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Newstips Electronic Editorial Bulletin Issue # 2009-02a
Short on days but not on news
If you let them, BlackBerry & Google show where you are
Hit http://google.com/latitude to load a new twist on Google Maps
onto your BlackBerry, free. New Google Latitude (reviewers:
Carolyn Penner carolynp@google.com 650-248-2555) takes a very
conscientious, privacy-sensitive approach to sharing your
location with specific other people you allow to see where you
are on their own desktop browser or BlackBerry or (for those not
yet enlightened) selected other handsets. It doesn't store
previous locations, just the very last one you let it see (but
not even that one if you turn it off or hide your location). We
know a younger crowd will love keeping track of their pals this
way; it's also a very cool way for families to keep track of each
other & especially of kids & elders. If you don't yet have a
BlackBerry to review this on, run a request by Victoria & ask if
she can help. Contact: Victoria Berry, Research in Motion
(Waterloo, ON) 519-888-7465x73663 vberry@rim.com http://rim.com
Yes, you can get FlyCast for Netbooks
If you can connect to the cloud, FlyCast can deliver almost 1500
streaming entertainment channels for 100% less than satellite
radio & the list of gear that can play it keeps ratcheting up.
Android, iPhone or BlackBerry handsets & PC or Mac desktops or
notebooks can play it; so can most Netbooks, even those that run
on the more popular flavors of Linux. Ask Roy. Contact: Roy
Smith, FlyCast (Lancaster, PA) 717-846-0499 roys@flycast.fm
http://FlyCast.fm
Handsets beyond BlackBerry coming for Radio Companion
Today, the only handsets that let you see what's playing on your
favorite stations, listen in to many of them & send you links to
buy songs playing on any of them are BlackBerry models. Work is
underway to expand the Nobex Radio Companion (free) handset
compatibility list to other brands, too; ask Gadi which. Contact:
Gadi Mazor, Nobex Incorporated (Santa Cruz, CA) 831-621-1823
gadi@nobexinc.com http://NobexRC.com
What & who Unify4Life can turn on
We're not going to repeat the laundry list of products that
Unify4Life is developing to extend the reach & abilities of
BlackBerry handsets into the real world (like the $100 AV Shadow
universal remote control), but we are going to tease a few of
your brain cells. Their next product out will be the Garage
Shadow that responds to specific Bluetooth connections by
electrically pushing the button on the door control inside your
garage. Consider what becomes possible if you generalize that &
let it electrically turn a connection to an outlet on or off,
either because you're telling it to now or because you set it up
to do that under conditions a well-connected handset can sense.
Consider too the impact on everybody as these special abilities
migrate to become available on other handsets as well. We can
only take our teases so far, but the bottom line for you is that
this is a company you very much will want to stay in touch with.
Contact: Chris Kreuch, Unify4Life Corporation (Markham, ON)
905-940-1117x311 ckreuch@unify4life.com http://Unify4Life.com
Special Report: Weather Trends
When we got word from the Weather Trends International newsletter
about how badly January weather impacted retailers, we asked
about the rest of the year & the news is good. This spring will
be warmer than usual, summer a little cooler than usual, autumn
mild & the year-end warmer than usual. While many of us saw
painful utility bills for January, the rest of the year should
help make up for them. Based on their history of tracking weather
as it relates to retail businesses, they believe brick & mortar
stores will see an economic turnaround in November-December. We
asked about global warming & the ice caps; the answer surprised
us. What many of us observed & interpreted as global warming is
in fact a 32-year cycle involving solar heating of the Pacific;
this is now trending cooler & on a planetary scale, we are
entering an era of global cooling, even to the extent of the ice
caps rebuilding over the next several years. This also impacts
the viability of wind & solar power. The cooling in the Pacific
is slowly also cooling the Atlantic, reducing the temperature
differences between warmer waters & colder air masses that drive
most major storm engines, meaning that overall we'll be less
windy. This cooling also extends planetary snow & ice covers,
ultimately (we won't go through all the steps) resulting in many
areas having a bit less full-impact sunlight to drive solar power
sources. These factors don't eliminate the viability of such
alternative energy sources; they just raise the bar a little for
them achieving ROI.
I7 project: The drive train
The project systems (now two) that we're building from the ground
up for this series on the workplace difference of I7-based
systems for things as mundane as Office applications & HD video
editing will have identical internal hard drive configurations.
Each will 6 Seagate Barracuda 500GB drives (3.5" SATA 7200rpm
3Gb/sec) configures in RAID1 (mirrored) pairs (arrays) as drive
C: (Main), drive D: (Backup) and drive E: (Video). We chose
Seagate for their reliability as well as their veterancy (chops)
in delivering tremendous SATA performance. The I7 architecture
has a new relationship with system memory & I/O that we believe
will make disk operations a lot more transparent to system
performance; we're hopeful that native command queuing (SATA
NCQ), which normally only steps in for more robust server
environments, may be able to play a role in this new environment.
The idea of using the double failsafe of drive mirroring plus
backups to an identical internal array is one we've explained
before & as an architectural standard here, has kept us from
experiencing any data loss so far (knock wood). We expect the
Office applications to do their thing handily from the Main
drive, but the idea of keeping those alive (multitasking) while
doing HD video editing (especially rendering) convinced us to
devote a third drive array to video works in progress. We chose
the 500GB capacity because our existing production PC still has
some elbow room with 400GB drives & because with this number of
drives, we thought it appropriate to choose something a little
loess expensive; depending on your own circumstances, similar
Seagate Barracuda SATA drives in the 1-1.5TB range are not that
much more expensive & are as broadly available at retail as the
model (ST3500641AS) we chose. All of the I7 motherboards we've
seen can support all 6 drives in a trio of mirrors; if that were
not the case, several slotware cards are available that can do
so. We'll be discussing the drive train more as we deal with
other elements of these I7 project systems.
Special Report Bonus Review: WildCharger Bundle
The first time we saw WildCharge products was years ago, as
prototypes for an interesting idea: make a pad space on which you
could just place almost any kind of gear in any position & it
would get appropriately recharged. We've been asking since then
about getting one in for review; that finally happened. We've
been skeptical about the power delivery, the safety, how it would
adapt to gear, the cost, the footprint & just about everything
else. We're no longer skeptical. They sent a WildCharger Bundle,
including both a 15Watt charging pad (with a live area roughly
6"x7") & a special skin for one of our BlackBerry phones (they
also sent 3 other skins). The pad design doesn't waste any space,
taking a coax power connection at one corner from a wall wart
that supplies 15V at 1Amp, equivalent to the power that 6
full-spec USB-A ports can deliver. Electronics within the pad
prevent accidents like spills or shorts from turning into
disasters. The BlackBerry skin is very clever, routing the
WildCharge triangle-plus-center connector-point array to the
handset's external charging connectors, converting the 15VDC on
the pad to the 5VDC the handset wants to see & incorporating a
wafer magnet to keep the handset securely connected to the pad
(if you're careful, even when vertical). This could be a great
way for a family with a lot of handsets to keep them all charged
from just one outlet just by putting them on the pad each night.
They're building these in several capacity ranges with clever
connection adaptations for many kinds of devices so eventually,
one person with a lot of gear (even notebooks) can use a pad to
keep a lot of it, if not all, charged. At the moment, the company
is pursuing an OEM strategy, so you're likely to see this product
under any of several brand names (though ultimately, we believe
the revenue arguments will favor having their own branded line
appear). Bottom line: the WildCharge approach & execution to
simplifying how charging gets done, supporting a lot of devices
from just one AC outlet, managing the real estate & technology as
well as the performance & making it all look good results in
products we've learned to like a lot.
Special Report Bonus Review 2: "Operation: Anchorage"
"Operation: Anchorage" is a new add-on for Fallout 3 (Bethesda
Softworks) that also marks the game's adoption of Games for
Windows Live. The fictional setting of Fallout 3 is what America
might look like if there had been a nuclear holocaust in the
1950s, freezing technology & design there for hundreds of years
as mutated beings & fouled water shaped like in the areas around
Washington DC into a dramatic motif that's mostly Western. In the
add-on, your character is compelled to enter a full-body,
zero-safeguards simulation of a war scene from the late
twenty-first century, when the Chinese invaded Alaska & the US
annexed Canada. Play in the add-on is enough different than in
the main game to force some attitude adjustments; looting, for
example, a mainstay of the main game, is restricted in the add-on
to items that display with a throbbing red glow, reminiscent of
target loot in an action-adventure cereal commercial (somewhere
between Trix & Lucky Charms). XP (experience) points earned
within the add-on's play do accrue to the main-game character (a
note on a caveat here in a moment), but little else counts.
Succeeding at the add-on action will, we guess, take most players
about 2 hours. Here come the caveats. There are several stumbling
blocks in getting the add-on involved in the game: it requires
launching the Games for Windows Live from within the main game's
launch window & nowhere else; it needs to be set up the first
time through by selecting "LIVE" on the launch menu (not that
obvious for a game that has a live chat mode through Steam); and
any later time you play, if you don't wait for the added content
to load & Games for Windows Live to get you logged in, your
character reverts back to the last play before you got the
add-on. The add-on does introduce some new gear that helps
refresh main game play. Note that on a PC, the main game has a
tendency to crash many times during play sessions, even with no
other applications running; if anything, that seems a skosh more
frequent with Games for Windows Live in the picture. The
publisher recommends playing on Xbox instead of on a PC. One more
note: Pursuing the plot line & quests of Fallout 3, with or
without the add-on, inevitably results in your character's death,
which we find unsatisfactory in regard to the value received for
the game-play dollar; the only alternative is to stubbornly
refuse to complete the final tasks, or on once completing them,
to revert to an earlier save point & then avoid them. Bottom
line: Within the interesting fiction & challenges of Fallout 3,
the "Operation: Anchorage" is a side-trip that has limited play
value on its own, but ultimately adds new challenges &
opportunities for continued play of the main game.
Special Report Bonus Review 3: Earbud Yo-yo
If you're dancing with an iPod in an Apple commercial, a long
droopy cord may be a good thing; in real life, shorter can be
neater, but how do you shorten or lengthen the cord to match
where in your wardrobe your media player is going today? The
Earbud Yo-Yo was built to answer that. It's basically a 1"
square, though the sides are curved, in two halves separated by
something shy of half an inch that bayonet-fit together in a
center post; elastic keepers tooth in from the corners of both
halves. You play a short length of cord to the jack through a
small hook-loop that's accessible when the halves are separated;
then you wrap any unneeded lengths of cord between there & the
earbuds between the keeper teeth & around the center post. Yes,
it's a lot like winding string onto a yo-yo. Bottom line: the
Earbud Yo-Yo is a stylish & effective way to keep that cord
dangle from snagging or twisting into a tangle.
Special Report Bonus Review 4: Anycom Solar Car Kit
We have yet to test a car kit that isn't a bundle of compromises,
so we've begun paying a little more attention to the mix. A main
proposition of the Anycom SCK-200 Bluetooth Solar Car Kit is that
this small (about the size of a BlackBerry Pearl) device has a
back panel solar cell array capable of producing up to 30mA in
strong sunlight (so Cleveland & Spokane can probably expect
less). They interpret that as meaning 3 hours of sunlight can
yield 30 minutes of talk time; some commuters who park during the
workday may find this enough to handle their en route calls, but
in any case, there's a USB charging option (lighter adapter
included) for its 480mAH LiPo battery (rated 15 hours talk, 700
hours standby). It comes with a mostly open holster that attaches
to the windshield with either suction cups or double-stick pads
(both are included). The audio chain is full-duplex with some
noise & echo cancellation via DSP. With our BlackBerry, it
handles voice dialing (including status check) & speakerphone
functions well, but does not handle audio from the media player
or for talking applications (like navigators). While the solar
drip-feed makes it not quite as much of a lighter hog as others,
it's still at least a lighter piglet for people who do a lot of
in-car calls. Bottom line: We can recommend the Anycom SCK-200
Bluetooth Solar Car Kit as a good choice for people who commute
to work, park outdoors & who need handset audio mostly for phone
calls.
Special Report Bonus Review 5: Anycom HCC-500 OLED Car Kit
Anycom can be justifiably proud of the sleek look of its HCC-500
Visor ID Bluetooth Car Kit with a sleek & curvy low-profile
design that in some places is reminiscent of touches you might
see on Braun products. A big multifunction control button is hard
to miss even when not looking for or at it (a plus when driving)
& its slender front edge offers volume controls & twin mike ports
as well as a great-looking OLED alpha/icon status display. It can
connect to one or two phones at a time & offers Bluetooth 2.1
+EDR support (in case there's 30 feet from your front visor to
your passenger, we guess). It maintains a log of recent incoming
& outgoing calls to simplify redialing (not while driving, we'll
hope); it displays the Caller ID info for incoming calls & can
also do text to speech (in English) to announce the Caller ID.
The twin mike ports help the DSP circuitry handle noise & echo
cancellation; the audio path is full-duplex (both directions -
talk & listen - at the same time). The battery is rated 12 hours
of talk, 250 hours standby, though like everything else in the
category, it's a lighter hog. It handles audio related to phone
calls only; with our BlackBerry, that includes voice dialing &
voice status checks, but does not include media player or
application audio. One of the nicest features, since you never
know which way your visor will be flipped, is that by posing the
volume +/- keys at the same time, you can invert its readout
display. Bottom line: Where most of what you need from a car kit
is good calling features under nominal conditions & cosmetics
that will get more compliments than most, the Anycom HCC-500
Visor ID Bluetooth Car Kit is a very nice choice.
The shape of CTIA
We just went through the grueling exercise of looking up every
company listed as a CTIA exhibitor, dug through many of their Web
sites & third-party sources & noted some things we find curious,
if not interesting (especially from the perspective of your
beats). We found an increasing number of companies offering gear
to get more bars on phones; not one of them does a good job of
making their solution simple or obvious to end users; also, this
is a category that's already brought a lot of pain to a lot of
companies, so we're surprised to see more players. On the flip
side of that, we excitedly anticipate seeing several new
femtocell solutions (like a cell tower in a router-type package
you plug into your Web connection). We note that the Department
of Homeland Security Office of Emergency Communications is
exhibiting; we called to find out what their focus will be & the
answer we got is that they're unlikely to know for a while.
Several companies offer infrastructure pieces to help
over-the-air handset video happen. We did find a few interesting
individual products that we'll try to get in for review before
the show. Contact: Martin Winston, Newstips (Novelty, OH)
440-338-8400; marty@Newstips.com http://Newstips.com
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Newstips Bulletin [Novelty, OH] +1.440.338.8400 http://Newstips.com
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