12 posts tagged “google”
T-Mobile G1
Smartphone
Link: T-Mobile G1
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
Go to TWiT
The Giz Wiz Home Page
Konica KANPA!
Sound-Activated Film Camera
Link: Digicam History
The name of the camera is KANPAI, not Kanpa, with the letter "I" looking like an exclamation mark " ! ". "Kanpai!" is a Japanese phrase (there is a similar phrase in Chinese) which literally means something like "empty the glass", and is the equivalent of the English interjections "Toast!" or "Bottoms Up!" - in line with the camera's selling feature as a party camera.
When originally released in 1989, the camera was red in colour. Later models came in black.
Konica, Minolta, Sony
Konica and Minolta, both long-time Japanese camera manufacturers, struggled in the digital age, and merged in 2003 to become Konica Minolta. 3 years later, Konica Minolta sold its camera manufacturing business to Sony, and all that remains is its office supplies (such as photocopiers) business.
Ego Searches
Dick and Leo compare Google search results on their names/handles.
From Dick's Store
Dick reminds us that he's unearthed more Match Game Cards, and paperback versions of his book Good Days And Mad.
Weekend Shows
Don't forget to catch up on the weekend shows, the Saturday Theme and Sunday Theme.
Barbara's Pick
Barbara our live studio audience has been sitting through this week's recordings, and she has a pick of the week. It's an iPhone app called iRetroPhone. It gives you the picture of an old rotary dial phone, and you use your finger on the touch screen to turn the dial to input the numbers, complete with visual animation and sound effect. Cool!
No Letters Today
Dick gave us 2 letters yesterday, but today Dick and Leo forget to read a letter.
Listen to Episode 685
Go to TWiT
The Giz Wiz Home Page
Lexmark X9575 Professional
All-In-One Printer
Link: Lexmark
The Drunk Professor
The last time Leo appeared on Regis and Kelly (which was February 2007: see Episode 246 when Leo was in New York visiting Dick's Gadget Warehouse), he was asked to wear a lab coat which made him look like a drunk professor. He's been invited to go back, but this time, Leo thinks he might insist on a tutu.
Golden Boy
Before Dick's visit to TWiT Cottage for GizWizLive, he could hardly remember Dane's name. This week Dick cannot stop talking about him, and there is now talk that Dane, "who needs to be needed", might defect to GizWiz Productions, especially with the threat of the upcoming spy-cams all over the TWiT Cottage.
Leo mentions the name of Tony among the TWiT crew. He's Tony Wang, the new TWiT netcast editor, taking the place of Dane Golden after the latter's promotion to President and BizDev Guy.
Privacy is Dead
James aka Uncle Big Bad wants to know what Dick and Leo thinks about how the internet has changed everything about your personal life. According to Leo, Google doesn't think there's such a thing as privacy any more.
The Wild Wild West
Learn about Robert Conrad playing James West in The Wild Wild West.
Longest Episode
This show quickly overtakes the recent Episode 628 as the longest episode.
Listen to Episode 634
Go to TWiT
The Giz Wiz Home Page
Pentax Optio W60
Underwater Digital Camera
Link: Pentax
For photography in deeper waters, check out the Liquid Image Underwater Digital Camera Mask Model 302 (Episode 484) - up to 30 meters. For an underwater camcorder, see the Sanyo Xacti E1/VPC-CA65 (Episode 348).
Sleeping-In Sunday Theme
Robert Hounton has sent in a theme for Sleeping-In Sunday, after another listener's suggestion in Episode 624. Unfortunately neither Dick nor Leo can play the file.
From Flickr to Flippr, to Flipper the Dolphin, learn all about uploading your photos, and the 1960's TV series.
Dick on Audible?
Audible is now part of Amazon, and their charter is every book on Audible. Perhaps they can get Dick to do Good Days And Mad.
PalmPilot
Daniel Bersteiner writes in response to Episode 590, the Palm Pilot. He has been using a Palm device for 12 years, upgrading from one to another, with his current one being the Palm Treo, which has data which he entered 12 years ago.
Old-Timers
Who is Abbe Lane? What about Xavier Cugat? Listen to Dick's story about his encounter with Abbe Lane, and an interesting quote from Dolly Parton.
Longest Episode
This show overtakes Episode 291 (The Smart Cab) as the longest episode so far.
Listen to Episode 628
Go To TWiT
The Giz Wiz Home Page
Brother P-Touch QL500
USB Label Printer
Link: Brother
Leo likes it so much he's bought 3 of them.
Savage Chickens
Back in Episode 567, Leo promised he would talk about a Spork Cartoon, and now he does. Listener Gordon Moul has drawn his attention to Doug Savage's cartoon, a family tree for the Spork.
Here's the link to the cartoon, on SavageChickens.com: all about foon, foodle and sporkula.
Inside the GizWizSearch
GizWizSearch (Ludwik Trammer) and InsideDGW have formed a partnership to enable search for InsideDGW content on GizWizSearch in the latter's advanced search features. Leo reads out part of the press release, and here's the full text (pardon my inflated ego):
WASHINGTON DC and WARSAW, Poland - 28 May 2008: InsideDGW.vox.com and GizWizSearch.int.pl, two leading Daily Giz Wiz content and services providers, today announced an unprecedented partnership to bring users easier and faster access to current information about the Daily Giz Wiz Netcasts. Starting today full InsideDGW show notes for a given episode will be available for everyone right on the GizWizSearch episode summary page. InsideDGW show notes are legendary for their accuracy, insight, and for providing everything you don't need or care to know about the Daily Giz Wiz Netcast.
"Here at InsideDGW we strongly believe that what's good for us is good for the rest of the world. We are happy to bring our quality content to readers of GizWizSearch," says the founder of the InsideDGW website, codename George. "As a result of this new synergy, we fully expect our readership at InsideDGW to expand to the entire audience base of the Daily Giz Wiz Netcast, recently and optimistically estimated to be 6. That will mean a triple growth in our readership numbers. Thanks to us, Dick and Leo may finally become famous."
The two websites, widely considered to be the best in the fast growing Daily Giz Wiz market, have been in talks for about six months. "We want to quash those rumors out there of any competitive ill-feeling between us," says George. "Ludwik is a wonderful personality and is very clever with his fancy computer programming and what not, and deserves all the attention. Here at InsideDGW, we make a very modest contribution. It's called real work."
When the engineering work finally began it took programmers from GizWizSearch nearly five hours of hard work to write a piece of software that would import content from insidedgw.vox.com and reformat it to better integrate with the site's look and feel.
"When the summer season started we were able to get new source supplying us with additional daylight, bringing more energy to the company. That's why we are able to bring our users a series of new exciting features, this being the first one" - says Ludwik Trammer, the 21-year-old founder of GizWizSearch.int.pl - "besides, I felt it would be a great way to try to plug my twitter on the show. Which, by the way, is twitter.com/ludwiktrammer".
The feature both parties are most excited about is the search within InsideDGW content, available in GizWizSearch's Advanced Search options. "Using this one I was able to find out that I was mentioned in at least 16 different episodes, including 364, 472, 572, 563, 554, 549, 546, 527, 526, 519, 471, 461, 418, 410, 408 and 407. It was as easy as checking "search in insidedgw.vox.com posts" and typing my name" - Trammer explains.
Both sites are looking for ways to expand their collaboration in the future, and are confident that they are edging ever closer to their common dream of a multi-million-dollar buyout deal.
ABOUT INSIDEDGW.VOX.COM
InsideDGW is the leading provider of Daily Giz Wiz information, including episode summaries, photos, videos, links, errata and "this-joke-was-already-told-in-these-ten-previous-episodes" Giz Wiz erudition. Founded in June 2007 by an enigmatic figure, previously suggested to be linked with the American government. For more information visit insidedgw.vox.com.
ABOUT GIZWIZSEARCH.INT.PL
Founded 12 July 2007 as "Daily Giz Wiz Automatic Feed Generator", the site constantly expands providing the Daily Giz Wiz community the best services on the market, including an iPhone Application, Firefox search plugin, various statistics, and many different search capabilities. For more information visit www.gizwizsearch.int.pl
InsideDGW contact:
Codename George
insidedgw@gmail.com
insidedgw.vox.com
GizWizSearch contact:
Ludwik Trammer
ludwik@trammer.pl
www.twitter.com/ludwiktrammer
www.gizwizsearch.int.pl/contact.php
More from Ludwik
Ludwik's next project is Time Travel, or ought to be, if Leo can have his way. In the meantime, he's working on GizWizSearch 3.0, codename "The Social". Nothing to do with the Zune, I assume.
... and More, More, More
There are plenty of others who have contributed to the show. Here are some of them:
The Theme and Jingle Writers: Paul Minshall, George Wood, Dan Lueders
DGW Access Providers: Collins, who made the DGW Looker-Upper-Listener; Darcy Fiander who made the Toothpick Bird Random Pick for the iPhone.
Finally, President and BizDev Guy of TWiT with special responsiblity for editing DGW, Dane Golden at InsideTWiT.
Listen to Episode 587
Go to TWiT
The Giz Wiz Home Page
USB Plasma Ball
Light Show
This Plasma Ball is powered by USB, 4'" in diameter, with an on/off swtich. Put your finger on the sphere and the "glow" will congregate around your finger, like all other plasma balls. Available at VAT19 and ThinkGeek.
Here is ThinkGeek's explanation of this magic. A combination of gasses (such as Argon) are trapped inside a plastic sphere at relatively low pressures. An alternating current, at relatively high voltages, is sent into the sphere via an electrode in the centre. This energy causes atoms (or electrons maybe) to be stripped from the gasses, leaving in its wake some positively charged ions and a gorgeous gaseous and electrically conductive environment (aka Plasma). That high voltage served up through the electrode will now arc up through the plasma to the plastic sphere where the voltage is lower (starting at the top where the temperature is greater). The arcs glow because they are hotter than the surrounding plasma. You can touch the plastic and the arcs will strongly congregate to your touch because you will be creating an even lower voltage jump from the electrode.
Or just let Dick explain it to you in his own words:
The Giz Wiz Green Room
Dick is negotiating for the TWiT Studio to be named after him. Leo suggests "The Dick DeBartolo Memorial Antechamber". Dick thinks it's too early to do that, and prefers "The Giz Wiz Green Room".
The Bird Logo
Leo explains to Dick how the name Twitter came about. Evan Williams was running Odeo whose logo was a bird. As a side project, an engineer of Odeo suggested this IM-like web service, so people could send messages called "tweets" to each other. Hence the name Twitter. For Dick and Leo's previous mention of Odeo, listen again to Episode 150, towards the end of that episode at about 14:00. And it was Leo who told Dick about Odeo.
No Begging, Again
Having finally overtaken Barack Obama on the number of followers on Twitter, Leo is now locked in a close race with Kevin Rose. As with the May 2006 Podcast Alley vote, Dick and Leo do not beg (Episode 67). So sign up at Twitter and follow Leo, follow Dick, and Alfred E Neuman.
Please alleviate Leo's mid-life crisis and follow him on Twitter. Otherwise send him a Jacob's Ladder for The Giz Wiz Green Room.
The Belly of a Dead Fish
Jack from New Hampshire (who may or may not be Jack Kelly from Episode 419) was listening to Episode 564 and was amused by Dick's reference to the beigey colour of the Socket Pocket. As a technician, he is all too familiar with the colour and has always called it the "dead fish belly yellow". It's very close to Dick's Tainted Tuna Taupe.
Listen to Episode 573
Go to TWiT
The Giz Wiz Home Page
C. Crane LED Lights
Energy Saving LED Light Bulbs
Link: C. Crane
Botts' Dots
In Episode 206, Leo mentioned the Bott's Dots in California. A listener says you would not find them in New York, as the snowploughs would scrape them off. He also mentioned that he was at CES 1979 when Pioneer did a demo of the Laser Discs - which gets Dick and Leo reminiscing about RCA's invention as a rival to the laser disc in the 1980's, the Selectavision video discs, or the Selectadiscs. Find out more at CED Magic.
Listen to Episode 277
Go to TWiT
The Giz Wiz Home Page
Roadmaster Rear Deck Digital Message System
Scrolling LED Billboard for the Rear Deck
Link: Roadmaster
Tostino and Tony the Tiger
A listener points out that the reason Leo can't find Tostino on Google is there's no "s" in Totino. He also corrects Leo about the voice of Tony the Tiger and the Grinch (Episode 263), who was Thurl Ravenscroft. Although Dallas McKennon was the original voice of Tony the Tiger, he didn't do it for very long.
Listen to Episode 271
Go to TWiT
The Giz Wiz Home Page
Digital Hero 3 Sports Wrist Camera
Action Cam
Link: GoPro
The Digital Hero 3 Sports Wrist Camera takes 3MP stills, 640 x 480 video and 16MB internal memory. Waterproof. It can be worn on the wrist, or mounted on your bike, helmet or elsewhere. A similar product to the Oregon Scientific ATC-2K (Episode 258).
Debut on the Tech Guy
Dick made his debut as the Weekly Giz Wiz on the Tech Guy last week.
Usual Gang Of Idiots
Leo once said that if you want to know what Dick looks like, just imagine a guy with a long handle-bar moustache. Fernando Garcia from Monterrey, Mexico says that's the case with the Usual Gang of Idiots from Mad: Sergio Aragones, Don Edwing.
Tostino Sponsorship
Leo explains the Tostino joke started when someone working in General Mills emailed Dick and Leo and would very much like to get General Mills involved with DGW (Episode 253). It turned out he's an engineer in the company, and the matter lies in the hands of the ad agencies. Leo suggests Tostino get a website first as he can't find it on Google.
Tony the Tiger
Learn all about the voice of Tony the Tiger and Gumby (Dallas McKennon) while Leo googles for "Tostino" and keeps getting "Tony".
Listen to Episode 263
Go to TWiT
The Giz Wiz Home Page
Sonic Impact V55
Portable AV System/iPod Accessory
Link: Amazon
Connect your iPod to Sonic Impact's V55 and you can watch your video on a bigger screen, or just listen to your music.
Gnip Gnop
Patrick from Atlanta, Georgia explains the name of the previous listener Gnip Gnop (Episode 184). Over 30 years old, Gnip Gnop is a board game, with "Ping Pong" spelt backwards, even though it has little to do with Ping Pong.
Mad Minute
Leo must have run out of Mad Minutes.
