Hardware Beyond the Hype
The folks at Bit-Tech recently got their hands on a Wii system to really try out some extended gameplay, beyond the hype and distractions of a game booth at a show. They start off the piece with:
“We recently played the Wii and came to the rather startling conclusion that it may not be as good as everyone is making it out.”
And it goes on from there…
The well-respected video camera review and information site CamcorderInfo.com has selected their favorite camera for 2006 and it’s the Canon Elura 100. I did a bunch of camera research this year to buy a camera for my son, for art school, and the Elura was the one we almost got.
It really does look like an amazing machine for the money (under US$400). We ended up deciding to go with the 3 CCD-equipped Panasonic PV-GS300. It was voted Miss Congeniality. Actually, it was voted CamInfo’s favorite in the under $600 class (you can actually get it for under $500). They think it was sort of unforgivable that Panasonic dropped the headphone jack (no headphone jack!), the focus ring, and some other features found on the previous model, and we agree. But it’s still a great camera and I’m not sorry we spent the extra dough.
Okay, we’ll shut up about Firefox 2, AFTER we tell you to check out this great collection of tips and nifty tricks in the Firefox Tweak Guide on Tweakguides.com. Lots of monkeying around, customizing, and optimizing possibilities for your new browser.
Gizmodo does one of their awesome review mashups, this one on all of the reviews and comparison pieces on IE 7 and Firefox 2. As you can see from this graph, Firefox is the critic’s favorite.
And here’s one from the “Why I loath Windows with a passion bordering on rabies” File:
“…the most important new security feature in IE 7 — something called Protected Mode, which stops Web sites from changing your computer’s important files or settings — will work only in the new Vista version of Windows.”
Kevin Kelly has this pic on his Street Use site and sez:
“As far as I can tell this is not a put-on, or hoax, but a legitimate innovation born of desperation. And I believe others have discovered the same solution. (I’m always surprised more people don’t use some kind of hands-free contraption.) If you know more about this particular picture (forwarded to me by Alexander Rose) please email me.”
I have a vague memory that I’ve seen this image before and it was a joke. That phone looks like it’s not from the present century. Does anyone else recognize it? I can’t imagine it’s for real, but then, this posting on Street Use is:
This is some would-be street person’s way of reducing clutter on his desk: creating duct tape holders underneath it. It’s a slippery slope from here to rubberbanding a phone to your head.
TechCrunch runs down Mozilla’s Recommended Add-Ons and offers their two cents on each, and this week’s “Geek to Live” on Lifehacker offers some great tips on tweaking the FF config file. For instance:
“As a blogger and web mail user, it breaks my heart to recount how many times I’ve composed a long post or email message, then accidentally closed the tab or browser and lost all my work. No more! With Firefox 2, set the browser.startup.page key to 3 to restore your browsing session – with form entries intact! – every time you start your browser or undo close tab after a wayward click. Note: By default, Firefox 2 automatically restores your session if your browser crashes – but this does it every time you restart your browser normally.”
Firefox 2.0 is finally here. The real deal. Accept no substitutes. Here are some of the much-anticipated features:
* “Visual Refresh:” That means they made it purdier.
* Built-in Phishing protection: Warns against suspected forged Web pages. “You mean my bank doesn’t really want me to re-enter the names and passwords for all of my accounts and the SS#s of my entire family?”
* Enhanced search capabilities: The integrated search box on the browser will offer search term auto-completion as you type. So, for example, if someone is using your browser and starts to type in “butternut squash,” they’ll get a suggestion of “bubblebutt babes.” And you can’t imagine HOW That got in there!
* Improved tabbed browsing: Improved as in, Firefox will force people to see the brilliance of tabs over new windows by creating tabs by default, a tyranny we wholeheartedly endorse.
* Resuming your browsing session: We’ve been using, and loving, the SessionSaver Plug-in. This works like that, saving and restoring windows, tabs, text typed in forms, and even in-progress downloads from the last user session.
* Previewing and subscribing to Web feeds: Users can decide how to handle Web RSS feeds, either subscribing to them via a Web service or in a standalone reader, or adding them as Live Bookmarks. My Yahoo!, Bloglines and Google Reader come pre-loaded as Web service options, but users can add any Web service that handles RSS feeds.
*Inline spell checking: So now there’s no excuse, even if you have the grammatical prowess of Dan Quayle.
* Live Titles: Allows microsummaries of Web contents to appear as a sort of live bookmark with regularly updates. This will surely become another way of aggregating dynamic content.
*Improved Add-ons manager: Tweaks and improvements to the user interface for managing themes and extensions.
* Extended search plugin format: Search engine format now supports plugins written in Sherlock and OpenSearch and allows search engines to provide term suggestions. So “Bubblebutt Babes” can show up as a search suggestion in ALL of your search engine plugins. Not that this has *ever* happened to us. We’re just sayin’…
See the full feature list here.
Oh, and we think we forgot to mention last week that Internet Explorer 7 is out too. It has… ah who cares?
I4U has a piece on the forthcoming RipRoar PMP/PVR from ToyQuest. Targeted as a kid’s media player, the RipRoar has a 2.5″ color screen that ToyQuest claims offers the same image quality as an iPod. It can record directly from a TV and is rated at 5 hours of playback on a charge. It only has 512MB of on-board storage, and offers up to 2GB more via an SD slot. The price is slated to be US$200. No word yet on availability, or how many months it’ll be on the market before it’s discontinued and we can buy them at Overstock.com for pocket change.
Protein Feed has an intriguing bit about a Fujitsu prototype mobile PC that has a touch-sensitive “turntable” “platter” on the lid so you can scratch videos, ya know, if you’re a nightclub DJ or in a hip-hop posse, or like to pretend you are. It could be on the market in a couple of years. Um, is there a big market for this sorta thing that I’m not aware of?
“You’re a master of non-volatile memory, Darth Mimobot.” Mimoco, makers of cool designer Flash drives has teamed up with Lucas Films to release a line of Star Wars-branded Mimobots. Their Darth Vader “bot” is available now for pre-order. As with previous Mimobots, the Star War series will have “exclusive” content pre-loaded, but no word on what that will be. Sadly, although they’re hawking these for the upcoming holiday season, they won’t actually ship until Jan ’07. Nothing says “I care” like a voucher for some future present (not that dyed in the wool Star Wars fans would mind too much).
Previous Mimobots coverage on Street Tech:
Clothing Your Flash Drive? Say It Isn’t So
More Cool Collectible USB “Bots”
Win a Set of Mimobots
2GB of Monstrous Cute