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Newstips Electronic Editorial Bulletin Issue # 2009-09a
Summer vacation's last hurrah of news
WET rated for 17+, out 9/15
Blood, gore, intense violence, sexual content, drug references,
strong language & vigilantism add up to a "Mature" rating (ages
17+) by the ESRB for WET (in stores 9/15 at $50 for Xbox 360 or
Playstation 3). It also adds up to a recipe for being
irresistible for gamer guys, which in turn makes it a magnet for
complaints from people worried about the effects of this kind of
influence on them. Bethesda officially describes this as
adrenaline-pumping; we suspect there may also be some
testosterone in that mix. Welcome Tracey, who can get you
materials to review or a copy for review. Contact: Tracey
Thompson, Bethesda Softworks (Rockville, MD) 301-354-4216
tthompson@bethsoft.com http://BethSoft.com
Intel at retail - up & at 'em with Atom
When Volkswagen first brought the Beetle to America, people had a
hard time believing that something so small & inexpensive could
provide so useful & fun a ride; that's pretty much the ride that
the Intel Atom processor is on right now. Marty already built a
couple of under-$200 PCs in less than 2 hours each using Atom
processors & a CPU/motherboard kit (ask Marty to send the "An
Alternative PC" PDF if you're interested). Some Netbook models
are Atom-based; some commercial & homebrew home theater gear is
also built on a single Atom; robot experimenters are using it; IT
departments are slapping together small special-purpose servers
around it & the list goes on. In a tight economy, the economy of
the Intel Atom makes affordable computing accessible to a lot
more people. Even better, they can pick it up at the local chain
or Mom & Pop store with Intel inside. Jason can get you info
about the Atom (yes, review products, too) & about stores near
you. Contact: Jason Saganski, Intel Americas Inc. (Santa Clara,
CA) 908-837-9828 jason.saganski@intel.com http://Intel.com
Original never trashed as i-photos get flashed
Fast food specialty cheeseburger pricing in the App Store doesn't
mean that Tiffen Cool fx or Photo fx version 2 apps are going to
treat the original photos they glam or flash up as consumable or
disposable; quite the contrary, the originals remain untouched.
The hundreds of treatments or dramatic effects that a user can
get from these apps get saved as new photos & there's no small
limit (other than memory capacity) to how many variations one
photo can engender. If you want the nitty-gritty on all the
variations, ask Hilary; even better, send him a few of your
snapshots & let him send back some of the variations these apps
can deliver. Contact: Hilary Araujo, Tiffen Company (Hauppauge,
NY) 631-273-2500x1216 haraujo@tiffen.com http:/.tiffen.com
Special Report: What Lexmark just did to printers
The home & small business printer category just got a jolt from
Lexmark's new line launch. The various printers all have
admirable feature sets, but we think the greater consequence will
prove to be how they redistributed more of their margin
expectations into the printers while dramatically reducing ink
costs. One black cartridge with a $4.99 msrp (no typo: that's a
penny under five bucks) claims penny-a-page printing costs for
mono documents. They moved from the HP-style 2-cartridge (black
plus multicolor) approach to the Epson-style 4-cartridge (black
plus separate cyan, magenta & yellow) approach. Some of their new
cartridges hold three times the ink of their older standard (not
XL) cartridges. One other bit of amazement: all of the new models
use the same cartridges, dramatically reducing the number of ink
SKUs a retailer has to carry for their customers & making it much
more likely that any store carrying any of the new Lexmark
printer line will have cartridges in stock that work in the
models they don't carry. The lower cartridge pricing is also less
than encouraging to the third-party cartridge clone & refill
contingent. This is true across 8 new printers, of which 4 models
($99 to $199) target home office & 4 models ($169-$399) target
SMB/professional users. HP is still the elephant in the room for
the printer market; if this Lexmark move gets HP to respond with
lower-margin ink replacement pricing, the category will see a
sweeping phase change in how business is done. For the moment, it
will be interesting to watch whether buyers will pay a little
more for a printer (even with a new 5-year warranty thrown in) in
order to drop the cost per printed page.
Special Report Bonus Review: Delkin Fat Gecko Mini
Spiderman can cling to any ceiling or wall, but without his
powers, that's a hard trick for ordinary people who are trying to
shoot photos or videos. Delkin has had some twin suction cup rigs
in the past that pros began using for mounting their cameras on
car fenders, windshields, surf boards, boat hulls, helmets, etc.
Now there's a single suction cup model small enough to fit in
most camera bags but nimble & versatile enough to allow a ton of
orientation options. The Delkin Fat Gecko Mini has a swivel-up
arm attached to its press-to-seal suction cup base, an optional
extension for that arm & a ball joint at the top that terminates
in a standard tripod screw. They rate it for up to 40 pounds of
load; that's about 10 times what our heaviest cameras weight, so
all we'll say is that it does an excellent job of letting our
cameras cling to any variety of smooth surfaces. Bottom line: the
Delkin Fat Gecko Mini is a wall-clinging daredevil of a camera
mount that adds lots of new options for shooting video or
stills.
Special Report Bonus Review 2: General Tools 3-in-1 detector
We were hoping to find a little bit of general-purpose tech that
could fulfill a special protective role at Halloween & the
General Tools & Instruments MSV350D Digital 3-in-1 Stud, Voltage
& Metal Detector seems to be just that. While we're not going to
suggest that it's absolutely foolproof as a safety scanner for
the treats the kids bring home, it is very possible for one of
these handheld gizmos to detect metallic objects within candy
bars or fruit, for example; they may also be able to detect when
something non-metallic but dense has been introduced. In normal
usage, you would slide this device along a wall set for or metal
or Voltage or in an automatic scanning mode; if it detects any of
those, the display shows a curved line of bars rising from both
sides (eventually completing a semicircular pattern) as a piezo
beeper sounds off. The next time you need to mount something to a
stud or a joist & not drill through an electrical conduit, this
little tester is the next best thing to x-ray vision; that's not
a bad super power to have, either, when you're out to protect
your kids from the criminally minded villains whose pranks are
intended to make them bleed (or worse). Bottom line: we tested
the General Tools & Instruments MSV350D Digital 3-in-1 Stud,
Voltage & Metal Detector in all of its modes, confirmed that it
really works & recommend it for the special consideration of any
parent who's at all wary of things that are truly scary for
Halloween.
Special Report Bonus Review 3: Hawking USB sharing hub
If you're old enough to remember the first time you used
Traveling Software's Laplink to shuttle files between a pair of
PCs - in those days, connected with special cables in their
parallel or serial ports - this may seem like déjà vu. That's
also true for anybody who's used a Tornado. The newest
alternative is the Hawking Easy-Link USB Sharing Hub, at once
both a 3-port USB hub & a handy way to share files by connecting
a fourth USB port to a second PC. Easy-Suite software loads from
the hub & provides an on-screen dual display of the local (one
you're on) & remote (other one) systems; drag & drop between
those to move files. Putting this facility in a hub makes sense
for people who have to pipe files (especially large ones) between
a desktop & a notebook several times a week; for rare to
occasional needs, it's as good as but no better than other
alternatives. Bottom line: the Hawking Easy-Link USB Sharing Hub
offers a handy way for people with frequent machine-to-machine
file-swapping needs to get that task done as a bonus facility
from what is otherwise a handy little USB hub.
Special Report Bonus Review 4: First Alert Tundra
You may have seen one of those fire safety demos where they blow
the contents of a spray can across a flame & the aerosol does a
great impersonation of a rocket burn. That's what first came to
mind when we heard about a fire-fighting spray can. First Alert
Tundra claims to be quickly effective against grease, cooking
oil, fabric, paper, wood or electrical fires with 32 seconds of
discharge (versus 13 seconds for traditional large household
extinguishers, 8 seconds for small ones). Inside the can, there's
a new twist on some old tech (the bladder) that keeps the
flammable propellant from feeding the flame its fire fighting
fluids are fending off; the propellant compresses an internal
pouch of that fluid, so when you press the spray button, only the
fluid (not the propellant) exits the can. The nozzle in the spray
cap is designed for a widened spray pattern. We got some expert
help in testing this through the Russell Township (Ohio) fire
department; they report that it was effective from as far as 6-7'
away in quickly putting out an oil & gasoline fire. Some standard
fire extinguishers can be refilled, some can't & the Tundra is in
that latter category, but that seems a fair trade for a $20
sticker price. Bottom line: the First Alert Tundra is a
well-designed, smartly assembled alternative to standard fire
extinguishers with some notable advantages in performance &
price, field-proven effective & an item we heartily recommend for
every home or office.
Special Report Bonus Review 5: Honeywell Platinum Air purifier
The manufacturers call them air purifiers but we call them
destinkifiers because removing odors from the air is a wonderful
way to reduce workplace distractions. When we put out our call
for gadgets for winter, Honeywell responded with their
Enviracaire Platinum Air Model 16200 air purifier. This is a
desktop model, not much bigger than a Bose tabletop stereo. It
includes a washable foam first-stage filter to catch the biggest
stuff, a carbon-impregnated filter to reduce odors, a 99% HEPA
filter with an antimicrobial treatment & an ionization field to
create static cling among smaller airborne particles & help them
drop out of circulation. Topside, one switch controls the fan
speed (3 speeds or off) & another turns the ionizer on & off; you
can run the ionizer without the fans for silent operation with
much lower/slower airflow. This size & type of purifier can be
somewhat effective against allergens & some airborne germs but we
don't recommend depending on it to kill or reduce flu or other
viruses. That said, with the doors & windows shut &
weather-stripped to seal out the cold, indoor air can become
stale, so a small desktop purifier like this can be help make
smaller spaces like bedrooms, dens or work areas a little easier
& breezier during frightful clime times. Bottom line: the
Honeywell Enviracaire Platinum Air Model 16200 air purifier
offers a reasonable tabletop antidote for the stale air of winter
as well as the occasional bad odors that can distract us at any
time of year.
More "Fake COMDEX" replies
Ted Needleman misses the chili cook-off, Silicon Northwest, Lunch
at Piero's & concerts with Ray Charles, Chicago, BTO & the
Fabulous Thunderbirds. David Batterson would like to see
everybody's "Fake COMDEX" (a reporting focus on computer news the
week of 11/16) include a Shelly Adelson narrative memoir to
chronicle its serendipitously opportune sale to Softbank.
Disclosure: Marty is a candidate
While it's not an area of coverage that's ever likely to involve
any of our readers, we'd be remiss not to disclose that Marty is
a candidate for the Russell Township (Ohio) Board of Trustees.
Russell Township ("Novelty" is the name of the post office/Zip
code here) is on the western edge of Geauga County, which is the
county just east of Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland is. These
are maple sugar hills (more foothills than anything else) in an
originally rural area where one of the most pressing current
concerns is whether to allow only a single trash hauler in order
to reduce wear & tear on the roads. If there's anything
noteworthy about Marty's campaign it may be that he has pledged
to have a paperless campaign during September & not to post any
political signs except in his own yard. Being Trustee doesn't pay
enough to make this a retirement move; you & Marty will both have
to wait for the Mega Millions to get the numbers right before
that can happen. Contact: Martin Winston, Newstips (Novelty, OH)
440-338-8400; marty@Newstips.com http://Newstips.com
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Newstips Bulletin [Novelty, OH] +1.440.338.8400 http://Newstips.com
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