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Well it may be hard to believe, but the remote control turned 50 last year!
Fitting to honor this ubiquitous device at the time of the passing of Dr. Robert Adler earlier this month.
He received more than 180 U.S.
Sure you've gotten over the short-lived excitement over the wraggling between Apple and Cisco over the iPhone trademark -- now that this spat has been settled.
But if you think about this some (if you really want to), you have to wonder what the deal was all about. On the surface, it seems to reverse Apple's longstanding refusal to make its products interoperable with competing devices.
But is that really the case?
Yes, everyone has their favorite graphic design programs, but CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X3 is a comprehensive graphics suite that lets you tackle a wide variety of projects -- from logo creation and Web graphics to multi-page marketing brochures to or eye-catching signs.
(Is that the Geico gecko on the box?)
With the new bitmap-to-vector tracing in Corel PowerTRACE, new photo-editing features in PHOTO-PAINT, new suite-wide learning tools and enhancements in illustration and page layout, this suite combines design capabilities, ease-of-use, and affordability that' s a tough match-up for other graphics software.
While we get very excited about downloading music, the discussion over DRM and which MP3 player is best, only one in four online consumers have acquired music via digital downloads, according to CEA Market Research in a study called "Uncovering Trends in Digital Lifestyles."
I would have certainly guessed a larger number, particularly since the aisles of stores where CDs are sold are rarely crowded -- and yes, you can get these CDs over the Internet instead.
Perhaps we are now spending more money and time buying DVDs rather than music?
Now there are MP3 players and there are MP3 players. Been playing around with Freestyle Audio's DMP for a little while, and I like it. Here's my review - Built especially for extreme sports use, it's a great unit that can take the abuse that those sports -- and teens and pre-teens -- throw at it.
(That's the real life, out of the lab test.)
Sometimes we just put our heads in a hole, don't we?
According to various recent reports, more than six out of ten of us are unaware of the transition to digital television.
Yes, that's right! The majority of U.S.
Sony has revealed that it would now enable most of its new televisions, including High-Definition (HD), to play video from the Internet -- IPTV.
According to recent reports, the company said the convergence of the Internet and other digital video with traditional devices was the key for its four strategic growth areas: video gaming, digital imaging, HD and mobile products
Sony plans to equip its TVs with an attachable module that can stream broadband HD and other Internet video content simply by pushing a button on the remote control.
Sony also recently introduced an icon-based user interface, called Xross Media Bar, that is similar to a system already found on its PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable (aka PSP) gaming devices.
Always thought it was a shame that President's Day collapsed Lincoln and Washington's birthdays into one single holiday (so what if they were born in the same month?).
Anyway, interesting to think back, particularly to colonial times, and consider what gadgets were in existence then. Personal electronics (ahem, must omit "electronics" -- not yet invented) or rather personal gadgets might largely have consisted of a pocket watch and a good knife.
"Tools" I think would be a more accurate description of the handy dandy items that were in use back then -- for cooking, clearing land, farming, etc.
Now you're probably thinking that Apple has taken brand extension to the outer limits, but I'm talking sub-notebook computer, not any other kind of sub (sandwich? submarine?).
According the this report, the big bad boys from Cupertino are planning to make a strong move into a market that has lost a lot pizazz in the last few years.
(In fact, I was just on eBay looking a small, lightweight, full-featured subnotebooks -- kind of like Toshiba's Libretto or those models that never seem to ever make it out of Japan -- now, why is that?
When the NBA All-Star Game and its weekend-long festivities take place in Las Vegas starting today it will mark the first time the game will be held in a city without an NBA franchise.
But it will also mark another first: the world's first live 3D HD production for a live sporting event, offering viewers around Las Vegas at viewing parties a chance to experience an NBA telecast like never before.
With the help of PACE, the same developer of the 3D technology being used by James Cameron, a special production fly-pack, and a lot of faith in new technology the NBA is laying the groundwork for a technology that could give fans who can't snag a ticket to an NBA Finals game a chance to catch the action at a digital cinema or arena.
Apparently not much -- counter to the claims of the recording industry.
Check out this report entitled "The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis," about a recent study that noted that illegal music downloads (you know who are are!) have less than a 1% affect on the sale of CDs.
In fact, there was a relationship between high downloads and high CD sales -- of course, depending on the artist.
All this goes to show that we still want our music -- whatever it may be -- and are willing to pay -- or not pay -- for it.
Forget the flowers, forget the chocolates (well, maybe not), but why not give your special someone a gadget for Valentine's Day?
I know it may be a thought that's considered "outside the box" -- now I'm thinking of those chocolates again ...
Of course we're excited about Steve Jobs saying that he'd love to offer all of us free music on iTunes, but the record labels have his hands tied with their DRM schemes.
(All kinds of reports on that here and here.)
(Thanks for the image www.mccombs.utexas.edu.)
Easy to say you'd do it when you know you can't and you set up iTunes not to do it from the get-go.
Now I think I've heard everything!
Can you believe this report about a move to ban iPod use when crossing the street in crosswalks in "big cities" only across New York State?
The penalty: A $100 fine, if you please.
Why shouldn't the company that started the photo business a century ago enter the printer business, particularly with an eye on getting more of us to print our digital photos?
Kodak got rocked rocked rocked when it misjudged the size and urgency of the tidal wave known as digital photography and has been looking for a solid place on which to build its business since then.
So why not printers? Plenty of margin (aka profits) in ink, but Kodak is going to upset the apple cart there by givng us more ink in each cartridge while selling them to us at cheaper prices.
Not too surprised, but happy to hear about the big boy of retailing, Wal-Mart, extend its reach into our homes by now offering video downloads of movies and TV shows through a partnership with all six of the major Hollywood studios (20th Century Fox, Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Sony and Universal) to sell digital movies and television shows on its Web site.
Here's the link to the site: www.walmart.com/videodownloads.
(For more on the announcement, click here and for more on "first to offer from all six studios" go here.)
Now I won't say that this has other similar sites, such as iTunes, quaking in their boots, but the Big W does sell a lot of videos in their stores so why wouldn't they assume that the Wal-Mart buyinig public -- once they have their broadbands in place -- won't get into streaming video like they get into streaming into the big box retailer for all of those low, low prices?
I'm big on storage -- never can have too much, you know!
Having battled the too-much-data-on-too-small-capacity-media syndrome for what seems like centuries (20th and 21st), I think I've finally found just what I'm looking for in a storage device -- small size, big capacity (and how about a great form factor and compact size!).
Seagate's USB 2.0 Pocket Hard Drive safely stores all of my large files, MP3s, photos, videos and games — in a palm-sized drive that can fit inside my pocket. The Seagate 6GB Pocket Drive is available on Amazon for less than $49 and the Seagate 8GB Pocket Drive is available for less than $139.
First we waited in great anticipation for Apple's iPhone -- and are still intrigued by it (even with the Cisco heat), but then we never really got too revved up about the idea of the Zune phone ... (get the scoop here. Here's what Microsoft's home town paper had to say).
In fact, wonder if anyone did even think of the idea -- and then no less get excited about it -- a Zune phone?
All that software development time! yet we have problems already springing up in Microsoft's new Windows Vista!
Today's dilemma is all about speech recognition (more here from the BBC) -- truly a technology that would seem to be embraced by everyone, but still a technology that has not really crossed the chasm into mass market acceptance.
(Thanks to Kurzweil for the image -- it's been some trip from their music synthesizer to what they are doing now!)
