I was recently reminded of my fondness for PalmPilot that occurred about 10 years ago. Palm hasn’t done much in the “neat cool innovative” category in a while, but today at CES they announced the “pre” - their new competitor to the iPhone.
Its Macworld & CES week, which means all kinds of new product announcements. EyeFi, who make a cool SD card for digital cameras with built in WiFi, announced an upcoming iPhone app that will upload photos to your computer and/or photo sharing site, without having to sync your iPhone.
For the 11 people that bought Zunes, it seems a bug of some sort has caused all of them to stop working as of earlier this morning. Engadget has the full scoop.
The MiFi is a WWAN router that has a built in HSDPA or EVDO modem. I currently use a Cradlepoint router, but this looks better as you don’t need a USB modem hanging off of it.
DVD Madness
My wife and I are preparing for a trip, and one of the most important steps is loading up our iPods with stuff to watch and listen to on the plane. This is usually an easy, but time consuming task using software like Handbrake.
I went to transfer “WALL-E”, and found it included a digital copy. I had heard and read about this new technology, but never ran into it until now. I popped the disk into my Mac, and it showed up in iTunes, prompting me if I wanted to move it to my library. I entered a code included in the box, and about 30 seconds later, I had an iPod ready copy to watch.
I do find it mildly annoying that it still includes DRM, but for the moment, everything I would use to watch it is in the Apple “ecosystem” (all part of their master plan, no doubt…). It plays on my iPod and AppleTV with no problem. Why it is called a “digital copy”, I have no idea. (folks, DVD is ALREADY digital. oh well.)
I continued through several other DVD’s the “traditional” way. My wife put “Sex and the City” in the pile, and, it too, included a digital copy. Cool. I popped it in, but iTunes didn’t pick it up. The card in the DVD box had a similar code, but this time referenced a website to go to. Ok, different studio, maybe different process. Visiting the website revealed that they want an additional $1.99 for this digital copy. Arrrr!
I believe media piracy is wrong - it is stealing and is inexcusable. But I don’t believe that I should have to pay a second time for something I already own, just to watch it on a different sized screen. While I credit Warner Bros for capitalizing on a new idea, they are hurting themselves long term by not simply embracing the fact that consumers want to be able to listen and view their media anywhere!
Boxee
I recently came across Boxee, a media center application that runs on a number of platforms, including the Apple TV. The Apple TV is a pretty capable box on its own, but only within Apple’s garden of iTunes. There were only few options for viewing content outside of what iTunes supports.
Boxee changes all that and brings content such as Hulu and the Comedy Central video library to your TV. It is pretty easy to install on your Apple TV, and even though in only in alpha release, works pretty well. There are some bugs here and there, but being able to view nearly any video from the Internet on my TV is a great feature. Video quality is certainly not HD, but is watchable.
Chris Breen at Macworld has a good set of instructions for how to install it on your Apple TV, and more information about Boxee is here.
My iPod car adapter has great sound but won’t charge the iPhone 3G or any of the new nanos. The same problem also affects my Bose Sounddock. After a little research, it seems Apple removed the firewire-based charging capability from their latest products, and many older accessories that charge via the dock connector emulate a firewire connection. The passPORT from Scosche is a little box that has a female dock adapter on one side and a male on the other; it simply converts the firewire power into the pin and voltage configuration used by USB, which is supported by the newest Apple gear.
Easy GeoTagging
The concept of GeoTagging - adding metadata to a digital camera photo that includes that latitude and longitude so you know exactly where a photo was taken - is pretty useful and neat. However, getting the GPS data merged into the files requires special equipment and takes a bit of time.
I found out that Eye-Fi, makers of the WiFi SD card, now have a service that for $15/year, will automatically GeoTag photos. It does so by looking for nearby WiFi networks that are mapped by Skyhook wireless. I was a bit doubtful that this would work, but was pleasantly surprised by the results. This isn’t “real” GPS - no satellites are involved - only WiFi, but the location data was remarkable accurate; certainly “good enough” for casual photo taking.
The Eye-Fi “Explore” includes unlimited GeoTagging; other models require the $15/year service plan.
