The Paper PC

Moving Day: Follow The Paper PC on WordPress

2011-10-18T21:16:00.002-05:00

The Paper PC is moving to a new home at WordPress. Not a single byte has been lost--all previous posts have been transferred. The new site gives The Paper PC a bit more flexibility in design but the content will be of the same quality that you've come to expect here for the past six and a half years.

Click here to express to the new blog site. And don't forget to bookmark it.

As I said in the very first blog post in 2005, "Thanks for stopping by."

--Robert S. Anthony, Editor, Stadium Circle Features

Five Things to Remember About IBM's First PC

2011-09-02T21:42:00.000-05:00

So the IBM PC is 30 years old. So what? I was a newspaper reporter in 1981 when IBM trotted out its first PC. I remember how it created a newsroom buzz and how deadly serious it looked next to the snappy-looking Atari, Commodore and Radio Shack/Tandy computers of the day. Never mind the now-laughably slow processing speed of that first PC. It was plenty fast for the time.

The best way to compare that original 1981 IBM 5150 PC to today's machines is not to talk about what it could do, but to fondly recall the things it couldn't. Many of the little things we take for granted today were not even on the drawing board in 1981. That device that started out as a bland, beige, boxy business tool for geeks is now a cornerstone of our daily lives.

Connection to Nowhere
First of all, the 1981 IBM PC connected you to nothing. It was a standalone computing box that sat on your desk. Whatever you did at the keyboard was between you and the PC--no one else knew what you were doing. If you wanted to share something with someone you waved him over and let him look over your shoulder. If you were ambitious, you copied a file onto a floppy disk (remember those?) and walked it over to the recipient--a process referred to as "the sneakernet."

It had no modem or network card, which was fine in 1981 since very few people knew what the heck email was. If you needed to send a message to your entire office you cleared your throat and shouted. The Internet as we know it today was hardly a twinkle in the eyes of its fathers.

Aside from trashing an occasional floppy, the most dangerous thing a 1981 PC could do to you was give you a virus. No, not a computer virus--a real one--but only if the previous user neglected to wash his hands.

Hostile Desktop Takeover
Unless you were a big shot with a really big desk, the IBM PC didn't share your desk--it took it over. Take a look at the "footprint" of that 1981 IBM PC: The system unit was 20 inches wide, 16 inches deep and 5.5 inches high. The monochrome monitor added 11 inches in height. The system unit weighed in at 25 pounds when configured with one diskette drive.

The keyboard was huge too. It was 20 inches wide to match the system unit and 8 inches deep. It was also one of the most comfortable and responsive keyboards ever made. Yes, it was loud and clacky, but it was reliable.

Couldn't See a Thing
When matched with the right software, even that first PC could generate nice-looking business letters and resumes. You could even design an eye-catching restaurant menu or bulletin board poster. Trouble is, you never knew what you had created until you printed it out.

Early version of Wordstar word processor

The monochrome monitor couldn't show much in the way of character formatting, much less high-resolution graphics or photos. What it could show were arcane codes and squiggles to indicate where the formatting changed. The days of WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) desktop publishing applications were years off.

No Mouse in the House
Unplug your computer's mouse or ignore the touch pad and get back to work. See how much extra finger time those arrow keys get? That's how we interfaced with PCs in the 1980s--one space at a time. No expressing from one end of the screen to another with a single click. Now try to use your web browser without a mouse for a few minutes. Yeah, that's the definition of torture, isn't it?

Help Isn't on the Way
When the IBM PC warmed up and was ready for work, it greeted you not with a friendly, colorful desktop full of icons, but with a mostly blank screen and an "A>" prompt. (The "C>" prompt arrived later with hard disks).

What you typed in after the prompt was up to you because the PC wasn't going to help you. At that point it was time to ask a friend, take a class, or at least grab a software or system manual to see what you should type in. How long has it been since you typed in "dir" to find out what was on a floppy disk?

The 1981 PC was a game-changer, but not for the general public. They were still trying to master the new-fangled bank ATMs. It took years before many PCs made their way into dens, kitchens and bedrooms.

There's lots more the 1981 PC couldn't do--but I'm drawing a blank at the moment, so feel free to chime in.

Text Copyright 2011 Robert S. Anthony, Stadium Circle Features
IBM PC photo courtesy of Ruben de Rijcke via Wikipedia
Wordstar screen shot courtesy of RaviC via Wikipedia
IBM keyboard image courtesy of Mewtu via Wikipedia
Command prompt image courtesy of Microsoft Corp.

Blogger Delivers Post Office to US Postal Service: No Kidding

2011-08-02T09:12:00.000-05:00

Battery Park APC

New York's Battery Park self-service post office will soon gain its rightful place in cyberspace thanks to The Paper PC. You're welcome.

Soon you'll be able to surf to the US Postal Service website (www.usps.com), click on the post office locator and actually be able to find the Battery Park Automated Postal Center (APC) at 88 Greenwich St. in lower Manhattan. That's not the case right now.

Last week's Paper PC post pointed out that the USPS website didn't seem to know that the Battery Park APC was there. Even if you enter its exact address into the website's APC locator (see image), it directs you to an APC across town at One Peck Slip.

USPS.com APC locator

The Paper PC contacted the local media relations office of the US Postal Service and pointed out the problem.

After a few more e-mails a friendly USPS rep now reports that a fix is on the way.

"We found the issue with the Battery Park APC. There was a glitch in assigning it in our data base. It is being worked on and will be corrected," wrote the USPS representative in an e-mail.

As of this posting the APC is still invisible to the website, but hopefully that will change soon. We hope.

The moral: As they say in the New York subway system: If you see something, say something.

Can you find your local post office or APC on the USPS website? Take a look. Yours may be missing in action too.

Lost in Manhattan: One Library and One Post Office

2011-07-28T02:29:00.001-05:00

NYPL Battery Park City Branch
Text and photos Copyright © 2011 Stadium Circle Features

How do you lose an entire library? What happens when the postal service can't find its own post office? Just call them lost in cyberspace.

Blocks from each other in lower Manhattan is a New York Public Library (NYPL) branch that the library system's new smartphone app didn't know about and a U.S. Postal Service location that the USPS website can't find.

The NYPL recently released iPhone and Android smartphone apps that allow library users to manage their accounts, reserve books, check on fines and otherwise make good use of the library's many online resources. To use the new apps NYPL users need to register with the library's new online catalog.

The apps also provide listings of the NYPL's branches, which are spread out over Manhattan, The Bronx and Staten Island. However if you were one of the first to download the new Android NYPL app and wanted to locate the Battery Park City Library, guess what? It wasn't listed.

The listing jumped from "Allerton" to "Baychester" with nary a mention of the airy Battery Park City branch, which opened last year.

The temporary oversight was ironic since the Battery Park City branch is one of the most cyber-friendly public libraries in the city. The branch, located at 175 North End Ave. at Murray St., offers free Wi-Fi across its two floors, 36 public computers and plenty of desks with top-mounted AC outlets for laptops.

Fortunately an update which appeared in the Android Market Wednesday addressed a number of bugs, including the branch listing, which now includes every branch, including Battery Park City.

While the updated NYPL app was able to locate its library, the recently freshened-up U.S. Postal Service website doesn't seem to know about a small, but useful Automated Postal Center (APC) site located just south of the World Trade Center site.

Nestled in a small storefront at 88 Greenwich St. is an APC location with lots of tabletop space for preparing packages and a single APC kiosk providing self-service postal services. There are many post-office-based and standalone APCs, which look like bank ATMS, scattered around the city. However, while the APC locator on the USPS.com website can locate most of them, this one is invisible.

Even if you enter "88 Greenwich St." in the box that pops up after using the "Find USPS Locations" link on the USPS website--making sure to change "Post Office Locations" to "Automated Postal Centers"--the USPS website directs you across Manhattan to a post office at One Peck Slip more than half a mile away. Other suggestions listed by the locator included an APC site across the Hudson River in Jersey City, New Jersey and another across the East River in Brooklyn. Rowboat anyone?

Will the USPS website ever deliver the 88 Greenwich St. APC? Stay tuned: I have an e-mail in to the USPS media relations office.

Robert S. Anthony, Stadium Circle Features

Aetrex Opens Trendy High-Tech Shoe Store

2011-06-04T17:26:00.001-05:00

Former New York Giants quarterback Phil Simms likes it and so might you: A new shoe store with a computerized gizmo that scans and sizes up your feet.

The new Aetrex Worldwide Inc. store that opened on East Palisade Ave. in Englewood, New Jersey today features no one resembling the poor Al Bundy character made famous in the old "Married with Children" TV show but instead offers a computer that can measure and assess you shoe needs better than luckless Al could have even on his best day.

The Aetrex store features the Aetrex iStep 5000, a piece of hardware which looks like a foot bath, but has thousands of barometric sensors below your feet to assess how your weight is distributed and hundreds of infrared LEDs around your feet to accurately measure them.

The result is data that can create a 2D or 3D image of the pressure points on your feet. This allows the salesperson to fit you with any necessary orthotics while fitting you with the proper shoe. You can have the computer data sent to you via e-mail or straight to your cell phone via text message. The scanning process takes about 30 seconds.

Simms, who was present at a preview and ribbon-cutting event for the press on Thursday, said his Aetrex shoes had eliminated much of the heel pain he used to get from his other size 14 shoes.

Aetrex is marketing its proprietary software and hardware solution to other shoe stores, so you may see one of these setups in your neighborhood sooner than you think.

For a quick demonstration of how the Aetrex iStep 5000 works, see my piece for PC World.

Yobot the Luggage-Totin' Robot Gets Busy at Yotel New York Hotel

2011-05-08T02:08:00.001-05:00

It's not the kind of thing you expect to see on the sidewalks of New York--and most Times Square locals have seen just about everything--but the Yotel New York hotel's new front-desk robot is definitely a head-turner.

Instead of leaving the task of lugging luggage to human luggers, the Yotel New York has employed Yobot, the world's first luggage-storing robot, to quickly store and retrieve guests' luggage. And instead of performing this task in a dark and dingy storage room, Yobot performs before a large sidewalk-level window for all passersby to see.

It's an impressively smooth and quick process which is as efficient as it is entertaining. The Yotel New York, located on W. 42nd St. and 10th Ave. just west of Times Square, will specialize in rooms that are small, but efficiently designed but nowhere near as small as the micro-accommodations at Yotel's rent-by-the-hour "pod" hotels at two London airports and one in the Amsterdam.

Want more information? See my PC World story.

Video and text Copyright 2011 Robert S. Anthony, Stadium Circle Features

Nintendo 3DS Takes Manhattan Early

2011-03-24T22:39:00.000-05:00

New Yorkers get an early peek at Nintendo 3DS at the South Street Seaport.

You can't buy it until Sunday, but dozens of New Yorkers have been getting their hands on the hotly awaited Nintendo 3DS portable game console thanks to a roving band of Nintendo representatives.

At Manhattan's South Street Seaport Thursday, a group of white-clad Nintendo product demonstrators showed off the dual-screened 3DS, which can display 3D images without the need for 3D glasses, to whoever cared for a short demo. From there the Nintendo team headed to Union Square, which will be the site of one of ten 3DS launch parties at Best Buy stores nationwide Saturday night.

Want more information and more pictures? See my piece for PC World.

Text and photo Copyright 2011 Stadium Circle Features

$499 Too Much for an iPad 2? How about $3,750 for a DOS Tablet?

2011-03-03T20:41:00.002-05:00

Would you pay $3,750 for a tablet computer? In 1991 lots of people did, and apparently were quite happy to do so.

It never ceases to amaze me how the power of the computer-buying dollar continues to rise at a breakneck pace despite the sour state of the U.S. economy.

With each new year you get much more video muscle, far more data storage and much stronger and faster processors for the same number of dollars.

And that's the rule whether we're talking PCs, laptops, cell phones, tablets or any other computer-based gadget. And if you adjust for inflation, the numbers only get better.

With the introduction of the Apple iPad 2 this week at prices starting at $499, I began to wonder what kinds of tablets were available 20 years ago and what they would have cost. Then I stumbled upon the above photo in my computer history archives.

The GRiDPAD RC and GRiDPAD HD, manufactured by GRiD Systems, were announced in 1991 and were indeed standard-setters at the time. In fact the original 1989 GRiDPAD was developed by Jeff Hawkins, better known as the father of the Palm Pilot handheld computer. Instead of a finger, the monochrome, backlit and transflective touch screens on the GRiDPADs were navigated with small pens wired to the units.

The 4.6-pound GRiDPAD HD listed for $3,750 and came with a 20-megabyte (That's right, not gigabytes. And wipe that smile off your face!) hard disk and a RAM card slot. The hard-diskless GRiDPAD RC ($2,870) came with two RAM card slots which would allow you to install as much as 2MB of storage. Both came with 2MB of internal RAM for programs.

By comparison, Apple's $499 Wi-Fi only iPad 2 comes with 16GB of RAM, weighs 1.33 pounds and has a 9.7-inch, 1,024-by-768-pixel color display. Of course the iPad 2 offers far more sophisticated features and software than the ancient GRiDPAD units, but all were standard-bearers for their time.

For example, even though Windows 3.0 was available when the GRiDPAD HD and RC were announced, they came with with the much more reliable, stable and less-memory-hungry DOS (Disk Operating System). Windows 3.1, widely regarded as the first truly reliable Windows version, didn't appear until 1992.

Now before you think of what you could buy for $3,750 today, let's adjust for inflation. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' CPI Index Calculator, $3,750 in 1991 translates to $6,063.41 in 2011 while $2,870 in 1991 becomes $4,640.53 today. And just for the heck of it, note that today's $499 translates into $308.61 in 1991 dollars.

See those dollars sitting innocently in your wallet? They're getting stronger by the hour--at least in terms of gadget-purchasing power--even as you turn a couple loose for that cup of Starbuck's coffee.

Any other good examples of 1991 pricing? Let's hear about them.

Text Copyright 2011 Stadium Circle Features
Photos courtesy of GRiD Systems and Apple.

Sprint Echo: One Phone, Two Screens, But Just 3G

2011-02-08T00:38:00.000-05:00

The Echo by Kyocera for Sprint is exactly what it looks like: An Android smartphone with two screens instead of one. Does the extra screen improve your productivity or does it just suck battery power? Yes. But that's OK: Batteries (two of them) are included.

Sprint Echo by Kyocera

The Echo was unveiled Monday at a glitzy event in New York which featured the magic of David Blaine. While the phone lacks smoke or mirrors, it does feature a specially designed hinge that allows it to snap quickly from single- to dual-screen mode.

The Kyocera unit's dual 3.5-inch touch displays can be used in tandem or separately in either portrait or landscape orientation. The phone will sell for $199 after a $100 rebate with a two-year plan.

The unit is only a 3G phone, however, and can't use Sprint's ultra-fast 4G network. It can, however, serve as a Wi-Fi hotspot for a notebook or other wireless networking device.

During the press event Sprint representatives demonstrated how the Echo's screens can be used to run separate applications in each screen or run a single app that spans both screens. When reading e-mail, for example, you can read the e-mail summary in one window and read the full e-mail text in the other. You could also, for example, open your Twitter account in one window and peek at Facebook in the other.

The phone can also run games, as Sprint representatives demonstrated as they showed off a version of The Sims that took advantage of both screens (see video below).

As for the specs, the phone comes with Android version 2.2, a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, an 8GB removable memory card (up to 32GB cards supported), Bluetooth 2.1 support for wireless headsets and other devices, and a five-megapixel camera with support for 720p HD video.

Due to the power demands of the dual 800-by-480-pixel screens, the phone comes with two 1,370 mAh batteries and an external battery charger that can connect to the phone, thus allowing you to charge both batteries at once. As for battery life, neither Sprint nor Kyocera mention this prominently on their product pages, so you'd be advised to keep the batteries charged and the charger handy.

At 6.8 ounces and two-thirds of an inch thick, the unit is both thicker and heavier than the original Motorola Droid with the slide-out keyboard (6 ounces, half-inch thick). In other words, the unit has a bit of heft to it and will definitely fill out a shirt pocket.

Like Acer's Iconia dual-screened notebook, it remains to be seen if two screens are better than one or if they just make the folks at Con Edison smile.

Text and video Copyright 2011 Stadium Circle Features

A 2011 CES Miracle: Silence in the Press Room

2011-01-06T18:31:00.000-05:00

Silence in the press room on Press Day at CES? Never thought I'd see the day.

Indeed that's almost what happened at the main press room at the Las Vegas Convention Center Wednesday afternoon even as thousands of journalists poured into town for the media preview day before the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show opened to the public today.

The reason? Most journalists were a few miles away at the Venetian Las Vegas Casino, Hotel & Resort, where most of the larger press events were held. When it came time to write their stories and blogs and upload their photos and videos, most journalists ventured to the much smaller and much-less-equipped CES press room at the Venetian.

The result? The area around the Venetian press room resembled a natural disaster assistance center. The sight of dozens of tired, deadline-pressured, alcohol-lubricated journalists strewn in the hallways around the packed press room gave the area the aura of a flophouse which ran out of beds before the stream of incoming clientele did.

Those sharp enough to catch a shuttle bus to the much larger and better-laid-out CES press room at the Las Vegas Convention Center found seats, serenity and plenty of available computers and laptop desk space--all of which will be nonexistent starting today.

But on Wednesday you could have heard a whispered PIN number drop as journalists quietly, politely and efficiently got their work done without stress, four-letter words or fist shaking. Utterly amazing.

So how do you keep track of the announcements coming out of the show? If you have a Twitter account, all you need to do is search for a term like "#CES," "#CES2011" or any similar variation and you'll get an instant snapshot of what's being announced at this moment. Follow me on Twitter at: @newyorkbob.

Keep an eye right here for some special reports from CES as well.

Video and text Copyright 2011. Stadium Circle Features

CES 2011: OnStar - Now Almost Anyone Can Have It

2011-01-05T03:36:00.001-05:00

OnStar announced a new product at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Tuesday that non-GM-vehicle owners have been clamoring for for ages: A kit that allows you to add the OnStar satellite information and security service to almost any car on the road.

Where do you find such a device? Just look into your rearview mirror ... and then replace it ... with OnStar's $299 addOn replacement rearview mirror. The addOn includes the familiar OnStar blue button and provides access to OnStar's satellite-borne services such as turn-by-turn navigation, stolen car tracking, hands-free calling and automatic crash response. Service plans will run from $18.95 a month to $199 a year. The new unit will be available at Best Buy later this year. Until now, OnStar was only available as a preinstalled option in GM cars.

At a press conference at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino, OnStar President Chris Preuss showed off the new addOn unit to hundreds of journalists two days before the official opening of the convention floor on Jan. 6.

According to OnStar's press release, the addOn is "certified to work on 99 percent of the top 20 selling non-GM vehicles over the last 10 years, or approximately 55 million cars and trucks."

More CES coverage coming. Stay tuned.

Text and video Copyright 2011 Stadium Circle Features
Photos courtesy of OnStar

Paper PC Picks: Gifts for iPod Lovers

2010-12-20T02:38:00.001-05:00

With the holiday gift season hard upon us and crowds of head-scratching consumers filling electronics stores, now is as good a time as any to start a series of cool gadget selections. The Paper PC Picks will be culled from newly announced products spotted at press events and from the interesting products I've had a chance to look over. So let's get started, in no particular order, with the first set of Paper PC Picks.

Gifts for iPod Lovers

A strange gadget recently made an appearance in a New York subway car: An original, first-generation iPod. It had a tiny monochrome display and the now-legendary mechanical wheel for menu navigation. In a car full of modern iPods and iPhones, the sighting of a "classic" iPod proved one thing: iPod users really love their devices. As the holiday shopping season rushes to a close, here are some gift suggestions for your favorite iPod lover.

v-moda Crossfade LP
At the high end of the scale is the $200 Crossfade LP from v-moda, a studio-quality, over-the-ear headphone which doesn't look the least bit like an iPod accessory. Aside from comfortable, well-padded earpieces and a choice of six colors, the unit offers two detachable, cloth-covered wires: one for audio only and the other with an inline iPod-compatible remote control and microphone.

Instead of multiple drivers per earpiece, the Crossfade LP uses single 50mm dual-diaphragm driver on each side, a design which, according to v-moda, allows the unit to provide deep basses and clean midrange sounds without the need for batteries. The stylish headphone, which also comes with a ruggedized hard carrying case, proved both comfortable and comforting since external noises were held at bay by the ample padding, thus allowing the pure sounds of digital music to stand alone.

Denon AH-C260R
If you damage or lose your original white iPod earbuds, you'll find that there are many alternate headsets that offer equal or superior audio quality at lower prices than Apple's replacement earbuds ($29 list) or dual-driver in-ear headset ($79 list). The $50 Denon AH-C260R in-the-ear headset is a good example.

The headset, part of Denon's Mobile Elite series, has a three-button inline iPod-compatible remote control and an inline microphone. When tested with Skype telephony software and with and the voice recorder in a second-generation iPod touch, the clarity and fidelity of the unit's inline microphone proved impressive. The earpiece shells are made of an aluminum alloy and a resin compound, a combination which, according to Denon, minimizes unwanted resonances.

Blue Microphones Mikey

Anyone who's owned an iPod for more than a few minutes knows that it can do far more than just play back digital music. For students who want to record lectures or business workers who need to record meetings or conference panels, the Mikey microphone ($79 list) from Blue Microphones turns most iPods into fairly sophisticated voice and music recorders.

The square, hinged, second-generation Mikey fits neatly into the docking port of first- to third-generation iPod touches; second- to fifth-generation iPod nanos, iPod classics and fifth-generation iPods. The unit works best when used with the Blue iPod app, readily available at no cost in the iTunes Apps store.

When tested in a large New York hotel ballroom during a panel discussion, the Mikey, when adjusted for high sensitivity, clearly recorded the proceedings.

Philips Fidelio DS8500
Earlier this year Philips expanded its line of iPod-docking speakers with the rich-sounding Fidelio series of premium speakers. In the middle of the line is the curvy $200 Philips Fidelio DS8500. Unlike boxy, clock-radio-type iPod docks, the Fidelio DS8500 is designed to look classy even when an iPod isn't docked to it. You can also connect other MP3 players and music accessories to it via a stereo input jack.

The unit comes with dual 3-inch, 15-watt speakers behind a fabric mesh, a remote control and its own iPod / iPhone app. The app, which can be downloaded at no cost from the iTunes App Store, includes an equalizer and other features that allow you to tune the sound of the unit to your ear. The app also includes an alarm clock which allows you to wake up to music from your iPod. And of course the speakers can be used for streaming music from Pandora and other Internet radio services when your iPod or iPhone has an Internet connection.

The Fidelio has a proximity sensor which illuminates the front-panel volume buttons as you approach and turns them off as you move away, thus providing more power for music and less for interference from the lights. The powered speakers come with an AC adapter and the Fidelio recharges your iPod as it sits in the dock. The unit is compatible with almost all iPods and yes, when tested with an iPod touch, the audio was warm and crisp.

An Ounce of Protection

If you think your iPod lover might like to personalize his unit, there are a number of services that let you design your own iPod case. For example, Coveroo has a deep selection of college and professional sports team logos, emblems, mascots and other images that can separate your iPod from the crowds.

Coveroo

The images are manufactured into the cases, so they won't wear off, according to Coveroo.

Case-Mate also offers a large line of cases for iPods, iPads and some Android-based cell phones like the Samsung Galaxy S series, also allows you to design your own case. The do-it-yourself area of the Case-Mate website allows you to upload your own design or photo and have it manufactured into a phone or iPod case. Here again the design or photo is embedded into the final product and doesn't wear off, according to Case-Mate.

And one last word here: Happy Holidays.

Text Copyright 2010 Stadium Circle Features
Photos courtesy of v-moda, Denon, Blue Microphones, Philips, Coveroo and Case-Mate

No Keyboard? No Problem: Acer's Dual-Touchscreen Iconia Oozes Coolness

2010-11-24T04:12:00.000-05:00

Acer Iconia with dual 14-inch touchscreens

Is the Acer Iconia the opening salvo of a new generation of keyboard-free notebooks or just a grand experiment doomed to be a footnote in the annals of PC history? It's certainly too early to tell, but there's one thing that can be said about the new dual-touchscreen unit: It's just darn cool.

With no visible moving parts other than the hinge connecting the two bright 14-inch touchscreens, the Iconia is a sleek, clean-looking computing machine with nifty enhancements to the standard Windows interface.

You can navigate through your browser, word processor and other software with your finger as you would on an Apple iPad or other tablet, but if you lay both palms upon the lower touch screen, a full size keyboard appears, including a virtual touchpad, thus allowing you to work as if it were a conventional notebook.

Acer Iconia with virtual keyboard

The unit, and a handful of other new mobile devices, was introduced by Acer Tuesday at a spiffy New York press event which included a white runway more suited for fashion models than computer company executives.

Both of the LED-backlit14-inch LCD touchscreens offer a resolution of 1,366 by 768 pixels and come with a protective layer of Gorilla Glass, a scratch and crack-resistant composite glass developed by Corning, which is based appropriately enough in Corning, New York.

Acer Groups Senior Corp. VP Jim Wong watches demo

The full-size keyboard not only offers all of the keys of a standard keyboard, but can do some tricks that a hardware keyboard can't. For example, once you touch the virtual touchpad below the virtual keyboard, the entire bottom screen becomes your touchpad as long as you don't lift your finger. Instead of dragging your finger in short bursts across a two-inch square, you can use the entire real estate of the 14-inch display to propel the cursor around the top screen.

The Paper PC on the Iconia

Touching the keyboard with five fingers and then giving the screen a twist causes the Acer Ring, a circular, scrollable group of one-touch application cards, to appear.

In practice the keyboard worked fairly well, requiring no more practice than one would need to use the virtual keyboard on an iPad or other tablet. The lower section can be used for generously sized system configuration screens--a boon for those with aging eyes.

The lack of a hardware keyboard allows for a very slim profile and of course, a very quiet notebook. The unit will be built with Intel's i5 family of processors, but other configuration information wasn't immediately announced.

A key question went unanswered Tuesday: The price. Acer officials said it had not been finalized yet. While Acer said that the unit may be available as soon as late this year, no sale date was given.

So is this the beginning of the end of the keyboard as we know it? Not quite. The lack of haptic feedback or the reassuring bounce-back of a physical keyboard may cause even good touch-typers to constantly look at the virtual keyboard instead of the screen. However the Iconia's dual screens brings the concept of a lightweight, but very rugged notebook with a weatherproof display and keyboard closer to reality.

So the question is: Would you buy something like this as your primary laptop? Chime in.

Top two product photos courtesy of Acer
Text and other photos and video Copyright 2010 Stadium Circle Features

World's Largest QR Code? Maybe Not, But...

2010-11-17T12:02:00.001-05:00

Video screen above Times Square American Eagle Outfitters store.

It may not be the world's largest QR code, but it may be one of the most effective. While there are plenty of bright and flashy video screens in New York's Times Square, there aren't many that will prompt people to put aside their high-quality still and video cameras in favor of their little cameraphones.

Why? So they can snap an image of the huge QR (quick response) code which appears at regular intervals on the massive video screen of the American Eagle Outfitters store at 1551 Broadway.

These QR codes, which usually appear in somewhat smaller form in magazines, newspapers and sometimes the sides of bus stops, provide instant access to discount coupons or other assets like digital music clips, movie trailers or printed articles. As long as your smartphone has a bar code/QR code reading application--and there are many available for iPhone, Android and Blackberry phone users--you can scan the code, send it over the Internet for processing and download whatever goodie is attached to the code.

When snapped on Nov. 16, the Times Square American Eagle Outfitters QR code lead to a coupon good for 15% off its merchandise.

The L-shaped video screen section which includes the code in the photo measures roughly 79 feet wide by 44 feet tall, making it hard to miss even in the visual cacophony of Times Square. And there are 11 other sign sections in the massive structure above the store.

It was indeed amusing to watch tourists and hardened New Yorkers alike snatch their smartphones from their pockets as if they were Old West gunslingers in an effort to start their phones' code-reading apps and scan the code before it disappeared.

So what's your favorite bar code/QR code reading app? This inquiring mind would like to know.

Photo and text Copyright 2010 Stadium Circle Features

Samsung Continuum: Tick, Tick, Tick

2010-11-09T00:32:00.002-05:00

The ticker at the bottom can be configured to show
the date and time, the weather or other infornation.

So you're in that big meeting and you're bored stiff. You want to keep track of the calls you're missing, your e-mail and the price of that stock you just invested in, but you don't want to get caught poking at your cell phone every other minute. For you there's the Samsung Continuum, an Android smartphone billed as the first with its own customizable "ticker."

The Continuum, the newest in the Samsung Galaxy S family of handsets with Samsung's bright, sharp Super AMOLED display, arrives at Verizon Wireless stores Nov.18 but orders will be taken starting Nov. 11. The handset will sell for $200 with a two-year service plan after a $100 rebate. The Galaxy S family has already sold three million unit since its introduction this summer, according to Kim Titus, director of public relations for Samsung Telecommunications America.

Samsung Continuum ticker in music player mode with album art

Below the Continuum's 3.4-inch main screen and four touch-sensitive Android keys (menu, home, return and search) is a thin piece of screen real estate at the very bottom set aside for a scrollable ticker. You can customize this 1.8-inch ticker so that it shows missed calls, incoming e-mail, stock prices, the weather or other bits of continuously updated information. And all you need to do get the ticker to reveal itself is to grip the handset at the bottom. Only the ticker section will come to life--the rest of the screen will remain dark, thus making it less likely that the chairman of the board will catch you checking your e-mail while the big meeting is still in progress.

Nick DiCarlo, Samsung

At a press conference in New York on Monday, Nick DiCarlo, director of product planning at Samsung Telecommunications America, said the Continuum was an example of "innovating on Android ... in a way you've never seen till now."

The point of the ticker is to allow you to get information without interrupting what you're doing on the main part of the screen. For example, if you're using your calendar app on the main screen, you can see the contents of an incoming text message in the ticker as it comes in without having to leave the calendar.

Thanks to the lightweight nature of the Super AMOLED screen technology, the Continuum is thin and light like the other handsets in the Galaxy S-family handsets. The Continuum will ship with Android 2.1, however, which means it won't be able to handle Web videos and other features built with Adobe Flash 10.1 until it receives the Android 2.2 upgrade.

The unit can function as a Wi-Fi hotspot, allowing you to link up to five other devices to the Internet through the phone. Also included is a five-megapixel digital camera with HD video capabilities, stereo Bluetooth support for wireless accessories, a standard 3.5mm headphone jack and an eight-gigabyte removable memory card--which can be swapped for media with capacities up to 32 gigabytes.

Also preinstalled is Swype, a utility which lets you spell words on the on-screen keyboard by sliding your finger from key to key without lifting your finger from the screen.

On balance, the Continuum seems to be an admirable addition to the Samsung Galaxy S family, but it remains to be seen if the ticker feature will catapult it to the head of the pack.

Text and photos Copyright 2010, Stadium Circle Features

Logitech Revue: After All the Buzz, Will It Take Flight?

2010-10-07T04:29:00.002-05:00

At a well-attended press conference Wednesday, Logitech showed off its Revue, the first in what will probably be a litany of Google-powered TV devices that will let you view content from the Web, broadcast and application sources on a simple TV interface.

Kevin Simon, Logitech

At $300, the Revue comes with a nifty thin wireless keyboard controller with a touch pad (held in the photo by Kevin Simon, director of product marketing for Logitech's digital home group) and runs on Google's Android operating system with Google's Chrome Web browser.

Also available is a sharp-looking, backlit mini controller ($130) or you can operate the Revue with your Android phone or iPhone once you've downloaded a free app from the Android Market or iTunes App Store.

Logitech Revue mini controller

At the press conference Junien Labrousse, Logitech's executive vice president for products, said the Revue would make it simple for TV viewers to find and watch their favorite programs no matter where the content came from.

"Imagine having all your favorite content at your fingertips," he said. "The magic with the Logitech Revue is that everything just works."

Preorders are being taken now but the unit won't arrive at Amazon and Best Buy until the end of the month.

So what are the details on the new Revue? See my piece at PC World.

Journalists jammed the Oct. 6 Logitech Revue press conference in New York.

HP Photosmart eStation: Take One ‘Tablet’ and Call Me When My Boarding Pass is Ready

2010-09-22T00:01:00.003-05:00

All-in-one inkjet printer has a detachable Android-based color control panel which looks and acts like a tablet, but isn’t.

So what can you get in a $399 all-in-one printer in 2010? Answer: The HP Photosmart eStation, a unit with a detachable, wireless Android-based control panel. The seven-inch color touch screen offers a full Web browser and a selection of HP Web apps, including an airline app that will print your boarding pass in four clicks.

At the HP Imaging and Printing Group Innovation Summit in New York Monday, HP showed how the eStation’s panel can surf the Web without a PC and can download and print out online documents. Like other printers announced this year, the Photosmart eStation supports HP’s ePrint feature, which allows you to e-mail print jobs to the printer from any Web-connected device.

The control panel is similar in size and shape to many of the new Android-based tablets like Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, but even though it’s based on the Android 2.1 operating system, it’s not configured to act an independent tablet.

While it does have a solid Web browser, supports multi-touch image resizing and rotates the image from portrait to landscape orientation as needed, it doesn’t have a memory card slot and it doesn’t have access to the apps in Android Market. It does, however, function as an ebook reader and to that end has access to the Barnes & Noble eBookstore. The control panel has a little more heft than some of the newer tablets but has a solid feel and proved very responsive.

Already installed in the control panel are apps for Facebook, Yahoo, the Snapfish online photo service and other websites. Also installed is a Delta Airlines app, the first of what HP representatives said would be a handful of links to airline ticketing systems. The app will allow users to print out their board passes in four clicks, HP said. The control panel will evolve over time and more apps may be added in the future, HP representatives said.

The eStation can send faxes over the Internet, thus negating the need for a telephone line, and supports two-sided printing. According to HP, the unit can generate up to 33 black and white pages or 32 color pages per minute, its scanner tops out at 1,200 by 2,400 dots per inch and the unit supports the 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi standards.

Video, photo and text Copyright 2010 Stadium Circle Features

Samsung Galaxy Tab Does Adobe Flash

2010-09-19T21:32:00.007-05:00

During a press conference last week for the newly announced Samsung Galaxy Tab, Kevin Lynch, chief technology officer at Adobe, showed off how the Android-based tablet can do something Apple's iPad can't: Play videos, games, web tools and other online content created with Adobe Flash.

The Galaxy Tab comes with the Android 2.2 operating system--the same used on popular Android smartphones--and comes with support for Adobe Flash 10.1.

During the Samsung press event in New York, Lynch showed how the tablet handled the video-heavy Major League Baseball website and a couple of Harry Potter online games.

The Galaxy Tab will debut with AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon and a Wi-Fi-only version will be available later. The unit weighs well under a pound, has a 1GHz Hummingbird processor, 16GB of internal memory (expandable with memory cards), and a 7-inch screen.

Want to see more? My video of the Galaxy Tab in action is available at PC World.

Video and text Copyright 2010 Stadium Circle Features

Panasonic Serves Up First Consumer 3D Camcorder at U.S. Open

2010-09-06T00:33:00.000-05:00

If you've been ducking and weaving virtual tennis balls in your living room for the past week, chances are good that you've been watching the U.S. Open tennis tourney on a 3D HDTV. Panasonic is providing the high-end, commercial-grade gear that's being used at courtside to render Venus Williams, Rafael Nadal and the other tennis stars into almost-live participants in your living room, but for those who want to try 3D video for themselves, Panasonic has a solution: a new consumer-grade, handheld 3D camcorder.

Panasonic announced the $1,400 HDC-SDT750 3D camcorder a few months ago, but gave the press a chance to give it a little exercise at the U.S. Open in New York last week. The unit proved as easy to use as any other camcorder and felt balanced despite its 3D lens. The camera can take standard 2D video in full 1,080p HD resolution (1,920 by 1,080-pixels), but connect its stereo lens adapter and the unit can shoot 3D video at 960 by 1,080 pixels. You can pre-order the unit now, but it won't ship until mid-October.

Want to know more? See my piece in PC World.

Text and images Copyright 2010 Stadium Circle Features

PayPal App Pops Up on Droid X: You're Welcome

2010-08-29T16:37:00.004-05:00

The PayPal mobile app showed up on Motorola's Droid X last week. And I think I might be responsible.

For months I had been wondering why PayPal's mobile application could be installed on all of the Android phones I've tested so far except Motorola's popular Droid X for Verizon Wireless. It was easy enough to find the PayPal app in the Android Market with other Android handsets, including the original Droid (left in photo), but it wouldn't show up if you searched for "PayPal" in the Android Market with the larger Droid X.

Last week PayPal held a nifty press event in New York to show off its close integration with the StubHub online ticket exchange and other sports-related services. I asked a couple PayPal representatives about the Droid X but no one knew why the PayPal app wouldn't show up on it. I followed up the next day with an e-mail and was told the matter would be looked into.

The next morning I searched for PayPal on the Droid X and, much to my surprise, it was there. It installed without a problem and is very easy to navigate on the Droid X's large, 4.3-inch display.

Kudos to PayPal for the quick action. And for those of you who may also have had the same problem: You're welcome. (I also blogged about this on PC World.)

New York Tabloid Wars: Looks Like a Tie

2010-08-25T09:10:00.000-05:00

Is it just me or was yesterday the first time the "competing" free New York tabloids looked exactly the same in the sidewalk newspaper box?

On Aug. 24, amNewYork, published by Newsday, and Metro New York, published by Metro International, were blanketed by the same Time Warner Cable four-page wraparound ad, thus making them look identical to readers at first glance. Of course the content inside each paper was different, but you couldn't tell what was within these books by looking at their covers.

Makes one wonder who is fit to be tied when a wraparound ad blocks the view of a newspaper's front page: The readers or the editors who came up with the nifty headlines--which nobody saw? What do you think?

The Lost Smartphone: An ID Thief's Dream

2010-08-11T15:29:00.000-05:00

Where's your smartphone? Did it fall out of your pocket or did you leave in that rental car?

If you did those cameraphone photos from the bachelor party might be the least of your worries. With a wealth of personal information and possible application links to things like your bank accounts and your personal schedule, today's smartphones offer lots of data that would be valuable to an ID thief.

So what can you do to protect your data? Add-on applications like tenCube's WaveSecure can protect your phone even when it's out of your hands. Take a look at my latest piece in PC World for more information. And let me know what you think.

Copyright 2010 Stadium Circle Features

Samsung Galaxy S: Shining Star on Smartphone Horizon

2010-07-01T14:22:00.001-05:00

With the introduction of the Samsung Galaxy S smartphone at a lavish launch event in New York this week, Samsung claims the lead in smartphone display technology. So how nice is the 4-inch, Super AMOLED display? Very nice indeed, even in bright sunlight.

Not only is the display bright and rich, but video playback is more than impressive, rendering even action movies with a jitter. Combined with a 1GHz processor, the Galaxy S handles high-definition videos very well. Take a look at how nice the movie "Avatar" comes across on the small screen. The entire movie comes with the phone on a removable memory card.

The Galaxy S is known as the T-Mobile Vibrant, the Verizon Wireless Fascinate, the AT&T Captivate and the Sprint Epic 4G, which, unlike the other three, has a slide-out QWERTY keypad.

What else do I think? See my first impressions at PC World.

HP ePrint: No Print Driver? No Problem

2010-06-07T14:18:00.006-05:00

Hewlett Packard led off Internet Week in New York Monday by unveiling ePrint, a new Web print service that allows users to print from any Web-enabled device whether it has built-in printing support or not. The new ePrint service will come with a wave of new all-in-one inkjet printers starting at $99.

During a morning press conference, Vyomesh Joshi (right), HP's executive vice president for Imaging and Printing Group, noted that all of the new printers will come with their own e-mail addresses. Sending a print job to any of the ePrint-enabled printers is as simple as sending an e-mail he said.

While three of the four new printers will be available in August and September, the $99 HP Photosmart e-All-in-One printer, which features a 2.4-inch touchscreen and a flatbed scanner, will be available later this month.

For more on the new ePrint service, see my piece at PCWorld.com.

Gates on Gates: Proud Son Yields to Prouder Dad

2010-06-03T02:09:00.002-05:00

Bill Gates Sr. joins famous son to promote book on family values

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates doesn’t have to deal with second billing too often, but he was happy to do so Wednesday since the person hundreds of people packed a New York auditorium to hear was someone he truly admired: His father.

“Needless to say, I am quite proud of the outcome of my family,” said Bill Gates Sr., 84, to a roar of laughter during an event at Manhattan's 92nd St. Y to promote his book, “Showing Up for Life,” which focuses on the value of family and hard work.

Gates Sr. said his position as co-chair of the charity founded by his famous son, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, “is why I still get up and go to work every morning.”

“I had a lot of fun growing up,” said the younger Gates (William H. Gates III, to be precise) who famously took a pass on a Harvard education to found Microsoft. “I’m not sure if I made it fun,” he added with a smirk.

Gates Sr. had a bit to say about the value of a strong family, the poor condition of the American public education system and the damage extreme partisan politics has done to government at all levels. However his true focus was on his family, which includes two more children: daughters Kristianne and Libby.

He noted that he has a tradition of taking his grandchildren anywhere in the world they wanted to go when they turned ten years old.

“By and large we were able to accommodate their wishes,” he said.

The last request came from one of his son’s children: Antarctica. They made it.

Gates Sr. was downright exuberant when he spoke of the 6,000 students a year who “go to school on Bill and Melinda’s dollar.”

During a question-and-answer session, the younger Gates said running Microsoft during its infancy “wasn’t that hard” and “didn’t seem like that big of deal” at the time.

He said Microsoft started on the premise that software, not hardware was the “key ingredient” in developing a usable computer. Unlike other companies that focused on a single product, like the old WordPerfect Corp., Microsoft sought to develop entire platforms of software products, he said.

“In all success stories there are significant elements of luck and timing,” he said. “You do have to be lucky enough, but you have to be fanatical enough to keep it going.”

In a week where Apple, buoyed by strong sales of its new iPad tablet, nudged ahead of Microsoft to become the world’s largest tech company in terms of market capitalization, the younger Gates actually eked out some praise for his competitor.

“Now Apple’s doing a good job with hardware,” he said as some in the audience tittered. “There’s room for more than one success story.”

So what did Gates Sr. aim to teach readers with his book?

“To get people to think about how we are all in this together,” he said. “We’re grossly interdependent.”

Sound ID 510 Bluetooth Headset: Now Hear That!

2010-05-24T12:57:00.001-05:00

According to the folks at Sound ID, you are what you hear. That's why the new Sound ID 510 Bluetooth headset comes with something no other wireless headset to date has offered: Its own personalized iPhone app.

The new app, called EarPrint, allows you to fine tune the incoming audio of the headset to your own ear. Depending on how you set the app, you can have the earpiece dull loud sounds or increase the volume of soft ones.

The headset will be available at AT&T stores and the Sound ID website on June 6. So what else does it offer? Read my first look at PC World.

Copyright 2010 Stadium Circle Features

Sprint HTC Evo 4G: A Formidable Android Powerhouse

2010-05-14T04:53:00.001-05:00

If you get your hands on the new HTC Evo 4G cell phone for Sprint and you're not impressed with its 4.3-inch display, solid feel and sleek lines, just remove the battery cover. The engineering inside is just as elegant as it is outside. Even its battery is color-matched to its innards.

At a splashy press event in New York Wednesday, Sprint introduced the HTC Evo 4G, the first 4G cell phone to come to market in the U.S. The unit ($199.99 after a $100 rebate and with a two-year service agreement) arrives at Sprint stores on June 4. According to Sprint representatives, 4G data service is up to ten times faster than today's 3G networks, like the one used by the Apple iPhone 3G S.

One thing that didn't arrive in New York with the May 12 launch event, however, was the 4G network. While Sprint's 4G service is already available in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Seattle and a handful of other cities, New York is listed as "soon." However a temporary 4G cell was set up near the event site so that the 4G features of the phone could be demonstrated to the press.

Sprint officials said that since they knew that 4G coverage would be spotty for some time, the goal in creating the Evo 4G was to create the best possible 3G phone--with 4G capabilities. Also, since the 4G circuitry is rather power hungry, most users would not want to leave the 4G capability on all the time, the Sprint officials said.

"If you're going to build a great product for 4G, you better have a large display," said David Owens, vice president of consumer marketing for Sprint in a meeting before the press event. "This will impact gaming, as you will see."

Indeed, the bright, 4.3-inch display is stunning. Combined with the unit's one-gigahertz processor, high-quality YouTube videos run smoothly and without audio problems. While the HTC Evo 4G isn't the first cell phone with a front-facing webcam (the Pharos Traveler 137, introduced in 2009, is one example), the combination of the 1.3-megapixel webcam with an 8-megapixel, back-mounted digital camera makes the HTC Evo 4G a rather formidable communications and image-recording tool for both casual and professional use.

"I see more utility in this than I see in a netbook," said Owens, who also noted that the phone can used as mobile Wi-Fi hotspot for other devices.

Included among the preloaded Android applications is Google Goggles, an interesting utility that makes good use of the phone's camera and Google's archive of images. Point the camera at an object or a photo and the software will try to figure out what it is. During the press event, the phone successfully recognized a photo of the Guggenheim Museum (see video).

Also preloaded on the HTC Evo 4G is Qik, a service which lets you stream live videos from your phone. However if you enable an upgrade to the software, you can use Qik to engage in live video chats with other mobile devices or with desktop computers. An attempt to demonstrate the utility on stage at the press event failed quietly (see video), but the Qik app worked perfectly when shown off at a demonstration table afterward.

At a price just under $200 and with data plans that are significantly cheaper than those of other major carriers, the HTC Evo 4G may quickly evolve into a true competitor to other top-shelf cell phones like iPhone 3G S, Google Nexus, and Motorola Droid. Only time, and the speed of the growth of Sprint's 4G network, will tell.

Image courtesy of Sprint
Text and videos Copyright 2010 Stadium Circle Features

Kodak CMO: We're Ready to "Play"

2010-05-11T11:36:00.000-05:00

It's not your grandfather's Kodak anymore and Kodak aims to keep it that way, declared its chief marketing officer Tuesday.

"I want to make us look cool," said CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett in a frank and often funny keynote address at the Streaming Media East conference in New York Tuesday.

Hayzlett readily admitted that Kodak had a penchant for saddling interesting products with dull names. For example, while Kodak's Zi8 digital video camera had been well received in the market, he agreed with Boston Globe technology columnist Hiawatha Bray, who lauded the camera but said the name was "dreadful."

Prompted by the column, Kodak ran a contest to name its next video product, which turned out to be the PlaySport, a waterproof digital video camera unveiled at the International Consumer Electronics Show in January. He said it took a while to decide on the name, but he told his colleagues at Kodak, "We're not about to call this cool camera the 'ZX3.' "

He said that moving forward, all of Kodak's new digital video cameras will carry the "Play" moniker as the first part of its name.

He said Kodak has gone through great pains to freshen the way it presents itself on the Web and at trade shows. Pointing to an image of Kodak's old Web site on a large screen, Hayzlett said it "looks like a yard sale," especially when compared to the new site, which makes good use of screen-filling images and videos from current events.

Instead of carting truckloads of products from trade show to trade show, Kodak now uses interactive displays to get its point across and stages televised panel discussions to engage the public at the show and on the Web. "We cut 75 per cent out of our trade show budget by doing it this way," said Hayzlett.

He also noted that Kodak now responds to consumer demand much faster than it once did.

"The old Kodak would have taken five years to bring the Zi8 to market," he said. "We did it in five months."

So where is the future for Kodak? Apparently in the business-to-business market. Hayzlett said Kodak now does 60 to 70 per cent of its sales with businesses.

He noted that the company that once did $15 billion a year in film sales might do just $200 million this year. When he asked audience members to raise their hands if they had purchased a roll of film in the last two years, only a few hands went up.

"Thanks, both of you," he said with a grin. "You made our year."

Text, video and image Copyright 2010 Stadium Circle Features

Can The Kin Two Do HD Video? See For Yourself

2010-05-06T06:00:00.001-05:00

While none of the folks at the iPhone division of Apple will be losing sleep over the arrival of the new Kin One and Kin Two social networking cell phones from Microsoft, the phones do offer some useful features, including a nifty interface and quality digital cameras which double as camcorders.

A key feature distinguishing the Kin One ($50 after rebate) from the Kin Two ($100 after rebate), is that the Kin Two (shown above) can record high-definition videos. So how well does it do HD? Compare these videos and judge for yourself.

All were taken around New York City on May 4 in the hours after Microsoft and Verizon Wireless held a midtown press event to introduce the new phones, which will hit Verizon Wireless stores May 13.

Times Square in standard definition

Times Square in high definition.

Grand Central Station in standard definition.

Grand Central Station in high definition.

Photo courtesy of Microsoft and Verizon Wireless
Videos and text Copyright 2010 Stadium Circle Features

CEA Wires Washington's Historic Eastern Market

2010-04-21T17:17:00.001-05:00

Take a small slice from the gigantic International Consumer Electronics Show, bring it to Washington, D.C., invite the press and members of Congress and what do you get? CES on the Hill, a surprisingly interesting and busy event held at Washington's historic Eastern Market Tuesday.

Not only did the Consumer Electronics Association bring dozens of high- and low-ranking Capitol Hill officials to the Eastern Market, it also left something behind: $8,500 worth of Ethernet jacks and cabling.

During a brief interview, Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the CEA, noted that when rescheduling the event from the Russell Senate Office Building to the Eastern Market for space and other reasons, the CEA discovered that the Eastern Market's North Hall had wireless Internet connectivity, but no Ethernet jacks for exhibitors who needed them for security or bandwidth reasons.

The CEA, he said, decided to correct the problem itself: It donated $8,500 to the District of Columbia to install the needed hardware, which will now be available to future renters of the site.

On Tuesday the crowded hall was filled with gadgets and technology demonstrations from familiar CES exhibitors such as Samsung, Microsoft, XStreamHD, Kodak, Audiovox, Qualcomm, and Panasonic.

For example, Samsung showed off its new Restore, a handset built with 84 percent recyclable materials. To no one's surprise, the phone does not include a paper manual (it's available online) and what little packaging it has is 100 percent recyclable and made from 70 percent recycled material.

The unit has a standard phone keypad as well as a slide-out QWERTY keypad. Also included is a two-megapixel digital camera and camcorder, a microSD slot for removable memory cards with capacities up to 32 gigabytes, stereo Bluetooth support and an MP3 music player. Also bundled with the 4.3-ounce phone is Sprint Navigation for turn-by-turn driving directions. The handset will be available from Sprint in the summer.

Going Online? Wash Your Hands!

2010-04-12T21:52:00.000-05:00

I had to chuckle when I spotted this "Restrooms & Data Ports" sign at the Mohegan Sun casino last week. Makes me wonder what indeed is being pumped across the Internet.

Unlike most casino properties in Las Vegas, the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut, provides free wired Internet access in its guest rooms and free Wi-Fi in its convention center and other public areas. The doorway leads to a set of laptop desks with working Ethernet jacks and chairs--and then to the bathrooms. I was there to cover the North American Poker Tour sponsored by PokerStars.net.

Good News: JetBlue's $10 Fares. Bad News: JetBlue's Web Site is Down

2010-03-08T16:18:00.001-05:00

JetBlue is celebrating its tenth anniversary by offering $10 flights from New York’s JFK Airport to its first ten destinations. Try to book a flight on JetBlue’s Web site, however, and you get what you see below. Not a good day for "Website Technical Issues."

Samsung’s Sleek R80 Series Notebooks: Color them Red

2010-03-05T04:01:00.001-05:00

First it was beige, then it was black and now the color of today’s notable notebooks depends on which way the fashion winds are blowing. Samsung is hardly a stranger to this trend and proves it with a raft of sleek-looking notebooks poised to debut exclusively at Best Buy on Sunday.

At a press preview in New York Thursday, Samsung showed off its new R80 series notebooks, which feature the company’s Crystal Wave body design. A clear coat protects a colorful metallic shell with wavy designs etched in. The result, according to a Samsung representative, is a durable case which will still looks good after hard use.

Samsung’s R780 ($930), R580 ($830) and R480 ($730) notebooks come with 17.3-, 15.6- and 14-inch HD LED displays respectively and 500-gigabyte hard disks. The R780 and R580 come with muscular Intel Core i5 processors and high-end nVidia GeForce GT 330M or 310M graphics engines while the R480 uses a less-robust, but certainly adequate Intel Core i3 processor and a medium-strength Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics chipset.

Somewhat surprisingly, the R480 and R580 come with Blu-ray players while the R780 is outfitted with a DVD burner. All of the R80 series units are long on connectivity options, offering three (R480) or four (R780, R580) USB 2.0 ports in addition to HDMI, video, audio, gigabit Ethernet, memory card and ExpressCard slots. The new units also feature built-in webcams, microphones and Wi-Fi adapters and the R780 includes a Bluetooth adapter as well.

During an assortment of demonstrations at the Samsung Experience at the Time Warner Center in New York, Samsung representatives demonstrated how the Blu-ray-enabled R80 notebooks could send HD video feeds to nearby televisions while having enough processor and graphics muscle left over for notebook users to surf the Web, edit documents or perform other tasks without cyber hiccups.

The R480 and R580 notebooks will be available at Best Buy retail stores March 7 while the R780 will be available online only via BestBuy.com.

Text and photo Copyright 2010 Stadium Circle Features

Bluetooth Style with Substance: Jabra Stone and Jawbone Icon

2010-03-04T02:28:00.001-05:00

Two new Bluetooth wireless headsets, Jabra's Stone (above) and Aliph's Jawbone Icon, combine a bit of style with their nifty noise-cancellation technology.

The Icon comes in six different styles with names like Hero and Ace while the Stone comes with a charger base with its own battery, thus allowing you to keep a couple extra charges in your pocket.

What do I think? See my reviews of the Jabra Stone and the Jawbone Icon at PCWorld.com. And let me know what you think.

Text Copyright 2010 Stadium Circle Features.
Photos courtesy of Jabra and Aliph.

So Was I Right? Year 2000 Predictions for the Future of the PC

2010-01-15T19:50:00.009-05:00

In 1999, as the high-tech world prepared for the big bite of the Year 2000 computer bug which never really chomped down, I wrote a newspaper column on how far the PC had come since IBM showed off its first model in 1981.

While lots of things have changed since this column was written on Dec. 29, 1999, one line still rings true: "The most important PC improvements may have been the ones that made life simpler."

And it looks like one prediction, especially for those of you reading this on your cell phone or iPod, clearly came true: "Where will the PC go in the next ten years? Probably into your pocket."

What hardware were you using in 2000 and (*gasp!*) are you still using any of it now? My 1995-vintage HP DeskJet 855C inkjet printer is still humming with the aid of a parallel port-to-USB adapter.

Where will we be in the coming decades? I hope one of you will come by the old folks home to tell me.

***

The Paper PC

By Robert S. Anthony

Stadium Circle Features

The PC in 2000: Where Do We Go From Here?

It has been said that if the history of the Earth were compressed into a 24-hour video, humans wouldn't appear until the last three seconds. Imagine how hard you'd have to watch to detect the short history of the personal computer.

As thousands of office workers spend the New Year's weekend basking in the glow of computer screens as they watch for ``Year 2000'' problems, it's a good time to take a quick look back at how far personal computing has come since IBM trotted out its first PC in 1981.

In less than 20 years the PC has evolved from a text-only, limited-purpose office device into a machine that can handle multimedia communication as easily as it can process words.

Before you worry about what the hardware of tomorrow will look like, take a look at what we've already left behind. Remember the 5.25-inch floppy disk? Have you ever connected a PC to an online service by pushing a telephone handset into the rubber cups of an acoustic coupler? Remember when the worst desk in an office was the one next to the screeching daisy-wheel printer? All of these items have disappeared since their heyday in the 1980s.

Leaf through an old computer magazine and you'll get an idea of how segmented the personal computing market used to be. In 1987 the most popular software titles were available not only in IBM- and Macintosh-compatible versions but also in formats for the Commodore 64 (pictured above), Commodore Amiga, Apple II, Apple II GS and Atari ST.

PCs evolved at a startling pace in the 1990s. In a 1992 column I suggested that a good home office PC would have at least a ``386SX microprocessor, an 80-megabyte hard drive and 3.5-inch and 5.25-inch floppy drives. If you use programs written to run with Microsoft Windows, four megabytes of user memory are also required.''

Later that same year I reviewed a fledgling online service named America Online. ``With attractive rates and easy-to-use software, AOL seems to be attempting to strike a compromise between the colorful, but sometimes slow graphics of Prodigy and the speed and variety of text-only services like GEnie and CompuServe. The funny thing is, the compromise actually seems to work.'' Of course America Online has since become the world's largest online service.

PCs have evolved by knocking down technical barriers and widening data bottlenecks. Remember how DOS (Disk Operating System) limited programs to using no more than 640 kilobytes of memory? Advances in memory management and Microsoft Windows broke through that limitation.

Technical breakthroughs such as the PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) bus and the AGP (Advanced Graphics Port) bus provided the wide data pipelines that allow today's PCs to process high-resolution color graphics and full-motion video as quickly as old PCs could underline text.

The most important PC improvements may have been the ones that made life simpler. For example, today's memory cards snap in place much easier than the old multi-legged chips. Today's USB (Universal Serial Bus) port offers a simpler way to connect peripherals to a PC than the old-style serial and parallel ports.

Then again, some things haven't changed: Most personal computers are still beige and good units are still expensive.

Has the PC reached the ``must have'' status of the television and other household appliances? Not by a long shot, but PCs seem to be making themselves a little more indispensable each year.

Where will the PC go in the next ten years? Probably into your pocket. As technology makes it possible--and affordable--to surf the World Wide Web with a portable device, the desktop PC may fade into secondary status as a data-storage device or as a base station for communications.

***

Photo Copyright OldComputers.Net

CES 2010: Parrot's AR.Drone Quadricopter Creates Buzz by Buzzing the Media

2010-01-12T17:17:00.001-05:00

One of the stranger sights at last week's International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was a flying toy "quadricopter" which created quite a buzz by buzzing over the heads of wide-mouthed journalists at CES Unveiled, the first big press event of the week.

The AR.Drone, a four-engined flying toy built by Parrot, a company better known for its wireless speakers and other Bluetooth-enabled devices, is outfitted with two wireless cameras and can be controlled with an iPhone or IPod Touch. It comes with two "augmented reality" (that's what the "A.R." stands for) video games which let you use the video feed from the cameras as part of a semi-real-life video game.

You can read my story on the A.R.Drone and watch my short video at PCWorld.

Green Gadgets for Gift Giving

2009-12-14T18:29:00.049-05:00

Do you have a geek on your holiday gift-giving list who's also conscious about the environment? Many gadget and gizmo makers are finding that consumers appreciate devices that don't gargle down vast amounts of power or otherwise negatively impact the world's ecology.

For example, the $499 Generator notebook case from Voltaic Systems Inc. has a solar panel and internal battery powerful enough to charge a notebook computer, not just an iPod or cell phone.

Need a few tips? Take a look at my piece on green high-tech gifts in today's New York Daily News.

Copyright 2009 Stadium Circle Features. Photo courtesy of Voltaic.

Motorola Droid Lands at Verizon Wireless

2009-10-30T16:31:00.009-05:00

You've seen the dark and stormy TV commercial teasing us about the device that's going to do all sorts of nifty things that Apple's iPhone can't. Now it's here--almost.

Motorola's Droid smartphone , the first with version 2.0 of Google's Android operating system, won't arrive at Verizon Wireless stores until November 6, but the press received a preview this week at special events in New York and elsewhere.

My first look and complete review of the Droid are up at PC World .

Let me know what you think.

Booklet 3G netbook: Nokia turns a page

2009-10-15T16:01:00.027-05:00

A notebook from Nokia? What is the netbook world coming to? Maybe to a Best Buy near you ... or at least Nokia hopes so.

At a splashy press event in New York this week, Nokia introduced the Nokia Booklet 3G, its first foray into the already crowded notebook market. Not surprisingly, the 2.76-pound netbook focuses not on top-shelf processor power or on graphics muscle, but on connectivity and uptime, and in these respects it may succeed.

"It was a decision to start with what we know," said John Hwang, head of the Nokia product team which developed the ultrathin netbook. "And that's mobility."

The Booklet 3G ($299 with a 2-year data service contract) includes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 support, but also includes a 3G HSPA wireless data modem for the AT&T Wireless network. A slot is provided for the necessary AT&T Wireless SIM card. The unit also promises 12 hours of battery life per charge.

"It's not 12 hours in the brochure, it's 12 hours true battery life," said Lars Boesen, senior director for OEM emerging market business development for Microsoft Corp.

He noted that the Booklet 3G comes with Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 operating system, which is optimized for the 1.6-gigahertz Intel Atom Z530 processor at the heart of the unit. Windows 7 will go on sale Oct. 22.

He said the unit comes with just a small suite of preinstalled software, thus allowing the user maximum use of the Booklet 3G's 120-gigabyte (GB) hard disk and 1GB of RAM. Also missing is a fan, he noted; the Booklet 3G doesn't need one.

The 10.1-inch, 1280-by-720 pixel display was bright and sharp, but that resolution proved too low for some Web sites, like the newest version of Yahoo! Web mail. The site bumps users who come in at too low a screen resolution back to the less-glitzy "classic" version.

As small as the 0.8-inch thin unit is, it still has room for three USB ports, an HDMI port, a combination microphone/headphone jack and an SD Card slot. Just above the screen is a 1.3-megapixel webcam.

You can access the 3G data network directly with the Booklet 3G or via a Bluetooth connection with a cell phone. You can also synchronize your contacts, calendar entries, tasks, photos and other data between a cell phone and the unit via a Bluetooth connection. Boesen noted that the unit could move smoothly from a 3G data connection to a Wi-Fi connection without interupting the user's Internet experience.

The Booklet 3G, available in black, white or blue, will be sold exclusively at Best Buy until the first week of January 2010, when other stores will offer it, said a Best Buy representative. He said demonstration units would begin appearing in stores Oct. 25, at which time pre-orders would be taken. The units will ship about Nov. 15, he said.

The AT&T Wireless Web site will begin selling the unit Oct. 22. The Booklet 3G is $599 if purchased without a data plan.

Entering the PC space is something very unique," said Boesen. "We think this product is very, very good."

But a notebook from Nokia? Can it succeed in a market already laden with nifty low-priced netbooks? It certainly will be tough.

Then again, many of us gurgled and laughed a few years ago when Apple announced it was entering the cell phone market with something called an iPhone.

Top photo courtesy of Nokia

IREX DR800SG Challenges Amazon's Kindle

2009-09-23T15:36:00.008-05:00

You can't have too many digital book readers. At least that what IREX Technologies is banking on as it rolled out the IREX DR800SG at a well-attended press conference at the New-York Historical Society in Manhattan.

The new $399 unit, with a crisp 8.1-inch display and an very simple interface, seeks to take bite out of a market already crowded with Amazon's Kindles, the Sony Readers and other devices. It will be available in Best Buy by the end of October.

What do I think? See my piece in PC World. Then let me know what you think.

NYPL Wi-Fi: No Power for the People?

2009-08-25T22:34:00.005-05:00

Patience and Fortitude are the nicknames of the marble lions that guard the Fifth Ave. entrance to the famous New York Public Library building on 42nd St., but you may need a little of both if you want to use the free wireless Internet there for more than a couple hours at a time.

The NYPL recently opened a Wi-Fi Reading Room and Laptop Loan center in the elegant confines of the Edna Barnes Salomon Room, which has been the site of many art and book exhibitions and other special events. Aside from the classic paintings on the wall and the high ceilings, the room offers 16 long tables, each with eight comfortable chairs, thus providing seating for 128 Wi-Fi users. If you don't have your own laptop, you can borrow one for use in the room at no charge.

So what's missing from this picture? Power.

None of the tables here offer an AC power outlet. Thus you're at the mercy of your laptop's battery, which of course drains a little quicker when you're using its Wi-Fi adapter.

So what can you do if your device's low-power warning starts flashing? You could walk across the third floor to the southern half of the equally elegant Rose Main Reading Room, where all of the desks offer AC outlets. The room is covered by Wi-Fi and some of the desks also offer working Ethernet jacks for wired Internet access. Unfortunately, both the wired and wireless Internet access were down when I attempted to use them Tuesday afternoon.

From there you could have walked downstairs to the DeWitt Wallace Periodicals Room, another excellent working space also covered by Wi-Fi, but there are no AC outlets there either.

Kudos to the Fifth Ave. NYPL building for providing free public Internet access in an area where hotels and convention centers charge steep fees for the same. However, sometimes less is more.

Many of the smaller NYPL branches offer free Wi-Fi and dinky tables for laptop use--but they provide AC power strips, thus making them more useful, albeit less comfortable, than the august Wi-Fi Reading Room.

No, I'm not suggesting that the floor in the Edna Barnes Salomon Room be sawed up to accommodate floor AC outlets, but a powerless Wi-Fi Reading Room just misses the point.

What do you think?

Samsung's DualView Cameras: About Face

2009-08-13T11:52:00.027-05:00

Maybe it's a response to an epidemic of digital narcissism or maybe it's just a tip of the hat to the explosive growth of me-centric social networking sites. Either way, Samsung's new DualView digital cameras--the first ever with a second LCD screen on the front--seem to beg the question, "Now why didn't I think of that?"

The point is simple: The LCD on the front lets you frame self-portraits correctly instead of using the old "point-and-pray" method.

At a press event at New York's Time Warner Center, Samsung introduced its first two 12.2-megapixel DualView cameras, both of which feature 1.5-inch displays on the front in addition to larger touchscreens on the back. The TL 220 ($300) and TL225 ($350) come with 4.6X optical zoom lenses and 3.5-inch (TL225) or 3-inch (TL220) rear touchscreens.

Aside from being larger, the rear display of the TL225 is also sharper, with a resolution of 1.1 megapixels as opposed to the 230,000-pixel resolution of the rear display on the TL220.

As you frame the shot, the front LCD indicates whether the camera's face-recognition technology has locked onto your face and the smile-detection feature will snap your photo as soon as it detects an upside-down frown and your pearly whites.

Tim Baxter, co-president of Samsung Electronics America, said that instead of just taking photos of others, today's American camera user is more likely to put himself into his photos and share them.

"The role of the photographer has shifted," said Baxter, who added that camera makers "... cannot get by with selling a box that just takes pictures."

The front display turns on by tapping it and most camera adjustments are handled by the rear touchscreen, which vibrates to give tactile feedback when a button is touched. The camera also has a Gravity Sensor that lets you select functions by tilting the camera in the direction of the icon you want to activate.

Some of the functions of the camera's Smart Gesture user interface are truly intuitive. For example, to delete a photo, you simply draw an invisible "X" through it with your fingertip. The camera remembers up to 20 faces and will give exposure preference to the most frequently photographed faces.

If you engage the self timer, the front LCD will display a digital countdown. The front LCD can also be switched to a "child mode" in which it will display a cheerful, colorful cartoon designed to get children to look at the camera and smile.

"It's kind of a modern adaptation of 'look at the birdie,' " said Reid Sullivan, senior vice president of Samsung Electronics America.

The units, which will go on sale in September, are available in red, blue, silver, orange and purple.

Does a second LCD make sense to you?

Photo courtesy of Samsung Electronics America

Sprint's Samsung Reclaim: Lean & Green

2009-08-10T23:10:00.016-05:00

Are you eco-conscious? Do you care what your cell phone is made of? Sprint certainly hopes so.

Last week, at a well-attended press event at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in Manhattan, Sprint introduced the Samsung Reclaim, a phone made of 80 per cent recyclable material. Two dollars from each purchase goes to the Nature Conservancy's Adopt an Acre program.

How does it rate? Read my review at PCWorld.com.

T-Mobile myTouch 3G: Google Android Take 2

2009-07-08T17:59:00.035-05:00

Make it work, make it mine, make it easy: Those are the three customer wishes T-Mobile aims to fulfill with its new flagship smartphone: the myTouch 3G .
The touchscreen smartphone, manufactured by HTC and based on the same Google Android operating system software as the T-Mobile G1, offers a slimmer profile than the G1 thanks to its lack of a slide-out keyboard.
Highlights of the new unit include its large library of Android applications and the multitude of ways in which it can be personalized.
"It's a very sleek device," said T-Mobile Chief Marketing Officer Denny Marie Post (above, left), who readily admitted that her 15-year-old son was instrumental in helping her set up her phone. "You feel very bold to experiment with it.... It becomes 100% you."
"This is our first, and our real big bet for 2009," said Cole Brodman, T-Mobile's chief technology and innovation officer (above, right) at the July 8 press event in New York. "The myTouch 3G is unique through and through."

Brodman said there were already 5,000 Android applications available for the myTouch 3G and the G1, including many location-aware utilities that take advantage of the GPS receivers built into the phones.

For example, Sherpa, from Geodelic Systems, can locate points of interest close to you as you move around. Clicking a restaurant button will generate icons for the closest eateries, complete with the addresses and the distances from where you are. Click on an icon and the phone searches for relevant information on the restaurant, such as menus, travel directions, cuisine and reviews.

Rahul Sonnad, founder and CEO of Geodelic, said Sherpa was first developed for PCs, but was ported to Android as the software platform gained traction.

Brodman described Sherpa as a "really unique recommendation and discovery engine. He noted that it remembers the user's preferences as it processes requests. "The more you use it, the smarter it becomes," he said.

Brodman said T-Mobile's sales force had been trained to help users set up and personalize their myTouch 3G phones. "Make it work, make it mine and make it easy," said Brodman, taking the role of a prospective customer.

Current T-Mobile customers can pre-order the myTouch 3G for $199 with a 2-year service plan. Those who order by July 28 will receive their units by Aug. 3. The unit will be available in T-Mobile stores Aug. 5. The myTouch 3G offers a 3.2-inch touchscreen, aWi-Fi adapter, a 3.2-megapixel digital camera, a digital music player with a preinstalled four-gigabyte microSD memory card and support for T-Mobile's fast 3G data network.

After few minutes of testing, the phone worked well. The touchscreen was responsive and the Web browser rendered pages fairly quickly. The on-screen keyboard, which can be set up to give tactile feedback when a key is touched, flips over to the side when the phone is held in landscape orientation.

Post said the myTouch 3G was poised to be a viable challenger to Apple's iPhone to date. Time will tell.

Text and photos Copyright 2009 Stadium Circle Features

CompuServe Classic: So Long, Old Friend

2009-06-30T00:01:00.000-05:00

No, your monitor won't blank out, your Internet connection won't stall and your PC won't crash, but a major event is about to ripple across the Internet today: CompuServe Classic is closing.

After 30 years the plug will be pulled on what was once the finest online service on the globe. (CompuServe 2000, a newer iteration of CompuServe will continue.)

And the saddest part is that it ends not with a bang, but with a whimper. Ask anyone about CompuServe today and the response will probably be "Are they still around?"

And that's not fair for a service that once meant so much to cyberspace--long before we started calling it cyberspace. It dates to a time when most home PCs didn't even have hard disks, just floppy disk drives, and when most PC users never went online.

CompuServe, the corporate entity, dates to 1969 but the CompuServe Classic online service for consumers debuted in 1979. In 1987 it was the flagship of online services with 380,000 users. A 1991 TV commercial trumpets CompuServe as the only online service with more than a half-million members.

Unfortunately time, and its acquisition by AOL, has not been kind to CompuServe. In recent years it has barely been marketed. Its Web site looks like a throwback to the (gasp!) 20th century. The "build" date on version 4.0.2 of CompuServe for Windows NT, the latest version of the access software for CompuServe Classic, is January 11, 1999.

CompuServe Classic's demise will come six years to the day after MCI Mail, another once-dominant online service, went dark. The text-only service had a Spartan interface but was terribly reliable. Many major corporations used it as their default e-mail service.

CompuServe Classic was home to forums for every profession and special interest imaginable. For example, the old Journalism Forum attracted journalists from around the world and was a hotbed for some of the most lively flaming sessions (that means trading insults, young folks) as well as many intelligent debates.

CompuServe Classic introduced many of us cyberdinosaurs to services we now take for granted.

Online shopping? Stock quotes? Worldwide weather forecasts? CompuServe was providing all of that in the 1980s. Who needs color graphics, music and streaming videos? CompuServe could provide users with what they needed with plain text on a slow dial-up connection.

Today there's Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity and dozens of other travel sites on the Web, but in the 1980s it was the American Airlines EAASY SABRE service on CompuServe that introduced many of us to online airline ticket booking.

I still remember the joy of watching those first characters crawl slowly across the screen of my Tandy 100 laptop at 300 baud when I opened my CompuServe account in December 1985. How slow is that? Most of us can type faster than a 300-baud connection can send characters.

Even as newer services like America Online began to attract more users and overtake it, CompuServe managed to maintain an air of dignity. Its forums were more professional, its users were more cyber-savvy and the depth of its services and software libraries were far deeper than those of other services.

For example, when AOL started offering unlimited dial-up access in 1996, it didn't have enough modems in service to keep up with the spike in traffic. The result? Constant busy signals. Some users would go to sleep with their AOL connections on so they would have access to it in the morning.

CompuServe, on the other hand, always had the data capacity it needed. AOL's woes led to a memorable CompuServe TV commercial which ended with the punch line: "CompuServe: Get On with It." That bit of cockiness was short-lived, however, as AOL absorbed CompuServe in 1997.

So who will care when when CompuServe Classic goes dark today? I will as I retire my 23-year-old user ID : 72407,3343.

So long, old friend. And thanks.

NOTE: If you're a CompuServe Classic member and you haven't converted your e-mail address to the new system, put this blog down and do it now. You won't be able to do so after today.

Jitterbug J: Phone for Seniors Graduates

2009-06-02T21:51:00.005-05:00

Just days after some Jitterbug phones were recalled due to a problem with making some 911 calls, Great Call Inc. is back with the Jitterbug J, its newest easy-to-use phone for older adults.

Jitterbug and Samsung recalled some phones sold after March 1, 2008 after they had problems making 911 calls when outside of Jitterbug's network. The problem is being repaired with a software patch.

The new Jitterbug J is sleeker, but still simple and has none of the 911 problems.

For more information, see my piece on the PC World Web site: Jitterbug J: Keeping it Simple

CompuServe Classic E-Mail: The Next Generation

2009-05-19T23:27:00.019-05:00

As CompuServe Classic readies for its final log off on June 30, CompuServe Member Services has thrown the switch on a migration utility that allows Classic members to keep their e-mail accounts alive.

Gone will be CompuServe Classic's old number-comma-number e-mail address format and in its place will be a standard POP3 e-mail address with the familiar "@" sign. Many CompuServe Classic users already have alternate POP3 addresses for their accounts. Those addresses will be preserved in the transition. Just don't expect to connect to the Internet through a CompuServe dial-up number after June 30--those are on their way out too.

CompuServe Classic members must convert to the new e-mail system by going to the CompuServe Mail Center by June 30. Here's what happens once they get there:

You can start the conversion process by logging in with a Classic numerical e-mail address or with the alternate POP3 access information.

Once you click "continue" on the screen above, the next one asks for some basic demographic information and offers you a chance to pick a new password.

From there you need to agree to the Terms of Service by typing in the letters that appear in the image box.

If everything goes well, you'll get the following welcome screen.

Finally, clicking the right button takes you to your new inbox.

As for accessing the new e-mail service with Outlook or another e-mail client, you'll need the new server settings. You can retrieve your e-mail as a POP3 or IMAP account with or without a secure connection (SSL). The port setting is found in the advanced settings section of Outlook and other e-mail clients.

The POP3 settings are:

POP: pop.csi.com port 110 (SSL = port 995)

SMTP: smtp.csi.com port 587

The IMAP settings are:

IMAP: imap.csi.com port 143 (SSL = port 993)

SMTP: smtp.csi.com port 587

So how did it work on my CompuServe Classic account? So far so good, but other users have reported some problems.

What about you?

Kindle DX: A Spark on the Paper Trail?

2009-05-06T13:47:00.033-05:00

The debut of Amazon.com's Kindle DX electronic book reader Wednesday breathed a little fresh air into the hopes of the newspaper industry. Just a little, but it was a refreshing breath just the same.

Newspaper moguls have been scratching their collective heads for a solution to their dwindling readership and ad revenue numbers and the concept of an electronic book platform that the masses could embrace has been an elusive dream.

The Kindle DX, with its 9.7-inch, 16-gray-scale E-ink display and impossibly slim 0.38-inch profile, goes a long way in providing an electronic book reader that's as usable for textbooks and technical documents as it is for reading newspapers and blogs. But no, it doesn't go all the way.

The Kindle DX supports Adobe PDF documents in addition to its native format and can download entire books wirelessly in about a minute. Its 3.3 gigabytes of available storage is enough for 3,500 books. The $489 device won't be available until this summer, but Amazon.com is already taking orders.

At a well-attended press event at Pace University, which includes a Park Row building which was once home to the New York Times, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos (above) said the new Kindle DX is meant to blend into the background, letting the user focus on the content.

"It gets out of the way so that you can enter the author's world," said Bezos amid the clicking, clacking and clunking of Twittering journalists and trigger-happy photographers. "It doesn't beep at you. It doesn't get warm in your hands."

Bezos noted that newspapers have been "an absolute best seller on Kindle." Readers can adjust the screen font and the number of words in each line and the unit automatically reorients the text if you turn the unit on its side or upside down.

Bezos said that paper survives today because it provide a better reading experience that most computer screens. "Paper is better. It's worth the hassle of printing," he said.

However he said the Kindle's low-glare paper-like display is easy enough on the eyes that eyestrain is not an issue.

The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe have signed on to deliver content to the Kindle DX and to sell the $489 unit at a discount -- in exchange for a long-term newspaper subscription. The units would be available in areas outside of a paper's delivery zone.

"This experiment ... demonstrates our commitment to reinvention," said Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., chairman of the New York Times Co. He said the Kindle DX combines "the immediacy of the Web with the portability and depth of the newspaper."

Students at Pace as well as at Princeton University, Case Western Reserve University, Arizona State University, Reed College and Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia will get first crack at the units through a trial program, said Bezos. Amazon.com has also inked agreements with major textbook publishers, he said.

So will the Kindle DX signal the beginning of a new generation of electronic book readers that are user friendly enough to be embraced by the public as well as those still willing to advertise in newspapers? Now there's a big "Maybe."

What do you think?

Middle photo courtesy of Amazon.com

It's Over! CompuServe Classic is Closing

2009-04-15T16:14:00.008-05:00

CompuServe Classic, the legendary online service that once dominated the industry, will close June 30 after 30 years in cyberspace. CompuServe 2000, a newer iteration of the service, will remain online.

Long outdistanced by newer rivals and long neglected since its acquisition by America Online, its membership has dwindled to a relatively insignificant number of cyberdinosaurs -- including myself. My CompuServe Classic account dates to 1985; six years after CompuServe's online services for personal computer users debuted in 1979. CompuServe itself was founded in 1969.

While CompuServe Classic's passing won't affect too many Web surfers, it will indeed close a major chapter in the evolution of cyberspace. I'll miss my old numerical address: 72407,3343.

Below is the text of the closing announcement.

So long, old friend.

-----Original Message-----

From: CompuServe Member Services

Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2009 4:18 PM

To:

Subject: Important CompuServe Classic Account Notification

Dear CompuServe Classic Member,

After many years of providing online services, we regret to inform you that as of June 30, 2009 the CompuServe Classic service will no longer operate as an Internet Service Provider. We hope this does not cause you an inconvenience.

Note that this shutdown only relates to the CompuServe Classic service. The CompuServe 2000 service will continue to operate as it does today.

We're aware that this change may raise several questions for you.

Here's what this will mean:

DO YOU NEED AN INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER?

* If you need dial-up Internet access, there are two options you may wish

to consider.

Netscape Internet Service (as low as $9.95 per month)

+ Includes 1 month FREE trial!

+ Unlimited dial-up access

http://www.getnetscape.com

AOL ($11.99 per month)

+ Includes 1 month FREE trial!

+ Unlimited dialup access

+ 24/7 tech support

+ McAfee security software

+ Unlimited email storage

http://free.aol.com/tryaolfree/index3.adp?promo=804302&service=aol

ACCESS AND BILLING INFORMATION:

* The last day you will be able to access your CompuServe Classic account will be June 30, 2009. Your dial-up access will no longer be available after this date.

* We urge you to immediately forward, back up, move or otherwise copy to a location outside the CompuServe Classic system any stored data you wish to keep. This data will be inaccessible after the CompuServe Classic service is closed on June 30.

* The CompuServe Classic Ourworld "homepage" service

(http://ourworld.compuserve.com) will also close on June 30. After that date, you will be unable to access or retrieve any images, files, or other material stored in the Ourworld service. Any content you wish to retain must be saved to a new location before June 30.

* Your final monthly charge for the CompuServe Classic service will occur on your June billing date.

EMAIL AVAILABILITY:

* We are creating a new email system where you will be able to continue

using your existing CompuServe Classic email address. This new email

service will be available to you at no charge - but you will need to

provide your own Internet access.

* Some of the benefits of the new email system include:

+ Unlimited storage lets you keep as many messages as you want

+ Ability to receive large messages (up to 16MB per message)

+ Industry leading spam and virus protection to help eliminate

threats and hassles

+ Mail filters that allow you to store and organize mail

+ Open accessibility and compatibility with IMAP & POP3

+ Seamless integration w/ AIM for instant messaging

* The transition to the new mail system will occur in mid-May. More

information will be sent to you shortly concerning the migration

of your mailbox to the new CompuServe Classic mail system.

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS?

Member Services phone support will remain available for the

CompuServe 2000 service, and can answer any billing questions

about CompuServe Classic.

Should you have questions about the termination of this service,

please contact CompuServe Member Services at:

Tech Support

1-800-848-8990

8 a.m. - 1 a.m. EST, Mon - Fri

10 a.m. - 10 p.m. EST Sat and Sun

Billing Support

1-800-848-8990

10 a.m. - 10 p.m. EST, Mon - Sat

Closed Sundays and all major U.S. Holidays

We thank you for being a CompuServe Classic member over the past years.

Sincerely,

CompuServe Member Services

Tempting Tech for Tough Times

2009-02-02T17:48:00.009-05:00

Wallets are thinning and so are the head counts at major corporations, but there are still some nifty products out there that make us want to spend the little we have or at least dream about it. Take the LG-GD910 Watch Phone (above) from LG Electronics. It's a gadget Dick Tracy could be proud of.

You can read about the Watch Phone and other cool gadgets from the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show and elsewhere in my latest piece in the New York Daily News.

Images courtesy of LG Electronics

Palm Pre: Preview to a Palm comeback?

2009-01-09T18:28:00.016-05:00

The 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show is in full swing in Las Vegas right now (I'm not there this year) and so is the inescapable blizzard of press releases, Twitter tweets and other flashes from the show floor.

While there are plenty of nifty new devices that make good use of today's technologies, there are not many product announcements that have made a major ripple so far.

One notable exception, however, is Palm Inc.'s new Palm Pre smartphone. Like Apple's iPhone, the Pre has a touchscreen, but unlike the iPhone, it also has a slide-down QWERTY keyboard.

Palm has authored a new operating system for the new phone: Palm webOS. Like the Android software developed by Google for T-Mobile's G1 smartphone, webOS is an open platform, which bodes well for seeing nifty applications for the Pre from independent software developers.

The Pre has a 3.1-inch touchscreen, a 3-megapixel digital camera, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a Web browser, e-mail and instant-messaging software, eight gigabytes of data space and some preinstalled applications. It will be available from Sprint later this year and support the carrier's 3G high-speed data network. No pricing has been announced yet, however.

Like any Palm device, a lot of time has been put into developing the unit's calendar and contact list applications. The phone merges data from different sources to make it easier to manage. For example, if you have the same person listed in the contact list on your computer and on your Gmail contact list, the phone will detect that it's the same person and provide just one listing for that person on the phone. The Pre can run multiple applications at once and allows you to flip quickly between them.

It's been a while since Palm has created this much buzz for a new product. The announcement of the Pre sparked a boost in Palm's stock price. It remains to be seen if this unit will have the necessary level of user-friendliness and reliability to make a dent in a market dominated by Research in Motion's Blackberry devices.

Is the Pre for you? Why or why not?

Images courtesy of Palm Inc.

AFL Cancels 2009 Season: Wanna Buy a Ticket?

2008-12-16T11:15:00.007-05:00

The Arena Football League announced Monday (Dec. 15) that it would cancel its 2009 season and reorganize the league. As of Tuesday morning, however, it seems that word hasn't even reached the right side of the league's own Web site.

Google Chrome: Color it gold

2008-12-12T23:30:00.005-05:00

When Google first announced it was introducing a new Web browser called Chrome, I thought the same thing you might have: Why bother?

After using it for three months, however, I can say this: It's now my default Web browser.

Why? Because it basically delivered on its promises. For example, a crash in one tabbed window doesn't bring down the whole browser -- just the misbehaving tab -- just as Google promised.

On Thursday Google took Chrome out of "beta" status and declared it golden -- a finished product.

To be sure, the early public beta product had its share of holes where bugs and gremlins could find safe refuge. For example, the earlier versions had problems with parts of Facebook.

I like the smooth way in which tabs can be grabbed and reordered in Chrome and I like the way you can drag a tab away and create a new window and then grab that new window and bring it back into your tab lineup. It seems fast enough, and, yes, stable enough for everyday use.

Of course it's not perfect. Other browsers do certain things better. For example, Firefox has a handy, one-step "Undo Close Tab" command which quickly brings back Web pages you may have closed by mistake. Yes, you can recover closed tabs in Chrome via the the "Recently Closed Tabs" listing that pops up when you open a new tab, but it takes a few extra clicks.

And of course there are those Web pages that absolutely, positively demand Microsoft Internet Explorer, so you'll always need to keep that handy on your computer.

One thing you may have a problem with is making Chrome your default browser through Chrome's options settings. When you open up the options in Chrome, you may find that the "Default Browser" setting is grayed out and can't be changed.

In that case, assuming that you're running Windows Vista, try this: Close Chrome. Instead of double-clicking on the Chrome icon on your desktop or elsewhere, click the right mouse button. In the dialog window that pops up, select "Run as Administrator."

Once Chrome reopens, go back to the options page and the "Default Browser" setting should be unlocked and clickable.

No Chrome isn't perfect, but it's mighty good for a one-day-old browser.

What do you think?

PC Magazine to end print edition

2008-11-19T09:41:00.005-05:00

According to an exclusive story posted on PaidContent.Org, Ziff-Davis Media is closing the print version of PC Magazine. The last print run of the magazine, which dates back to 1982, will be the January 2009 edition, according to the story. The magazine, and its staff, will continue online, however, according to PaidContent.Org.

I was the senior writer at PC Magazine from 1993 to 1998 and remember the days when the magazine actually turned away advertising because the printer couldn't physically fit any more pages into the magazine. The dull thud of a 500-plus-page edition of PC Magazine hitting the bottom of a mailbox has been a distant memory as more recent editions have struggled to stay above 100 pages.

While PC Magazine will apparently continue on the Web, it's indeed the end of an era.

T-Mobile G1: A promising disappointment

2008-10-16T00:10:00.008-05:00

Apple's iPhone has nothing to worry about from T-Mobile's new G1. At least not at the moment.

After a week with the T-Mobile G1, the first with Google's new Android operating system, I find myself both elated and disappointed. The G1 offers some nifty features and some of the first Android applications are impressive, but the unit has enough glitches and bugs to make me think twice about using it as my primary phone -- for the moment.

A major irritation was the POP3 e-mail client, the one which allows you to add e-mail services other than Google's own Gmail, which is handled separately -- and smoothly. The e-mail software couldn't open common attachments like Microsoft Word files (the Gmail client can) and it also pulled an irritating disappearing act.

Three times I carefully entered the details of my Prodigy/Yahoo, AOL and AT&T e-mail accounts and three times the phone ate them all, leaving me with nothing but a friendly invitation to start the e-mail setup wizard again.

Fortunately the phone defaults to a setting in which mail is never actually deleted from the server, thus allowing you to download it again later. Word to the wise: Don't change this setting. At the moment I've entered only two e-mail accounts and the G1's memory seem to be holding for the moment.

Speaking of disappearing acts: While the keyboard on the brown version (white and black are also available) of the G1 is very easy to read in bright light or in low light (thanks to backlighting), in moderate light the letters actually disappear into the silver keys as the backlighting kicks in, forcing you to tilt the phone until you can read the characters.

The contacts list is very clear and readable, but sorts entries on a person's first name. If you have a contact entry with a company name and a phone number, but no person, the entry shows up as a phone number. If your entry just has a company and an e-mail address, it shows up as "unknown."

To be fair, the phone handles the basics well. Sound quality is good, the touch screen is responsive, the Web browser is nice, and most menus are clear and easy to activate. With Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth wireless adapters built in, the phone could be a very productive tool for a busy traveler.

For example, the GPS, when combined with the preinstalled Google Maps Web link, makes for a handy companion for walkers. On a recent trip to a New York suburb that I was not familiar with, I was able to map my location and find a local public library -- where I wrote this blog post.

The G1's link to Amazon's digital music site was smooth and the link to YouTube worked well, except that the videos appear blocky and murky at times. The connection to T-Mobile's new 3G high-speed data network worked well when it was available, but the phone frequently reported back with "connection error" when trying to download e-mail.

The good news is that many of the phone's glitches could be resolved with software upgrades; which I hope are forthcoming. History will note that the iPhone endured a number of software updates before all of its functions stabilized.

With both a touch screen and a keyboard, the T-Mobile G1 is an impressive phone with the potential to be a true iPhone competitor. The potential is in the Android software, so keep an eye on new Android-compatible applications and tools and on how swiftly the phone's software issues are addressed with updates.

The G1 will arrive at T-Mobile stores Oct. 22. The phone will be $179 with a two-year T-Mobile contract, and of course the phone is locked to the T-Mobile service for now.

So what do you think? Let me know.

Photo courtesy of T-Mobile

Accoona: Business search engine goes out of business

2008-10-08T18:14:00.008-05:00

It started with quite a bit of fanfare in 2006, but the business-centric Accoona search engine turned off its lights this week, blaming too much competition in the search engine market.

When it launched in March 2006 with a big media event at the United Nations in New York, former President Bill Clinton made a video sales pitch and chess champion Garry Kasparov made an appearance. Also present was the new chairman of Accoona Corp., none other than Eckhard Pfeiffer, former CEO of Compaq Computer.

Accoona's home page (see above) was clean and uncluttered and the search engine offered some nifty features, like the ability to quickly filter a long list of data by a person's name or the name of a company. Unfortunately, Accoona apparently couldn't market itself loud enough to be heard above the roar of Google, Yahoo and the other major search engines.

Accoona's going-away message was short and to the point:

"Dear Accoona search users,

Due to an overwhelmingly competitive search market, Accoona.com and Accoona.cn will no longer be active.

We thank you for your previous support.

Sincerely,

Accoona Management"

T-Mobile G1: Android Alert!

2008-09-24T00:33:00.021-05:00

So what's the big deal about the new T-Mobile G1 cell phone with the touch screen and flip-open keyboard? Yes it supports 3G and GPS and has a nifty flip-open, five-row keyboard, a usable trackball and a responsive touch screen, but we've seen all of this before, right?

Right. But that's OK. It wasn't the phone that was the star of Tuesday morning's well-attended T-Mobile/Google press conference in New York, it was Google's new Android phone operating system, a software platform destined to make major ripples in the smartphone market.

The difference between Android and other platforms like Microsoft's Windows Mobile, is that Android's code and software development kits (SDKs) are available free to software developers, thus allowing them to create innovative applications at a lower cost.

As the first phone to use Android, the T-Mobile G1 is temporarily in a class by itself, the only phone able to use the dozens of applications already written for Android.

Tuesday's press event was held under the Queensborough Bridge at Gustavino's, a high-ceilinged restaurant located about as far east as one can go in Manhattan without getting wet, but that didn't stop dozens of journalists from piling in for a first look at the new phone and operating system.

The phone features a 3.2-inch display, a 3.2-megapixel camera, a microSD card slot (a one-gigabyte card is included) and Bluetooth 2.0 wireless networking support.

One nifty Android application is ShopSavvy, a utility that allows you to scan product barcodes with the G1's camera, send the data over the Internet, and get a list of stores that sell that product. Thus you could walk into Store A, check the price of a product on the shelf, scan the bar code and have the phone report back with prices for the same product at other stores.

Of course Google applications and services such as Gmail, Google Calendar, YouTube and Google Maps are fully supported by the T-Mobile G1.

The phone, while offering a partially iPhone-like experience, does not aim to be a direct competitor in all aspects. It has no headphone jack and can't handle protected iTunes files, although it can play MP3s and other music formats.

As the last big cell phone carrier in the U.S. to build out a third-generation (3G) data network, T-Mobile now has a trendy phone that makes good use of it. It supports T-Mobile's HSDPA and EDGE data networks and has Wi-Fi support as well. It can even switch between Wi-Fi and the data networks depending on where the better throughput is.

The T-Mobile G1 costs $179 with a two-year service agreement. An unlimited data plan with 400 free messages is $25 per month. For $35 per month, both Web access and messaging are unlimited. The G1 will be available Oct. 22, but can be preordered now.

For more information, see the T-Mobile G1 Web site.

Other graphics courtesy of T-Mobile and Google.

Tyke Tech for Trendy Parents

2008-09-08T17:03:00.006-05:00

Becoming a new parent doesn't mean you have to leave your love for gadgets behind. My piece in today's New York Daily News reviews four products for parents who often balance baby with BlackBerry. As always, let me know what you think.

Google Chrome: So far, so ... whoops!

2008-09-03T00:04:00.012-05:00

The birth of a new Web browser sponsored by an Internet power as muscular as Google Inc. is no minor footnote in the history of the Web. The debut of Google Chrome on Sept. 2 sent almost audible shock waves through cyberspace.

Remember, it was only in March that America Online ended support for Netscape, the legendary browser early Web surfers cut their teeth on. As it leaves the maternity ward, Google Chrome enters a space already crowded by Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer, the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox, Opera Software's Opera browser and Apple Inc.'s Safari.

Will it make room for itself? Things look promising.

The good news, at first blush, is that Google Chrome is, as advertised, a snappy, fast and clean-looking browser.

The bad news is that it's still a beta (unfinished) product. There are some irritations you'll run into with the new browser, but chances are good that the problems will be cleared up soon given the size of the Google Chrome development team.

For example, while using the "new" Facebook, I was unable to trigger some links like "Go Online" and "Back to the old Facebook." I couldn't even leave a comment to a fellow user who was also testing Google Chrome.

To be fair, bugs are to be expected on opening day for a software project this complicated. But on the up side, the software installed quickly and seems very stable.

Early verdict: Worth trying.

The Windows version is ready now. Mac and Linux versions are on deck, according to Google.

What do you think so far?

It's official: DigitalLife postponed

2008-08-20T13:10:00.013-05:00

As reported here first on Tuesday, the 2008 DigitalLife consumer electronics, technology and gaming expo scheduled for Sept. 25 to 28 in New York is off the calendar.

An official notice is now on the Web site and the ticket sales engine, which had been accepting orders as late as this morning, has been taken off line. The show was to be held at the Jacob Javits Convention Center.

"After careful deliberations, we have decided to postpone the DigitalLife show scheduled for September 25-28," wrote Paul O'Reilly, vice president of the DigitalLife event, in a statement.

"The poor economic conditions have created a very different and difficult dynamic for us this year and we weren't confident that we could present a show experience that was consistent with the successes of prior years. Hopefully a bigger and stronger DigitalLife will return in 2009. We will make additional announcements about the future of the show when details are available."

DigitalLife Postponed?

2008-08-19T15:13:00.009-05:00

The DigitalLife consumer technology event scheduled for the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York has been postponed, according to sources, including exhibitors.

The event was to run Sept. 25-28, but has now been taken off the calendar, according to sources.

According to its Web site, the DigitalLife show was expected to draw 60,000 "tech enthusiasts" and 1,500 members of the press.

However, such figures might have been overly optimistic given the types of small vendors who were present at a DigitalLife press preview held earlier this summer at the Roosevelt Hotel. Many of the big names in consumer electronics and personal computing were not present at the press preview.

As of Tuesday evening, the DigitalLife Web site was still selling tickets and inviting exhibitors to participate.

Copyright 2008 Stadium Circle Features
All rights reserved

VAIO Up! Sony unveils all-star notebook lineup

2008-07-14T23:33:00.027-05:00

With much of New York City's attention focused on Yankee Stadium and the Major League Baseball All-Star Game festivities, Sony took time out Monday to move a few players in its notebook lineup off of its virtual on-deck circle and into the marketplace.

At a special press event near Times Square, Sony showed off a mix of business, multimedia and lightweight notebooks aimed at capturing the attention of different types of users.

The heavy hitter of the group is the Sony VAIO FW (above), which aims to be both big and svelte at the same time. While its 16.4-inch widescreen display is bigger than that of most notebooks, the missing six-tenths of an inch allows it to fit into a package significantly smaller than that of notebooks with 17-inch screens. At 6.4 to 6.7 pounds, it's much lighter than Sony's own VAIO AR series 17-inch-screen notebooks, which can weigh as much as 8.4 pounds.

The premium version of the VAIO FW ($1,750) comes with a Blu-ray disk drive that can output 1080p high-definition video to an external HDTV. A standard version ($1,000) comes with a rewritable DVD drive.

Sony's new utility infielder is the VAIO BZ business notebook (right), which is built for hard and frequent use. The unit (starting at $1,000) weighs less than six pounds and is housed in a magnesium alloy shell. The hard disk is protected by Sony's G-Sensor shock-detection technology, which counteracts sudden movements.

In addition to 15.4-inch screens and spill-resistant keyboards, the VAIO BZ series notebooks have fingerprint sensors, memory card ports and built-in Wi-Fi wireless networking.

On the thin, light and colorful side, the VAIO SR series of ultraportables (left, starting at $1,400) weigh just over four pounds, have 13.3 inch screens and are packaged with entertainment and media-sharing software. The units, which can be ordered with a built-in webcam, come in five colors: black, sunset pink, glossy pink, classic silver and glossy silver.

The VAIO Z series of lightweight, performance business notebooks come in carbon-fiber shells and feature 13.3 inch displays. The units come in at just over 3 pounds, have HDMI ports, can be ordered with Blu-ray disk drives and come with data-migration software so you can import data from your old computer via an online service. Like the VAIO FW and VAIO SR, the VAIO Z offers flat, slightly raised keys (see below), which, according to Sony, provides a more user-friendly typing experience.

The VAIO Z can also be ordered with a solid state drive, a feature which greatly speeds up data retrieval shortens boot-up time. A version with a standard hard disk starts at $1,800 while a unit with a solid state drive will cost about $2,300.

All of the units above are now available only or in Sony Style stores, according to Mike Abary (above), senior vice president for IT product marketing at Sony Electronics Inc.

Top and bottom photos Copyright 2008 Stadium Circle Features.
Other photos courtesy of Sony Electronics Inc.
Text Copyright 2008 Stadium Circle Features.

Stamping Out the Rising Cost of Postage

2008-05-07T01:15:00.004-05:00

So the price of a First Class postage stamp goes from 41 to 42 cents on May 12. What can you do about it?

Go online! As of May 12, the U.S. Postal Service will offer discounts on certain types of mail if you print your own electronic postage and use printed address labels.

Read my piece from Monday's New York Daily News for more information.

And of course, let me know what you think.

Photo courtesy of Dymo
Text Copyright 2008 Stadium Circle Features

High Tech for the High Road

2008-04-20T02:41:00.005-05:00

So what kind of high-tech gizmo will you plunk into your car next? No idea?

Then take a look at my piece on auto gadgets from the recent New York International Auto Show in the New York Daily News.

And of course, let me know what you think.

Copyright 2008 Stadium Circle Features

MGM Grand at Foxwoods: High-Tech Gamble?

2008-03-31T17:48:00.004-05:00

The new MGM Grand at Foxwoods doesn't open its doors until May 17, but there's already a buzz over its business-friendly features and high-tech amenities.

Take a look at my piece from Sunday's New York Daily News.

And of course let me know what you think.

Photo and text Copyright 2008 Stadium Circle Features

Wi-Fi: Sometimes free, not always easy

2008-03-02T19:22:00.006-05:00

A free wireless Internet connection can be pretty handy when you're out and about town or traveling. Finding it is sometimes the hard part. Why pay up to $30 a day for Wi-Fi when free--and legal--connections are easy to come by?

Take a look at my piece in the Your Money section of the March 3 issue of the New York Daily News.

If you have some tips of your own, let me know. Thanks.

Are Your Tech Tools Tough Enough?

2008-02-18T21:45:00.008-05:00

How tough is your cell phone? Can your notebook survive a trip to the sidewalk? Whether you work outdoors or just have a permanent case of fumblefingers, there are plenty of ruggedized devices that can survived being knocked around.

Take a look at my piece in today's New York Daily News ... and let me know what you think.

CES 2008: Simple Pleasures

2008-01-12T16:12:00.000-05:00

The 2008 Consumer Electronics Show was jam-packed with sophisticated technology that could do everything except slice your bread every morning, but sometimes the best tech is the simple innovation which makes life easier without much fuss.

Luckily there were many examples of useful, but simple devices at CES and here are a handful that may be worth a glance:

Energizer Duo

The $14.99 Energizer Duo battery charger connects to either an AC outlet or to a computer's USB port and can charge two AAA or AA batteries in two to five hours, depending on size and power rating. Since many small devices, like some digital cameras, require only two batteries, the slim charger can help some mobile professionals travel a little lighter.

In addition to a set of LEDs on the outside that let you know the charging status of the batteries, you can also surf to the Duo's Web site and download a small utility which lets you see the charging status right on your computer screen. The utility is available in both Windows and Mac versions. The unit comes with two AAA batteries and an AC adapter.

Sonic Alert Portable Vibrating Alarm Clock

If you're a really deep sleeper, chances are good that you've met your match with the Sonic Alert Portable Vibrating Alarm Clock (Model SBP100ss) from Sonic Alert Inc. of Troy, Mich. When the alarm goes off, you get not only an audible alert but a surprisingly strong rattling mechanism kicks in and shakes the unit with enough force to send tremors throughout your mattress, thus bringing an abrupt end to your sleep cycle.

No the technology in the $29.95 unit is not particularly cutting edge, but anyone who has missed an important morning meeting because of a wimpy hotel alarm clock or a wake-up call that never came might appreciate the circular unit, which is just one in the company's line of Sonic Boom vibrating, flashing and/or extra-loud alarm clocks.

CES 2008: Sony's Silly Rockin' Robot: The Rolly

2008-01-11T20:33:00.002-05:00

So what was the worst thing about the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas? The long lines? The thick crowds?

The answer: The press conferences. Many were very long on fluff and very short on substance. Minor technology advances and fair-to-middling products were trumpeted as if their introductions marked watershed moments in the history of high technology.

For example, Sony Electronics, in a glitzy press conference attended by hundreds of media representatives, literally rolled out a new digital music player which seems destined for some museum of tacky technology: The Rolly.

The best way to explain the Rolly, which will ship this spring at a price still to be determined, is to let you see the darn thing in action.

Yep, that's it: A small egg-shaped digital music player which rocks and rolls and spins with the music and has little clamshell caps at either end that pop open and snap close with the beat.

Somehow I don't foresee the day when many of these things will be scuttling across the floors of high school lunchrooms, college dorms or the platforms of commuter rail and bus stations. The target audience seem to be limited to computer geeks and audio nuts who love scaring their cats.

In Sony's press release, Steve Haber, the senior vice president of Sony Electronics' Digital Imaging and Audio Division, says that the spinning gizmo, "... isn’t just another gadget; the Rolly is a sophisticated piece of entertainment technology."

Yes, it's an interesting, er, spin on high tech, yes it has two gigabytes of flash memory, yes you can stream music to it via a Bluetooth wireless connection and, yes it can display about 700 colors as it spins around, but I still don't get it.

Do you?

Text and video Copyright 2008 Stadium Circle Features

Goodbye Netscape

2007-12-29T02:45:00.000-05:00

You might as well tack this sign to New York's Time Warner building:

Netscape Navigator,
the browser that made the World Wide Web famous,
won't be brewed here anymore

(A rewrite of the lead from a 1981 Milwaukee Journal story the day The Jos. Schlitz Brewing Company announced that Schlitz, "the beer that made Milwaukee famous," would no longer be brewed there.)

Friday 's announcement that America Online, a division of Time Warner, would end development of the Netscape Navigator Web browser on Feb. 1, 2008, comes as a punch in the stomach to those who grew up on it. Yes, most of us, including this writer, abandoned it long ago for Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer, the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox or even Opera Software's Opera browser.

However it was Netscape's valiant David-vs.-Goliath court battles with Microsoft that endeared us to the sometimes-troublesome Web browser. Netscape staggered, but didn't slay the software giant, but the court battles gave us all a lesson in not giving up even when the odds were against us.

I've always had a soft spot for also-rans. I was a New York Mets fan when finishing above last place was considered a major achievement. In the end, AOL's decision was a simple one, made like a baseball team owner gazing at a stadium full of empty seats.

According to the official Netscape blog:

"AOL's focus on transitioning to an ad-supported web business leaves little room for the size of investment needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be. Given AOL's current business focus and the success the Mozilla Foundation has had in developing critically-acclaimed products, we feel it's the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reins fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox."

For more information, zip over to the Netscape blog (blog.netscape.co m).

World's oldest e-mail address? Nah!

2007-12-27T02:51:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday 72407,3343!

(Note: Mailing address on card is obsolete.)

Today my CompuServe e-mail address turns 22 years old. Think of how many online services, Web portals, e-mail services and other Internet-borne businesses have come and gone in that time.

I still remember that magic moment in 1985 when I dialed in and signed on and waited -- and waited -- and waited -- for that first CompuServe welcome message to crawl across the monochrome screen of my cutting-edge Tandy 100 laptop.

And I do mean crawled -- at 300 bits per second. That's 300 bits per second -- not kilobits or megabits! Yes, in 1985 most of us could type faster than our computers could transmit data.

At that time CompuServe was by far the top name in online services, offering more useful content and more access to important databases than any other service.

The fact that you could also use it to send e-mail to was almost an afterthought since at that time you could only send messages to other CompuServe members. Other online services of the time had the same limitation. That explains the many e-mail address at the bottom of my old business card (see above).

Of course things changed over time as CompuServe initially opened special gateways to MCI Mail and other select online services and later opened the gates wide open so that members could contact any e-mail address.

CompuServe, born in 1969, is still alive today, although it's hard to tell from its rather lame home page (www.compuserve.com). America Online, which acquired CompuServe in 1998, barely markets the service and seems intent on letting the venerable old name peter out through membership attrition.

Who would have thought in 1985, when cell phones were the size of milk cartons, that we would be checking e-mail on shirt-pocket-size handsets today.

No, my CompuServe address isn't the the oldest e-mail address in the world by a long shot, but... Do you have an older one?

This curious mind would like to know.

Text and image Copyright 2007 Stadium Circle Features

Smartphones for gift-giving

2007-12-11T04:08:00.000-05:00

Looking for a new smartphone? Take a look at my latest piece in the New York Daily News for some guidance. And let me know what you think!

New Alienware Area-51 notebooks: The mother of all systems?

2007-11-19T15:39:00.000-05:00

The most powerful 17-inch notebook ever?

The most powerful 15.4 notebook that's ever been thought of?

It was with that kind of unbridled enthusiasm that Alienware Corp., makers of musclebound gamers' notebook and desktop computers, rolled out its latest high-powered efforts at a New York press conference on Monday (Nov. 19).

According to Alienware, a subsidiary of PC giant Dell Corp., in addition to powerful processors and fast hard drives, the new Area-51 m17x 17-inch notebook (above) and Area-51 m15x 15.4-inch notebook (below) offer graphics performance far above that offered by any other current notebook.

"This is really the mother of all systems when you're talking about performance," said Bryan de Zayas, Alienware's associate director of product marketing, after he uncovered the m17x at the press conference.

He went on to describe the m17x as "the most powerful 17-inch notebook that has ever been created" and noted somewhat modestly that the m15x was the most powerful 15.4-inch notebook "that's ever been thought of and brought to market."

The specifications for the sleekly designed Area-51 units seem to bear out some of his enthusiasm. Both come with Intel Corp.'s Core 2 Extreme processors, Blu-Ray optical disk burners and up to to 4 gigabytes of system memory.

The Area-51 m17x offers a 17-inch, 1,080p widescreen display and can be had with dual nVidia GeoForce 8800M GTX or dual GeoForce 8700M GT graphics processors and up a gigabyte of dedicated graphics memory--an astounding amount video muscle for a notebook. The Area-51 m15x has a 15.4-inch, a 1,080p widescreen display, a single nVidia GeoForce 8800M GTX graphics processor and up to half a gigabyte (512 megabytes) of graphics memory.

De Zayas noted that the just-released nVidia 8800M GTX graphics chipset used in the new notebooks is two performance levels above the nVidia chipsets now in use by other notebook makers. This means, he said, that the Area-51 units can easily digest the most demanding PC games, including the recently released Crysis from Electronic Arts Inc.

However, nVidia noted that the 8800M series graphics chipset will soon be available in machines from other notebook makers, including Canada-based Eurocom, Gateway Inc., and Sager.

While the Area-51 units are obviously designed for the best possible games performance, they offer amenities that make them useful as high-end business units. For example, with the touch of a button above the keyboard, you can tune the units down to a low-power "stealth" mode, which reduces processing muscle, but extends battery life long enough time to perform mundane non-gaming tasks during a long flight. You can also tune down the graphics muscle in order to extend battery life a little further.

The units come with backlit keyboards which can change color and a touchpad that's invisible save for an lit outline that lets you know where it is on the palmrest area.

Both units will be available next year and pricing has not been set yet, according to Alienware representatives.

Photos courtesy of Alienware.