|
Newstips Electronic Editorial Bulletin Issue # 2008-02b
News before a weekend we long for
WHILE HIGH DEF PLAYS THE BLUES JVC HAS RED NEWS
Consumers reluctant to pay 3-digit prices for high-def blue-laser
DVD players are finding some solace in the JVC XVN650B (black) &
XVN652S (silver) set-top DVD players ($80) with built-in 720/1080
up-conversion & both component & HDMI outputs. With your favorite
standard DVD in its tray, an HDTV to watch it on & the wonderful
JVC upscaling video enhancer in the middle, your old discs will
look a lot better than you remember. They're reviewable now; ask
Chelsea. Contact: Chelsea Vander Groef, JVC COMPANY OF AMERICA
(Wayne, NJ) 973-317-5000x5312 mailto:cvandergroef@jvc.com
http://jvc.com
NEW ACCESSORIES WILL MAKE KOMFORT PETS CARRIER MORE AGILE
The new medium-size Komfort Pets carrier that premiered on
Valentine's Day at Global Pet Expo will soon have accessories
available to extend its agility. A 3-hour rechargeable battery
pack (comes with wiring harness & carry bag) will help keep pets
comfortable during power outages or when other car or wall socket
power options are not available. A new optional add-on stacking
adapter affords the flexibility of tiered carriers without
compromising the extra pet headroom afforded by the new carrier's
contour-top design. Ask Bob. Contact: Bob Inello, KOMFORT PETS
(Revere, MA) 781-485-0077 mailto:rinello@komfortpets.com
http://KomfortPets.com
DAPTER DOESN'T DELIVER DONGLE DANGLE DAMAGE
Dapter ($30) deliveries have begun, but there's one thing this
Bluetooth 2 USB adapter doesn't deliver that other dongles do:
damage to USB ports & notebook shells. The problem is their
geometry, with some the plug & with some the body. If you feel
like a comparison review, jingle Jack for a Dapter; heck, get one
anyway & consider its other attributes. Contact: Jack Corrao,
NEWTON PERIPHERALS (Natick, MA) 858-792-0944
mailto:jack.corrao@newtonperipherals.com
http://NewtonPeripherals.com
NOT A TORNADO, BUT FILE TRANSFER FOR DUMMIES HOWLS
The original Tornado ($60) offers a rugged & convenient one-piece
answer for transporting files between pairs of Windows PCs up to
4' apart. If you can bring them a bit closer together, there's a
new answer with the same 25MB/sec speed over USB 2 (also 1.1
compatible but slower) that also shows both directories on both
PCs. The new PC-to-PC File Transfer for Dummies Kit ($40; yes,
they licensed the name) adds an intelligent elongated connection
to a small (Alka-Seltzer size) retractable 32" USB cable. It does
come with an instruction manual plus a PC-to-PC File Transfer for
Dummies Guide but does not include (Tornado does) PC Eraser
software. Contact Clint to get one to review; the Dummies are the
guys who don't have one yet. Contact: Clint Hughes, DATA DRIVE
THRU (Dallas, TX) 972-897-7057 mailto:chughes@datadrivethru.com
http://TheTornado.com
RATS IN ATTICS FOR REAL & HOW TO TRACK THEM
We've been hearing reports from Orlando, Atlanta & San Francisco
about rats in attics; these may be a specific species, roof rats
that thrive in warmer climes, but reports of them seem to be
spreading. We also know that the odor of any rat presence will
attract other rats. Get that rat an upscale tail & you have a
squirrel, common in colder climes when they seek warmth & shelter
over the winter. We can't tell you how to get rid of rats in the
attic, but we can tell you how to tell they're there & how to
track back to their favorite entry & exit points: UV. Rodents
don't stop at a rest room, they go as they go, so their scamper
is damper than that of other critters. A MaxMax Flash UV 6 ($25)
portable 4" black light lantern makes those pee-pee trails glow;
if only they'd had black light during the Black Plague! If it's a
story you want to do, ask Dan to get you one for review. Contact:
Dan Llewellyn, LDP LLC (Carlstadt NJ) 201-882-0344
mailto:dan@maxmax.com Http://MaxMax.com
SAMSON MEDIA ONE MONITORS READY NOW IN 3" SIZE
The first of the new Samson Media One Studio Monitors ($99-$199
in 3", 4" & 5" sizes) are available for review in the 3" size
now, in 4" & 5" sizes soon. It's important to understand the
nature & purpose of monitor speakers, whose reason for being is
audio transparency, intruding as little coloration as possible
onto the audio being reproduced. Monitor speakers are what they
listen to on the control board side of the window in recording
studios; they're how serious musicians judge what they're
playing; today, they're also the most reasonable quality control
point for professional results when recording audio (or the sound
side of video) for use on the Web, on disc or in broadcasts. It's
also a very reasonable investment to make on behalf of a kid
studying music in college. While the description of a monitor
speaker is very much like those cheap speakers you may plug into
a PC - just a speaker in a box - the experience is very
different, which is what makes them worth a review. Ask Mark.
Contact: Mark Wilder, SAMSON TECHNOLOGIES (Hauppauge, NY)
631-784-2200x142 mailto:mwilder@samsontech.com
http://SamsonTech.com
PERSONAL SPACE CELL BAR BOOSTER REVIEWABLE NOW
Those of you at Cherry Picks saw the zPersonal cell bar booster
($169) for spaces like small apartments or dorm rooms that can be
well served by a desk-size boosted-coverage "bubble". It's
reviewable now & tricky old Marty has an idea to make that more
productive. That small boosted bubble is a really good size for
the cubicles where most working press people nest, but those are
often dismally far from a wall or window where there's enough
signal to pipe back to the desk. If you don't know which wall or
window is best for that, there are 2 ways to find out. One is to
take your phone (ultimately, the most precise indicator of your
carrier's signal in the sub-band you need to grab) & walk around
until you find a place with 2 or more bars; 2 bars there becomes
5 bars at your desk. The other is to borrow a Wi-Ex cellular
signal strength meter (normally for trade & installers, not
consumers). When you figure out how long a run of cable that will
take (check with your IT guys on where you're allowed to run it),
tell the ladies & they'll make sure to include enough cable for
the run. If you want to just test it at home, the cable in the
kit will work fine. Contact: Sharon Cuppett, WI-EX INC.
(Norcross, GA) 770-239-5475x6380 mailto:scuppett@wi-ex.com
http://wi-ex.com AGENCY CONTACT: Deanna Anderson 404-759-1890
mailto:danderson705@comcast.net
IPHOTOMEASURE TARGETS AID ACCURACY
When iPhotoMeasure software analyzes a photo to determine the
measurements of lengths of things within it, everything starts
with knowing the size of something in the picture. While you can
use anything from a dollar bill to a blank sheet of paper, they
now offer some erasable DigiTargets (1'x1' $10, 2'x2' $20 & 3'x3'
($30) for people who have a lot of things to measure in a lot of
places. The known sizes of these targets aids the accuracy of the
pixel extrapolation calculations that the software performs; the
erasable write-on areas are a handy reminder of what got shot &
why. Ask Paul. Contact: Paul Minor, DIGICONTRACTOR INC. (Tarzana,
CA) 818-888-3687 mailto:paul@iphotomeasure.com
http://iPhotoMeasure.com
APRICORN AEGIS BIO ADDS CAPACITIES, REBATE
With more than 200 million privacy records compromised over the
past few years, you know how much we love the idea of a hard
drive that locks itself up until it sees your fingerprint. Now
there are two new reasons for covering the Apricorn Aegis Bio.
One is that its capacity range now reaches to 320GB ($329), which
opens it up to new ranges of applications. The other is that
during February, Apricorn is offering a $40 mail-in rebate (PDF
form on their Web site) for the sweet-spot 250GB model ($259).
Any CPA, doctor, dentist, attorney, banker, investment broker or
financial planner (for example) who ever makes a backup or takes
work home is risking a lot of liability without this kind of
protection; ask Michelle. Contact: Michelle Fischer, APRICORN
INC. (Poway, CA) 858-513-4480 mailto:mfischer@apricorn.com
http://apricorn.com AGENCY CONTACT: Jennifer Olson 415-402-0230
mailto:jennifer@atomicpr.com
THE LOOK OF EUBIQ POWER STRIPS WHEN THEY HIT THE US
In the rest of the world, Eubiq makes power strips in a variety
of configurations to suit various applications, but their US
availability (still pending UL approval) will initially deal with
a smaller variety. The initial retail offering will probably be a
3-foot-long aluminum housing that includes a variety of mounting
options (wall-mount, under-desk/table mount, desk-back riser
mount, etc.) & a starting selection of grounded outlets; best
guess is that will be $300. A separate selection of products,
probably including 4' & 5' models, will go to industrial
electrical distributors for use in new construction, remodeling &
rack-style data cabinets. We'll be more specific as soon as we
can. Contact: NG Kee Haur, EUBIQ PTE LTD (Singapore)
+65-6372-9393x380 mailto:keeng@eubiq.com http://eubiq.com
SPRINGING INTO STEADICAM CONVERGENCE
It's been a factor forever in the camera business: consumers will
only buy accessories that each costs no more than their cameras.
This spring, that factor may bring a surge of popularity to the
compact Steadicam Merlin (street $800), which can handle cameras
from 0.5 to 5 pounds. The growing popularity of HD camcorders
(with most models street-priced above this) is one factor that
will drive it. Spring school sports & their sideline spectator
shooters is another; it's one thing to point & zoom & another to
follow the action by literally following the action. We don't
think you'll find one on every city block just yet, but we think
you'll start seeing at least one on most school athletic fields.
Ask Hilary. Contact: Hilary Araujo, TIFFEN COMPANY (Hauppauge,
NY) 631-273-2500x1216 mailto:haraujo@tiffen.com
http:/.tiffen.com
NOT THE PLANETARY PAYBACK THE DOOMSAYERS PREDICTED
You've heard the predictions: a poisoned planet returning the
favor to the humans who caused it. Here's a different prediction:
when you let MyBoneYard.com handle your old tech gear, you'll get
greenbacks back (actually, the equivalent on a preloaded Visa
card) & the planet will not be harmed (or may actually be aided).
As much as possible, gear is reconditioned for sale in some of
the more distressed parts of the world, which reduces the amount
of new manufacturing & eliminates that little bit of carbon
loading. Most of the rest is recycled, including proper handling
of the potentially dangerous materials within batteries,
displays, etc. So people who participate end up doing good for
other people, for the planet & for their own pockets. Ask Thomas.
Contact: Thomas Muhs, MYBONEYARD (Chanhassen, MN) 952-294-6154
mailto:thomas.muhs@young-america.com http://MyBoneYard.com
VIRGIN OFFERS MORE THAN FREEDOM
Freedom from long-term commitments is a hallmark of Virgin Mobile
cell service, where you can buy minutes or months, as well as
freedom from credit checks or activation fees, but those aren't
the only benefits. Their night rates (many of their plans include
unlimited night & weekend calling, some include unlimited night &
weekend messaging) kick in at 7pm, earlier than most competitors.
There's an online comparison of more than a dozen of their
features versus 9 of their competitors. For parents who want to
keep down the costs of cell phones for their kids or for elderly
relatives, for families on very tight budgets, for civic &
service organizations with only occasional need for cell phones,
even for business people who have to occasionally go where their
usual cell service won't reliably reach, it's a great
alternative. Ask Corinne. Contact: Corinne Nosal, VIRGIN MOBILE
USA (Warren, NJ) 908-607-4235
mailto:corinne.nosal@virginmobileusa.com
http://virginmobileusa.com
SPECIAL REPORT: WHY BLUE LASERS CAN'T DODGE RED FACES
If you or your parents ever bought one of the following, you know
the feeling: a 4-track tape player, Beta VCR, TI PC, Apple Lisa
or HP Jornada. Each represents a leap of faith that didn't take
the path that history ended up favoring & owners of each were
left with a sense of embarrassment. People hate getting
themselves into situations that may result in that feeling. That
reluctance to being tagged a sucker to a false premise or a
too-slick sales pitch is one of the major reasons that consumers
aren't yet willing to gamble on the outcome of the battle between
the blue laser high def disc formats. People are only slightly
swayed by which studios are aboard today; enough of those have
switched sides at least once to draw the longevity of their
loyalties into question. Many writers cite consumer satisfaction
with red-laser players & their improved upscaling & image
processing; we believe that's a temporary rationalization & will
give way to the result of seeing the magnificently better
pictures that result from a true HD image source with the same
kind of in-stream electronic caressing & finessing. It might seem
that low pricing alone could provide enough risk reduction to
create a what-the-heck consumer attitude; the $100-150 HD-DVD
player pricing at Wal-Mart drove a little of that, but not enough
to tilt the seesaw. Indeed, the investment in discs (content or
titles if you prefer jargon) for any consumer soon outweighs the
cost of the player. That's not to say that pricing isn't a
factor, but since there's no Blu-Ray deck as nimble at being a
deck as the $300 Sony PS3, we're not looking at that broad a
price spread. We see two ways to resolve these circumstances for
consumers, short of one format or the other capitulating (for a
total of 3 choices we're not likely to see any time soon). Either
the studios can include both blue laser formats plus a red laser
disc in every box or the drive builders can come up with a nimble
dual-format drive at a price that won't give consumers pause (we
think that means under $300, but that's not based on hard data).
We doubt that we'll see any of these happen in time for the
holidays this year, but that's possible; it's more likely we'll
see some half-hearted moves along each path gain some early
adopters & the true solutions rumored or previewed at CES '09.
The sad part is that a low-price high-def multi-format player
today could trigger huge consumer purchasing of high-def titles &
rekindle interest in high-def sets & related products, curing the
current CE recession.
SPECIAL REPORT BONUS REVIEW: QUIK POD DSLR
We liked the first Quik Pod, essentially a camera-mount rod you
can anchor to your thigh so you don't need somebody behind the
camera to take a picture of you or your group. The new Quik Pod
DSLR extends that in some cool ways. At the bottom end, you can
swap out a machined aluminum finial (drilled to take a wrist
strap). The 4-section rod (with 3 locking clamps) extends from 18
to 53 inches. A top wing nut adjusts the angle of the camera
bracket which now has a slide-off, lock-on plate that screws into
the camera's tripod mount threads; the brand's convex mirror at
the front makes it easy to use the reflection to frame your shot
(more or less, depending on where the camera's zoom is set). The
kit also includes a gel pod to make it more comfy to rest the
butt end on your belly, a hiking clip & a carry bag. The extra
touches are nice, but the basic value comes from extending the
original Quik Pod design into a stronger metal design that can
extend to a longer reach & hold heavier cameras (DSLR or
camcorder models, not just pocket point & shoot models). Tiny
misfit: the gel pad doesn't fit into the carry case. Bottom line:
Really handy for when you have to shoot yourself & don't want to
look like it.
SPECIAL REPORT BONUS REVIEW 2: MINOX LEICA M3
They were one of the cutest palm-size secret agent guy spy cams
to come out of the Cold War era & looked a lot like the tiny new
palm-size Minox Leica M3 digital camera; we may want to stop at
the looks so we can think of this camera more fondly. It claims
5Mp resolution through some math trickery; the sensor is 3.2Mp.
Many of the knobs, levers & controls on the camera are fake;
while functional on the original, they have no role on the
digital replica. The little 8.7mm lens is not a great gatherer of
photons, but then, tiny lenses are requisite in this size. There
is no flash, but if you saved the flash from an old Minox & it
somehow still works, it will attach to & work with this one, or
Minox will sell you a current flash accessory (online $130 &
bigger than the camera itself). The LiIon battery charges through
a 5-pin USB port & the slot takes SD cards for the photo. The
optical viewfinder is little more than a lensed peep hole; it is
not tied to the lens (which has no optical zoom anyway). The tiny
1.5" LCD is not great about brightness, contrast or viewing angle
& any bright light quickly washes it out. They are apparently
also having some QC problems; on the unit we got, the shutter
button doesn't work. As a camera, it can take photos or videos a
little better than you can get from a new cell phone but not
nearly as nice as you can get from a same-price ($200-225 online
as of this writing) point & shoot camera. You may have seen the
magazine & TV ads for replicas of vintage cars or trucks or
motorcycles, done in detail & with some moving parts; we regard
this in somewhat the same way. For those of us of the right
vintage, it's reminiscent of an interesting era, has an authentic
look, triggers some happy nostalgia & by gosh, can actually take
pictures. Bottom line: it's even better as a curio than as a
camera.
SPECIAL REPORT BONUS REVIEW 3: ZVOX 325
The ZVOX box weighs less than we expected though it houses 3
speakers & some electronics; it helps that the power supply is a
floor wart & not in the case. They call this a surround sound
system, even with just 3 speakers, because it uses
psychoacoustics to create a perceived sound field with depth to
it, at least theoretically. We tested it in our home theater
set-up with surround sound source material on the HDTV cable
channels, doing A/B tests between the sound it delivered & the
sound that came from our true surround system (in which the
speakers themselves are not materially better than those in the
ZBOX box. Its results were disappointing. No matter how we
finessed it, the unnatural sounding echo & phasing remnants
distracted us from the content & made of an unpleasant listening
experience. We're great fans of the theory that a smaller number
of speakers can create the immersive audio experience of
big-count arrays but that wasn't happening for us here; to be
fair, we don't remember ever being satisfied with any other
attempt at psychoacoustic solutions. Here's what's good about it:
when they aren't trying to create "virtual surround sound", the
amplifiers & speakers perform admirably, creating a very
satisfactory 2.1 speaker solution in a moderately priced ($349)
single enclosure. If you wouldn't know a phase remnant if it hit
you in the face, if you love the idea of one box & one audio
cable connecting up something that sometimes sounds like a
surround system & if you never want to run speaker wires around
the room, this might be a good answer for you. Bottom line:
purists won't like it but populists might.
WHY E-MAIL IS BROKEN
This is a plea for unifying e-mail standards more tightly than
the way they're implemented now. The biggest wish on our list is
for a single, mandatory mechanism for fraud-proof sender
authentication. Second up would be system-wide embargos on
deliberately malformed mail, especially e-mail with malformed or
invalid from & reply-to fields, but also those in character sets
not native to the geography of at least the sender or the
recipient. These two pieces alone could end huge amounts of spam
& phishing traffic, but only if there's an end to downstream
permissiveness for sender-side deliberately modified servers.
These are header & routing issues, not content issues, but do a
great deal to put an end to malicious crimes by wire. Some other
wishes: embedded tags for sender country of origin & first mail
server country of origin. There's no reason to abide by a system
that requires so high a level of recipient wariness in order to
counter the strong likelihood of victimization. Contact: Martin
Winston, NEWSTIPS (Novelty, OH) 440-338-8400;
mailto:marty@newstips.com http://Newstips.com
# # #
Newstips Bulletin [Novelty, OH] +1.440.338.8400 http://Newstips.com
|
