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Newstips Electronic Editorial Bulletin Issue # 2008-04e
More news, if we May
SAMSON INTROS USB BOUNDARY MIKE
The new Samson UB1 (street $149) is the first USB boundary
condenser mike we've seen. A boundary mike lies flat on a surface
(usually a conference table but often a stage) to pick up natural
sound, very much the way our ears would hear it, absent the
reverberant echoes of most mikes, regardless their placement. If
you ever wanted to use your notebook to record what goes on
around a conference table, this one-piece solution is a small,
flat disc with a 10' cord & an easy fit to your notebook bag.
Since this is a USB mike, just plug & play on any PC or Mac; it
works with most audio recording software & comes with a Cakewalk
Sonar LE bundle. The digitized audio is 16-bit (at 44.1-48 KHz).
Ask Mark to get you info or one to review. Contact: Mark Wilder,
SAMSON TECHNOLOGIES (Hauppauge, NY) 631-784-2200x142
mailto:mwilder@samsontech.com http://SamsonTech.com
TEKKEON GIZMO KEEPS GEAR RUNNING HOURS TO DAYS LONGER
If you have a Zune with a week's worth of tunes on it, Tekkeon
has a 4.5 ounce gizmo that can keep it running even longer than
that, or add 17 hours of cell phone talk time, or 12 hours with a
smart phone, or 6 hours of a PDA Burning on all cylinders. The
candy-bar size MP1800 TekCharge Reusable Emergency Power Source
(online $45) delivers 14.8 Watt-hours per charge through a
standard USB port; actually, the USB standard is 5V at 500mA &
Tekkeon goes 60% beyond that supplying up to 800mA so there isn't
much it can't both run & charge. A color coded LED shows its
charge status; it even has a white LED flashlight at one end. You
charge it through a mini 5-pin USB connection & you can
daisy-chain, charging your gear from it at the same time as
you're also charging its built-in LiIon battery, which is a neat
solution for that not-enough-connections dilemma. Does this
belong in your coverage, or aren't the days getting longer where
you are? It's available for review right now; ring René. Contact:
René Williams, TEKKEON, INC. (Tustin, CA) 949-360-7770
mailto:rene@tekkeon.com http://Tekkeon.com
NEW ZBOOST FOR CARS COVERS BOTH BANDS
With the price of gas boosting the popularity of car pooling,
your fellow poolers will be glad to know that the zBoost car unit
($300) you put in the car is dual band (PCS & CEL, covering
everybody who isn't on Nextel). Those former dead zones get
patched faster than a chuck-hole on the mayor's street & more
bars will mean better bandwidth for cell phone data deeds, from
e-mail to text messages to mobile browsing. With more bars,
phones automatically reduce their transmit power, so there's also
a boost to battery life. Of course, you'll want the other guys to
put one in each of their cars, too, or your gift to their gab
will make you the favorite to pay for the gas. Check it out with
a review; ask Sharon or Deanna to set you up. 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
DROPLET CODEC HELPS DRIVE PEERME
If you socialize on http://PeerMe.com you may have been impressed
by their ability to let you talk & see up to 4 friends anywhere
in the world with their special videoconferencing feature; the
Droplet codec is at its heart. The notebook/desktop/Web codec is
a "kissing cousin" of their cell phone codecs being developed to
let any handset with a camera & a data plan send live video to a
newsroom, insurance claims office, etc. Even PeerMe has a second
side: families can sign up, keep an eye on latchkey kids from the
office, have video chats with kids away at camp or college &
more. For more info on this relationship, jingle John. Contact:
John Ralston, DROPLET TECHNOLOGY (Menlo Park, CA) 650-688-5762
mailto:ralston@droplet-tech.com http://droplet-tech.com Agency
contact: Evan Kennedy (Terpin) 310-821-6100x116 evan@terpin.com
DUE DATES FOR SCHIZOID LITEPANELS
NAB attendees saw a working prototype of a new design for
Litepanels 1x1 (called that because they're a foot square)
arrayed-LED lighting. While current 1x1 products are focused for
spot or for flood coverage, either at daylight or at tungsten
color temperatures, these new designs are schizoid. Litepanels
showed off designs able to switch from spot to flood & to change
their color temperature. The spot/flood switching means hanging
fewer lights; the color temperature switching means no delays for
mounting gels; remember, Litepanels studio lights have IP
addresses & can be centrally controlled over a local network. The
eager film & video production companies will be able to see
samples by the end of the summer & buy these by the end of the
year; count on them costing a bit more than the current 1x1
arrays ($2000 each). It's also significant to consider that in
film, reducing the wait for lighting resets can significantly
reduce the costs of paying all those people who have to wait
around for them; in TV, you're looking at lights that reduce
electrical consumption by over 90%, reduce studio HVAC costs
through significantly less heat load & can run for more than a
decade without lamp replacements. Ask Ken. Contact: Ken Fisher,
LITEPANELS, INC. (North Hollywood CA) 818-332-3070
mailto:ken@litepanels.com http://LitePanels.com
POWER TRACK UPDATE
We're going to suspend our coverage of the unique Eubiq power
tracks here, at least for a while. We've wanted to help you set
up reviews of them, but with UL approval of the consumer products
not yet in hand & retail availability delayed until after that
happens, it just didn't seem fair to you or those people you
write for to get excited & have nowhere to buy them. Eubiq is
able to get clearances in many other countries, so we think it's
just a matter of time before they're here. In the meantime, we
invite you to keep an eye on them through the Web site & to keep
in touch with Kee for updates. Contact: NG Kee Haur, EUBIQ PTE
LTD (Singapore) +65-6372-9393x380 mailto:keeng@eubiq.com
http://eubiq.com
JVC ROUND-UP
JVC will be absent from these pages for a while, but before they
go, we wanted to share a bunch of highlights you may want to
note. The JVC Jazz Fest this year kicks off a contest to win a
trip to Paris for the sessions there; a new Web site mounts soon
with details on the players & performances everywhere. JVC Mobile
has the category's most advanced collection & some of the best
prices on in-dash receivers that can get HD Radio; they're worth
a listen. Both very fast (like the current 898 series, only
better) scan-doubled Clear Motion sets & very slender super-thin
LCD HDTV sets are coming. We told you about their many
hot-selling ear bud lines & their noise canceling headsets but
never got a chance to tell you about their stereo Bluetooth 2.0
headset. We never got to cover using HDMI live out to use
external recorders when shooting with new 3-chip HD Everio
models. So, without us, there's only one thing for you to do: get
chummy with Chelsea! Contact: Chelsea Vander Groef, JVC COMPANY
OF AMERICA (Wayne, NJ) 973-317-5000x5312
mailto:cvandergroef@jvc.com http://jvc.com
PC-SLOT MOGO MOUSE TO GAIN BRAIN, BRAWN OF X54 MODELS
This is our last item about the MoGo Mouse & we wanted to use it
to alert you to a shift we know you'll want to cover: the
advanced feature set of the X54 models will be coming to a new PC
slot model in the not-distant future. That means higher
resolution laser pointing, more buttons, useful second modes,
better battery life & more. Ask Jack to get you word when he can.
Contact: Jack Corrao, NEWTON PERIPHERALS (Natick, MA)
858-792-0944 mailto:jack.corrao@newtonperipherals.com
http://NewtonPeripherals.com
SPECIAL REPORT: WHY CELL CARRIERS CARE ABOUT GPS
We know that some cell phone handset navigators can work without
GPS because they get their location information from the tower.
That creates an ongoing demand on the tower, so such services
generally involve additional monthly service fees. So what if
there isn't any such demand, like when the GPS hardware is in the
handset or a companion Bluetooth device? The location data
updates may not take bandwidth but depending on the architecture
of the application, there may be an enormously greater demand (or
maybe not, as we'll soon explain). If a handset has fixed map
data already embedded in memory (which was always the case with
the early solutions) & a local source for GPS fixes, there's zero
demand on the cell carrier. If the phone has to request a new map
from the server with every GPS update, there's one heck of a lot
of demand on data bandwidth. The current generation of gear gets
all of its path data at the beginning of a trip, all at once;
that not only means less ongoing demand, it also makes the
handset navigator capable of continuing its work even if travel
takes it outside of coverage. There are still occasional updates
for additional related information like traffic, but those are
relatively smaller. The underlying features of these navigators
all come from a very limited number of sources, like Navteq &
Networks In Motion; as a result, advances in architecture tend to
happen at a fairly common pace for most end-user products. These
are the same sources, we should add, behind most dashboard
navigators; some of those are now using a SIM card on a separate
cell account for their updates (because it offers a few more
features, including bidirectionality, than the more typical FM
radio receiver for getting little more than traffic info), which
is fine with the carriers because the data demand is minimal &
this kind of account makes few other requirements. There are also
questions about who gets the money. On April 1 (always an
unfortunate release date), AT&T launched the AT&T Navigator,
authored by TeleNav on a Navteq platform & integrating features
from YellowPages.Com Mobile (also an AT&T product, available
separately for free). Internally, TeleNav treats this as a 5.5
release while the TeleNav 5.1 product remains available for
purchase. The handwriting on the wall is pretty clear, at least
for AT&T customers. This also demonstrates a successful
monetization shift that removes concerns about data bandwidth
consumption or other tower loading & replaces it with
roll-up-your-sleeves retail initiatives. So, on the bottom line,
is appears to us that the carriers care about GPS on two fronts,
migrating from initial concerns about costing them money to more
current concerns about making them money.
SPECIAL REPORT BONUS REVIEW: GARMIN MOBILE 5
When we first tried the Garmin navigator for BlackBerry, we
didn't like it & told them so; it's a good thing we did. The
version was nearing its end of life; they are about to release
(July) a very much improved version for the Pearl. There was a
very brief hiccup when they sent us a version that refused to
recognize any Bluetooth GPS receiver other than their own, but
that got corrected after one more download. Finally, we got our
hands on a prerelease copy of Garmin Mobile 5 for BlackBerry. We
have to say, we're impressed. They based a lot of this release on
the extremely popular Garmin Nuvi dashboard navigator. The new
user interface is very much simplified with a "Where To?" option
for routing & a "View Map" option for Atlas-in-hand applications.
You can deal with saved locations, locations from your Contacts
list, airports, cities, intersections or address or look up
locations on Google local search, all from within its menus. A
submenu lets you find restaurants by menu type, lodgings
(including Hotels.Com price lookups), fuel (optionally with
current prices), banks & ATMs, etc. - more than a dozen choices
in all. You can also look up traffic & weather; during travel,
construction, traffic incidents & other factors show up on the
display as road-sign-like yellow diamonds with exclamation points
within (you can also see a list of these, but we don't recommend
reading that while driving). When navigating, the spoken
instructions are clear & the map is minimalist, showing streets &
intersections but naming only those involved in your routing. It
shows the next turn as an arrow, indicates how far before you're
there & on the bottom of the screen, estimates both your current
speed & your estimated time of arrival. You can configure your
display for either daytime or nighttime driving or choose "auto"
to make the change based on time of day & that date's daylight
hours. It offers route views in 3D (which we like for driving) or
in 2D with your choice of up representing either north or your
direction of travel. You can optimize routing for a motorized
vehicle (car or motorcycle), for a pedestrian or for a bicycle.
You can choose to route for faster travel time or a shorter
travel distance (which can save fuel). It offers you a selection
of 6 things you can elect to have it avoid in routing: traffic,
U-turns, unpaved roads, toll roads, ferries & car pool lanes. The
one promised feature that isn't yet working in our pre-release
copy (Garmin just confirmed that it will be working in the
release version) is Garmin Mobile Manager, which is supposed to
let you do your searches from a notebook or desktop browser &
sync them to the phone. We didn't immediately see anything like
the TeleNav 5.1 save-this-spot feature, which is very handy for
remembering where (outdoors) you parked the car; it's there,
accessible in a way we didn't expect & Garmin says they're
looking at making that more intuitive in the release version.
Another promised feature in the release version is a more
plain-language way to describe where you are (closest address,
closest intersection & other options), which can be handy, for
example, when you need to make a call for roadside assistance.
One major plus: if you want to add a stop at a point of interest
(like a restaurant, gas station or ATM), you can insert that into
your routing without having to redo your navigation from scratch.
Of interest to you: Garmin confirms that this (as is already true
for their hardware products) will be available through their
media discount program. Bottom line: this promises to be not only
one of the best BlackBerry navigators but also a more up-to-date
& nimble choice than most dashboard navigators - we like it a
lot.
SPECIAL REPORT BONUS REVIEW 2: LIVE SEARCH
It's a little sad to see the Microsoft offering in mobile access
to maps behind both Yahoo Go & Google Mobile Maps. Live Search on
the BlackBerry can absolutely find you a map & display it in any
of several modes & look up points of interest. It can also give
you turn-by-turn instructions from any one point to any other.
It's probably a bad idea for the driver to be the one to follow
them, since it's all on-screen with no voice prompts. Its 2 GPS
modes are BlackBerry GPS (as built into them) or disabled with no
option for Bluetooth GPS. It doesn't do the trick in Google
Mobile Maps of determining your location from the tower's
location. It doesn't let you save places you find. It doesn't
synch with the desktop-browser-accessible Web site for locations
you find with it. It can show traffic (but only for about 2 dozen
metro areas) & on its maps, it can display symbols for known
road-work locations. It can look up movies & show times for
theaters in an area. It's not useless, not featureless, just not
quite up to the snuff of other free offerings from their online
competitors. Bottom line: Live Search is an interesting, often
useful way to bring maps, routing & location-related information
to a BlackBerry screen that we hope will find a rapid path to
improvement.
SPECIAL REPORT BONUS REVIEW 3: YELLOWPAGES
Take away the knowing-where-you-are part of good navigation
software & you still have plenty of
knowing-where-something-else-is features, which are the core of
YellowPages.Com Mobile on the BlackBerry, waiting behind its
iconic walking-fingers icon. The metaphor is as rooted as ever in
your ability to find a specific company within a category, but
with alternatives, like searching for a business name or category
near a location. On paper, you can dog-ear pages & circle
favorites; on the phone you can just save them, plus on the
phone, you can see your recent searches again without starting
from scratch. It also remembers (like an online form-filler)
previous entries & suggests ways to auto-complete any blank
you're filling in. There's more. When you find an entry you like,
you can click to call it, see it on a map or get directions to it
or from it. You get to pick among the fastest, shortest or
simplest route for a pedestrian, a bicycle, a car or motorcycle
or a truck (a sensible choice & one we haven't seen before) &
optionally avoid any combination of highways, toll roads or HOV
lanes. When you need to make multiple stops, you can use any one
destination as the center for localized searches of others. The
turn-by-turn directions are nicely thought-out, with just one leg
per screen, scroll the Pearl's pearl right for the next & click
any time for a map. Like all the POI & Mapping products we've
seen, this is going to use some minutes from your data plan
(though we acknowledge that most BlackBerry owners have unlimited
data plans). The price is perfect; to download it for free, look
under the "More Tools" tab at http://yellowpages.com or go to
http://m.yellowpages.com on the phone's browser. The only thing
we're not quite able to look up is how they're monetizing this;
it may be a brand preference play for the online site, where they
sell ads, or a field test for something they intend to charge for
later, or as a product of AT&T, maybe mostly a way to encourage
additional phone usage; those are only guesses & we'll ask, but
ultimately, we're enjoying its usefulness for free more than we
care about the answer. Bottom line: true to its heritage, this
latest incarnation of the venerable Yellow Pages makes it
considerably convenient to find what you're looking for & get you
in touch with it.
SPECIAL REPORT BONUS REVIEW 4: INFOSPACE FIND IT
Once again, a known brand in the points-of-interest online search
turf is finding a way to make that available through a
BlackBerry; in this case, InfoSpace Find It is going beyond the
usual skill set. When you find that place you were looking for,
you can click to call it, to map it, to get turn-by-turn
directions (on-screen and/or spoken in a male or female voice) or
save it to the address book in the BlackBerry. (We're surprised
the others haven't thought of that one). Some of the spoken info
shows off an underlying syntax weakness; for example, we live
near state route 306, named Chillicothe road; we say three-oh-six
& it says "three hundred & six" & it pronounces the road name as
"chill a coat" (should be "chill-lick-kawth-ee"). The search
starts at the top of the screen where you can fill in the blank
for "near" (your starting point nexus for searches). Its main
menu offers 3 avenues to info: search by name (person or business
or reverse lookup) or by category (6 main choices: dine out, go
out, shop, travel, health & services; each has multiple
subcategories to help you get to a more focused list) or get maps
& directions. Once you find a location, you can use it as the
nexus for a "What's nearby" search to help you get to the things
you need without burning more gas or more of the clock. Deep in
the searches some surprising little treats, like starting with
the names of movies now playing to get to theaters & from there
to show times (for today & a few future dates) plus what else is
playing there. Curiously, it will find you gas stations but does
not offer gas price data. Many of you will welcome its frequently
updated info about available WiFi hotspots. But don't get hooked.
The bad news is that Find It is soon to be unsupported &
discontinued. The good news is that YellowPages.Com Mobile, Live
Search & POI features within several of the map & navigator
products all do a good job of covering this same turf. Bottom
line: An interesting start that we're sorry to see ending.
SPECIAL REPORT BONUS REVIEW 5: WORLDMATE ON BB
WorldMate offers itself as an all-in-one, one-for-all service for
travelers. There's a Web site that keeps itinerary information &
"connections" (people you want to tell about your travel plans).
It's supposed to be able to import itineraries you e-mail it from
an Outlook add-in, but that reported "Itinerary provider is not
supported" when we tried the trick with an itinerary from
Continental Airlines. As for the free BlackBerry application,
it's pretty enough but not useful enough. Like "greed-ware" of
old, 4 of the 9 buttons on its main screen are there to sell you
on doing a $100 upgrade & a fifth is about inviting a friend to
try. The first of the other selections is My Itineraries, which
syncs on a schedule you set with whatever's currently under your
login at the Web site. A Clocks page shows you a main analog
clock face for where you are (per your entry of that info), an
icon for the weather there & smaller clocks for 4 other places.
The Weather page has that location's 5-day forecast but almost no
detail (high, low & 1-2 words of description). The Currency
Converter works with any 3 currencies (enter any one & see the
other two). The World Map shows your city as a red cross-hair on
one of those flat maps that shows the light/dark zones as a
Kilroy's nose shape, names the city, shows an analog clock plus
the local time/date in text & displays that little local weather
icon again. The items you don't get without paying that extra
$100: flight schedules (not a big deal with WAP sites through the
BB browser), flight status (ditto, not to mention the alerts the
airlines themselves will send) & a Travel Directory (we've
reviewed a lot of free brand-name alternatives for that). Within
hours of first installing this, we removed it from the desktop &
the BlackBerry & ourselves from its list of users. Bottom line:
this is a product combination that makes a lot of promises for
helping travelers deal with both the expected & the unexpected on
their trips & we are optimistic that they can't help but improve
their delivery of that.
WE'RE GOING TO TRY DECAPITATION
We're getting bounced by too many junk mail filters for too many
of the wrong reasons, but in the past, we've found them pretty
pig-headed about their convoluted rationales & there are some
battles we may just have to surrender. One of those involves our
all-caps headlines, which get us dinged for shouting. Starting
next issue, we're going to try lower-case headlines. We don't
anticipate any of our readers having a problem with that, but if
you do, please tell us about it pronto. Meanwhile, it can help if
you can put circulation@newstips.com & marty@newstips.com on your
mail program's & mail server's "not junk" or "safe sender" white
lists. Contact: Martin Winston, NEWSTIPS (Novelty, OH)
440-338-8400; mailto: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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