November 2006

USB Foot Warmers And Gloves
With the evenings drawing in and artic breezes circulating around your workstation, it may be time to invest in some handy USB-powered warming devices.
First up is the USB Foot Warmers, designed to get your tootsies toastie within minutes.
The USB Foot Warmers are covered in soft brown and white fake fur backed by a ‘leather fabric’ base with the slippers being warmed through a compact, ultra-flexible heat panel lurking in the lining of the base. The heat panel can be removed for washing.
Once the slippers are plugged into a USB port, this panel will immediately begin to heat and will remain at comfortably warm until unplugged. Or your machine crashes.
The foot warmers come with a 107cm-long USB cable (how long before the user wanders off and drags the PC with them?) and it has to be said that the whole ensemble is quite exceptionally unstylish.
The USB Foot Warmers are available from the Gadgetshop for fifteen quid. No thanks Santa!
USB G-Gloves for girlies
Somewhat more attractive – but equally daft – are the USB G-Gloves from our favourite purveyor of frivolous goods, Brando.
In case you didn’t know, the ‘G’ stands for ‘Girls’ who Brando hope will be wooed by their knitted (real wool!) pastel colour schemes on offer.
The gloves feature an open ended design that lets girls show off their nail varnish do some typing, with the gloves offering two USB-powered heating levels.
Each mitten comes with two built-in warming pads that heat by 10 degrees n five minutes, and you can pick up a pair for $22 (£13).
Brando also do a men’s version, but they weren’t the mean’n’macho, black-leather, studded affair we’d hoped for.
2 November, 2006
Dis-Connexion By Boeing: Now Free WiFi
Recently while travelling on an SAS flight, I had the pleasure of trying out the Connexion by Boeing service, which is an Internet service offered on long haul services.
Trials for the service started back in two carriers in June 2005.
The system provides a WiFi connection on the plane and connects back to Boeing using some kind of magic (a satellite service, somewhere on the plane a dish or dishes always stay in site of the satellite signal).
It’s all transparent to the user, just connect to the WiFi signal (and there really aren’t any others to connect to at 30,000 ft) and then go to the Boeing portal and sign-up.
It’s free
Although the sign-up page requires you to enter your credit card details the only price plan currently available is priced at $0.0, which means you aren’t charged (I’d imagine for security purposes, so any naughty activity can be traced back to someone). You then get a username and password and can sign-in to using the actual service – which then lets you out in to the wild world of the Internet.
It all worked rather well. Email was speedy and even logging into a remote system worked well, though there was a lag between what you typed and what appeared on the screem – it was usable though (much better than GPRS or some 3G connections have been). Updating MacOS X was doable with download rates of around 70KB/s. Lag was a good 600ms, but that’s what you get from sending data 30,000 miles up to a geostationary satellite and down again and back.
A business user could gainfully use the 10 hours or so in the air and be productive.
The end is nigh
Unfortunately the reason that it’s free is that Boeing are discontinuing the service and as they can’t guarantee any service levels – they’re giving it away until the service ends (Jan 2007). They argue that not enough airlines have signed-up and are cutting their losses.
It’s a real shame as the service worked well and the pricing was sensible for passengers even when they had to pay.
It’s not as though the airlines can keep it going either, as Boeing are physically removing all the equipment they installed in the planes.
Panasonic have said they will introduce a service to replace Boeing’s, but it could be a while, so in the meantime, passengers will have to make do with working off-line or catching up on movies they wouldn’t dream of watching normally.
2 November, 2006
Gmail Mobile Improved By Google
Browsing Gmail, Google’s email service, wasn’t particularly great when you did it from a mobile … until now. With the new release of gmail mobile that was launched today.
Gmail for Mobile Devices (GMD?), to give it its full official name, is a Java app that can be downloaded and run on any Java-enabled handset. The previous version was browser-based and pretty basic.
It’s an interesting change of approach for Google, who has near-exclusively focused on browser-based applications to access their services (except for Google Local).
GMD isn’t the only Java-driven email client. Flurry was pointed out to us by Cristian Streng. It’s had close to 1 million downloads from getjar.com alone and is used in over 200 countries.
Clearly not wanting it to get used too heavily, Google has officially only made the application downloadable in the US, where until recently people didn’t really use their phones for anything except making calls. While they’ve been doing that, the rest of the world have used their mobiles for everything from gaming to text messages.
Gmail Mobile app Mobile access Only
Flurry
2 November, 2006
Pure EVOKE-1XT Marshall Edition Released. Let’s Rock!
DAB radio pioneers, Pure Technologies, have released information about a forthcoming DAB radio, styled as a Marshall Amp.
To rockers and heavy metal fans alike Marshall Amps rule, so this is likely to appeal to head banger who remember the days of AC/DC when an adult dressing up as a school boy was actively encouraged.
EVOKE-1XT Marshall Edition is wrapped in black vinyl, just like a Marshall amp, with solid wood construction, brass-effect control panel and a black metallic speaker grille.
Pure tell us that it has a bass reflex port for enhanced bass performance alongside a custom designed 3″ drive unit and active-filters to provide a natural ‘direct-from-the-studio’ sound. Let’s Rock!
You to can fool yourself that you’ve turned your bathroom into the Monster of Rock playing Donnington by buying this beauty.
Pure clearly have a sense of humour as the volume goes up to 11 (tm Spinal Tap).
It’s going to sell for 1p under £100.
Pure
2 November, 2006
No Protection For Online Gambling Bosses: Caborn
UK sports minister, Richard Caborn, has said that Britain would not protect online gaming executives from extradition requests if they took Internet bets from countries in which they were illegal. These won’t be welcome words to the people running the gambling companies, who have already taken a hit with the arrest of two execs in the US earlier this year.
Caborn was speaking at a summit, ironically held at the Ascot horse racing course in Berkshire, discussing and agreeing a draft framework of regulation to protect consumers and prevent underage gambling and gambling addiction.
“We now have in place a road map that will lead to better regulated remote gambling across the world,” he said.
It’s been reported that Caborn has plans to make Britain a “world leader” in Internet gambling, when internal Whitehall documents were leaked around the start of October.
(via Reuters)
1 November, 2006
Boss Micro BR, The ‘World’s Smallest Pro Studio’
Musicians today, eh? Spolit rotten.
Back in the day, whenever the creative muse struck, songwriters would have to write down their ideas on the back of a fag packet or strut around with a bulky cassette recorder which recorded more hiss than a steam train parade.
Thanks to music gear company Boss, all that’s set to change, with their stunning new pocket-sized gizmo letting musicians go one further than just recording basic ideas; with this baby they can record entire songs on the move!
Their new Micro BR – billed as the World’s Smallest Pro Studio – offers a phenomenal amount of power in a package barely bigger than an iPod.
The pint sized marvel offers four simultaneous playback tracks (plus 32 V-Tracks), MP3 compatibility, onboard multi-effects, built-in rhythm patterns, a tuner, USB connectivity and SD expansion card slot.
There’s also a dedicated guitar input for ambling axemen, time-stretch and centre cancel features, 293 rhythm patterns for whipping up a groove and a built-in microphone for ‘laying down’ your ‘vox trax.’
Despite its teensy-weensy dimensions 136.0 mm x 81.0 mm x 21.4 mm (5-3/8″ x 3-3/16″ x 7/8″), there’s a full complement of controls on the device, with a dozen buttons, nine knobs (for that all important ‘tweaking’) and a bundled 128MB SD card, offering 65 minutes of mono audio recording.
The Micro BR is essentially is a four-track studio with four simultaneous playback tracks and two simultaneous record / input tracks, but with each of the four main playback tracks having eight companion V-Tracks, users can record multiple takes and then pick the killer version for the final mixdown.
MP3 files can also be loaded up, with the ability to slow down the tempo without the pitch changing – handy for trying to learn those super fast guitar licks!
Due to start shipping at the end of the year, the price looks pretty competitive too, with one US site offering it for just $230 – a price that wouldn’t even buy you a half-decent drum machine back in our day (mumble, moan, ‘kids have it too easy these days,’ etc etc zzzz).
Boss
1 November, 2006
Google Buys JotSpot Wiki Company: The Why
Google has bought Palo Alto, CA-based Wiki/collaborative working company, JotSpot for an undisclosed amount.
With this move Google continues its habit of buying companies that produce high-quality, hosted Web-based application, before the rest of the market realises that they should be getting involved with it. JotSpot was founded in 2004 by Excite.com co-founders Joe Kraus and Graham Spencer.
JotSpot is a king amoung Wikis with a very easy to use AJAX-driven interface, providing incredibly smooth editing. A large leap from where most Wikis are, which are clumsy text command driven beasts that require the mastering of strange syntax’s to get working.
JotSpot was built by some of the best known names in the AJAX business, including Digital-Lifestyles chum Alex Russell, one of the people behind the increasingly popular Dojo toolkit.
With the release of JotSpot 2.6 back in May this year, making “editing is as fluid and natural as reading,” by using AJAX components wrapped into a Dojo widget.
Wikis provide the ability for many people to edit information on Web pages, and generally for the editing to be carried out by anyone. The philosophy behind the Wiki is the sharing of a collective knowledge. The best known example is Wikipedia, where anyone can start a page on Wikipedia about any subject with the knowledge that they have on that subject, this can then later be added to and amended by those who also have supplementary information on it.
Not Just Wikis – JotSpot Tracker
JotSpot isn’t just about Wikis, it’s about sharing information live on the Internet. Released at the end of last year (Dec 2005), JotSpot Tracker give users real-time editing of spreadsheets on the Internet, without the need for Excel.
Watching the video they made available when they integrated it into Salesforce, will give you some idea of the power the idea, and how components like this will make Google the online working company that Microsoft is trying to be with its Windows Live product.
JotSpot
1 November, 2006
Sony Unveils The World’s Lightest Notebook PC
Sony has announced that it will be launching what it claims is the world’s lightest notebook computer in December in Japan.
Aimed at the swivel-action, besuited business crowd, the carbon-cased Sony ‘type G’ Vaio lappie weighs in at a fluffy-cloud like 898 grams, with Sony’s boffins still managing to fit in a 12.1-inch LCD screen, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and a mighty battery life.
Looking closer it appears that they’ve also managed to wedge in a fingerprint reader too.
Sony claims that their new laptop will keep on rocking for 12.5 hours on a single battery charge in Stamina mode – long enough for even the longest haul commuters.
There’s no optical drive onboard, although there’s also an optical drive version available, weighing a pixie-untroubling 984g.
The new lightweight range will be powered by a range of three CPUs (Celeron, Core Solo U1300 and U1400), backed by 512MB of RAM and 40-80GB hard disk drives.
From what we’ve seen of the press photos, it seems that the laptop will be available in grey, blue and carbon finishes, all of which look delightfully natty to us.
Sony said that it currently has no plans to sell this featherweight beauty overseas (which is a real shame because our hearts are a-pumping at this little fella), but has announced that they will be knocking out for about 220,000 yen in Japan ($1,881, £985).
Sony [Japan]
1 November, 2006
Zend To Help PHP Run Faster On Windows
Microsoft have finally woken up to the fact that people aren’t using their Web server product, Internet Information Server.
Un*x-based Web servers rule the roost with the majority of commercial hosting companies, for a couple of reasons.
First is cost – Apache is free, as is Linux that it runs on, where as the Microsoft option requires a copy of Windows Server which retails for around $1,000.
Another is that many of the applications that are run on the Internet, and are freely available, use the programming language, PHP – twenty-two million Web sites currently. PHP is widely know as running slowly on IIS.
Microsoft have now signed a deal with Zend Technology to get PHP running faster, more reliably and increasing its stability. The deal covers Windows Server 2003 and the upcoming version Windows ‘Longhorn.’
To get the PHP working efficiently on their Server products, Microsoft will develop a version of FastCGI them. They will give away.
Microsoft will be excited with the comments of Andi Gutmans, co-founder and chief technology officer at Zend, “Since our preliminary work with Microsoft, we have already seen a better than 100 percent performance gain with some PHP applications on Windows Server 2003.” Good start.
Clearly this is great for Zend, a major mover in the PHP-world, as we suspect that they’ll be getting bundles of money for their troubles. Actual details of the financial arrangements were not disclosed.
As to whether anyone will actually choose to run PHP on Windows Server, when they can get it running for free on Linux – What do you think?
Zend
1 November, 2006