ClearType

ClearType seems to be the most forgotten feature of Windows XP (yeah, I know, everybody is thinking of Vista now and XP is no longer of any interest...). But if you happen to have a notebook (or an LCD screen, preferably connected to a digital video port), you should try it.

There are several ways to turn ClearType on. First (the least obvious) is: right-click somewhere on an empty desktop area, select Properties, then the Appearance tab and Effects button. Second line from the top lets you select ClearType as a "method to smooth edges of screen fonts". There is a better way. Go to Windows XP Powertoys page and you will find the ClearType Tuner application there. Install it and run. It will guide you through a simple wizard that will select the best ClearType settings for your environment. And if you have not been using ClearType yet, you will not believe how brilliant your screen is going to look.

Sometimes the best gems are just lying at our fingertips and we do not see them...

Wireless iPod

Here it is. The next thing I had to do with my new Sony Ericsson stereo bluetooth headset was to make it work with my iPod. This is an obvious direction. The whole idea is to get rid of the cables and have just one universal headset that works with a phone, a notebook (including VoIP calls) and a music player. And of course switch automatically between the devices, especially to pause the music when the phone rings and resume playback once the conversation is done.

Up to this day there has not been a product able to do this, although the scenario seems to be so natural and expected... One day (must have been some two years ago) I even proposed the iPod itself could behave as a bluetooth phone headset, pausing the music and taking calls as needed. But nobody listened...

So now what is pictured here is how the upcoming next generation (delayed) iPod will look like. A headset, a phone and an iPod. Working together seamlessly. Too impatient to wait? Then follow my formula. First you have to agree the Walkman brand does not offend Apple, and buy yourself the wonderful Sony Ericsson HBH DS970. Then pair it with your phone, so you can make the calls. Then go to www.griffintechnology.com and look for a BlueTrip. Griffin has always been the leader in iPod accessories, so if you need something special for your player, they probably have it. BlueTrip is a wireless music set, a transmitter and a receiver. For my purpose (to stream music to the DS970) I needed just the transmitter, so the receiver will probably go for sale on eBay (or may be the Griffin guys will rethink their strategy and start offering the transmitters alone?). Anyway the BlueTrip system works over the A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile), a Bluetooth way to transmit stereo signals. What can be experienced here is the power of standards. You take the Sony A2DP headset, plug the Griffin A2DP BlueTrip into an iPod and everything works (actually I was not that sure it would, until I tried). The music goes over the air in full stereo to your ears while the phonecalls will interrupt your Nirvana (pun intended!) and everything returns to normal after the call is released.

A2DP will be big. trust me. It will make its way into a galaxy of audio devices. After headphones and iPod, the next step is car audio. Pioneer already has one. And Sony is not behind. And if you don't plan to change your head unit, there is always an A2DP cassette adapter to try :)

Simple? Yes! Intuitive? Definitely! Hey, Mr Jobs, don't let Sony overtake you, show us the real wireless iPod soon!

BlueSoleil

A2DP. Advanced Audio Distribution Profile. Or just wireless stereo. This will be big. It was mentioned here before, when I wrote about annoying headphone plugs incompatibility problem. And guess what... it has been solved. How? By getting rid of cables and plugs. Yes, cables are gone, forever.

Bluetooth has been with us for years. Most of us have been using a wireless headset with a mobile phone. But then we used to have a separate headphones for media player (like iPod) and another set for use with a PC (for Skype or Google Talk or another form of VoIP). Personally I hate carrying three devices serving the same purpose, and that is why I complained... Now it is time to throw all the previous sets away. Thanks to the Sony Ericsson HBH DS970 Bluetooth stereo headset.

DS970 has everything I wanted:

• It is a sound isolating in-ear design, perfect for noisy environments, without an extra bulk.
• The drivers deliver very good sound with rich bass (as always with Sony, I should say).
• The lanyard design is very comfortable to carry them all day long
• They can be used as an ordinary phone accessory for making calls. Microphone is very close to mouth for clear conversation (something rather rare with the latest trendy Bluetooth headsets that tend to be nice and small but result in a horrible call quality).
• Thanks to the A2DP/multipoint feature can be used for listening to stereo music. And there is more. When the phone rings, a quick glance at the display hanging from your neck reveals the name or number of your caller, and the music is paused for the duration of a call. And multipoint is really multipoint, meaning the DS970 can be paired with up to ten devices (computers, smartphones, media players...)
• A2DP is accompanied by AVRCP (another Bluetooth feature) used to control the source device. Put simply - there is a play/pause button on the DS970, together with forward/back buttons to control the player remotely.

Almost perfect device. The only thing Sony really blew is the charger. It is three times the size of the headset. Wouldn't it be more elegant to provide a thin USB charging cable?

So after pairing the DS970 with my phone and having several calls, I started looking for ways to "connect" them to some source of music. To do that the player (whatever you use, a smartphone, a notebook, an iPod...) must support A2DP Bluetooth. And among my truckload of gadgets, actually none did. A2DP profile was intended to be in the latest Windows Mobile AKU2 update, but due to poor performance of the Microsoft implementation, it was taken out by most of the Windows Smartphone manufacturers. Fortunately the necessary libraries can be found here or there and in a matter of minutes my smartphone was able to stream wireless stereo to my new headphones.

Then I turned to my notebook. An IBM T41. Neither standard Microsoft stack nor the IBM-supplied Widcomm (now Broadcom) supports the A2DP profile. So, as always in case like that, I turned to Google for help. It came out with a solution - BlueSoleil from IVT. After using variety of Bluetooth applications, I have to admit BlueSoleil is by far the best I have seen so far. Fully worth the 10 EUR price tag. It works flawlessly and is extremely intuitive, introducing a nice concept of the PC in the middle and all Bluetooth devices orbiting around it. So after spending a while with a trial version, I soon became an owner of the full version. Together with the DS970, it does everything I paid for. One universal headset, that is a snap to connect to either my phone or my notebook, plays stereo music (even controls the Windows Media Player), and pauses to handle calls coming from my phone (that by the way can stream its music too).

Looks like finally cables are going away and the only cable in future will be the one to supply power and recharge. That, thanks to USB (Universal Supply Bus), will be standardized as well...

Google Browser Sync

Finally one of the biggest PC problems has been solved. Metadata synchronization. I wrote about metadata challenges before, pointing to Google as a potential solution on the horizon. So what exactly is the problem? OK, it affects only those who happen to use more than one computer. Do you? I bet everyone had this problem at least once, even when using just one PC. And then migrating to a new one. What hurts you the most? When you power your new machine and fire the Internet browser, you quickly notice all of your favorite links are missing. They are left on the old PC. And suddenly many of the web sites start asking you for passwords, that your previous PC remembered. And many sites you have carefully customized are no longer customized to match your preferences. What has happened? Well... it is just your metadata missing.

Metadata is data describing other data. In this very case are the favorite links and bookmarks you collect. And cookies that store your customizations. If metadata is lost, potentially nothing happens. The web pages are still there, you may again tailor the sites to your needs, but this is annoying. I could live with that if it was only while upgrading to a new PC, every year or two. But if you happen to use more than one PC on a regular basis (like your work computer and your home computer), you hate the moments when the page you have just bookmarked at work is not bookmarked at home. It is all because of the PC-centric way the operating systems are built. Redmond does not envision you using more than one PC (shot in the foot, isn’t it?). Cupertino is no better here. 99.9% of the metadata is still stored on the local hard drive of the local computer. So finally Mountain View comes to the rescue.

Google Browser Sync, how it works? First, you have to use FireFox browser. The browser sync plug-in is not available (yet?) for Microsoft IE and Opera users have no luck here again. But in my case the browser sync plug-in itself was worth switching to FireFox. I am a great fan of Opera, still the best browser on the Planet, I like the new Internet Explorer 7, but just because of the aforementioned plug-in, I am now using the FireFox. These days most of us spend more time using Internet browser than any other application. Browser slowly replaces the operating system. And having everything synchronized between all the places you use your browser is so nice and handy. Have multiple tabs with web pages opened at work, you come home, turn your PC on and the entire browser session is restored. Just continue reading or whatever you do. Do I have to say this is natural? After several days with synced computers, you can't imagine the world without it... It is absolutely the way people expect computers to behave.

A couple of weeks ago my Mom became an Internet user. Her first steps were Google for searching, Google Reader for the news and Gmail for communications (with Gtalk instant messaging and VoIP). And the first unexpected surprise was the antivirus application that popped on the screen asking for an update. She was not sure what exactly it was, so when visiting me she said "let me log in on your PC and I will show you the antivirus message". Of course she did not realize antivirus was a local application and it wouldn’t be necessary the same on a different machine. She was just thinking "I log into my account (Google account :), and everything [mine] is there.". Very natural way of thinking. Redmond, what do you think?

Nanotechnology

There are several technologies that had their time changing our World. Block printing, steam power, electricity, telephone, radio, television, transistor, microchip, Internet. After each of these inventions it is hard to imagine world without one. So what is / will be the most important technology introduced in the first decade of the third millennium? Probably nanotechnology. But what exactly is nanotechnology? Many think it is another brave new way to manufacture tiny electronic parts. It may be that, but the nanotechnology is something much broader and you may be surprised what end products we get... Nanotechnology is about constructing materials by controlling their shapes at the nanoscale. Basically a process of creating structures by controlling the position of every atom within that structure, to achieve the desired end result.

Take trousers for example. What would you expect from new generation of trousers AD 2006? Would you like them to be wrinkle-free straight from a dryer? Or may be you want them to be stain resistant? Breathable? And the color to last for years? Here they are. Made of Nano-Tex, they are really wrinkle free and resist spills.

Skin care. OK, I'm not and expert in this area, but L'Oreal RevitaLift is a nanotechnology product. It uses a patented 200-nanometre nanotechnology process to incorporate vitamin A inside a polymer “capsule” The capsule acts like a sponge soaking up and holding the cream inside until the outer shell dissolve under your skin. According to L’Oreal women surveyed who used the RevitaLift technology, 80% reported anti-wrinkle effectiveness, and 75% said that the product was effective in firming the skin.

Playing golf? May be you should try the Maruman New Majesty driver? Compared to conventional titanium, the new driver resists bending 12% better, has a hardness of Hv372, a 3.6% increase over titanium’s 359, and has a 20% more resilient head (based on robot testing), and flight distance has increased 15 yards (compared to their old 360cc class driver.) Since it was released, they have been overwhelmed with orders, to the point where the Maruman homepage (http://www.maruman.co.jp/) displayed an apology from the company for the two-week delay for shipments of the driver.

And if you are about to build a new house, you may try the BASF Mincor (TM), a new product that makes surfaces water repellent. By creating nanostructures, Mincor (TM) makes surfaces self-cleaning and allows them to stay cleaner for longer, with application areas in the construction, textile and automotive industries.

Are you surprised? May be a little. But things will get really exciting once nanotechnology makes its way into even more areas of our everyday life. Just think the material you want and what properties it should have. With nanotechnology you'll get it.