Headworx

Today's title is controversial. I really regret Apple has gone the full featured smartphone way. But just last week I found a device that turns an EXISTING iPod into an iPhone (sort of). The gadget is called BlueEye , from Gear 4 . BlueEye is the size of an original Apple iPod remote , and has a built-in FM radio tuner, like the radio remote (in case you prefer to listen to some live programming instead of the stored tunes). But it also has two additional pieces of hardware inside - a microphone and a Bluetooth transceiver. The idea behind this product is very simple. You are listening to your iPod, your phone rings and you can pick up the conversation using the same earphones you already wear. And to make your life easier, the music is automatically paused and even the calling phone number is displayed on the iPod's screen. The device does not require any batteries and chargers (it draws the power from an iPod). It pairs seamlessly with any Bluetooth - enabled phone. And is ...

I believe all of us have changed a mobile handset (at least once). Long time ago (like mid -nineties) it was a pleasure. Being a GSM subscriber in 1993 meant your phone was bulky and heavy and all your personal data (mostly contacts directory) was stored on a SIM card. So you brought your new (less bulky and less heavy) handset from the shop, pulled the SIM from the old one, popped in the new and voila - everything worked as intended. The new phone logged to the network and you were able to dial. But as the years passed by and mobile phone turned gradually into "mobile - everything - you - need", silently you started to store more and more information in it. More PERSONAL information. SIM address books had simple structure: name (alphanumeric) + number (digits). Current phones bring hierarchies. Name is no longer just a string of characters. There is a first name, last name, company name. And there are several numbers per contact (mobile, home, work, fax) and other fields lik...

The first impression was WOW! And Steve's party continued into the night. But then was the morning [after]. I am being asked all the time what do I think about the iPhone. So here are my thoughts, in no particular order: I am surprised. iPhone seems to be a gadget for geeks like me. It solves many problems, but probably not the ones people have. I still would prefer a Nano with a slide-out keyboard . Pure music and pure phone calls in a stylish and simplistic design. What Apple unveiled seems to be a bit overdone. They merged together several pieces we discussed here: a touch screen , wireless connectivity and a PDA . But this is not necessarily what most people want. It is hard to imagine the iPhone being the only phone you have (it is just too big... going to a pub or skiing? forget it...). The Nano with phone functionality would do... Phone is the killer application? Hey Steve, give me a break, there are thousands phones on the market already. But well handled music on a phon...

Microvision has supposedly delivered today. The fruit is the long awaited IPM or Integrated Photonics Module. Making the long story short, IPM is a tiny multimedia projector. By using lasers as a source of light, it marks a very significant milestone on the road of image projection technology. First, it gets rid of Edison - style light bulb. We all know how inefficient light bulbs are in converting energy into light. Most of the energy supplied to a bulb is converted into heat. That is why image projectors draw a lot of power, get hot and noisy (they need fans to blow the heat out). Microvision IPM uses lasers. You probably have or at least have played with a pocket laser pointer. It runs for months on a set of tiny batteries and has a range of half a mile or more. Compare that to even the most powerful Maglite torch - they are big, heavy and can only dream to have a comparable range. Then using lasers you can get rid of another heavy and bulky part - optics. The IPM does not have a...

Last week I wrote a bit about the Linksys WRV200 wireless home router. It eventually saved my day struggling with the Nabaztag , and definitely deserves more coverage. Basically I had two issues using my old WRT54GC router . The coverage was not enough - even though I was using an external antenna, I had to install a second WAP54G access point. The good thing was the WAP54G could have been configured as a "wireless repeater", so no extra cabling (only power supply) was necessary. The second issue was the need to have a VPN access to my home network from outside. VPN is a secure "tunnel" you can set up over the Internet, so even being physically "outside" the firewalled network, you can work over this "tunnel" as you were inside (for example print on the home printer or watch a home camera or schedule a TV recording using the web interface to the home TV receiver). After short evaluation (and being a happy Linksys customer) I decided to go for ...

We have adopted a rabbit this Christmas. A smart rabbit, that is - the Nabaztag . The idea of an electronic pet connected to various online services is cute. I will not go into the deep functional details, as you can watch the presentations on the Nabaztag.Com web site. And unfortunately I cannot tell you more from own experience, as we barely managed to get it running before the my.nabaztag.com site went down this morning "due to overwhelming rabbit registrations". But it definitely seems the rabbits have been a commercial success and most of them found their place under Christmas trees. I can only imagine the frustrations of hundreds (thousands?) of people unpacking their rabbits and then trying to configure them over the web service that stopped working. It looks like the Nabaztag concept is really great, but then we have two very fundamental flaws in the execution. First is an overloaded server that cannot handle Christmas traffic. But I think (and hope) the company wi...

Christmas around the corner so may be this is the right time to put together a personal gadget wish list? This time I will try to think of what can be improved with the current state of the art. So no new technologies, just what we have available, but put together as better, smarter designs. Here we go: Notebook power supply with several (2-4) USB power sockets. Hey, I take my notebook computer with me on almost all my trips. I bring several other gadgets as well. All of them are charged over the Universal Supply Bus. But at the moment I have to either bring an extra charger or leave my notebook running overnight to charge them. Targus, Kensington, APC, do you hear me? Bluetooth A2DP portable speakers. I love taking my music with me. I have a pair of Altec Lansing inMotion portable iPod speakers. They produce very good sound, but there are several drawbacks: (i) they do not charge over USB, (ii) most of the time I do not bring an iPod anymore - on a train or plane I listen to the song...