Geekery

Beam me up, skattie! The upcoming Samsung Beam

Posted on 03. Mar, 2010 by Jake.

I remember when phones had one purpose and one purpose alone – to phone people. They had receivers, which were attached to the phone with a wire and dials instead of buttons. Those were the good old days, back when it only cost 3 and tuppence to go to bioscope and you still had enough money left over for an Eskimo Pie at interval. Sigh. These days if you launch a new phone it has to have 3G and Qwerty keyboards and GPS and a bleeding flux capacitor. I once had a phone with a camera and a torch. I thought it was just the coolest. Nowadays that’s just not good enough. And Samsung knows this. Which is why their upcoming smartphone has a projector. Yes, a projector, those fancy newfangled things they have at the bioscope. Now there can be one on your phone. Oh this crazy modern world.

The phone, which will run on the Google Android 2.1 OS , will be called the Samsung Beam. Aside from its built in DLP Pico projector, it will feature, um, well, everything, ever. I will list it for you. Try not to drool. It will come equipped with Samsung’s TouchWiz 3.0 user interface, a 3.7 inch WVGA Super AMOLED display, an 8 mega pixel camera, an FM radio, Bluetooth 2.1, USB 2.0, GPS, and, of course 11 b/g/n wifi. It also comes bundled with a 2GB card, and can take up to 32Gs.

This is the kind of phone that will herald a new era of telecommunication. On its global release, the heavens will open up, and the Lord will descend unto earth, to witness the glory of the Samsung Beam. On its release here, the South African constitution may have to be altered so that union between man/woman and phone is made legal. No, but really, it probably won’t be as cool as an iPhone. But it has a projector, and you have to admit that’s pretty neat.

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Pokens – Leave them alone. They’re cute.

Posted on 29. Jan, 2010 by Jake.

They’re cute. They are decorated by top graphic designers and look a little like vinyl toys. They utilize cutting edge Near Field Communication technology. They have almost no worldly use whatsoever. Meet the Poken.

The Poken is a little device that has ambitions to replace the business card. And, seeing as we need to decrease our carbon footprint and stop cutting down the trees, this isn’t a bad idea. Basically, the Poken comes in the form of a little device, like a memory stick but better looking, which has a hand on it. In the middle of the hand is a little pad. The idea is that when you meet someone else with a Poken you ‘high five them’, basically touch their device with yours, and the pads on each Poken will light up to let you know that it has worked. Then, when you get home, you plug it in like a normal USB and download the details of the people you have ‘poked’. These people are arranged into some kind of buddy-style social network.

Apart from the obviously dodgy connotations of walking around all night ‘poking’ random strangers, the Poken will, in all likelihood, suffer due to the fact that it does not provide a function that is particularly needed. Business cards have become less prevalent as it is, since most cellular phones are equipped so that people can very easily store each others details. Have you ever sat around thinking about how much your life would improve if you had a little gadget to automatically save people’s contact details through some kind of high-fiving ritual? No? Well exactly. It’s not about to replace the iPad as this week’s most talked about piece of technology.

In its defence, at R200, its affordable, and has definite novelty value. The device’s greatest challenge, though, its that it can only work if everyone has one. If it ever gets to the stage that everyone is poking away everywhere I go chances are I will feel left out and get one. But, if you go to a bar and only 3 other people have them (and, so far, even that amount seems unlikely), your poken is not going to get a whole lot of use. And, most probably, people in the near vicinity will look at you funny if you ever do get the opportunity to use it.

Pokens are cute though, and as bunnies and babies the world over would hope, that has to count for something.

You an pick up a Poken at ilovepoken, buycool or Digital Planet. For more info, go here.

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The obligatory iPad post

Posted on 28. Jan, 2010 by Jake.

Ok, so it’s actually here, the device that, as a friend of mine put it, ‘will change the way people wildly speculate about new technology before it is even actually released’.

Now that it’s out, the question is, is it all that? We have crazed fans in one corner declaring it a work of unmitigated genius, and haters in the other pointing out that, as far as they can see, it’s like an iPhone, only bigger. What do I think? The truth is probably somewhere between these two opinions.

The main thing to remember is that the iPad is still a baby. When the developers start working with it and for it, real innovations will start taking place. For now, even those who want a Wi-fi model will have to wait until March, and those after the 3G version will have to wait until April. And it won’t stay at $500 forever. For now it is, in my humble opinion, a beautiful and innovative machine that not a hell of a lot of people will have a use for. Yet.

Oh, and we’re South Africans, remember. So all we can do for now is speculate and dream. The dang thing ain’t even available here yet, and who knows when it will be.

Anyway, here are some pros and cons, which I’ve have based on extensive internet research:

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Google’s Nexus One Released, But Not in SA

Posted on 11. Jan, 2010 by Jake.

Not too long after the iPhone was met with mixed reviews, Google released their highly anticipated Nexus One Phone last week, and already some at the CES 2010, the world’s most influential international technology trade show, have declared it ‘an iPhone killer’. The phone, which does seem to pick up where the iPhone left off, heavily influenced by its predecessor if not a direct copy, is so far only available online, and whether it will suffer due to its lack of availability in retail stores, where you will find the iPhone, remains to be seen. Even if the Nexus One will be released in stores eventually, some have suggested that Google will have missed out on the buzz, created by people queuing outside stores to buy the phone that benefited the iPhone so much.

Bad news for South Africans, as pointed out by MyBroadband.co.za is that on visiting the Nexus One’s official site right now one is met with the tragic statement “sorry, the Nexus one phone is not available in your country”.
But, don’t despair. As the MyBroadband article helpfully points out, Vodacom may bring the phone to SA soon, as Google have signed an agreement with Vodafone that covers all of the company’s countries.

But, even if Vodacom don’t release the Nexus One in SA, the phone, which is not network locked and has no APN in the handset, can still be purchased oversees (you will have to get it shipped to SA, though, and since there is no APN accessing all of the services in the Google suite will be a problem unless, like me, you are clever enough to install your own APN. Perhaps I should post a tutorial on how it’s done, so we can overcome Google’s decision to neglect the Southernmost tip of Africa together!

The phone, which uses the Android Mobile Technology Platform 2.1 Operating System, is available in the US and UK on the online Google Phone Store. It will set you back $529 (or roughly R4000, making it almost half the price of the iPhone when it was initially released). For full specs, go here.

Thank you to Engadget for the pic!

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Virtual smoking

Posted on 04. Jan, 2010 by Jake.

Smoking used to be so much more fun. Back in the day smoking a Stuyvesant was an automatic passport to the good life, just one puff and the smoker was instantly transported to someone’s private yacht to drink expensive alcohol while cavorting with semi-naked models . Or, if adventure was your thing, a drag of a Camel used to be the only satisfying end to a nice swing through the jungle. These were the days before smoking was bad for you, and so absolutely everyone used to smoke freely, in restaurants, in movies, on aeroplanes, in hospitals and churches. But no more. Today’s smoker is a lonely creature, rejected and marginalised, forced outside to get their fix even in the dead of winter, scolded by doctors and ostracised by friends. Even the most committed smoker could be forgiven for attempting to quit. But like rock ‘n roll, smoking isn’t dead – it’s just gotten safer and more electronic – Twisp, the first electronic cigarette available in South Africa, offers smokers a nicotine fix without the actual smoke – instead emitting a kind of vapour that is apparently free of tar and carcinogenic compounds.

I don’t smoke, since I am unfortunately neither a wealthy playboy on a yacht or a rugged jungle adventurer. So to check out the Twisp had to rely on the testimony of my friend Wessel, once a committed smoker but now a despicable traitor who has sold out by buying the Twisp Dura C E-Cigarette. Wessel says that he has, so far, been able to stop smoking normal cigarettes due to switching to the Dura C. He says that it is more similar to smoking a hubby bubbly than a cigarette.
Wessel says that while he can get his nicotine fix using the Twisp he still finds it hard to get used to the feel of the cold, hard cigarette that appears to be made from porcelain, and to inhaling, which he says lacks the ‘burn’ that he craves most when smoking. On the other hand, though, he enjoys being able to finally smoke in restaurants and films again, and says that the device is also a good conversation piece.

Depending on which Twisp cartridge you choose you could pay from 800 to 1000 rand for a starter pack which will include everything you need to get smoking. On top of that one needs to replace the liquid that goes in the cartridges every now and then at R250 a pop. Expensive perhaps, but it works out as much cheaper than buying a pack a day over the course of a year. And yes, the Twisp is a lot healthier than normal smoking, but if you look in the mirror one day to find that, despite not owning a yacht or ever doing any jungle exploration you are still a smoker with rapidly decaying lungs, rather than rushing out to get gum or patches or even bizarre electronic cigarettes maybe the best option is to quit the old fashioned way – cold turkey.

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