17 posts tagged “smartphone”
iPhone 3GS
Smartphone
Link: Apple
The auto-focus camera is now 3 megapixel, with the ability to change the focus after you tap a particular point on the LCD display, which also adjusts the white balance and exposure. It's now capable of capturing video (640 x 480), with software to do simple editing or trimming on the phone itself.
Some of the other more commonly requested features, such as "copy and paste", MMS and tethering, have finally found their way into the iPhone 3GS. Multitasking, however, is still restricted.
Video Trimming on the iPhone 3GS
Leo has tried the video trimming function oh his new iPhone 3GS, and it works for him. Here's Apple's demo video:
Scott-E-Vest Wardrobe in a Tom Bihn Bag
For his China Tour and MacMania 9 Geek Cruise, Leo has packed an almost exclusively Scottevest wardrobe, in his new Tom Bihn Tri-Star (see Episode 865) which, it is hoped, Leo will cover on a TTTT. Right now, Leo has finished the trip in China and should be in Japan on the Costa Classica. Follow his AudioBoos, and view Leo's gallery on Smugmug.
Ed McMahon Dies
Ed McMahon, whose appearance in the Johnny Carson Show is often the subject of reminiscence on the Daily Giz Wiz, passed away on 23 June 2009, aged 86.
Another Cheesy Infomercial
Jayzee, better known as Toyota Boy, notes that cheesy infomercials have often been the subject of conversation on the show, and has recently seen a really cheesy one. It's the Comfort Wipe, a toilet paper extension arm and holder. The original infomercial can be seen on YouTube, but perhaps a more interesting version is a spoof of it shown on Jimmy Kimmel Live, featuring President Obama, also available on YouTube.
Bidets Rule Supreme
Alex Lindsay is much enamoured with the bidets in Japan which wash your behind (and some even blow-dry you), and offer choices of water-jet speeds and temperatures, and temperature-controlled seats. They are available in the US and Alex has bought one for his family. An extreme example is the Bio Bidet Supreme BB-1000 with Remote that leaves nothing to the imagination, but there are more reasonably-priced toilet add-ons on Amazon for your more basic comforts.
Listen to Episode 872
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Palm Pre
3M Micro Professional Projector
Pocket Projector
Link: 3M MPro
The projector supports video only. Presumably if your presentation includes sound, that can be played and heard directly from your source device, such as your laptop, PDA, or cellphone.
On the body of the projector is an on/off switch and a focus wheel. It uses a rechargeable Lithium ion battery with a battery life of 40 to 60 minutes. An AC adapter is included which, when connected, automatically recharges the battery.
12 Days of GizWiz
Dick reminds Leo about Paul Minshall's "12 Days of GizWiz" video, which will be played in the next recording session. You can watch the video now in the Episode 722 blog post, or go directly to Paul's blog.
Dennis Wright from Manchester, England (who last wrote in Episode 606) warns against the perils of listening to DGW by commuting drivers. Dennis was listening to Episode 704 while driving and the ridiculous picture painted by Leo of Dick and Leo entertaining the troops by showing them the CartStopper (Episode 701) intended for mums cracked him up, giving him an uncomfortably close brush with the hereafter. He thinks that Dane, while editing the shows (although it should be Tony Wang doing it now), should include appropriate warnings against uproarious funny moments.
Skipping Christmas?
Dick and Leo should have enough pre-recorded shows to cover most of the holiday season before Leo comes back from France, and are considering skipping the Christmas and Christmas Eve shows. Dane reminds them that this would break the neat round episode numbering. Dick and Leo think they might just put in short episodes for those days with Christmas messages.
Listen to Episode 724
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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
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Instinct
Touch-Screen SmartPhone
Link: Samsung Instinct
No Letters from Leo
Leo again doesn't have a letter to read, and invites letters from listeners again. What good is that if Leo doesn't read his emails?
Phone Rental
Kerry Lutz writes in again to report a story from the San Francisco Chronicle from a couple of years ago about a widow who had been renting a rotary phone for 42 years. She spent about $14,000 over the years just for the rental. Dick suggests we all check our parents' phone bill.
Exorbitant Rates
Leo uses a business calling card when he travels, and learns a hard lesson. He's been charged operator-assisted call rates for his calls to Roz Savage's satellite phone (3 times a week), about $10 a minute and $400 a show.
More Exorbitant Rates
A guest of a tenant of a unit in Dick's building was locked out of the apartment, called a locksmith in, and was charged $666 for the service.
More GizWizBiz Gadgets
Dick has sold out his GizWizBiz Caps, but has more merchandise on offer, which he self-deprecatingly calls Giz Wiz Garbage. These include the Clip Hanger (see Episode 549), the folding LED lighted ball pen, and the LED Ice Cube.
Listen to Episode 622
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iPhone 3G
Smartphone
Link: Apple
Leo talks about some of the new apps, including the iPhone app from Omnifocus, the Enigmo game, Aqua Forest, location-based Loopt, a New York Times app, Pandora, and AOL Radio.
But still no voice dialing, and no cut and paste.
TWiTLive Viewership
Since Leo's coverage of the iPhone 3G launch, viewership of TWiTLive has gone up about 30%.
DGW in Order
Opher Banarie finally figures out how to listen to his DGW in the correct order (earliest first) on his new iPod (see Episode 609). From the Main Menu, select Podcasts, scroll to DGW, and just press the centre button. Other listeners have also written in with the same tip, including Sue Watkins and Jacob.
Listen to Episode 617
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LG Voyager
Cellphone
Link: Verizon
You can subscribe to Vcasts and even TV broadcasts (with a built-in TV antenna). It can also do web browsing, and utilises Verizon's fast 3G wireless.
Nintendo Virtual Boy
Mike Kunkel, who previously corrected Leo about the PSOne in Episode 409, writes in about another vintage game gadget, the Nintendo Virtual Boy, which Leo thought in Episode 450 was a hood you put on a Game Boy. Mike explains what it was.
Listen to Episode 478
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Read Dick's Write-Up
Freedom Keychain GPS
Bluetooth GPS Device
Link: FreedomInput Crackberry
Turn-The-Tables-Tuesday
Leo's new Blackberry Curve 8320 (Episode 422) does not come with GPS, so he goes straight to Crackberry to get the Freedom Keychain GPS, or mini GPS, a bluetooth GPS device that connects to portable devices such as PDA, laptops and cellphones including Blackberry phones via Bluetooth Version 2.0 Class II, within a range of 10m. It is not bundled with any software, but is intended to work with the software that comes with, or can be downloaded for, your individual portable device, such as Google Maps or Blackberry Maps. Having a separate GPS module also means less drain on the battery of your portable device. It comes with a car charger cable and a USB cable for charging the battery.
It uses the new SiRF Star III chipset, with 20 channels "All-In-View" Tracking. It also loads up quickly, in about 20 seconds on his Blackberry Curve 8320.
Time Scales
Jayzee, better known as Toyota Boy on DGW, is amused by the logic of the canine time scale - the dog years (Episode 420), and muses about the time scales for the housefly and the redwood tree.
1 vs 100
Henry Laporte has followed Leo's footsteps by being featured in the latest issue of Mad, in an article on the game show 1 vs 100. That gets Dick and Leo on to their favourite subject, game shows. For the story on Leo's appearance in Mad, see Episode 61.
Blackberry Curve 8320
Cellphone
Link: Blackberry T-Mobile
T-Mobile's version supports AOL, MSN, Yahoo and ICQ. The phone can connect voice calls using Wifi UMA (unlicensed mobile access) by taking advantage of wifi connections at T-Mobile's Hotspots and Hotspot@Home.
Worse than the Toothpick Bird?
Kelly Price thinks that while the Toothpick Bird (Episode 282) from Archie McPhee is at least amusing and useful, Squawkers McCaw (Episode 413) is just annoying, almost as bad as the talking, singing mounted bass. This could be the same letter which Dick and Leo referred to in Episode 419. Dick stands by his bird.
RPN
Alexandro ticks Leo off for failing to give the complete picture of the reason for using RPN for the HP35 (Episode 415). It's more efficient for both the CPU of the calculator and for the user.
Listen to Episode 422
Go to TWiT
Read Dick's Write-Up
iPhone
Smartphone/PMP
Link: iPhone
Turn-The-Tables-Tuesday
As promised, Leo reviews the iPhone.
iPerbole
David from Australia draws our attention to a new entry in the Urban Dictionary.