has come up with the “ringle“, a slip-sleeved CD single of a hit song that will feature a couple of bonus tracks from the same artist and a code to allow buyers to go online and download a “free” ringtone of the main song. Cost: $6-$7. User-created …

Once or twice I’ve made mocking posts about all the Lt. Uhurus running around with those ridiculous blinking Bluetooth earpieces, but this new “invisible” in-ear receiver seems a slight improvement. According to the linked Gizmodo article, this radio frequency receiver is “capable of receiving transmissions from mobile phones, walkie-talkies and specialized transmitters, with a range of 250 meters.” I suppose …

In a precedent-setting decision, a New York judge has ruled that the city can fire a 21-year employee of the school system after GPS-tracking secretly installed on his city-issued cellphone revealed that he had left the job early on 83 occasions and may have falsified his timecards to cover his tracks. Although the secret tracking also revealed that the employee …

The ad-free ride on YouTube has ended. Today Google is launching “overlay” ads that will appear 15 seconds after the clip begins, running for 10 seconds on the lower fifth of the playback image. Viewers will be able close the ads, let them play, or click thru to the advertisers. At the start, the ads will only appear on clips …

The next-gen DVD wars are heating up and Blu-ray might end up the loser. Paramount is being paid $150M by the makers of the HD-DVD format to release its movies exclusively on HD-DVD for the next 18 months. Similar to the VHS/Betamax wars of long ago, the technologically superior (according to some) Blu-ray format, which currently enjoys higher sales, may …

There’s a new service out of NYC called Daily Lit which will email you chapters of classic novels and famous texts for easy reading via your PDA. If you’ve got a train or bus commute and you have a Blackberry or similar device, you can catch up on the classics, 1000 words at a time. It’s a free service, all …

Home 3-D printers are coming. Technology exists for the downloading and creation of 3-dimensional objects, created in home printer “easy-bake” ovens and the prices are expected to be within the reach of most home consumers wthin a few years. By then, you’ll be able to download the specs for and create a missing cellphone cover, doll part, art object, whatever…as …

Google has launched another innovative service, a free local 411 directory. Dial 1-800-GOOG-411 and they’ll connect you for free to any business. I think my cell phone company charges about a buck for each 411 call. Now I’ve got to figure out what Google is getting out of this.

In order to a do an occasional short audio post, I’m looking for a decent microphone and audio editing program. All I’ve got is the lame mic that came with my laptop, plus whatever recorder came packaged with WinXP. Advice? I don’t need anything fancy, just something that a luddite like myself can operate. Is there anything out there that …

So who’s got Vista already?.

By the many arms of Vishnu, I swear that I will never wear a Bluetooth earpiece. Can you hear me now? Good..

The caffeinated doughnut. I’ll have the venti jelly..

The Pentagon has a new microwave “crowd control” device that is fired from a Humvee-based satellite dish. Those in the path of the beam feel as if they are about to burst into flames. With a range of 500 meters, the military claims that the device only penetrates human skin to a depth of 1/64 of an inch and cannot …

New York City taxis are about to be outfitted with a GPS-based video system that will play commercials for restaurants and stores as the taxi approaches that location. Passengers will have the option of turning the screens off, but I expect that most will sit slack-jawed and vacant-eyed, watching dreary Starbucks ads and robbing themselves of the quintessential New York …