Geekery

Gadget: The Kindle

Posted on 11. Aug, 2009 by Jake.

The great, hilarious irony in recent tech news is surely Amazon’s stealthy remote deletion of an unauthorised novel from users’ Kindles – a novel that turned out to be none other than George Orwell’s 1984, the dystopian cautionary tale against the surveillance state.

The story may have been overhyped at first, but it raises another, more positive, thought: if Big Brother is watching, maybe people will start switching the pulp detective stuff for something more respectable.

This is a thought that turns out to be completely wrong.  As Nicholson Baker points out his awesome piece, Kindle sales have been boosted by sales of erotic romances, kitschy vampire tales and other stuff you’d be too embarrassed to buy at Exclusive Books.

Nicholson Baker’s piece is awesome in no small part because Nicholson Baker is awesome, but it also happens to be completely wrong.

Not actually completely wrong (actually it’s almost entirely correct) but wrong in trivial ways.

Baker finds all kinds of annoying tics and quirks in his Kindle, and he’s probably right. But these aren’t arguments against the eBook per se, or even the future of the Kindle, just against buying one right now. 

The Kindle 2 has a better and richer greyscale screen, but it’s still a bit wishy-washy. And the contrast could be better. There are also some reports about the sun incompatibility.

But these will no doubt be resolved when we get the Kindle 3.  

More important right now is that beyond the technical limitations, there’s the problem of stock. Not everything in print is available in electronically.

This will improve over time, but the limitation is purely technical. Amazon want you to use the Kindle and nothing else. So the stuff you buy from them can’t be viewed on your Sony Reader.

They also want you to buy all your material from them (and it’s the content that’s ultimately where the big bucks are going to be made). The problem with that is that all those guys putting up the Great Works into the public domain (Wikipedia editing for highbrow types) are wasting their time as far as your Kindle goes.

If you want a book, you’ll have to wait for Amazon to make it available for you.

(Baker has a neat solution: download stuff from the net and read it on your iPhone.)

One of the main objections to the devices is more emotional than rational. People just like holding books.

But what about other media?

Newspapers have as much nostalgia value as Penguin Classics. Maybe even more – there’s nothing like a lazy Sunday drinking good coffee under a tree reading the morning papers.

But the internet is largely making this experience obsolete anyway. Whether it’s breaking news, analysis or lifestyle journalism, you’re more likely to be reading your news on Firefox than print.

The Kindle, especially the Kindle DX, is great browsing for your local paper – or, better, someone else’s local paper – while reclaiming some of the casualness of holding a page. And you can read it in the park.

The big surprise, then, is that the eBook might just provide a sanctuary of old school reading habits in the age of advanced technology.

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Gripping gadgets

Posted on 22. Jul, 2009 by Jake.

Whoever thought gadget’s were tame, think again, ole buddy ole pal.

 Checking out Wired.com this week, I came across the most hardcore mofo stuff out there – Pimp My Assault Rifle.

So you have your little Swiss Army Knife on your keyring and you use it to unscrew the screws on that old desktop for tinkering. But if civilian technology is being used in the military, how are military gadgets helping us, hey?

I mean, gajillions a year of our tax bucks a year are spent on some pretty hardcore blow-em-to-bits tech, but, just like rocket science, we, the people, only get the benefit of the byproducts of this research ( debate open here, folks, throw in your comments below. I’ll start: I mean, Is missile guided global nuclear war a good price to pay for your laser-guided pool cue? Huh?)

 When I asked a buddy why he decided to serve in the navy, he said that, while the army had cooler toys, there’d be the risk he might actually have to shoot someone. Um, yeah…there is that. Having said that, he did  get to ride around in some pretty nifty little speed boats – but then so can you.

The potential for atomic catastrophe did produce one obvious benefit (no, not the internet): the global positioning system. Yeah. GPS. 

Which you can then use to go out, explore the world, and have some fun.

Which brings us full circle to Wired’s more benign tour of ‘Survival Gear That’s Just Crazy Enough to Work’ (quote unquote).

Among the kooky and awkward is something really useful: the solar cooker.

Heating up to 90 degrees, and cooking at a constant temperature, it’s better than trying to cook breakfast on the bonnet of your overheated beat up old car.

The obvious drawback is that you’ll need a decent amount of sun. But hey, South Africa. Right?  And I’d definitely take my solar cooker out with me partying in the Karoo, just par example.

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Gaming for the Future

Posted on 08. Jul, 2009 by Jake.

We all love the Wii, even people who don’t normally think of themselves as gamers. Come to think of it – especially non-gamers. The no frills graphics focus on playability (think how addictive and fun old-school NES games still are) rather than visual effect, and handling the remote is not unlike playing a lot of ‘real-world’ games in a way that non-traditional console users (read: old people) are comfortable with.

And that’s great. I think it’s forcing manufacturers to refocus on game play. Look at Guitar Hero: it doesn’t seem like it could possibly be fun until you play it.   

Microsoft’s Project Natal might be the full-body detector we’ve been waiting for. As anyone who thinks leaning to the right helps cornering your  virtual Carrera will know, immersing your entire body into the action feels natural and intuitive.

The technology is still relatively basic, but for now the applications for sports and racing games are clear. And the equipment is apparently more user-friendly than previous systems of this type.

For the serious gamer, though, motion-sensitive controllers add an extra dimension to the experience, but they aren’t going to be enough to sell a game on their own.

But with the big companies getting competitive about the technology, it will only be a matter of time before the software and the consoles becomes sophisticated enough themselves and more captivatingly integrated. 

Sony’s planned PS3 controller looks promising. The idea is to allow the user to operate in a more convincing 3d space. Used together with the Sony EyeToy, gamers will be able to use a whole range of inputs to communicate with their console.

Nintendo are also upgrading their machine. Check out this demo for the new Wii Motion Plus:

Exciting as these developments are, I think they demonstrate something interesting. I hadn’t really thought before about how powerful those few buttons on a console are. Just as Morse code makes it possible to write an infinite number of words with only two symbols, a few buttons on an old fashioned console allow gameplay of an almost endless richness. Just by pressing plastic dots, you can cross into the penalty area, evade and kill terrorists and win at Silverstone. Sometimes less really is more.

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Popcorn Hour-All in one Media Hub

Posted on 29. Jun, 2009 by Jake.

With more and more people using the internet as a one-stop media shop, the divide between the TV and the PC is getting smaller. Helping to bridge that divide is the Popcorn Hour, a set-top box that functions as an all-in-one media hub and is the perfect tool for integrating your home network with your home entertainment system.

The brilliance of the Popcorn Hour lies in its versatility. Users can choose to fit an internal hard-drive to the device or simply connect the Popcorn Hour to a home network via Ethernet and stream files directly from a computer. The device also has two USB slots for people who want to access media on their external hard-drives or memory sticks.

The Popcorn Hour supports all major video formats, offers HD playback and can also be used as a music player. In terms of connectivity, the device isn’t limited to a home network; it can be used as a web browser and features a built-in BitTorrent client. 

The interface is clean and accessible and the picture and sound quality have been widely praised by reviewers. Accessing a variety of media sources is simple and seamless and the connectivity and support options are unparalleled. All in all, the Popcorn Hour, which retails for about $300, is the best media hub available on the market.

If you’re looking for a cool way to transport your media between your PC and your Popcorn Hour, you could do worse than this Transformers-themed USB drive. True, its only 2GB, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in sheer geek appeal.

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Android Google Phone

Posted on 17. Jun, 2009 by Jake.

I can’t wait to get my hands on the Android Google phone. It’s sleek, but still has a decent sized qwerty keyboard, and I like the glossy finish.

But coolest feature is the motion sensor, which allows you to navigate Google Maps just by moving the phone.

It’s not hard to foresee the day that our phone tracks our path as we negotiate the city, highlighting points of interest (and places to buy more airtime along the way). Already, Google Street View is opening the way for nifty apps that change the way we see our environment.

Technology is also changing the way we communicate with each other. The INQ Twitter Phone, for optimized real-time social networking.

(Not recommended for readers in China.)

If you’re old fashioned and want to use your phone to talk and stuff, here’s a way to be high-tech and high fashion: the YUBZ Skype phone is for you.

Insufficiently bling for you? Luxury mobile maker Vertu brings you the Signature Cobra, an affront so vulgar only eight could be made.

I would (and maybe one day might) put my own cash on the Bang & Olufsen Serene Mobile. Like all the B&O products, it’s a combination of understated cutting-edge design and extremely high-end components, cleverly integrated – and not a Swarovski crystal in sight.

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