Future Players: Samsung Shows Off Wild-Ass Flexible Displays
Now that's one bracelet any self-respecting geek wouldn't mind wearing. [AVing]
Friday, August 24, 2007
Princeton's itty bitty USB Bluetooth 2.0+EDR module
Remember that crazy small, RF receiver used with Logitech's VX Nano? Meet the Bluetooth 2.0+EDR equiv, the Princeton's PTM-UBT3S which measures just 19-mm (0.75-inches) long. So yeah, it's small, in fact, it's claimed to be the smallest available in Japan when it ships in September. Whether or not it's the world's smallest is irrelevant as it's surely suitable for full-time laptop or handheld bunging without concern for sheering it off. Yours for ¥2,480 or $21 beans. [Via Impress]
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Digital Cameras: Olympus Rolls Out Stylus 820, 830 and 1200, a Trio of Pretty, Pocketable Minishooterso
The Stylus 820 is a bargain-priced $249.99, and it has a 2.7-inch viewscreen, a 5x optical zoom and 8-megapixel sensor on board. Spend 80 more bucks ($329.99) and you get an 8-megapixel Stylus 830 that now has dual image stabilization, combining both digital image stabilization (which we haven't been too impressed with on its own) with good old mechanical sensor-shift stabilization. Olympus says this trickery can smooth out camera shake and also somehow reaches out and stabilizes subjects who are moving around a lot. Got kids? Good luck with that. For that wizardry you sacrifice .2 inches on the LCD viewscreen, slightly smaller at 2.5 inches.
That Stylus 830 shares a cool feature with the Stylus 1200, called In-Camera Panorama, just like what was introduced on the Olympus SP-560 UZ. Instead of futzing with putting together all those groups of panoramic shots in an image editing application, this baby can take three pictures for you as you pan across a scene, and then stitches them all together for you right there inside the camera. Neat. That 12-megapixel Stylus 1200, the top of the Stylus group for $349.99, gives you a faster f/2.8 lens (the other two are f/3.5) but for that you have to give up a bit of zoomosity; it packs a 3x optical zoom instead of the 5x of the other two Styli.
All three of these pocket-sized point-and-shooters will be available next month. [Olympus]
Wireless: Plantronics Calisto Pro Can Do Skype, Landline and Cellphone
This Plantronics Calisto Pro set takes your standard Bluetooth headset and adds in landline and Skype dialing, which means you get the big three (Skype, home, cell) all in one dorky-looking device. The base station has a USB connector to hook into your PC for Skype and Yahoo calls, a DECT 6.0 handset to handle landline calls, and the headset to connect to both these plus a cellphone. The price for all this convenience while you work at home in your underpants? $279 starting September.
SpiralFrog: Free Music Alive And Hopping
SpiralFrog originally made a splash when they sealed a deal with Universal BMG to give away free downloads of some of their songs in exchange for a share of on-site ad revenue. Later they closed a deal with EMI and have since added a bunch of smaller labels totaling over 700,000 songs. However, now we know a little more about how their free system works.
To keep the whole system secure, they’ve locked down the download process end to end DRM controls. First you have to get a download manager, and then ensure you have Windows Media Player 9.0 or up. The system is kind of annoying and only works on Windows machines since it uses Microsoft DRM. Although, Microsoft DRM has already been cracked. The DRM requirement also means the songs only play through Windows Media Player, making them unportable. Unlike other DRM setups, though, there doesn’t appear to be a limit to the number of computers you can download to as long as you set SpiralFrog up on them.
Once the system is in place, you can search for artists and download their songs/videos individually. The songs are queued in a download manager and stored locally by artist and album in your SpiralFrog folder. The system seems to have intentionally been crippled so you view more advertising, with downloads happening one at a time and only while on the site. Using the site, I was able to download a bunch of songs and play them with no problem, but other early beta user have had trouble.
I don’t know if SpiralFrog will be able to sustain their business off of on-site advertising and affiliate music sales. A lot of other services are simply going DRM free, not download free. Blogmusik also recently went legit in France, but the US courts and music industry are a lot harder to sway. However, limiting the lease time on the songs means they can continuously tweak what hoops their users need to hop through to keep playing the music they download. For now it may be a simple option if you want a (legal) source of free tunes.
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