Phatpat.com

It’s pretty common sense in the tech sector, but I just had a “wow, this industry moves fast” moment. I turned on the latest episode of TWiT, and they started talking about the exciting news from Google, their new open platform for social networking, which could give facebook’s competitors a little boost. I had pretty much forgotten about that story, after Google’s announcement this week of Android, and open-source cell phone platform. Cell phone user interfaces have always seemed lacking, and the partnerships Google created with this platform sound like a very promising development for cell phones. Unfortunately, it sounds like phones with Google Android won’t be available until Fall 2008, and I’m going to start looking at new phones in a couple weeks. Maybe it’s not the whole industry that makes last week’s news a non-item, just Google…

I’ve got my little soapbox here, so I figured I would use it. I’ve finally decided to put my iMac for sale on ebay. I didn’t end up bringing it with me to Maryland (ran out of room) so it’s been sitting all lonely-like in the midwest for the past few months. It’s a great little computer. The auction ends on Friday, so take a look if you might have use for it. I’ll even ship it for free if I know you! My  present to you, for taking good care of one of my favorite macs.

iMac on eBay

I passed on going to the Leopard launch party, wasn’t quite worth the hassle of taking the Metro all the way to Bethesda. Maybe if Apple does something really revolutionary, but the consensus is their new OS is more evolutionary. I’ll get it when I can get it on the cheap from UMD, which will hopefully be in a few weeks. Then I can finally use some of the new backdrop effects in iChat!

This was an IKEA advertisement on the side of a bus stop. It asked me to turn on bluetooth on my phone, so naturally, I did. Nothing happened initially, but after waiting a few seconds, my phone asked me if I wanted to accept a picture download. I said sure, and the following was what showed up on my screen.

I don’t know how many people will actually use this, but I thought it was a fun use of technology, at a location where people will be standing around anyways (Even though it’s kind of ironic to get driving directions at a bus stop; directions on how to take public transport might be more practical).

Apple came out with with a few new iPods last week; actually they revamped the whole line. I’m very tempted to get either a nano or an iPod touch. The nano is nice because it’s tiny, and $100 less than the touch. But if the touch could replace my laptop in many situations…it would be very nice.

The problem is there is no email or notes app on the touch, and they recently removed the ability to add calendar events. But the plus is it runs the same OS and software as the iPhone, so apps should transfer over easily. And Apple has said they won’t actively work against this.

I like my gadgets, a little too much sometimes. Which is why I really liked Joel Johnson’s post over at Gizmodo on Tuesday.

"You may think you’re making up the "bleeding edge" of "gadget
pimpatude" but you’re really just a loose confederation of marks the
consumer electronics industry uses as free market research and easy
money. "Give me the latest version," you coo, hiking up your skirt
another inch over your exposed wallet. "Point Oh One upgrades make me so hot.""

I become fascinated with the Garmin Edge 305 recently, mainly because of integration with motionbased.com. I want to be able to post a google map screenshot overlaid with my route to my blog, and have heart rate and elevation data that correspond to it. It’s a fairly mature product, and I don’t know of many other cycling related products that are mac-compatible. I can be patient, really…

I’m currently finishing up my Ergonomic Solar Kit project with ESW. It’s intended to be a small scale, inexpensive, easy-to-use solar system. I could buy all the components for this right now for about $235, and power my laptop and a 15 Watt Compact Flourescent Lightbulb (equivalent to a 60W incandescent) for an hour on a day’s worth of solar energy. It’d be nice to up that to 2-4 hours, but that would involve adding more solar panels, increasing costs and decreasing ease of use. Possible upgraded panels would be this briefcase or this very compact version, both of which add very significant costs. Solar is tough, but this is one way for people to make a contribution.

Amazon seems to have released their video store, called Amazon Unbox. They are giving everyone a $1.99 instant rebate on anything, which is worth a tv episode. I downloaded the first episode of Firefly.

Good:

• Much higher quality video than iTunes
• Actually downloads 2 files: one for viewing on computer, one for portable devices
• Fast Downloads, you can start to play the episode as it downloads
• Custom player is solid
• If your computer crashes, you can redownload from Amazon
• Website is fast and easy to navigate

Bad:

• Requires custom player
• 2 computers, 2 portable players max
• Windows only
• Movies seem to be priced equivalently to Amazon DVD prices
• Can’t burn to DVD

Conclusion: I won’t use it because it’s Windows only. $1.99 is okay for the occasional episode you really need to see, but too expensive for regular use. Despite that, I like it better than iTunes TV offering.