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Newstips Electronic Editorial Bulletin Issue # 2008-06c
Juneteenth week news
Accessory plugs myPower ALL Plus into the sun
We told you about the Tekkeon MP3450 myPowerALL Plus (online
$130) universal notebook & accessory runtime extender with 50
Watt-hours of power can add up to 3.5 hours of runtime to a
notebook. Now you can plug it into the sun to charge it with the
amazing little PA-SCC1 smart solar charging adapter ($12) that
connects between it & any solar cell (with standard 5.5x2.1mm
solar panel connector) that can deliver at least 15 Volts at any
current level. Contact: René Williams, TEKKEON, INC. (Tustin, CA)
949-360-7770 mailto:rene@tekkeon.com http://Tekkeon.com
Searching with BlackBerry: choices via voice thanks to ISVs
One of the coolest things about doing Web or online directory or
information searches with a BlackBerry is that you don't have to
type a thing when using any of several third-party search
applications that let you talk to them. They go beyond just
getting you the info; they let you click to call, to find things
on a map, to get you to that point of the map, to share what you
find with friends & more. The free Yahoo! oneSearch with voice
(reviewers: Cory Pforzheimer mailto:coryp@yahoo-inc.com
408-349-2686) does wide open searches across pretty much all
categories, from Web sites to airline flights to games tonight;
the more you use it, the more it adapts to your voice for ever
improving results. You can ask TellMe (reviewers: Marci Pedrazzi
mailto:marci@tellme.com 650-930-9060) to get you news, weather,
sports, stocks, travel, movies, coffee, businesses, traffic &
more, plus maps & GPS directions; it's free, too. Live Search
(reviewers: Erika Bitzer mailto:erikab@waggeneredstrom.com
503-443-7000) is free & offers a voice input option for finding
info from the Web, news, weather, images, traffic, businesses,
movie show times & for getting maps & turn-by-turn driving
directions (it's GPS-aware). If you need a BlackBerry to talk to,
ask Victoria. Contact: Victoria Berry, RESEARCH IN MOTION
(Waterloo, ON) 519-888-7465x73663 mailto:vberry@rim.com
http://rim.com
Dimes can add up to a cool story
In our neck of the woods, electricity costs 10-11 cents per KWH.
The Florida TV station that switched to Litepanels & dropped from
52KW to 3KW may, if they're at the same rate, save themselves
about $5/hour in powering the lights in that studio (about
$40/day if they turn the lights off when the studio isn't doing
news programs). That's only about $15,000/year. Their bigger
savings is in the HVAC not having to compensate for all the heat
the old lights produced. You may never plug a Litepanels Micro
($300) into a wall, but you can enjoy some substantial savings in
battery life (compared to tungsten lights) & in dealing with the
heat (as in not burning yourself). Even if you couldn't care less
about video or cameras or precisely matched color temperatures,
there's a new & significant implementation of tech here that Ken
would be delighted to have you cover. Contact: Ken Fisher,
LITEPANELS, INC. (North Hollywood CA) 818-332-3070
mailto:ken@litepanels.com http://LitePanels.com
USB mikes can be tools to help kids learn grammar rules
For at least half a century now, anybody who ever left a kid
alone with a mike & a tape recorder (once the boys are done doing
those war scene sound effects), knows how much they love to play
broadcaster. When they record that then listen to their ad lib
presentation, they almost always want to do it again so they can
sound a little more like the real thing. We often underestimate
our kids' ears; this playful drill & practice almost inevitably
leads to complete sentences, better grammar & improving language
skills. Since the kids have computers, one of the coolest ways to
get this to happen is with a Samson USB mike; they look & feel
professional-grade because they are, but they're not priced like
it. Ask Mark. Contact: Mark Wilder, SAMSON TECHNOLOGIES
(Hauppauge, NY) 631-784-2200x142 mailto:mwilder@samsontech.com
http://SamsonTech.com
Wi-Ex car unit wholly hole-free
While you could permanently install a Wi-Ex cell booster into a
car with hidden wiring & all, most folks skip that. They'll stick
the amplifier under a seat, within its cord's reach of a lighter
plug, stick the discreet little magnet-mount antenna onto the
roof & run the thin antenna wiring through the door or window's
weather stripping to the amplifier, then stick the tiny
in-cockpit patch antenna onto convenient, like the center console
or the side of a seat or the dashboard. That's all it takes. When
you want to check this out for yourself (both the installation
without holes & your improved coverage without as many holes),
just call. 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 2-way video not like picture phones
When we talk about Droplet enabling 2-way video on a cell phone,
we don't want to confuse you into thinking in terms of those old
Bell Picture Phone demos at World's Fair pavilions of yesteryear.
The idea there was that speakers could see each other's faces as
they talked; with a cell phone, of course, the camera is on one
side & the display on the other. Aiming is by dead reckoning
because when you're looking at what the other party is sending,
you can't see what you're sending & vice versa. 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
Special Report: Next-gen cell challenges
New York City, the states of California, Oregon & Washington & a
variety of other locales are banning the practice of holding your
cell phone up to your ear. Some ban any pedestrian use of a cell
phone in motion in response to injuries that result from that
practice. The general interpretations of requiring only
hands-free driver use of a phone come down to a wired or
Bluetooth headset or a Bluetooth or wired "car kit" speakerphone
of one sort or another. For a cell phone that's just a phone,
these can be acceptable solutions, though car kits with LCD
displays can be nearly as distracting as a phone display (still,
they put both hands on the wheel for more time than holding a
handset). For many people, the choice comes down to using a
headset if they need privacy or a car kit if they don't; the
audio quality on either floats with price. For many users, the
cell phone, of course, is also about playing music, navigating &
other tasks a driver may want to run. Some of the car kits
hard-wire into the car sound system, some cars incorporate
Bluetooth in their sound systems, some car kits retransmit stereo
audio through the car radio, some car kits have their own stereo
speakers & some have just one speaker & recombine the stereo
handset audio into monaural. Similarly, some headsets (wired or
Bluetooth) degrade stereo to mono while others are stereo. The
aftermarket offers a variety of clever mounts so a handset screen
can stay visible without being in the driver's hands, from thinks
that attach to the dash to clips that go on the vent & more;
Marty uses his holster clip to stick his BlackBerry in a
dashboard cup holder. While it seems like there are plenty of
available options to keep these new hands-free regulations from
becoming too much of a hassle, most of these options neglect
their non-solo role when it comes to power. Car kits that don't
get hard-wired, for example, or run solely on batteries (none of
which, we all know, lives forever) want to occupy a lighter plug
& many car models offer just one of those. So when you plug in
your car kit, you can't use the car to power your phone; if you
skip the car kit & plug in your phone, you can't charge your
Bluetooth headset. There are a few products that split a single
lighter plug into 2 or 3 sockets & there are a few car charging
adapters that provide a pair of USB-A connections, so the task
isn't hopeless, but it is somewhat mindless of the plug-in car
kits not to include a pass-along connection for the phone. That
becomes even more critical for the next-generation phone models
with their even higher drain on their batteries. Some of these
challenges are the nature of the beast; some of them are the
unnecessary result of designers not stopping to think of the
real-world space within which they must cooperatively function.
Special Report Bonus Review: Mass Effect
Mass Effect is a PC role-playing game that twists the genre to be
as much third-person as first-person shooter in a richly deep
plot line immersed in a graphical environment rendered in
stunningly rich detail. This isn't for kids, even those steeped
in violence, unless you want to explain to them about the
characters in the game indulging in sexual activities. Some of
the depth & breadth is at the expense of tedium, as when managing
the armament, armor & implants of all the members of your squad
or when enduring lengthy back-story dialogue. Overall, the
graphics, game play, direction & wit of the game make those
chores tolerable. Bottom line: a fun run that maintains good play
value for way too many hours.
Special Report Bonus Review 2: Com-One BT2 Stereo Speaker
While the Com-One Bluetooth Stereo Speaker was not designed to be
a car kit, those new hands-free laws in the West Coast states may
see it pressed into that service & it wouldn't be a terrible
choice. It is a bit bigger than most car kits, much to the
benefit of the sound that issues from its stereo pair of 2.5"
speakers. It isn't designed to be powered from the car, though
its built-in rechargeable lithium battery is good for 5 hours of
listening or 48 hours of standby per charge. It isn't designed to
mount on the dash, though it straps readily or a visor & two
strong magnets on the back hold it tightly to many appropriate
surfaces. It does have an embedded microphone plus rear-panel
external mike & line input jacks. The support is there for
Bluetooth 1.2 class 2 (33' range) including A2DP, AVRCP,
hands-free & headset profiles. Front controls include volume +/-,
shuttle play/pause, backward, forward & phone pick-up/hang-up.
Indoors, it's a nice way to enjoy a handset's media player (or
another media player) & works fine as a Bluetooth speakerphone;
that's also true on the patio. It's also a fine alternative to a
standard car kit for bigger vehicles with a lot of visible metal,
like some trucks or vans. Bottom line: it's a competent,
well-performing Bluetooth stereo adjunct for many devices that is
very likely to see use in places it wasn't exactly designed to
go.
Special Report Bonus Review 3: Beiks dictionary & thesaurus
Most of the Blackberry language helpers we've seen have been
server-based, but the new version 5 Beiks English Dictionary &
Thesaurus Bundle for BlackBerry can store its info in the
handset's SD card (using about 5MB) for much faster access. When
we drafted a review that complained about its 34,000-word
dictionary being OK but missing some advanced vocabulary terms
like "peloria" they (to their credit) immediately upgraded the
bundle to include their much more complete 77,000-word lexicon.
The thesaurus covers the basics but, for example, offers nothing
useful when you display its entries for "oxymoron". The user
interface is a little awkward for using during text prep (but
that activity generally happens on a platform with better
dictionaries built in); they have a separate spelling checker
product for that, but then, BlackBerry comes with one. We see the
usefulness of their dictionary & thesaurus bundle being akin to a
pocket dictionary; when in your readings you come across an
unfamiliar term, you can get familiar with it here. Bottom line:
for a very reasonable price, with a minimal storage footprint &
with nothing new to carry, these are a handy answer to your
lexicographic needs even when your handset can't connect to
anything.
Special Report Bonus Review 4: Privus Caller ID
This is as much a warning as a review. Privus Mobile's
aggressively priced $83.40/year Caller ID software & service for
BlackBerry is a terrible solution in many ways. First, its name
is misleading; you expect a Caller ID product to help you decide
whether or not to answer a call; BlackBerry handsets already
display whatever Caller ID info the carrier is sending; beyond
that, if it's a number on the BlackBerry contacts list, it's able
to display a name, the type of number (like work or home or
mobile), a picture of the caller & play any specified custom ring
tone. The Privus product doesn't do any of that. Its action
begins after the call ends when it sends the info you've already
seen to a remote server that does a reverse lookup (we all know
how iffy a proposition that can be) & eventually displays what it
found on the handset, where it's big claim to usefulness
apparently centers on making it a smidge easier to enter that
info into your contacts list. Between its cut & paste & free
applications that can do reverse lookups, we're not in love with
the idea of cluttering a BlackBerry with what we believe to be a
slow, clumsy & overpriced application. Did we mention that
registering involves agreeing to abandon some personal privacy
rights? Bottom line: in our opinion, Privus Mobile Caller ID for
BlackBerry is not all that useful, at least somewhat misleading,
not appropriately priced, not a good value & probably not that
good an idea to begin with.
Special Report Bonus Review 5: BoxWave car mount
When we first started testing navigation software on BlackBerry
handsets, we took advantage of the mid-dash cup holder in the
Subaru Outback & clipped the handset to its rim ring, keeping it
in plain view & its charger cord out of the way. We were looking
for a zero-installation alternative for that & asked BoxWave to
send their versatile car dock. The cradle offers a solid back,
bottom L-brackets & big, cushioned sides that slide from almost
hard-drive wide to skinny cell phone narrow; a side button
slowly, gently releases it. The cradle mounts to either of two
bases (both in the kit): one clips onto ventilation vent louvers
& the other uses a big suction cup (with a lever-jack) to mount
to the windshield. We were successful with several variations,
from high left above the steering wheel to low, front & center,
where the only view it obscures is of the hood & there's less
dangle in getting power from the lighter, almost directly below.
Bottom line: we gained a handy way to mount whatever phone the
driver has along & opened up a cup-holder for, of all things, a
cup.
Disconnections
With the cash-strapped airlines mothballing aircraft & cutting
direct flights, we're all going to be dealing with a new era of
considerations when trying to work out our total cost of travel.
Going from coast to coast by air now takes about 8 hours (an hour
of travel time to the airport, 2 hours of security wait, 4 hours
in the air & another hour by the time you get to both your
luggage & your ride) & $800 each way; by September, if you can't
get a direct flight, you could easily be looking at 12 hours &
fares may again increase. Taking a bus coast to coast is more
like 56 hours plus about $175 ($50-75 in fares plus maybe
$100-125 in meals you buy en route); people who make less than
$60,000/year may be cash-ahead. Driving your own car coast to
coast is at least 3 days & about $1400 ($900-1,000 in gas,
$120-200 in motels & $200-300 in meals). Trains today are seldom
a viable option for long-haul passengers; in addition to a sparse
list of connected cities & an even sparser schedule, only 58% of
passengers get where they're going on time. In an earlier era,
travelers would arrange routes with many deliberate stops to
avoid the number of long hops; today, it's more a question of
staying in-touch & productive while we endure travel. Since we
can't afford to be disconnected from our work, we have to learn
how to stay productive when disconnected from our desks. Or maybe
we all ought to just move to Las Vegas to do all those trade
shows without travel. 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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