5 posts tagged “google phone”

No gadgets again on this Christmas Day from Dick and Leo, but Dick has asked the TWiT Army to email him about gadgets they would love to see under the Christmas tree this year.  Here are some of them: a Mac Mini with Parallels and Windows Vista, a Google Android phone on Verizon, a laptop - a MacBook Pro perhaps or an HP TouchSmart Notebook, a ThinkGeek Annoy-A-Tron, a camera with geotagging and a decent zoom, a blu ray player, a Segway, "My two front teeth" or some high speed RAM, a Powerball Gyroscope, a Tricaster (from Leo maybe?), a Flip Ultra for Jean Troiano (and a belated Happy Birthday to Mike Troiano on 19 December), and an autographed Richard DeBartolo Handle-bar Moustache that wiggles and barks like a Bijon Frise.

Blessed Interaction
Leo has everything he could ever wish for, and feels blessed that he is able to do the podcast with Dick, and Dick loves interacting with Leo on the Daily Giz Wiz, especially on Tuesdays.

Family Affairs
Dick and Leo aren't that keen on family meet-ups, and Dick for the first time on DGW reveals that he has a brother called Leo.  Who can blame him?

Pride And Glory
Pride And Glory has finally been released.  You can catch a glimpse of Dick's houseboat (now given away to a charity) in the film.  Watch out for a fibre optic Christmas tree.  For the full story, revisit Episodes 460 and 461.

And Finally, A Merry Christmas ...
... from me and all my imaginary staff at insidedgw.vox.com to Dick and Leo (who have given us a show for all seasons), to the TWiT staff (Dane, Colleen, Tony and Frederique who have kept the TWiT machine running), to Ludwik Trammer (who keeps doing wonders), to Paul Minshall, George Wood, Dan Lueders, all the jingle contributors and Daniel Rodrigues Parreira (who have made the show so much fun to listen to by performing all the themes and jingles and making them accessible to us all), and to all the fellow DGW listeners (who are mad enough to listen to the show).


Listen to Episode 729
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"Upgrade to Zen Class."  That's their slogan.  The Nirvana Organizer is a shoulder bag that unzips inside out for direct access to its contents.  Intended as a travel accessory, it can attach itself to an airplane seat tray and hangs in front of you, with customised pockets for the most common travel items that go with you while travelling, such as your passport, ticket, flash memory cards, pens, and even a bottle/cup holder.  But even when carried over your shoulder, it gives you easy access to the contents of the bag.



Apart from using it on a plane, you can also use it on a baby-stroller, in a car and other places.  Watch the demo video on YouTube, or right here:


Italian Heritage on Blu Ray
Leo is in an Italian mood as he just watched Godfather on Blu Ray over the weekend, which has much improved quality over the DVD version.  Dick and Leo share their memories of Italian home cooking.  Dick's parents are of Italian descent, as is Mama Laporte.

Leo's Challenge Well Met
In Episode 683 (starting at 18:30), while Dick was introducing his brand new GizWizBiz Cap, Leo said nonchalantly that he would give an iPod to the first surgeon who sends in a picture of himself in surgical gloves wearing the cap in the operating theatre.

Leo should have known, judging from the jingles and themes they receive from listeners whenever they ask for one, that the challenge would be met, and very promptly indeed.  2 emails came in immediately, with doctors and nurses wearing the caps in the operating theatre.

What Leo really meant was a picture of a surgeon actually performing an operation while wearing the cap.  Unfortunatley he did not say that clearly enough, although to be fair, Dick and Leo did say that given Halloween was just around the corner, mere costuming did not count.  Nevertheless, Leo wants to be a good sport, and since he can't tell which email came in first, he's going to send out iPod nanos to all the doctors and nurses.  Now Dick understands why his cheques from Leo bounced, and is quick to add that the offer is now officially over.

So Dr. Wayne Keeling from Reidsville, North Carolina, Dr. Mark Moran, and the nurses, will all be getting an iPod.  Plus a shout-out from Leo to Dr. Moran's sons Brennan and Ryan.

An interesting fact about Dr. Wayne Keeling.  He has, not just one, but two, Brannock Devices (from Episode 255).  See Episode 267.

GizWizSearch on Steroids
DGW fan, computer coder, magician and miracle worker (all right, let's stop there) Ludwik Trammer has added an exciting feature to GizWizSearch.  All the episodes of DGW have been tagged, and you can search via tags.  For example, search for products with LED lights, or just for Wacky Gadgets, which is quite a list.  The tagging has been done with a lot of help from Ryan Waterer (who did most of the tagging), and only a little help from yours truly.  Most of the credit should go to Ludwik and Ryan.



Listen to Episode 691
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The music industry has come up with a new idea for distributing digital music - slotMusic - selling albums as DRM-free MP3s (up to 320 kbps) on a 1GB microSD card.  The 4 major international music companies - Universal, Sony/BMG, Warner and EMI all support it.  Any micro-SD enabled phone or MP3 player can play the music.  The slotMusic card is one of those that has a tiny USB sleeve that can plug into any computer for transfer.  Album art, liner notes and any other creative content may be included on the card, in digital form.


Sandisk, being a major flash memory manufacturer, is supporting the new format, and has made a Sansa slotMusic Player - a barebone device with a microSDHC slot that plays MP3 and WMA files, with no other functions, running on a single AAA battery.  The sleeve (or skin) is replaceable.  Bundles including the player and a slotMusic card (currently only ABBA, Robin Thicke, Connie Talbot and Don't Quit) are available.

The slotMusic "albums" and the slotMusic Player can be purchased online through the Sansa Store or at Wal-Mart and Best Buy.  The albums are selling for $15.

You can check out the available albums on the Sansa Store or on slotMusic.org.

Geek Cruises
Captain Neil Bauman has changed the name of Geek Cruises to Insight Cruises.  Leo will be going on the China, Korea and Japan Tour next year with Henry.

Grilling Barbeque
Captain Neil is also a grilling specialist, and Leo was going to a barbeque last Wednesday, with Captain Neil demonstrating his grilling skills, which would be beamed live on TWiTLive, to be joined by Randal Schwartz, FLOSS Weekly co-host and avid DGW listener.  Unfortunately, at an earlier barbeque at Captain Neil's house, poor Randal had an accident and broke his arm.  Listen to FLOSS Weekly Episode 46 where he explained the accident.

Burns & Allen
Prolific letter writer Steve Miller (whose letter was read out only yesterday in Episode 687) writes again.  Dick's mention of George Burns and Gracie Allen in Episode 679 made him search for the Burns & Allen radio show on Audible, Steve having become a subscriber thanks to DGW (see Episode 376).  What he found was an Audible book by Burns called "One Hundred Years, One Hundred Stories".  Steve, who is easily tempted, could not resist buying the book.

This is Steve's 9th letter read out in DGW, the most for any listeners.

In Return for Candy
12-year-old seventh-grader A Z Bopper from Mesa, Arizona has been listening to DGW for the last 6 months and has been inspired by Dick and Leo to become a total computer nerd, helping his mother with her computer, and his English teacher with her computer and printer.  He doesn't mind because he gets candy for it.  Dick advises that he should hold out for soda as well, and Leo adds, "But not candy corn."

Match Game Memories on Stickam
Dick is going to do a show on Match Game Memories on Saturday 29 November, the day Gene Rayburn passed away, which also happens to be Leo's birthday.  It will be on Stickam.  Leo wants to crash the party.  Stayed tuned.


Listen to Episode 688
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As hinted at in Episode 673 and last week, Dick and Leo finally talk about T-Mobile's G1.  Made by HTC, the G1 is the first phone featuring Google's open-source smartphone operating system Android.

It has bluetooth, wifi, GPS (though not turn-by-turn), 512 MB built-in memory, although it has an microSD card slot and comes with a 1GB card; a back-lit qwerty keyboard (which is revealed by sliding out the screen) and a replaceable battery; a 3.2MP camera, but like the iPhone, it does not shoot video, and like the iPhone it does not support Flash on the internet.  Unlike the iPhone, it supports voice dialling and "cut and paste".

Physically, it weighs just under 6 ounces.  At the bottom is a panel of buttons: a big Menu button, underneath which at the centre is a trackball (for navigation and as a select button).  To the left of the trackball are the "Call/Send" button and the "Home" button; to the right of the trackball are the "Back" and "Hangup/Power" buttons.

On the left hand side of the phone is a Volume toggle, and on the right hand side the camera button.  For the earphones, unfortunately it's a microUSB connection and you'll need an adapter for your 3.5mm jack earphones.

The display is 3.2 inches at 480 x 320 resolution, with a capacitive touch-screen.  It does not support multi-touch, but does support long presses (through which you get a context menu including "cut and paste").  It has an accelerometer and is supposed to adjust itself to Portrait/Landscape mode, at least when the qwerty keyboard is open.

Since Android is open-source, many applications are expected to come out supporting the platform, and will not be filtered as in the case of the iPhone.  You can access the apps from the Android "Market", and Google will tell you in relation to each app what types of access the app may have on the phone - such as communications, your location and your personal information.

The phone comes with the standard Google apps, such as Gmail, Contacts, Calendar, and like the iPhone, offers a mobile version of YouTube.  If you don't use Gmail, there is another mail application.  Unfortunately, this other mail app cannot open attachments (which Gmail can by HTML conversion), nor save them.  The IM app supports major instant messengers such as AIM, Windows Live, Yahoo and of course Google Talk.  Like Google's desktop browser the Chrome, the Android browser is WebKit-based.  Another app that comes with the phone is AmazonMP3, with access to Amazon's DRM-free mp3 downloads - which only works with Wifi, and not 3G or Edge.  The phone also has its own music player software.

At the moment, the phone is available in T-Mobile stores only in cities which has T-Mobile's 3G coverage.

Favourite Episodes
In Episode 679, Dick and Leo were asked if they had a list of their 20 favourite/funniest episodes.  Ludwik Trammer of gizwizsearch can answer for them.  Search queries on his site show which episodes are most frequently accessed - 182 Titanium Spork, 465 Electron Echo Piano, 462 MP4 Watch, and of course 282 Toothpick Bird.

Ludwik also tells us that the accumulative length of all the DGW shows now exceeds 7 days.

One More Thing
Ludwik is going to introduce a new feature on his site.  In fact it is already operational.  Just go to his site and see if you can spot the difference.  Otherwise, just wait for an announcement through Dick and Leo in tomorrow's recording session, or in next week's episodes.

Video Podcasts To Wait
The last time Leo talked about video podcasts (with hopes of getting DGW on video) was Episode 671.  Unfortunately, with the economic downturn, Leo has decided to be a little more prudent, and maybe putting that on hold, although he may still put out a weekly "best of" video podcast.

Second Longest Episode
At 31:03, today's show is the second longest episode, just 12 seconds short of Episode 634, the Lexmark X9575 Professional.


Listen to Episode 686
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Polaroid has been trying to find its place in the new world of digital photography.  Their latest attempt is the PoGo (Polaroid to Go), a portable bluetooth printer that connects to your mobile phones via bluetooth and makes 2" x 3" borderless prints.  The cellphone needs to support Bluetooth OBEX (Object Exchange) profile.  A list of compatible phones can be found on the Polaroid website.



You can also print directly from any PictBridge-enabled digital camera, by connecting the devices using a USB cable.

The print is made using Zink Imaging's Zink technology - Zero Ink - on Zink paper.  Each 2" x 3" photo paper contains 100 billion yellow, magenta and cyan dye crystals which are activated by heat pulses to generate the colours.  Since no ink is used, the prints come out as dry-to-touch prints.  They have peel-off sticky backs which can be used as stickers.  A modern version of Polaroid prints.

The dimensions of the PoGo 4.7" x 2.8" x 0.9", with a replaceable and rechargeable Li-ion battery.  Each charge can print up to 15 prints.  the advertised print speed is 60 seconds from send to share, though in practice it's likely to take longer.  You can get the PoGo photo paper in packs of 10 or 30, costing about $5 and $13 respectively.

One From the Gadget Warehouse
While rummaging through his treasure trove that is the Gadget Warehouse, Dick stumbled upon a Polaroid Instant Slide device, probably one of the 35mm Autoprocessors from Polaroid.



Mr Hulot's Holiday - It's Playtime !
Jacques Tati was a French comedian who made a few classic films including Mr Hulot's Holiday (Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot) and Playtime.

Here's the original French trailer for the film Playtime, where you can see a reflection of the Eiffel Tower on the door (or click this link):


For the scene in which what the lift (elevator) operator has to go through before he can get the lift to start, watch this clip (or click this link):

And for a rather interesting window cleaning scene, watch this clip (or click this link):


TWiT Nutwork on the PSP
Alex Rearick from Ohio learned about the "TWiT Nutwork" when the PSP gained RSS capability.  He listened to the back episodes, and enjoyed thoroughly the classic episode of the Key Buoy (Episode 149).  He's even got himself a GizWizBiz Cap.  New ones, with 30 hours of burn time, are available from Dick's website.