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Kindle 2 Announced

Amazon Kindle with carrying cover, Open.
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Engadget released a nice set of pictures of the Kindle 2, the next generation of Amazon‘s E-book reader. For alternate coverage, Crunchgear has a nice Kindle 1/2 side-by-side photo comparison.

It has several improvements over its predecessor

  • Screen refresh is 20 percent faster
  • 7 Times Greater Storage
  • 16 Shades of Grey as opposed to 4.
  • Thinner

We still can’t justify the $359 cost for the privilege of paying more for books than the printed version. The discount has to ultimately, if not subsidize the cost of the reader, at least justify with value-added service the cost of buying it. For less cost, one could use an old PDA or a cell phone, although the screen would not be as conducive to easy reading. For the same cost, one could go for a netbook.

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Published on February 9, 2009
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Asus Eee 1000HE

comparison of the sizes of a package of handke...
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For those of you following the netbook craze, there is new Asus Eee out there.

Engadget has a roundup of various reviews. The HE is built around a new six-cell battery and offers over seven hours of battery life, and offers the standard compliment of features. PC Magazine declared it as dethroning the MSI Wind as the leading netbook, with a list price of $400.

In a related story, Eee PCs are expected in Walmart by years end.

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Published on February 9, 2009
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Ditching Your Pay-TV – Redux

Sports scores in Windows Media Center on Windo...
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We like to continue the thread of losing cable or satellite in favor of alternate options. In the current times, it seems worth keeping alive. In a post last month on Engadget HD, there were lots of comments that brought up some important issues.

  • With Hulu, Netflix, and other services, we now can get a variety of older movies and some recent TV shows that should satisfy most demands.
  • WAF – Also known as the Wife Acceptance Factor(Applies to other relationships as well). How well does your solution work for your less tech-inclined housemates?
  • Antennas – If you drop in favor of broadcast, do you really want to put a large antenna mounted outside to get the most stations, or can you get most of what you want with a simple small one.
  • “I mean I’d rather wait 6 months to watch Entourage on Blu-ray then to pay $70/mo or watch it in crappy quality.” – You can use the money you saved, if you are willing to wait, to buy box sets of the series you like the most. You’ll get better quality, no station logos, and extras.
  • Homebrew DVR solutions like Windows Media Center or MythTV(which we use) work seamlessly with over-the-air broadcasts and provide full DVR services for the cost of a computer to run it.
  • The worry is that bandwidth caps which many internet providers are imposing will interfere with low-cost online streaming , as internet access will now be metered and thus up the monthly entertainment cost you pay.

The New York Times looked at Netflix’s Watch Instantly service, and they seem to like it. Even though there are a lot of movies not exactly top of the line, it includes the Starz Play catalog. And you still can get things by mail.

For those of you who want to start working on integration, PlayOn media server(Windows Only) is out of beta. capable of streaming Internet video from YouTube, Hulu, CBS, Netflix, CNN, ESPN and others to your PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 or other DLNA compliant hardware via a PC. The reviews are good, although you need an always-on computer to stream content to your set-top box. There is a lot of DLNA compliant hardware out there. As of now, it isn’t linux-compatible, so we’ll hold off.

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Published on February 8, 2009
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Digital Television Delayed…Really This Time

HAYWARD, CA - JANUARY 28: An old analog telev...
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After initially being defeated, the bill to defer the Digital TV transition till June 12th was passed last week. However, some stations had already indicated they are sticking with the Feb. 17 date. The FCC said it had heard from 276 stations to that effect, in addition to 143 stations that had already pulled the plug, and another 60 who said they planned to do so before Feb. 17. The FCC had pointed out that some of those 276 may change their minds once the date changes. The FCC has been working on regulations that might cover the above circumstances.

But, there might be a bigger problem. Many manufacturers stopped making the boxes, expecting the demand to peak around February 17th. The trade association estimates there are approximately 3 to 6 million boxes available, and there are at least 3.7 million rebate coupons requests on the federal waiting list. Not to mention the confusion the switchover is producing on the older generation.

The NYTimes reports help is coming from an unlikely source. In Houston, which is the 10th largest TV market in the country, the local Meals on Wheels has been delivering and installing converter boxes for its clients.

For those of us who feel comfortable with such things, digital over-the-air broadcasts is an excellent way to get HD programming from local affiliates at no cost. Unlike your local cable concern, this feed is not compressed to the same degree, giving it a better quality to enjoy. We have one hooked up in addition to our cable, for this very reason.

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Published on February 8, 2009
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Jumping on the Twitter Bandwagon

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After our colleagues at Flight Wisdom signed up for a Twitter account to help people follow their blog, we decided to see how it went for them. Within days of signing up, users started to flow in, although some of them were already readers. Not only that, but by following other similarly themed Twitter accounts, they were able to get more up-to-the-minute news. If you haven’t already, check out Flight Wisdom.

So, we are proud to announce that we’ve set up our own Twitter account, GadgetWisdom. Not only will it automatically post a tweet when we post a blog entry, but it allows us to post our random thoughts when we don’t have time or yet enough material for a full post.

In order to keep up, we’ve integrated Twitter into our copy of Pidgin. Pidgin is a multi-protocol instant messenging client, and with an add-on, you can add Twitter monitoring and posting to Pidgin. Anyone we are following will pop up in the Gadget Wisdom window in our taskbar. So, it will help us keep better track of what is going on to talk about.

So, we ask you, what Tech Twitter Accounts do you think we should follow?

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Published on February 8, 2009
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Kindle No Longer So Cost Effective

amazon-kindle
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Not long ago, we were on a plane and someone across the aisle had Amazon‘s Kindle. The Kindle, if you’ve missed it, is an E-Book reader. And if anyone had the power to make electronic book reading take off, it is Amazon.

But the Consumerist reports that nearly 30% of books sold for the Kindle are now above $9.99, making them cost more, not less than the equivalent paperback. As one person put it…

300 dollars was supposed to be a sort of covenant between us and amazon. we backed their device and they would usher in an era of low cost/reasonably priced literature. Sure it wasn’t written in stone but the way they advertised it many of us believed it, otherwise this forum wouldn’t be as popular as it is. Instead what is happening is that we put ourselves out there for a company and they returned the favor by charging us even more for books then if we just went out and bought the printed version.

The idea of electronic reading is eventually the reader pays for itself in savings offered by buying electronic over print media, making print a luxury. The size of the Kindle makes it, from what we saw, much easier to read on than a cell phone, which certainly could do the same job of displaying text. It offers an always-on wireless connection to provide content.

But ultimately, it is a $300 toy, for which there are rumors a new version is set to be released on the 9th of February. Three hundred dollars can buy a lot of books…or even a netbook computer to read books on.

On a related note, for free e-books, the following site was suggested as options….feedbooks.com – Provides a variety of contributed as well as public domain e-books in a variety of formats as well as subscription based service. Looks good to us. We’re off to read Sherlock Holmes and not pay a cent…

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Published on January 30, 2009
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Digital Transition Not Delayed

[youtube xy-pD-M0rY4 Digital Transition Information Video]

The Senate had signed off on a delay of the mandatory broadcast digital TV transition until June 12th, from February 17th, but despite Obama administration support, House Republicans defeated the bill, leaving the transition date where it is.

“In my opinion, we could do nothing worse than to delay this transition date,” said Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the House Commerce Committee. “The bill is a solution looking for a problem that exists mostly in the mind of the Obama administration.” Barton led the push to scuttle the bill, which passed the Senate unanimously on Monday night.

The problem stems from the converter box coupon program, administered by the National Telecommunication and Information Administration, is now sending out coupons only as older, unredeemed ones expire, freeing up more money. They have nearly 2.6 million coupon requests and those people will not be receiving theirs till after February 17th.

Eliminating analog television is a good move in that the possibilities offered by digital television are much improved. Discounting the freeing up of bandwidth for other applications, digital television is clearer, higher resolution, offers multiple subchannels in the same space, and converting older televisions, with or without coupons, is a simple process, as outlined by the above video. And if you have cable or satellite, you aren’t even affected right now unless your cable company is using it as a smokescreen to try and upsell you based on fear.

it is an improvement, it will be confusing, and instead of the government delaying it, they need to put together a new coupon program, which will be less expensive than it will cost to delay analog transition. It would cost PBS $22 million alone to delay. Many have leases for signal transmitters that were due to expire on the date of the switch over and will have to make new arrangements.

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Published on January 28, 2009
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Happy Birthday Macintosh

Macintosh Classic
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[youtube OYecfV3ubP8 1984 Mac Launch Commercial]

To those who know us, our issues with Apple and the Macintosh have remained constant throughout the years. Last week, the original Apple Macintosh turned 25, and we felt it worthy of note.

Many years ago, we had an old Mac Performa, which demonstrated our issues with the early Macs. The CMOS battery failed…a seemingly easy problem. But the people at Apple expected us to send this in to them for servicing for an insane amount, whereas on a PC this is a five minute job and has been since early on.

Apple made a lot of good decisions since the early days. They rebuilt their revolutionary GUI on a UNIX base, allowing a vast library of open-source UNIX software to be ported to the Apple. On the hardware side, they embraced USB based peripherals and other innovations, meaning that one no longer had to get hardware made by Apple to support their Apple systems.

Playing with a more recent Mac, we can see the potential advantages, and it is certainly a viable alternative to Windows. However, we are still concerned about the closed manner in which Apple conducts business. Either way, the Mac has a lot of viable options to enjoy for users. So, to another 25 years, and new innovations.

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Published on January 26, 2009
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Digitizing your Classic Audio

Dead Media Society: DAT Tape
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Some time ago, we wrote a quick post on the subject of digitizing your cassettes. We’re once again back on the digitization trail, adding more old tapes to our digital music collection and freeing up storage space and have more thoughts.

There are simple economics in this conversion. If you were to repurchase an album on CD or through an online music store, you’d pay at least $10 for it. If you have 10 albums, that is $100. Might as well invest the money in a good system to convert them, which will work for much more than 10. If you are a real audiophile, you may have hundreds of LPs or Audio Cassettes. Decide if any are not worth converting, or are worth investing in a new copy.

Make sure you have a decent sound card and a good quality record or cassette player. Also invest in cleaners. You want to capture the best quality for your digital copy. Get a head cleaner for your cassette player, and record cleaners and a good stylus for your record player.

For a middle of the road solution, you may wish to go with something from Ion Audio. This company has made a name for itself for its PC converters…record players, VCRS, and tape decks with built in digital converters that hook into your computer via a USB connection. They even have one with an iPod connection now. There are several other companies of varying quality.

Our software of choice for audio capture remains the open-source program Audacity, available for most operating systems. The Audacity wiki outlines the steps to convert from analog sources.

The basic steps for turning a cassette or record(LP) album into a multi-track CD or a series of digital music files are as follows:

  1. Connect the output of your analog player into the line input of your sound capture device, ie sound card, etc. If you have an integrated unit, plug the USB port into the computer. It will act like a sound card.
  2. Start recording in Audacity and record the entire album into the system.
  3. Save it in a temporary file. We learned that you should backup the file before you play with it the hard way.
  4. Highlight each song and select “Project -> Add Label at Selection” and type in a name for that track.
  5. Once you have separated the tracks, select “File -> Export Multiple” to export each selection as a separate file. Select your output format and output.
  6. We recommend you create two copies. One in the digital music format of your choice, and another that you burn as a standard CD as an archival copy. If you plan on chucking the tape, you want this for redundancy. You can also use a lossless file format on a DVD for your archival copy, such as FLAC. The goal is for the archival copy to have the best possible quality.
  7. Audacity allows you to enter metadata while exporting files. We recommend you do this. Metadata includes such thing as Album name, track name, artist, etc. This is essential in proper digital playback. Audacity only offers the basic categories. You may wish to use another program to add more tags to your files later(More on this in a future post).
  8. Add it to your music player or program and enjoy.

What do you think? Is this worth the effort, or should we just shell out for new albums? Bear in mind that playing a tape into a computer can be done while concentrating on something. Track marking and metadata does take some work, but it is negligible compared to the wonder of rediscovering your favorite lost albums.

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Published on January 19, 2009
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Streaming and the Mainstream

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Despite what some people say, or do, people want to watch television on their TV…or at the least, something that functions like a TV. That is why they make remote controls for computers, wireless mice, etc.

Engadget HD reports that Hulu is making its way to the SageTV HD Theater interface, which can be hooked into a TV to be used. The device was designed to stream video from a computer-based server to the screen. It is reported the Hulu feature will not require a server.

Vizio is now the second manufacturer, the first being LG, offering Netflix streaming directly to its televisions. Expect this feature to become more prevalent.Netflix is ahead of the curve on this, but don’t wait too long, because the other content providers will be jumping on board as soon as they can, we’re sure.

With our problems installing Boxee to try out its streaming content, we turned to the advice of a recent post about experimental Hulu plugins for the latest SVN of XBMC, which is the software Boxee is based on. The release version of XBMC does not support RTMP streaming, and thus will not support the plugin. Like many other solutions, this one is usable, but still has bugs and kinks to be worked out. But it does allow basic navigation of sources and playback, if not support for things like rewind and fast forward.

We look forward to watching more companies jump on the streaming bandwagon. We’ll be monitoring this very closely.

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Published on January 15, 2009
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