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Newstips Electronic Editorial Bulletin Issue # 2009-10c
News just a little past 7
Intel at retail - riding the Windows 7 wave
For a lot of users, upgrading to Windows 7 will require a clean
install, so we know many of them will be coming to the stores
with Intel Inside to buy new hard drives & we fully expect some
of them will be interested in off-the-shelf Intel alternatives
for pepping up their PCs. For many, a same-socket CPU upgrade is
an easy performance booster. For some, it's a great opportunity
to populate that PC with a warp-fast Intel SSD. For the most
obsessed (we probably should say devoted) of them, it's a perfect
chance to build from scratch with the hot new Intel CPU offerings
on an Intel motherboard. Yeah, it's all at a store near you - ask
Todd. Contact: Todd Garrigues, Intel Americas Inc. (Santa Clara,
CA) 301-497-8997 todd.c.garrigues@intel.com http://Intel.com
Liberty does 7, preps 2, pops in 12
We have 3 pieces of news about Bayalink Liberty ($100), the cool
combo of USB key & BlackBerry application that makes a hybrid of
the handset's ability to communicate & run apps plus the PC's
ability to offer a much bigger screen & keyboard. Here's the
1-2-3: Field testing has confirmed real-world Windows 7
compatibility, a faster new version 2 is just ahead & a huge new
upgrade will hit some time in December (or maybe earlier, just
after Thanksgiving). If you have a BlackBerry, ask Mark to let
you review Liberty now (it's a little thing with an arsenal of
story angles); if you need a BlackBerry to do the review, ask
Marty if he can help. Contact: Mark Andress, Bayalink Solutions
Corp. (Waterloo, ON) 416-399-4969 mark@bayalink.com
http://Bayalink.com
Bethesda Games for Windows titles good to go on 7
Fallout 3 - monstrously popular for some time now & now out in
its Game of the Year Edition ($50 for Games for Windows, $60 for
Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3) - won't interrupt anybody's fun just
because of an upgrade to Windows 7. If you've never played it,
use Windows 7 as your excuse to ask Tracey to send you a copy
now; if you have played it, ask for a retail boxed copy so you
can explain why the 5 included add-on content packs are going to
keep F3 at the top of a lot of Holiday shopping lists. Contact:
Tracey Thompson, Bethesda Softworks (Rockville, MD) 301-354-4216
tthompson@bethsoft.com http://BethSoft.com
Spanish-English not clannish, more tinglish
Trust Franklin to kick things up a notch with their new BES2150
handheld Speaking Merriam-Webster's Spanish-English Dictionary
($130). It's more than that. It also builds in a thesaurus &
Merriam-Webster's Advanced Learner's Dictionary. It uses recorded
voices speaking words & whole phrases, even popular idioms in
both languages. It offers example sentences & demonstrates
advanced verb conjugations. It's hard to imagine a better second
language learning tool you could hold in one hand. Whether you're
writing about gadgets or learning or the home & workplace
challenges of multiple languages, ask Aline to get you one to
review. Contact: Aline Boutin, Franklin Electronic Publishers
(Burlington, NJ) 609-386-2500x4434 aline_boutin@franklin.com
http://franklin.com
Shooting for the holidays
We're getting into the peak purchasing season for camcorders,
point & shoot consumer cameras & prosumer DSLRs (a huge chunk of
which get bought at Christmas using the remains of annual company
budgets). This year, with the economy still recovering, new
camera buys may be put off a year, but something will get into
the gift wrap; for a lot of lenserati, some of it may come from
Tiffen. The guy who got a high-end camcorder last year may get an
affordable little Steadicam for it this year. Last year's new
DSLR may get this year's new Domke bag or Tiffen filter or Davis
& Sanford tripod or Lowel EGO light. Even the point & shoot crowd
can play away with Dfx Essentials software on the PC or Mac, plus
those cheeseburger-priced stocking stuffers for the iPhone or
iPod Touch, Photo fx & Cool fx. Give Hilary a ho-ho-ho & see
where you can get your coverage to go. Contact: Hilary Araujo,
Tiffen Company (Hauppauge, NY) 631-273-2500x1216
haraujo@tiffen.com http:/.tiffen.com
Special Report: 7's up
Right now, everybody's attention will be on Windows 7 itself, so
we'll mask that off & instead turn our attention on its umbra &
its wake, looking at what happens to everything else when Windows
7 hits. One element that won't affect most users is the spate of
ad spending (including Mac ads) that's likely to help our own
industry. The upgrade path for W7 is a little different, too; if
you're not coming from a parallel installation of Vista (which
may allow you to do an in-place upgrade), you have to first back
everything up, then do a clean install, then restore everything.
One result of that will be a huge up-tick in external hard disk
sales. It may also drive additional sales of internal hard drives
(because these same steps can accomplish that, because most users
can use the extra elbow room & because drives are very affordable
these days). The W7 upgrade compatibility advisor will find tons
of peripherals that simply can't become compatible (though not
nearly as many as can become compatible with a driver upgrade),
which may result in either additional purchases or in changes to
the way people approach their work on a PC. Many applications &
utilities will also need upgrades, replacements or abandonment.
On the dark side, a lot of smaller vendors will try to scare
users into believing that their products are absolutely necessary
for a successful upgrade; most of these will prove to be
absolutely redundant or superfluous. Among the bigger players,
look for a lot of cheerleading of new models that take specific
advantage of W7 features (e.g., tablet PCs), leading to a lot of
temporary user puppy love & the confusion that always surrounds
that. One more note that, if it comes true, may set some notable
records: Keep an eye on the blogosphere from October 23 to
November 2. The partisan churning of PC versus Mac & W7 versus
Vista versus XP - plus, so we don't forget, an impassioned
election-related issue or two - we may see a big spike in traffic
over that 4-day "weekend".
Special Report Bonus Review: Fotobox Plus
This started with our "Fake Comdex" (week of 11/16) editorial
call for new computer gear & ended up giving us a show. We've all
seen how the practice of dealing with photos as prints on paper
is steadily declining. We've seen a ton of little displays with
memory categorized as digital picture frames, but those products
never quite compelled enough buyers to burst into ubiquity.
Surprising numbers of photos are only ever viewed on the
quarter-Megapixel camera-back LCD or the even smaller display on
a handset. A lot of photo viewing is online, more on the social
media pages than on the ventures that thought they would be the
next photo-sharing magnets. Tons of it happens over e-mail. Throw
all that in a box, shake it up & what used to be "check this
album" is fast turning into "check these snapshots". Honestech
probably wasn't launching any crusades when it came up with
Fotobox, but there was something about the premise of it that
intrigued us, so we got one in for review. The device is an
oversize USB dongle (the kind that has a swivel cover) with an SD
slot in one end & some software embedded. Plug it in with a card
that has pictures on it & a Window launches with both simple &
advanced choices. You can include all the images on the card or
you can be selective. You can choose one of its themes (in this
case, a theme is a combination of background music & transitions)
or cobble together your own. Push the play button & you see a
presentation reminiscent of TV or movie theme & close segments,
with slow pans of images, various transitions, treatments (like
grey scale or watercolor looks) of the photos & other nice stuff.
We had a card on hand from a recent camera test with absolute
junk snapshots like the avalanche of paper on the desk, a video
display, a macro close-up of a business card, Marty's ugly puss
at arm's length, etc.). When it played out, even though we knew
full well what was in the photos, we got drawn in, turning on
those sections of the brain that look for drama & symbolism in
moving imagery. With less junky content, we might have wanted to
share the results & this has lots of options for doing that to
optical disk, YouTube, PSP, iPod or various video formats
(including HDTV). Bottom line: initially not much more
complicated to work than a vending machine but ultimately
offering a quality of product that could serve professional
productions well, the Honestech Fotobox Plus does a great job of
making a compelling show you can share out of snapshots you
already have.
Special Report Bonus Review 2: Brookstone Twist Light
Back in the 60s, most of the Top-10 Twist records lasted 2-3
minutes. With the new Brookstone Twist Light, 10 twists can keep
it illuminated about that long, or twist for up to 30 seconds to
get 5 minutes of light. We got this in with our gadgeting up for
winter focus in mind, but maybe that's because we live in a place
where the power is less than dependable. Most people will never
open it up because there are no batteries to replace & its 3
white LEDs will outlive most of us, but we're not most people.
The butt of the base of its handheld flashlight case houses the
generator. An inner plastic cylinder connects that to a small
circuit board with what we assume to be a capacitor, about a
third the size of a single section on a full-size Tootsie Roll.
The push-push power switch isn't exposed in use, but gets its
pushes from a stiff finger inside the rubbery sealed switch dome
on the outside of the case. The triangle of white LEDs poke
through a reflective disk & a clever lens trio creates
essentially a single beam of light. It's pretty clever. It's
nicely sized for a glove box light & won't become a container of
battery soup like many of the flashlights we've had over the
years often managed to become. Here in the blizzard belt, it's
also a very handy thing to keep in the drawer of the night stand
when it can be the only cure for darkness during an outage.
Bottom line: the Brookstone Twist Light is a clever & useful way
to have light when you need it without any worries about
batteries or bulbs.
Election confections
In a week or so, we all get a respite from the spitballs &
posturing of these elections, but while we may regret the
vituperative & divisive nastiness of them, it's energizing to
recognize the beating heart of representative democracy at work.
It's also a relief to see the campaign spending easing some of
the pain in the media with a nicely scheduled overlap of spending
on holiday ads. November & December are a time for lame ducks &
honeymoons in politics, but it's also a time when editorial
coverage of other subjects opens up again. Take a deep breath,
roll up your sleeves & ask Marty in on your brainstorming.
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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