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Well, it came as a surprise to us, but apparently the mythical iPod killer is already here, and it’s none other than the Sony Play Station Portable, at least acccording to an article in MP3Newswire.

The piece offers the following evidence to support their claim: Sony currently sells 1 PSP for every 2.3 iPods, and the PSP has a 4.3 inch, 16:9 widescreen screen with a 480×272 resolution, supports MP3 playback and has a much better video performance and it plays games. While the PSP is large, heavy and has less capacity, it seems to have many of the ’secret sauce’ ingredients -i.e. some difficult-to-duplicate combination of features, look & cool- that are necessary to challenge the iPod.

The article goes on to list 28 other candidates for the title of iPod killer, with the the SanDisk Sansa e280 8GB and the Microsoft Zune seeming to be the two with the best prospects. Their prediction: the iPod will remain at number one, but with diminished market share…sounds about right.

iPod Killers for Christmas 2006 – MP3Newswire, 10/14/06

see also-
iPod Killers for Christmas 2005 – MP3Newswire, 10/5/05
iPod Killers for Christmas – MP3Newswire, 10/14/04

Posted in Music Players ~ No Comments

Newsweek interviewed Steve Jobs recently in a kind of retrospective on the occasion of the 5th anniversary of the launch of the iPod which is on Oct 23rd. Steve holds forth on why other companies have not been successful in the music player segment (no talent), why the iPod did so well (its holistic & simple), things he considers cool (Levi’s) and the importance of music (it’s good for the soul).

Jobs does seem to practice what he preaches in the simplicity department. Website Presentation Zen has an excellent write-up entitled, Gates, Jobs, & the Zen aesthetic, on the subtlety of Jobs’ approach when presenting, as compared and contrasted to the over-busy Microsoft Method as espoused by Bill Gates … graphic attached.

Good for the Soul – Newsweek interview with Steve Jobs, Oct. 15, 2006

Posted in Music Players ~ 1 Comment

The Washington Post has an interesting article that describes how forensic analysts using specialized tool suites can often recover most of the data that resides on a sold or discarded smartphone, even after a hardware reset has been performed or if the data is encrypted. The article makes note of companies like Trust Digital and Paraben Corp who operate in the cell phone forensics space. Paraben’s Device Seizure 1.0 can recover most mobile data, and Decryption Collection Standard v2.5 can decrypt Excel data at a rate of 2,048,340 password attempts per minute.

More info is at Cell Phone Forensic Tools: An Overview and Analysis by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. This 187-page document evaluates 12 tools that purport to be able to assist in the forensic investigation of cell phones and PDA phones. The document’s discomfiting conclusion was that all of the tools “performed well and have adequate functionality“. One of the the few recourses left for the “suspect” (as they refer to hapless device owner) is the use of a “wiping tool”, such as the Cell Phone Data Eraser .

Used Cellphones Hold Trove of Secrets That Can Be Hard to Erase – Washington Post, October 21, 2006

Posted in Phones ~ No Comments

Korean gadget maker Digital Cube has a new media player dubbed the i-mini. The device measures 80.5×52x16.5mm, weighs 85 gr, has a 2.4in QVGA screen and plays back many of the usual audio and video file formats including MP3 and MPEG-4.

The i-mini has up to 4GB of storage, and can receive DMB TV. The unit is somewhat like the iRiver Clix, but with buttons, TV and a better video frame rate.

Digital Cube i-mini – Aving News, 2006-10-20

Posted in General ~ No Comments

We’ve already made note of the Panasonic 103 inch plasma TV…the world’s largest such. Well…actually at 2603.8 mm, it really only measures 102.511811 inches diagonally, but who’s complaining?. Here’s yet another nice pic of the thing…

Posted in TVs & Monitors ~ 3 Comments

The House of the Raging Bull, aka Lamborghini, announced their Murcielgo LP640 back in 22 February 2006 and first showed it at the 76th International Motor Show Geneva. Its now becoming available.

The LP640 has a 6.496 liter 631-hp V12 engine and accelerates from 0-100 Kph in 3.4 seconds. Good looking wedge, er, car. Starts at about $340K, more details here; its a shame about the side-view mirrors.

Posted in Automotive ~ No Comments

Cell phones are becoming so last century…Sony’s new mylo personal communicator may well be harbinger of their eventual demise by virtue of telephony via Wi-Fi.

The mylo has an interesting feature set – the device works in Wi-Fi hotspots and supports instant-messaging, web browsing and Skype/free phone calls over the Internet. Also plays music and videos, has a slide-out keyboard, 1 GB of flash memory and QVGA screen. The device was announced back in August and is now becoming available in the Japanese market.

Nice, battery life seems good, but its pricey at $379, not to mention that finding a free hotspot might be tough, although the offer by T-Mobile to provide free access for a year will help.

mylo Personal Communicator On Sale – Sony Press Release, 2006 10 18

Posted in Phones ~ 1 Comment

Bang & Olufsen finally enters the American cell phone space by launching their Serene mobile phone, first announced over a year ago. The Serene was co-developed with Samsung, and has been well received aesthetically, but less so, technologically.

$1300 buys you a phone with a VGA camera, messaging, the ‘best sound quality’ on the market, voice recognition, tri-band GSM and Bluetooth.

Bang & Olufsen Unveils New Showroom in Dallas and Launches First Cell Phone in North America – B&O Press Release, 18 Oct 2006

Posted in Phones ~ 1 Comment

The SETI project has been bugging the Milky Way galaxy for about 46 years now, and still has no results to show for all of its efforts. It’s all for a good cause though … they’re hoping to find radio signals from extraterrestrials and are eavesdropping on them via radio telescopes. While SETI has made no progress towards their stated goal, they are advancing in other areas.

The Carl Sagan Center has just been established and will focus on exo-biology and the search for those elusive signals. Also, the Allen Telescope Array, mostly funded by Paul Allen should improve the project bandwidth considerably. The ATA will eventually consist of 350 6-meter dishes and scan 4×10^10 stars in our galaxy for other-worldly transmissions.

The SETI premise is that the famous Drake Equation, which attempts to estimate..er guess, the number of detectable advanced civilizations in the galaxy, results in a reasonable number of civs out there. We’re thinking that that inconvenient inverse-square law of physics will result in no confirmed extraterrestrial signal ever being received.

Carl Sagan Center Formed to Study Life in the Universe – SETI Press Release, October 17, 2006

Posted in mail2web.com ~ No Comments

Here’s a nicely designed & well spec’d phone by Motorola, their (presumed) model E9. The E9 has a 3.2 megapixel camera and both Bluetooth and WiFi …Or, the attached image might simply be a nicely Photoshop’d speculative rendition by persons unknown…We’re hoping its the former.

3.2 million pixel photography Motorola ultra-thin mobile phone E9 – PCPOP, Oct 17 2006

Posted in Phones ~ No Comments