Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Sprint is all over the place.  They just lost 1.3 million customers, they’ve got their CEO on television yammering about technology, and now they’ve unveiled this thing.  What is it? 

It is Sprint’s promotion of its mobile broadband service featuring over 30 widgets.  At random intervals, a woman’s voice will say things like, “Feel free to touch it.“  You can listen to music, mess around with some of the widgets just by clicking on them like the cuckoo clock and be inundated with all kinds of information that you don’t need.

It’s actually a pretty cool way to waste a lot of time.  Does this make you or I want Sprint mobile broadband?  Not really.  It does remind me of Jarvis in the “Iron Man” movie.  I think I’ll go watch that.

See it at Sprint via UneasySilence.

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Sections: Communications, Cellular Providers, Web, Websites

I am a Fred fan.  Or I guess I was a Fred fan.  Fred was an alternative rock station on XM that played some deep tracks that exposed where bands like U2, REM, Cure and others got their sounds influenced from.  XM radio has euthanized Fred and other themed genre stations, in efforts to merge their networks.  I am not the only one sad.

The replacement for Fred is First Wave, a Sirius station, which in my opinion and the opinion of these groupies, blows chow.  Bad.  Shallow.  Bad.

Can I make a fiscal justification to keep both stations going along?  No.  Can I say that satellite radio has finally lost the race with Internet radio?  Yes.  My cohorts and I are leaving as we can’t stand your far too repetitious music designed for those behind the wheel for 30 minutes.

It isn’t all tears for satellite radio owners though, according to craveonline, 

“Each sides’ premium channels and talent remains mostly intact, with stations like Howard Stern, the Grateful Dead Channel and Eminem’s Shade 45 all now available to XM users, while Sirius listeners now get Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour, Tom Petty’s Buried Treasure and B.B. King’s blues station.“

Those of us that got attached to these themed genre stations will miss them and the talent at XM studios in DC.

Farewell Fred.  Thanks for the tip, Jeff.

• Sprint: Plug into widget overload
• Internet:  It’s the most important thing in people’s lives
• MySpace suicide court case begins

And with SanDisk, the hits just keep on coming.  They have the 1GB, the 2GB, the 4GB Sansa Clips, and now the 8GB flash-based player.  It may be teeny-tiny in size, but it certainly isn’t in the capacity of songs this baby can hold.  Try up to 4,000 on it’s rechargeable battery which will run for 15 hours.  Not bad, eh?

The player obviously gets its name from the clip it sports on the back.  It lets users attach it to their clothing, backbacks, etc., which is great for when you are on the go.  However, if you want to detach the clip, you have that option as well.  Another nice thing about the Sansa Clip is that is has an OLED color screen, which lets you pick which songs you want to listen to; you don’t have to listen at random.  More after the break.

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Company: Able Planet
Product: Clear Harmony NC200 foldable headphones
Price: $99.99
Pros: Portable and neat foldable design.  Easy to take anywhere.  Also comes with in-line adjustable volume to make music even louder.  Soft and comfortable to wear.
Cons: Sound isn’t the best unless you are using the Noise canceling.  Virtually no point in using headphones unless you are going to use the noise canceling. 
Overall: Decent product and good for it’s price.  4/5.

The above was just a quick summary of my findings when I played around with Able Planet’s Clear Harmony NC200 headphones.  Keep reading for an in-depth review of the ease of setup, the audio clarity, the good, the bad, and my final thoughts on the product as a whole.

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You may know of Dane-Elec has one of the main distributors of Meizu’s M6, which is a phone similar to the iPhone.  Now, they have decided to venture into the PMP market themselves and they recently introduced 4 of their first PMP’s - the Music Mediatouch, the Music Touch, Music Pix and the Music.  Definitely some interesting names for PMP’s, in my opinion.

First, let’s talk about the Music Mediatouch.  It comes with a 4.3-inch touch screen with 480 x 272 resolution, TV out, FM Tuner, and support for many audio and video formats including AVI, WAV, and MP3.  It also comes with support of WMA, WAV, APE, FLAC, JPG, GIF, and BMP.  The Music Mediatouch will be available in 2 models, a 4GB and an 8GB.  The 8GB will sell for 150 Euros, or $202.  I imagine the 4GB to sell a bit less than that.

Plenty more details after the break.

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Tough times call for tough actions.  It seems in light of all the economic bad news, lower income folks are ditching gadgets to have just one: the iPhone 3G.  Who needs two iPods?  Who needs a netbook?  Who needs a home phone line?

Indeed, one could argue the iPhone is just a tethering application away from ditching your home line, your broadband connection, your cable or satellite company, heck—even books are not able to escape all the niches Apple’s wonder child can get its hands on.  My thinking here is tethering would allow you to use your laptop/desktop via the iPhones 3G connection, so you can ditch the $25 per month + for broadband.

See how many folks continue to flock to the iPhone, ditching other gadgets.

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You don’t even have to be illegally sharing your files to have the gaming firms after you apparently.  Just ask Gill and Ken Murdoch. 

They’re senior citizens who don’t even play computer games and had never even heard the term “peer-to-peer” until they got a letter in the mail telling them they were being accused of sharing the game Race07 by makers Atari.  Their case was eventually dropped, but there are still hundreds of people this is happening to according to a Which? Computing magazine investigation.  More details after the break.

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Sections: Computers, Networking, Security, Software / Applications, Gaming, Miscellaneous, Peripherals, Web, Downloads, Web 2.0, Web Apps, Web Browsers, Websites, Online Music/Video

Android is taking the books and the teachers out of music lessons.  The newest way to learn music – via your cell phone (as long as you have Android).

Among the first of many Android applications is SplashPlay Mobile Music Maker, an instrument learning and music sharing tool.  Wherever your phone goes, SplashPlay goes with you to learn, listen or share music anywhere.  Right now, guitar is the only instrument compatible with the software.  Continued after the break.

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Usually, MP3 players serve only a few purposes such as playing audio and probably video.  It is pretty rare to find good Bluetooth embedded in an MP3 player.  However, Philips has recently announced their new MP3 player that incorporates Bluetooth 2.1 technology for hands free calling. 

The GoGear LUXE is a MP3 player that pairs to your handset via Bluetooth.  If you play a lot of music on your phone, you know what a battery drain that can be—the LUXE would alleviate that problem.

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This is where we call out by names the actions and companies that seem odd, out of touch or just plain straight up smokin’ crack.  Technology is an odd realm where PR speak doesn’t hold a lot of water if the 1s and 0s don’t line up.  This week sees posturing, positioning and flat out insanity.  Here is what caught my eye this week:

Check out my mockery of:

• Cell phone carriers
• Dell
• Asus
• Motorola (yet again)
• the gaming industry

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