Interesting piece on CNET about the changing approach to the beta test phase of software development (think most recent Google offerings and Friendster for three years). Where beta testing used to be a couple of months process, it can now take years, as developers use general consumers as beta testers and as they obsessively tweak code and features. But what does this do to consumer confidence to use a product that is perpetually under construction?
Shuffle: Cool Case Files (Part Company)
Okay, so this might be taking the whole iPod Shuffle-as-wearable thing a LITTLE too far — it’s a puffy coat for your Pod, complete with a hood! Wrong on a poodle, wrong on a Pod! More disquieting pics.
Shuffle: Cool Case Files (Part 2)
Japanese Shufflers have gone plumb crazy with modding their iPods with sticker skins. They’ve wrapped these rascals up in everything from faux woodgrain and classic Japanese art to the PowerPuff Girls and Shuffles with fake LCD screens on ’em.
Here’s a gallery of some of the sticker work. If you have a Shuffle and want to create your own skins, here’s a template. You can also find HOWTO instructions here. Unfortuantely, they’re in Japanese, but the images tell you pretty much what you need to know.
Shuffle: Cool Case Files (Part 1)
While Olympus is busy pumping big bucks into advertising a “wardrobe” music player you can’t actually wear, people are busy bejeweling, skinning, and otherwise adorning their iPod Shuffle, a digital audio player you CAN actual wear. Check out this gorgeous hardcase some guy milled out of aluminum using a computer-controlled milling machine. Schweet.
First REAL robot in the US?
Elektro, the Westinghouse “robot” that made its debut at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, has been getting some press lately. He’s back from the scrapheap of history, thanks to Jack Weeks, son of one of Elektro’s creators, who bought him for $500. Refurbished, Elektro is now drawing crowds at the Mansfield Memorial Museum in Ohio. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against Elektro — in fact, I think he’s pretty freakin’ cool. He could smoke cigarettes. Gotta love robots that smoke! But where I do take umbrage is the continued assertion that Elektro was a “true” robot, and the first robot in the US. Elektro was certainly an impressive and innovative machine, but he was really little more than an animatronic puppet. He had an operator off-stage that controlled him.
Now, as I described in my robot book, things can quickly get ugly and argumentative when you’re trying to define what constitutes a “true” robot, but I would assume that anyone, given the choice between an autonomous, self-charging machine and a remote-controlled one with no brains to speak of, would say that the device with autonomy was the real robot. In which case, THIS is one of the first real robots. Not made in the US, built in Britain in 1948/49, but by an American, W. Grey Walter. If you want to know more about Elektro, check out these pages, which include some details of the mechanics. More cool pics of Walter’s REAL robots here.
Hacking TiVoToGo
Dave Zat has a short n’ sweet guide to using the new TiVoToGo feature and how to “free” the TiVo files from their proprietary format so that you can edit, burn, play them on the device of your choice. Yay choice!
The Olympus m:robe: “A Shiny Brick”
I guess we weren’t the only ones who gaped: “WTF!” at the multiple ads for the Olympus m:robe 500i during the Stuporbowl. This combination low-grade digital camera and music player gets our vote as being one of the worthiest future high-tech boat anchors destined to drag the sludgey bottom of the swamp that is the consumer tech marketplace. What where these developers thinking? As an AP review succinctly puts it:
“Olympus thinks consumers want a 1.2 megapixel digital camera (with no zoom and no flash) controlled by a color touch-panel screen. Olympus also thinks you’ll want to mix some of your images together with music and watch a slideshow on the palm-sized screen with all the fingerprints you’ve just smudged on it while taking the photos.”
Ouch. That’s gotta hurt. What’ll also hurt is the removal of $500 from the wallets of the chumps who actually buy this thing.
Wanna cringe some more? Want to know what “m:robe” stands for? The “m” is for “music,” the “robe” is for “wardrobe.” Music wardrobe. Huh? This ain’t no iPod Shuffle. You don’t even wear it! I want some of what these people are smokin’
Fight for Your Gadget Rights!
Just a reminder that the EFF is running a list of “Endangered Gizmos,” technologies that are at risk (or have already become extinct), thanks to aggressive lobbying from the entertainment industry and clueless lawmakers looking to protect intellectual property (and trammeling technological innovation in the process). The EFF writes:
“…suppose none of us had ever been given the opportunity to use or own a TiVo — or, for that matter, an iPod? Suppose instead that Hollywood and the record companies hunted down, hobbled, or killed these innovative gizmos in infancy or adolescence, to ensure that they wouldn’t grow up to threaten the status quo?”
The Endangered Gizmos page tracks the fate of various technologies and tells you what you can do to help (which basically boils down to joining the EFF and clue-by-four-ing your Congresscritters).
First U2 iPod, Now Hello Kitty?
Okay, so there’s not an OFFICIAL Hello Kitty iPod (yet), but with a little firmware hacking and some icon replacements, you can turn your existing Pod into a KittyPod, or any other “re-branding” you desire.
Engagdget has a trusty HOW-TO. Ironically, the resorce-hacking app, iPod Wizard, only runs on a Windows machine. Following the instructions given in the how-to, the upgrading looks pretty straight-forward. This hack allegedly works with the Minis as well. Of course the icon-hacks look best on the color iPod Photo, as seen here.
Mark Interviewed About MAKE
Street Tech Patron Saint, and Editor in Chief of MAKE, Mark Frauenfelder, was on G4TechTV’s Screen Savers program on Tuesday. The show’s website has an interview with him about the new magazine. BTW: I’m now writing for MAKE (and am on their Board of Advisors) and will have articles and reviews in issues 2 and 3. The first issue of the magazine looks amazing and I assume will be well received in the “modders” community.