LIVEdigitally

I know it’s not the most stunning bit of news to post since my return from San Francisco, but it looks like there may be one immediate casualty of Sprint and Nextel’s corporate union becoming official: the Sprint guy.

Sprint’s headquarters are in Overland Park, Kansas, and according to The Kansas City Star [free registration bypass can be found here], Brian Baker, a.k.a. Sprint Guy/The Man in Black actually found out about his potential state of limbo in the paper. The guy’s been in some 150 commercials since the late 1990s and, according to the article, “became one of the best-known pitchmen in the history of American advertising.” I’m not so sure about the accuracy of that statement, but he’s far superior to the fuzzy-haired, bespectacled Verizon dude incessantly blurting out his master’s mind-numbing catch phrase.

The article is full of random tidbits: Baker made People magazine’s 2001 list of the sexiest men alive, and a year later he married hottie Terry Farrell (Jadzia Dax on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine).

Anywho, Sprint Nextel peeps quoted in the article claim that Baker was never called about the news because he’s still under contract and will apparently stay that way until sometime next year. Until then, Baker’s online fan club, sprint.justmango.com, will apparently have to sate themselves on reruns. All I know is that if Sprint Guy returns, I better not hear the walkie talkie beep for the duration of the commercial. If so, I’ll wish he never came back.

If you looked at the picture below and thought, “a new PC backpack,” you would only be half right. It’s a power generating backpack. I really want one so I can stand atop a bench and yell “I have the power!!!”

The backpack, as light as a candybar, takes the motions of your body and converts it into electricty. Your iPod, laptop, cell phone, PDA or whatever electronic device you can’t leave home without will never wuss out on you again. All you need to do is take a walk and poof, instant electricty.

It reminds me a bit of Berkeley’s BLEEX backpack which gave its wearer super strength.

I will say as great and green of an idea as this backpack is, it is definitly a fashion fopaux. I mean, c’mon how cool does this guy look?

It’s all coming into view for me. Before PayPal, eBay transactions took weeks, for a check to be delivered via snail mail, and wait then for the item to be snail mailed back. PayPal cut one of those postal pains by allowing an instantaneous money transfer. eBay should have done something like that themselves. Instead of kicking their own backsides, they decided to investigate the next best thing, Skype. Instead of emailing questions to sellers and waiting for their response, is just calling them up and chatting VoIP style.

eBay probably saw a bit more potential in Skype than a better auction site, but I’d like to call and make sure that Britteny Spears really did take a bite of that $12,598.78 piece of toast I just bid on.

Finally a show for us and by us. PBS is launching NerdTV hosted by Robert X. Cringely. While Cringely probably couldn’t get a job working for MTV he does have the chops to interview the likes of Bill Joy the father of UNIX and Sun Microsystems. The show will feature top knotch geeks in shows that can be downloaded on your PC.

Think of it as a talk show that we too can finally enjoy.

So the iTunes phone is finally ready – Apple CEO Steve Jobs is in the process of wooing the media in attendance at today’s event at the Moscone Center, which started approximately one hour ago. The image you see is from the Cingular web site, featured prominently on the front page. I write this from the front seat of my rental car in downtown San Francisco (forgive my lack of posts over the past few days – I’ve been out in SF looking for full-time employment). Having just returned from the flagship Apple store here, I managed to snag a free wifi signal and am keeping an eye out for meter maids as buses and delivery trucks roar by. If they won’t let you attend the event, any self-respecting blogger should take things into his/her own hands, I say. If this isn’t blogging, what is, right? Updates to follow.

UPDATE (3:45 pm PST):
This is already all over the net, but since I finally secured a reliable connection (at my friend’s house) I figured I’d just post the highlights of today’s Apple announcement:

• iTunes phone. Available exclusively from Cingular in the states, the phone is $249 with a 2-year contract. It’s a tri-band GSM/GPRS phone with a built-in VGA camera, speakerphone, Bluetooth and apparently sports up to nine hours of talk time (if true, major thumbs up). The phone can hold up to 100 songs, downloaded from your Mac or PC.
• iTunes 5. The latest version of the music app sports a few minor aesthetic changes, as well as support for the new iTunes phone, a new type of smart shuffle allowing adjustments to random playback and a few other features.
• iPod nano. Similar in appearance to its big brother, the full-size iPod, the nano apparently emerged from the ether and killed the iPod mini, taking its place in Apple’s music player lineup. Thin as a pencil and approximately 3.5 inches wide, it sports a color screen and comes with either 2 GB ($199) or 4 GB ($249) of space, in either white or black.

Those who are interested can watch this morning’s keynote here.

Each day I watch a bit of news, and am in disbelief. Stars are flying their private jets out, and personally helping out with their own two hands. Oprah even fought her way into the superdome, where she was seen holding a filter over her nose and mouth. With things this bad, people need to help out. Our buddies over at PayPal aren’t doing a good job at that.

They froze the account of www.somethingawful.com, who raised almost $30K in 9 hours. This not only hindered the site to give the money to Red Cross, but also halted all other donations. In a time of need, PayPal sure was happy they didn’t startup business in New Orleans. Later, PayPal reps told Somethingawful that they needed to wait 3-5 business days, and that Red Cross could not accept the money, United Way was the only allowable donation party for PayPal.

Bad news on PayPal’s part. All (most of) the donations were refunded, to hopefully be donated. All this while people starve, dehydrate, and suffer. Way to go PayPal. Let’s hope SomethingAwful happens to PayPal, or at least smacks ‘em upside their dumb head.

 

 

Introduction

Our computers have increasingly become the digital media centers of our households. Many users play more audio through their computers than their stereos. DVD’s get watched through computers via their DVD drives as well. Internet radio satisfies every taste imaginable, and a few more. The latest computer games have soundtracks and sound effects to rival any Hollywood blockbuster.

The speakers included in most desktop systems are barely adequate for most sound reproduction duties. Most included speakers are quite underpowered, two speaker setups. The speakers built into most notebooks are at least a notch worse than even the most inexpensive desktop solutions. They have virtually no bass whatsoever. Even so called “media center notebooks” can’t produce anything close to room filling sound.

Fret not, as there are many aftermarket solutions to provide the audio worthy of the rest of your computer setup. Logitech manufactures a whole line up of speaker solutions. Today, we’ll be looking at the Logitech Z-2300 speaker system, one of their premium audio solutions.

The Z-2300 is a 2.1 speaker setup. While I’ve used 4.1 speaker systems before, I find that more speakers and more wires, leads to more tangle, exponentially. This quickly turns into a cluttered mess. Even though the rear speakers are intended to go behind you for a surround sound experience, unless you plan on taking over a room with wires, the placement can be a challenge. I think a three piece setup is preferable for many users. Let’s just refresh ourselves as to the various speaker setups:

From the chart, we can see that a 2.1 speaker setup is ideally suited for audio reproduction. As such, we’ll focus the testing on audio tasks. I’ll connect the speakers to both a notebook to test integrated audio, and our Shuttle desktop which has a dedicated chip on the motherboard. I’ll also hook them up directly to a CD player, and an MP3 player (SanDisk’s Sansa, our current best sounding, LD Approved player). I’ll listen to a variety of music of several styles, in both compressed and uncompressed (direct from CD) formats. Some DVD’s will be played as well. While speaker tests are subjective, we at Live Digitally strive to be impartial and objective, and I’ll do my utmost to uphold that. The audio will be compared in back to back tests with earbuds, other computer speakers, and a dedicated stereo system (Proton satellites, Altec-Lansing subwoofer). 

What’s In The Box

Be prepared for the UPS guy to not be thrilled with this delivery. The rather large and heavy box includes the following items.
-left and right satellite speakers
-subwoofer
-wired remote
-manual
-game adaptor (more…)

It has been some time since I have written. But now that I’m settled on the east coast, with somewhat reliable Internet, I’ll try and keep in touch more often. In light of recent disaster news I thought I’d make my first return post a little more light and fuzzy.

I came across a good discussion of online dating as the third sexual revolution in America and the notion sparked interest and discussion in my new house.

(more…)

My phone just doesn’t do enough for me: Call anywhere in the nation for free, instant messenging, web browsing via the GPRS network, pop email for three different accounts, games, downloadable ringtones, a comprehensive calendar, and more… I need a phone suit for Madonna, Iggy Pop, and Lil’ John. I need an Apple/Motorola phone. “Listening to my phone” is something that I want to embed into my vocabulary I can carry my iPod with me, but with an iPod and a phone in my front pocket, lots of girls think I’m just happy to see them.

Talk about combining a mobile phone and an mp3 player is older than the pyramids. Apple has been teasing us with their iTunes Motorola phone for months now. But this journalist has an idea that this next week, we’ll have some concrete information about the phone. With celebs set up to advertise the new Motorola Rokr (iTunes) phone, I’m anticipating much from Apple’s event next week.

So the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) just announced the two member list of companies participating in the next stage of its Walrus program, which aims to develop a part blimp, part jumbo jet monstrosity that can quickly (and relatively cheaply) ferry hundreds of tons of gear to the far reaches of the world. In reality show-ese: Lockheed Martin will duke it out with Aeros Aeronautical Systems in a 12-month battle to provide DARPA with a winning walrus design, using a budget of $3 million tax dollars each.

Who will be the victor?

According to Red Herring (they put it so eloquently): “DARPA wants the final product to carry 500 tons of war machine 12,000 nautical miles in less than a week.” RH spoke to Torrance, California-based Aeros, who claims that a 1-foot-wide hole in the fabric of a 140-foot-long airship would take more than an hour bring the thing down, meaning ample time for safe landings after hostile encounters. They also report asking about the potential impact of missles (war zones typically involve things more dangerous than pea shooters) – too bad Aeros wouldn’t cough up any details.

The article makes a valid point about the potential usefulness of such a vehicle in chaotic areas like New Orleans, where large quantities of supplies could be brought to a single area by one gigantic aircraft. To put it in all in perspective, the largest Boeing 747 cargo plane can only carry 400 tons – and it needs a runway.

I know this isn’t the same as forgetting to convert your units, but PLEASE don’t fill it with hydrogen…

As I sit at my desk and listen to the ongoing radio coverage of the situation in New Orleans, I have a hard time describing my reaction to what’s being said by regular citizens, journalists, emergency workers, mayors and our president. I feel shock, sorrow, embarassment, sheer confusion and I can’t get over the fact that learning more about the situation makes my mind swell with images and quotes when I hear the words “disaster area”. Coverage can be found everywhere, but I just wanted to toss out a link that’s truly compelling.

Mike Barnett’s aptly-named Survival of New Orleans Blog continues to pour out a constant stream of post-hurricane reports from his office on the 10th floor of an office building in the heart of downtown. Traffic to the site continues to swell as Barnett and fellow Zipa and DirectNIC (web hosting and co-location centers) employees make the most of what may very well be the only such site written and hosted by the city destroyed by hurricane Katrina. Hop to the site and read some of the posts…truly amazing.

Links to photos from the site can be found here and also here. Wired ran a nice article yesterday with some photos of the employees and more information about the blog.

Looting, shootings, murders, bodies everywhere, gas prices out of control, talk of the larger economic impact the storm will have…I just wish everyone out there the best and will continue to soak up as much news as I can.

This is great. All you cell phone camera addicts out there, take a moment to find a fellow photog and chest bump. The boys in blue caught up with the NY subway flasher who gained a certain amount of notoriety last week after a smart cookie snapped a pic of him with her cameraphone and posted on Flickr. The damn thing made it to the cover of the New York Daily News!

Mom and dad! See! See! Cell phones really CAN save the day…or at least enable those really hoping to get their very own misdemeanor. Throw another hash mark in the side of the board that reads “Reasons I Love The Internet.”

[Cheers to BoingBoing]