September 2006 Archives

Rumors and speculation about Microsoft's new iPod-killer have been floating around for some time now, but today Microsoft announced the Zune officially.  So is it the iPod killer Microsoft claims it to be?  My initial reactions are mixed.  First strike against the Zune is the design.  This thing is just straight-up UGLY.  Not really sure what someone was thinking releasing a brown version, but so be it.  I can hear the jokes about the brown one already.  I can say a few things about it too, but we won't go there. ;-)  I think part of the appeal of the iPod is it's sexiness.  The Zune just doesn't ooze with that sexiness of the iPod.  Maybe it's the black wheel sticking out of the center, and that horrid bezel surrounding the scroll wheel and screen.  I dunno.  My second beef is something that's hard to ding Microsoft on, no integration with iTunes or music purchased from the iTMS.  Again, this is a major problem for ALL manufacturers, not just Microsoft.  Apple has a lock on iTMS and they aren't about to let the other kiddies play in the sandbox.  One question I have for the Microsoft folks is why such a small hard drive (30GB)?  I suspect it was to keep initial costs down, but this could really be an issue for media junkies like me who have over 80GB of content sitting in my iTunes.  I would really like to see a model in the 80-120GB capacity.  So what else am I griping about?  Sit down...this is unexpected...but NOTHING else seems to be a deal-breaker on the Zune so far.

So what did Microsoft do right?  Plenty.  Can this really kill the iPod?  I suspect YES.  It's not going to be an easy battle, but with future iterations of the product, as the user feedback pours in and the product team assimilates that feedback, I suspect we will see a modified form factor, much like Apple has refined the iPod from what it was when they first released it.  Folks, this is a serious piece of hardware and Apple should be SCARED.  REAL SCARED.  Here's the things that Microsoft LISTENED to their users and not only took away, but actually IMPLEMENTED them into their product:

1. WiFi - You can share your media with friends now.  iPod users have been asking for this for ages.
2. Built-in FM Tuner - Yet another feature the iPod community has been screaming for.
3. Widescreen QVGA Screen - this was a no-brainer.  What has Apple been thinking lately?
4. Formats Gallore - the Zune supports h.264, MP3, AAC and WMA.  Choices.  Fancy that?
5. Multi-formats in the Media Manager - The media manager will also handle photos!  Nice.

Other key features include Microsoft's Zune Marketplace.  Details are sketchy, but Microsoft claims that there will be millions of songs to choose from in a variety of formats.  You will be able to import your media from iTunes and Windows Media Player, with the exception of items purchased on the iTunes Music Store.  As I mentioned before, that's a real bummer, but beyond Microsoft's control.  The Zune WILL however allow you to share full-length songs with your friends via the WiFi connection.  Shared songs can be played for up to three days, and if you like the tunes, you can flag it for purchase and connect directly to the Zune Marketplace to purchase the song.  Way cool.  The Zune will come pre-loaded with a bunch of tunes and Microsoft will be offering an all-you-can-eat option called a Zune Pass subscription.  No word on pricing for the Zune or anything else for that matter.  Part of the Microsoft PR and full pics after the jump..

Technorati Tags: Cool Gear, Microsoft, Mobility, Peripherals, Portable Audio, Portable Devices, Zune

Boy does time fly.  Over 2275 posts in 3 years.  Here's to many more!

Technorati Tags: Blogging, General

A few weeks ago I posted an entry about an upcoming movie, Speed & Angels.  There's a few more videos posted on iFilm's War Zone for those of you that are interested.  Can't wait for this movie to hit the street!

Technorati Tags: Cool Sites, Military, Movies, Video

As the 5th anniversary of 9 | 11 comes to a close, here's a final post of some images I have taken over the years from the WTC or the surrounding areas in NYC. For the complete set, visit my flickR site.

Technorati Tags: 9-11, WTC

It never ceases to amaze me how creative animals can be when faced with difficult situations.  Here's an example of a bird that just won't give up and finds alternative ways of getting his food...

In memory of those who lost their lives on 9-11

Technorati Tags: 9-11

What in the heck is a Treemo you ask?  It's yet another Web 2.0 newcomer to the social media space, but this one comes with a twist!  To quote Treemo:

"Treemo is a media-sharing community where you can upload anything -- photos, videos, music, words, visual art -- and retain complete control of your content. And our mobile-browsing application makes it simple to stay connected. You can even upload photos and video straight from your mobile phone.

Treemo is a community with a conscience. We're committed to being a positive force by initiating social programs and enviro-initiatives. We make it simple for Treemo members to donate unused gear to our non-profit partners, so those mobile phones and digital gadgets get recycled or find a new life in the hands of those who need an avenue for expression. We're all in this together."

So what's all this mean and how are they different from the plethora of other social media sites?  There are a few very key differentiators about Treemo that will make this an interesting alternative to everything else on the market.  For starters, you retain control of what you post via the use of Creative Commons licenses.  Second, you can actually make money from your content.  TechCrunch is reporting that Treemo will be offering a revenue-sharing model with it's users that allows the user to decide whether they want to show advertising with their audio / video content or not, and share in the profits if they do.  There's no information about this on the website, but TechCrunch is reporting the the company's founder, Brent Brookler (don't ask me why, but that name just reminds me of Dirk Diggler), stated the the split will probably be 50/50.  Not a bad twist if I do say so myself.  Another major twist the environmental angle that the company is taking. Treemo is going all-out by enabling the recycling of used (and new) digital cameras, camcorders and mobile phones.  This benefits not only the environment, but through Treemo's partners, it enables youth of all ages to find new ways to explore their creativity.  I have to not only applaud them, but command mad props to the forward-thinking this group of people has done on with regards to keeping things "Green".

Overall the site has been tastefully done, graphics and visuals are clean, the UI so far is pretty decent and they provide more storage and bandwidth than FlickR.  The mobile related features are pretty outstanding as well.  It looks like this might actually be the service that consolidates my needs from using FlickR and Text America, down to one service.  I can't wait to see what additional features are in the works and how the service will unfold over the coming months.  My only request for the Treemo team so far is to RSS enable a "News" section of their site so I can keep track of them via my news aggregator.  Having a company blog would be pretty cool too.  I know where they can find a blogger looking to join something new and exciting!  ;-)   

Technorati Tags: Cool Sites, FlickR, Social Media, Treemo, Web 2.0

Well, it certainly looks like Sony is on a product release rampage.  Looks like they have just updated the old UX180 that I was soooo lusting over, and now it's the UX280.  Major improvements have been made in memory (bumped up to 1GB)  and storage (doubled to 40GB).  The UX280 UX280P is "Windows Vista™ Premium Ready, Edge, WiFi and Bluetooth are built right in, and expansion is a breeze with the included port replicator.  The processor is still a Core Solo U1200, shame they didn't go the Duo-Core route, but it's still an impressive little machine.  Now for the typical Sony blow to the gut...the price is a whopping $1999.  Now what on God's earth is Sony thinking here?  Have they any clue what kind of a Mac Notebook you can buy for that kind of money?  I mean the form factor is great, but it isn't THAT great that I am willing to blow $2k on it.  So once again, Sony comes out the door guns blazin, only to get nuked by their own "friendly fire."  Nice try Sony, let me know when you come back to planet Earth and I'll consider buying one at that time.

Technorati Tags: Cool Gear, Mobility, PC, Portable Devices, UMPC

In true Sony fashion, they have come out with what appears to be one of the sleekest looking GPS devices on the market.  The user interface seems decent based on the images so far.  Memory seems adequate and bluetooth is standard.  Rather than rehash what someone else already did pretty well, here's the review from Yournav.com:

"Electronics giant Sony hasn't quite given up on navigation yet: starting this November two new PND's a supposed to gain a bit of market share for them. These new devices, the Nav-U80 and the Nav-U81T, both feature a large 4,3 inch touch screen and what Sony calls 'Position Plus'.

Position Plus
Sony's Position Plus is a technology which is supposed to provide a better positioning at times when reception of GPS signals is bad or non-existent even. By means of a built-in acceleration and pressure sensor, the position and movement of the vehicle can be estimated with more accuracy.

Also new are the 'Gesture Commands'. Using this technology, frequently used commands like 'Navigate Home', or 'Look for nearest petrol pump' can be entered with one finger-movement across the screen.

Maps
The Nav-U81T ships standard with a 4 GB harddisk which holds the complete European map with 37 countries. The Nav-U80 ships with the regional maps of the area of purchase on the integrated 512 MB of internal memory. The U81T comes with TMC built-in, for the U80 it's available as an option. Both PND's enable hands-free phoning in combination with a supported Bluetooth mobile phone."

Prices for both devices are still unknown for now, but we expect more info on that soon.

Technorati Tags: Cool Gear, GPS, Mobility, PND, Portable Devices

I have had a long-time beef with Verizon (for reasons I won't go into here) and here is yet one more story that gives me reason not to ever even consider the thought of using them.  For those of you who have ever been to some kind of Photoshop conference (especially the NAPP ones), you most certainly probably know who Ben Willmore is.  Over the past year, Ben had decided to sell his home and live aboard a motor-home full-time.  Ben has been blogging his travels and experiences throughout the entire process and it's been fun to watch where he is going and what he's doing.  I can't help but feel green with envy at him being able to do something so cool! :-)

In any case, in these days we all need to be connected and Ben is no exception.  Ben decided to get his broadband fix by using Verizon's EVDO broadband service.  So apparently "unlimited" access is not really "unlimited" in today's corporate contracts or advertising.  This is actually not unusual, but it doesn't make it right.  Corporate America is fast and furious to take your money and hold you to ridiculous contracts when it is in their favor, but lord help you if you try to actually use the service you are paying for in any kind of "unlimited" capacity.

"I've been using a Verizon EVDO card since I started living on the bus. It seems that they don't like people who actually need to use the net for their daily business life. I just received notice that they will cut off service for my card starting on 9/6/2006 because I used 10 Gigabytes of bandwidth over the last 30 days. I guess they have no idea that some people actually have to upload/download high resolution photography and do business on the net. I guess getting the satellite dish has become a major priority right now."

This is just WRONG.  It's time that the public began to hold these corporations to their advertising.  If you don't really mean UNLIMITED, then dammit, DO NOT say it is and then cry wolf when someone attempts to actually use it for business.  If you are going to cut someone off, at least have the common courtesy to give them a warning before just canceling their contract.  So the funny thing is that I am sure there are many of you out there that signed up for that EVDO service with "unlimited" data, yet for some reason need to or want to cancel, but are afraid to get hit with the penalties for doing so.  Why not give Verizon a taste of their own medicine and start jamming that pipe?  ;-)  Now I am not advocating violating the terms of your service agreement, but surely they can't prevent you from say...uploading content via FTP to your server, or some other creative use of mega-sized files that need to be sent somewhere right?  Let Verizon cancel you and you just got out of your contract.  They like games?  Just play them right back people.

You can check out the rest of the story on Ben's site and while you are at it, go ahead and subscribe to his feed!  Let him know bisonium.com sent ya and you support him in the fight for what's right.

Technorati Tags: Clueless, EVDO, Mobility, Peripherals, Stupidity, Verizon, Wireless

A few posts ago I blogged about who killed the electric car.  Well here's yet another alternative fuel which we won't have a problem finding plenty of - WATER.  This video is almost too good to be true.  You have to wonder what the implications of this could be on the world economy (and the Presidential Bush family's income) if overnight we could literally power all our vehicles with nothing but water.

Here is a Fox 26 News report on a guy who created the ability to power vehicles or just about anything by converting H2O into HHO.  The prototype vehicle shown can travel 100 miles on 4 OUNCES of water!

Technorati Tags: Alternative Fuel, Automobiles, EV Automobiles, Green Energy, Hybrid Vehicles, Science, Video

So while we are on the subject of Social Networking sites, here's another one to add to your collection, Bebo.  Pretty interesting spin on the whole space, nice integration of music and television topics.  They give you a few things other services don't like a white board and the ability to do polls.  You can also network with current or old school mates by joining that schools social space on bebo.  They also make the ability to add a wide variety of themes very easy.  And I don't mean just the generic bland type, there are hundreds of user-created skins that can be applied, or you can create your own!  Pretty decent.  Don't know how much I will use this considering this is my main blog, but it's still kind of cool for networking with people you may not have otherwise thought about.  If you want to connect via bebo, here's my site: http://bisonium.bebo.com

Technorati Tags: bebo, Blogging, Cool Sites, Social Networking

So what the heck is VOX you ask?  Well, it is yet another blogging tool in the world of Web 2.0 Social Networking.  This is a new baby for Ben and Mena Trott, creators of Movable Type and TypePad.  It's still in a private * preview * but for those of you in the know, you can secure an invite from someone with an account (thanks to Digital Bill for my invite).  So why on earth do I need another blog?  Got me, I need multiple blogs like I need a skin rash.  But it never hurts to try out new services and secure your domain! ;-)  As I learn more, I will post about my experience with VOX here and on bisonium.vox.com.  I have a very few invites available for those of you who would like to try the service.  Just shoot me an email or leave a comment stating why you think you should get the invite.  Most creative entries will win!

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Cool Sites, Social Networking, VOX