Archive for July 4th, 2008

Sure this thing has GPS built-in but it uses a number of clever algorithms so it won’t be totally dependent on geographic position and can even do crazy arial acrobatics. The ideal part is where they throw balls at the thing and when it stays essentially in the same place without moving. This stuff is […]

Sure this thing has GPS built-in but it uses a number of clever algorithms so it won’t be totally dependent on geographic position and can even do crazy arial acrobatics. The best part is where they throw balls at the thing and when it stays essentially in the same place without moving. This stuff is cool but extremely scary.

via Giz

Via [crunchgear]

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While at Dyson HQ, I had the pleasure, once again, of interviewing the man himself. I had to ask what his thoughts were on the iPhone, and James’ answers were both entertaining and interesting. I’ve an iPhone and a BlackBerry. And I have to confess that I use the BlackBerry more. But I really […]

James and DC24 2
While at Dyson HQ, I had the pleasure, once again, of interviewing the man himself. I had to ask what his thoughts were on the iPhone, and James’ answers were both entertaining and interesting.

I’ve an iPhone and a BlackBerry. And I’ve to confess that I use the BlackBerry more. But I really wanted to care about the iPhone because it’s thin—one of the clever things about it—thinner than any other phone, and fits easily in your pocket. I find that a nuisance if you’re going to a function or whatever it is. I really like that about it.

I hate the touchscreen. That’s my biggest complaint. I love the weather, really good. Maps are brilliant. The way you are supposed to use it, I really like. I’m not sure about having to slide that thing across every time you answer a phone call. As a way of locking the screen, I accept that because it’s important.

I find the phone contacts list very frustrating because I stroke down and my finger hits one and selects it, so I then have to deselect it and start stroking again. So they need to sort out the difference between stroking it (scrolling) and selecting one. And then I find for some reason it doesn’t select the one I want to choose. And I get that on occasion with numbers when I’m dialing. I want to press the 4 and it selects the one below or above.

How about the typing?

It’s awful, but I think the predictive texting is very good, so that makes up for a lot of the bad. Also, you can’t turn it sideways, except when you’re on the Internet. But when you’re doing an SMS or email you have to do it upright.

I think the Internet is good even at these speeds. I like being able to expand what I’m looking at. The Internet is surprisingly good, whereas on the BlackBerry it’s very bad.

Which BB do you have? (An 8700 series)

It’s horrid looking, but I enjoy it. It’s quite interesting because it illustrates my two points about design. This [the iPhone] looks beautiful and some of the things are good, but some are very frustrating, so you fall out of love with it. This [the BlackBerry] looks horrid, awful. It’s not been designed by anyone with any design sense, but emailing on it is fantastic and the software is very good and the cut and paste. Everything about it is incredibly good. I like using it. I hate the symbols on it, they’re meaningless. I use that all the time and use it for phone calls because it’s easier than using the iPhone for looking up contacts. So if they just correct the things one doesn’t like about this.

Then I see my son and son-in-law with a rubber case around it and I thought what’s that all about. Defeats the purpose of it. I’ve dropped it five times onto a concrete floor accidentally and it hasn’t broken. It’s not marked or scratched.

Downloading pics is very good. I use the camera a lot. i think it’s very good. It’s the easiest phone camera I’ve come across. It’s the easiest to use camera. I’ve taken 83 pics and they’re brilliant.
They came out quite well.

I asked James if he’d the latest MBP with the multitouch trackpad and he responded with:

“Oh, that business. I haven’t got that.”

Are you getting the new iPhone?

Yes. I’ll get the new BlackBerry as well.

I ramble on about how cool the Bold will be and James asked:

“Is the World wide web better?”

Umm. No.

And that was that. To recap, James loves and hates both the BlackBerry and iPhone.

Via [crunchgear]

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Damn, when I first heard about the GeForce 260 and 280 I thought it was checkmate. No one expected much of the new line of Radeons in the first place given ATI’s lackluster offerings lately, and combine that with the improvement in the 65nm 280 — I think I was justified in thinking so. But […]


Damn, when I first heard about the GeForce 260 and 280 I thought it was checkmate. No one expected much of the new line of Radeons in the first place given ATI’s lackluster offerings lately, and combine that with the improvement in the 65nm 280 — I think I was justified in thinking so. But the Radeon 4850 came out a little later and jaws dropped. It offered almost the performance of the 260, and at a large discount. Now the 4870 has dropped and it nearly tops the 280, at half the price.

NVIDIA is taking evasive action, but to be honest it might be too late for this gamer. I switched over to a GeForce in my last system build, but if ATI is able to pull this kind of performance out of this chipset for such an amazing price, I might swing the other way next time I’m window-shopping at Newegg.

Via [crunchgear]

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…. i think i need a time out….just watch and see what happens :)



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It looks like Apple sent out a few German MobileMe boxes prematurely, exciting fans of push email everywhere. No, it doesn’t work yet and no it didn’t include an iPhone update to enable the Me. Considering the service is mostly web-based anyway, this was most likely an empty box with some manuals inside it.

It looks like Apple sent out a few German MobileMe boxes prematurely, exciting fans of push email everywhere. No, it doesn’t work yet and no it didn’t include an iPhone update to enable the Me. Considering the service is mostly web-based anyway, this was most likely an empty box with some manuals inside it.

Via [crunchgear]

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If you enjoyed Kubrick’s 2001 and Bushnell’s 2600, then this shirt can’t be missed. And let me be the first to state, $12 to watch a bunch of monkeys reach for a joystick is an absolute steal. Hell, $12 to watch monkeys pretty much do anything is a decent value. [Etsy via Technabob]


Via [Gizmodo]

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Further cementing Google Maps Mobile as one of the most useful free mobile applications ever, Google has added Voice search to its repertoire. It’s an experimental feature at this point, so it’s only on choose handsets; if you’re using a Blackberry Pearl 8110, 8120, or 8130 - go update!

The new feature seems pretty easy to use: hold the left soft key, say your search, release the left soft key, and off it goes. It utilizes the same speech recognition engine used by 1-800-GOOG-411, which (based off my past experiences with it) is a good thing. Still, typing still works fine, allowing you to fall back on your thumbs be it that your environment just doesn’t mesh well with voice recognition.

While I’d be a bit surprised to see this feature make it into the generalized J2ME version of the application, we’ll probably see it to roll out to other big-name platforms as Google works out the kinks.

Pearl users can grab the update at http://www.google.com/gmm

[Via BGR]

Via Mobilecrunch

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