LIVEdigitally

I just wanted to take a second to congratulate my friends Ryan Block and Peter Rojas for launching gdgt.com.  It’s a new site/resource/blog/community/social network/thing… words don’t describe… they should’ve sent… a… poet!  Ok, just kidding.  It’s a new site designed to really help people get the most out of their gadgets, whether by finding peer-based support, new uses, or other recommendations.  Here’s a link to their introduction, and I wish the guys the best - they’ve worked pretty hard to get here!

Here’s my personal gdgt profile (I manage to snag “jeremy” as my username there!):

Kinda enjoying the “wrapup” post concept.  I feel less pressure to blog, and take a bit more time to collect my thoughts (instead of jumping on board any given meme as it happens).  Would definitely like to know from my reader(s?) if this is harder content to consume than more frequent, shorter posts.

Dell Buying Palm

This rumor’s been floating for a while. At the Building43/TechCrunch party I was told it was a certainty, though the NY Times thinks it’ll never happen.  At this stage in the mobile game, I think Palm does need an acquisition if it wants to survive as a big player, either that or needs a drastic overhaul/downsizing until they think like a startup again (which really is the position they are in). Dell’s a decent suitor, though I’d doubt they’d really escalate the brand to the level it needs.  I’d rather see a merger with Motorola’s mobile group, as they have the true infrastructure needed to compete at the high stakes table, and could really use an injection of creativity and new technology (no more RAZRs guys).

Facebook URLs

This whole week Facebook did a replay of Oklahama in the late 1800s (including allowing “key journalists” in sooner than us lame users). The stats last night were impressive, though I’m still sitting here scratching my head on the whole thing a little.  I’m assuming FB plans to do some serious SEO work, enabling those who grabbed useful terms like “carpenter” (no, I don’t know that guy) to generate a little business out of them. That said, some useful terms like “sanfranciscosushi” are still up for grabs, so enterprising folks should put their creative hats on and get going.  I didn’t take my name yet (having a unique name makes that kinda easy) because I just don’t get the value to me personally.  Googling Jeremy Toeman always gets me, as does the first page or two for just Toeman.  Not to say I didn’t try a few names to see how they’d feel…

nah… not quite right.

Building43

My friend Robert Scoble started working at Rackspace (the place where we host Legacy Locker, btw) a few months back, and he’s been dropping hints about this “Building43″ thing for a while now.  This week he formally unveiled it during the TechCrunch 4th birthday party down in Palo Alto.  First and foremost, thanks Robert and Mike for some amazingly good BBQ food - oh, and your contributions to the tech industry blah blah blah ;). So Building43 is designed as a resource for entrepreneurs and big companies alike to participate and gain feedback and insight from the tech community at large.  It’s an ambitious goal, and I wish them a lot of luck.  My biggest advice to them is to really focus on the user experience, as right now I found the site a little confusing to navigate (despite my personal familiarity with all the technologies they are using, like FriendFeed).  If it’s tough for me to find things, I can’t imagine what it’s like for those new to it.

Project Natal

Microsoft introduced “Project Natal” at E3, and there’s a rumor circulating that instead of thinking of it as a new component to the Xbox 360, it might be its own console. I love the idea of using motion capture as a video game controller (or remote control or any other kind of interface), but I think that’s where my love ends. As an idea.  Here’s the issue - it’s not good enough if it’s 99% accurate. Why?  Because the 1 time in 100 that you shoot instead of duck, or block instead of jump, or whatever mistake it makes is going the about the last time you play seriously.  Fundamental to every good user interface is absolutely perfectly reliable controls, with proper feedback mechanisms to the user.  With a motion controller, the moment the game doesn’t do what you wanted it to do, it’s all over.  Trust is lost, and the “magic moment” is replaced by dislike, then eventually anger. I saw a tweet that I think encapsulated the issue perfectly: “Project Natal is headed to the uncanny valley.”

Content Consumption

I recently realized I don’t read any blogs anymore.  I do a lot of searching.  I follow some folks on Twitter and/or FriendFeed.  But I almost never just go to sites like Engadget or TechCrunch nor friends of mine like Dave Zatz or Michael Gartenberg and just read.  And based on looking at the analytics for many of my clients’ web sites, I’m thinking I’m very much not alone.  There’s too much content, and just not enough ways to organize it.  If I were an enterprising lad, I’d be spending a lot of time figuring out how to help people deal with content overload in a very useful manner.  The right tool needs to combine all the potential sources a user wants, and give lots of ways to customize and filter it.  Google Reader isn’t enough, nor is FriendFeed, nor is Facebook.  I’ve got a hunch there’s a lot of opportunity for an excellent “get signal out of my noise” service, and it’s probably something people would pay for.

Have a great weekend everyone, I’m heading back to toil in the garden where I can be really productive.

I’ve been told I’m a ‘long format blogger’ - most of my posts are fairly long (typically overly so). As a result my posts tend to take a while to write, which means I need to block out (too much) time to get them up.  And I seem to have less and less free time all the time these days, plus by the time I’m writing something, it seems like a thousand others have already written something related to what I’d write.  While I know I shouldn’t feel biased by others’ writings, at the end of the day I feel that if I’m not saying something original, what’s the point?

So in an effort to get some thoughts across, I’m going to try to do the occasional “roundup” post on a few topics all at once.  This is the first of said posts.

1. Rock Band, Beatles Edition
   I’m not sure which game I’m more excited about, this or Modern Warfare 2.  I love The Beatles music, and I love Rock Band, so that’s a huge win. Plus I like the idea of a non-hard core version of Rock Band.  If you haven’t seen the preview, check it out here:
2. Social Gaming
   The new enhancements to the Xbox Dashboard include integration with Facebook and Twitter.  I have a feeling most of the features will be overkill and rarely used by the majority of Xbox owners, but there is a clear improvement needed to integrating social networking and gaming.  The key missing element in my opinion is an easier way to find your friends within the Xbox Live experience.  Hopefully direct integration with the services I use for networking will help me find and connect with people in my gaming world.
3. beeTV
   A startup raised another $8 million to provide recommendations for watching TV shows.  This is now 10 consecutive years of me watching companies try to enter this space and fail.  Further, these guys are doing deals with cable and set-top companies, two segments notoriously perilous for relying on for a business to succeed.  Who knows, maybe these guys will find that magic touch, but my hunch is (a) there isn’t a real problem in this space, and (b) making a sustainable income stream will be extremely challenging.
4. Crunchpad
   I applaud the crunch team for their efforts on building the Crunchpad.  But I have concerns over the device itself.  First, the market - I don’t see a web tablet (at any price) effectively replacing a laptop for simple surfing, it doesn’t make sense.  Second, the usage - it’s either going to be tiring to hold it up, or it goes into the lap, which again, brings the laptop back into the scene.  Ultimately I see it as a “bread machine” type of gadget (purchased, used for a little while, then slowly migrating out of daily life until it gets regifted). I’ll be curious to see what comes of it.
5. Palm Pre
   Reviews are saying it’s solid. Sprint’s said they anticpate a shortage. I believe both statements are accurate.  But I also believe it will never supplant the iPhone or BlackBerry, and I also believe the initial orders placed by Sprint are in low volumes relative to those products.  I think the product is probably going to be pretty solid, but I think it’s too-little, too-late for Palm.  I know back in the day I didn’t think people would switch to AT&T for the iPhone (I was wrong), but I can’t imagine iPhone people switching to Sprint for the Pre.  Maybe I’ll be wrong again…

Well, that’s my first attempt at a “ripped from the headlines” kind of post.  Feedback, comments, and spirited debate are very welcome.

I’m a long-time fan of Canon’s point-and-shoot digital cameras.  I’m not a long-time fan of their numbering schema.  There are (at present) four “lines”, the 7xx, 8xx, 9xx, and 1xxx.  There is no single commonality across any camera within any line.  The “current” models for each are the 780 (newer than the 790!), 890, 960, 970, and 1200.  As far as I can tell, there is no predictability nor rhyme/reason to any model, nor any way to figure out which unit is better than another, without exhaustive research.

So, if you are like me, and want to look into purchasing a new Canon camera, you will rapidly find yourself frustrated beyond belief.  My friends, here is your cheat sheet.  Please note pricing for outdated models is based on what I could find out there, and I highly recommend *not* buying anything more than 2 years old (marked in gray - the orange columns are the “current” models)!

Here’s a direct link to the sheet for those who want to sort or search through it. I hope this is useful for anyone trying to buy a camera. If you have any other suggestions, please add your thoughts in the comments!

There’s a lot of startups out there.  Tons of em.  Widget companies. Cloud companies. Gadget companies. Streaming companies.  In fact it’s almost hard to imagine more new companies, yet the river never stops, it just ebbs from time to time.  With all those startups however, it’s rare to find the company that is not only highly innovative but also sparks creativity and innovation in others.  Bug Labs is one of those companies, and I’m proud to be involved with them.

Peter, the company’s CEO, put together two blog posts regarding the company’s anniversary.  Part one is a bit of a look back, analyzing the “hits and misses” the company’s made. Part two is a look forward, sharing the vision and plans for the future.  Give em both a read.

I’ve always viewed the BUG as two different products.  The first is a fun kit for programmers.  By and large, programmers today have one environment to work in, it involves a keyboard, mouse, and display (even mobile apps are only a minor variation on this theme).  These days I personally don’t really hack much outside of some occasional PHP scripts. But if I had stuck with the ol’ C++ and Java, I think I’d be fascinated by a programming environment that enabled me to use the same functions, routines, and libraries and be able to interact with sensors, GPS, motion detectors, and other fun stuff.

The second BUG is a prototyping/deployment tool for … well, anyone who makes devices.  Whether it’s in the healthcare, automotive, industrial, or any other industry that spends huge capital to build a small number of electronic products for very narrow/specific purposes.  It seems pretty obvious to me that companies large and small would be better off investing in the relatively low learning curve for a product like BUG as compared to the typically not-reusable time and money investment into custom, proprietary systems.

So far, the company has engaged with both types of customers and learned a lot from it.  There’s a long story ahead still for them, and I’m looking forward to seeing the next chapter.

On a scale of 1 to 10, the new iPod shuffle is just stupid.  (You could probably tell from the title what I want to rate it.)

Good lord.  Where to begin.  Let’s start with a disclaimer.  I haven’t touched or seen the new shuffle in person.  Deride me all you want, I don’t care.  Apple has made several colossal, incredible mistakes with this device.

Anyone who’s read this blog before (only a rare few have come back more than once) knows that I care a great deal about Apple, and that I adore the aluminum shuffle.  That review was one of my very first, and it took place almost exactly 2 years ago.  I like that shuffle so much that I even got a second one and had it waterproofed.  But this new one… sigh.

Let’s see.  No buttons. Brilliant, let’s use an earphone-based switch.  Except, wait a second, what if I want to use a different set of earphones?  I can tell you for a certainty that some people (Sol) don’t like Apple’s earbuds - they just don’t fit.  So now I’m locked into Apple’s proprietary earphones whether I like it or not.  I will be unable to skip songs, pause and play, or change the volume without them.  Epic Fail.  And the controls are not very straightforward - Adrian Covert over at Gizmodo compares it to Morse Code.  Haha.

Form factor.  The new one is smaller.  Small as a house key.  Whoopee.  I use my square shuffle when I run, and I clip it to the waistband on my shorts.  It fits easily and doesn’t pinch or push against my skin.  The new one is long and skinny instead of square.  Maybe it occupies less cubic space overall, but it’s still longer than the square version, which means that it sticks further down the leg and is significantly more likely to pinch and press against the top of the leg while running.  Wahhhh!  I know, I’m a crybaby.  Don’t care.  I don’t see how making it rectangular and slightly smaller is an improvement.  Doubling the flash memory while shrinking the device (and preserving battery function) is a technological feat, I will grant them that.

The point is, they’re messing up an excellent product.  Even sight unseen, Apple just took a 7.5 and made it a 3.  The earphone restriction is egregious.  Moronic. Idiotic. It’s dumb.  The judgement on the form factor is my opinion.  Others may disagree, and that’s cool.  They can write their own blog.  But imho, there is no excuse for this stupidity.

Apple is a money-hungry American corporation that wants to insert themselves into our lives and control all our devices and hence have control over our actions and more importantly our buying habits.  For this I applaud them.  Seriously, I’m an American and a capitalist.  I love Apple, even if I find some of their practices annoying (DRM anyone?)  But when they start making bad (or worse yet, stupid) product decisions, that shakes my faith and my confidence in the world of consumer electronics.

As noted above, if I were force to rate this product (albeit without playing with it in person) on a scale from 1 to 10, it would get a 3.  If it weren’t being compared to such a superior previous version, it might score better.  But the earphone thing is pretty stupid.  Gahhh.

This reiew is also published at 1TO10REVIEWS.

eStarling makes several WiFi connected digital photo frames, and I’ve been playing with their Impact V for a bit.  I’m impressed.

From the moment you open the box, eStarling does a pretty good job holding your hand and making use of the frame pretty simple.  You have all the usual options for displaying pictures that past digital frames have lead us to expect, including memory card slots that accommodate a couple different card types (SD, MS, MMC.)  But what’s way more interesting to me is the wireless and social mechanisms for displaying pictures.

When you pull the device out of the box, a greeting card immediately invites you to plug in the frame and connect it to your wifi connection (beware: this frame is much cooler if you have a wifi network.)  Once you’re connected, the frame prompts you to visit their website and activate your account.  Once you do you will get an email address dedicated to your frame, and you (or your friends and family) can email pictures to your frame.  You can also log into your account on their website to upload pictures from your computer to your eStarling account - these will then appear on your frame (it took my pictures about 15 minutes to show up.)  One of the neatest features is the social component - you can link your frame to a variety of social websites and services, including Facebook, Flickr, Phtobucket, Picassa, Twitter (not sure about this one), YouTube and more.   In addition to these services, you can also subscribe to RSS feeds - popular ones like National Geographic or even a user-designated feed.  You can also post small videos to play on your frame if you so choose.

I did have some issues with some of the social services.  For instance, I linked my Flickr account to my eStarling frame.  It was a pretty simple, one-click connection which presumably links up eStarling’s service with Flickrs API.  Two issues presented themselves though:

1. After clicking through the Flickr to link up the accounts, instead of a “Success, awesome job, well done!” screen, I was presented with a page full of gibberish.  There was no message to tell me whether I had successfully linked the account.  I didn’t know for sure until photos started appearing on the frame.

2. When those photos did appear, they weren’t mine.  They were photos of friends mine, people to whom I am linked on Flickr.  But none of my own photos made it into the frame.  Now, I like my friends and all, but I don’t need their photos on my frame.  Whether it’s going to sit in my home, or in my parent’s home, I want my own pictures on my frame.

Ultimately I was forced to use the “custom RSS” feature and take my Flickr account’s own RSS feed and manually link that with my frame.  Even after doing that, only my most recent set (about 20 pictures or so) showed up on the frame.  I don’t really know how to pull specific sets or additional photos from Flickr into the frame.

The frame has an eight inch display (800×600 pixels) and the clarity is pretty darn sharp. (Any blurring in the images in this post is due to the photographer, not the frame.)  It’s a touch screen interface, and there are light-up touch screen buttons along the right side.  You must use the touch screen in order to connect to the wireless network, but almost everything else can be accomplished through eStarling’s web portal.   The touch buttons let you skip through photos, or jump back to menus to select specifc photos, or access settings for the frame.  But I found the touch buttons a little finicky to use - fortunately the included remote also allows you to control action on the frame.

Lastly, there’s packaging.  In the unboxing I discovered very little wasteful or non-recyclable material.  There was one small piece of closed-cell foam for padding, and a foam sleeve for the frame.  Everything else was cardboard, including the majority of the boxe’s padding.  5 gold stars for being conscious of the environment.

Overall I was impressed with the frame.  The picture clarity, the simple setup, and the social components were all fantastic.  I love that it’s wifi, and I dig the fact that I can update the photos remotely, up to and including if the frame is in another state (or country.)  However, I do think the web interface and tools need a little refinement.  They are feature-rich but lacking in the fine points of usability.  Some improvements could include better feedback to user actions (letting you know if you succeeded in linking an account), and better fine-tuning of services (to include / exclude friends’ photos, etc.)  They don’t need more options, they just need to refine and improve the ones they’ve got.

eStarling Wireless Digital Photo Frame on 12seconds.tv

Daniel Lim at Slashgear also wrote a nice review of this frame.  If I were forced to give this frame a numeric rating, something which I am loathe to do, I would give it an 8 out of 10. They did a good job.  I just hope they keep improving the little sucker, especially the web interface and options.

This post is also available on 1TO10REVIEWS.

I guess it’s time to call it a recurring theme, but with only 3 days left to go, it’s time for my annual “how to survive CES” post.  As per my disclaimer last year, I am copy-and-pasting anything that is still relevant (and with so little time I don’t think I have a lot of the funny in me right now).

1. Wear comfortable shoes. It was #1 last year and is again. Even if you are the guy wearing the $6500 suit (come on!), put on your Adidas or Reeboks or whatever to go with it. Few will notice, and if anyone questions, saying “yeah, I decided it’s smarter to be comfortable than look pretty at CES” probably trumps any kind of rebuttal. It’s a BIG show and you’ll end up walking a few miles every day. Freebie bonus tip: while walking the show floor, try to walk on the booths as they tend to have better padding than the walkways between booths.
2. Leave your remote control where it belongs - at home. There is absolutely zero upside to pranking booths. Don’t do it.
3. Bring Purel and some chapstick. Wash before eating, because CES 2009 is also International Germfest 2009. Also, Vegas is in the middle of a desert, so having chapstick (and some moisturizer) will help.
4. Go counter the traffic flow. I’m not the only one with this theory - the Sands Expo is opening at 8am on Thursday, while the Convention Center only opens at 10am.  Skip the huge taxi lines and head over to the Sands on Thursday, then save the LVCC for the rest of the show.The worst thing that can happen is you won’t get your hands on some crappy t-shirt you’ll never wear. Which brings me to
5. Skip the swag. Do you really want a Panasonic pen, or a Sony plastic bag, or a brochure from TiVo? Really? My wife has actually forbidden me from bringing home anything, period. Also, for those of you into conservation (which should be, you know, everyone), no better way to send a message than to leave LG with an extra truckfull of mints.
6. Don’t harass booth workers. They all have jobs to do (booth babes included), and just because they are there doesn’t mean they are the right person for you to give your 30 minute lecture as to why you are unhappy with your DVD player. It’s also not fair to beat up on some marketing guy who doesn’t have a uber-techie-detail question (although if they don’t help find you the right person, well, then they’ve asked for it). Also, if you see 12 people from CNN trying to set up a video shoot, you should probably realize you’ve become a lower priority, try to grab a business card and head out rather than wait for that awkward moment…
7. Don’t hide your badge. First, it’s just a nuisance. Second, people like me train all our booth staffers to ask people like you who you are. Third, good booth staffers will treat you the same as anyone else, although they might just filter you to the right person. If you are an important member of the press or a senior guy at a huge company, well odds are you shouldn’t be talking to the 23 year old QA person who was roped into coming to CES to help with some booth shifts. Flip side comment here: if you are working the booth and someone comes up that is a competitor, don’t be rude or glib. Treat them the same as any random booth visitor. It’s just stupid to tell them they can’t see something or take pictures, when any random schmo can do exactly that.
8. Hydrate yourself and your hotel room: If you carry only one thing (and you should - more later), it should be a bottle of water.  Also, since your hotel room will be quite dry, leave the bathtub 1/4 full of water overnight, you’ll feel better in the morning.
9. Plan ahead. If you have not registered for the show, you aren’t getting in (this happened to a commentor here back in 2007). If you forget your badge, you are paying a fee to get it back. Pick up your badge at one of the non-primary locations (Sands, several hotels, Hilton, etc). Traveling between any two destinations could easily take an hour, even as early as 8am. Despite “CES is sounding light” stories, I’d rather be pleasantly surprised and adjust accordingly than be late for anything.
10. Need Connections? Figure it out ahead of time. Every year it gets better, but every year it’s still bad. Internet connectivity is unreliable anywhere in the convention center. Even the press room’s Internet service went down last year. If you MUST be online for a call/meeting/briefing/WoW session, have a place in mind to do it.
11. Use SMS to coordinate. Texting is the easiest and most reliable means of communicating across the extremely loud and busy show. Forget any “advanced” types of technology and go with something that works.
12. Bring business cards. I would say roughly 97% of the people that I’ve met at CES over the years who don’t have cards regret not having them. Maybe it seems cool now not to carry them. Maybe you think they are so 1990s. The truth is, there’s almost no reason not to carry cards, and even looking at it from a potential loss vs potential gain perspective says: carry the darn things! And Moo cards don’t count, people.  Updated for 2009:  Still true.
13. Pack lightly. My recommendation is to walk the floor with either nothing or a near-empty backpack. Forget shoulder straps, you’ll be aching by the end of the day. Bring nothing you do not need during the day. Also, try to dump your bag prior to dinner, so you can spend the night on the town without having to remember anything later. What happens in Vegas…
14. Check the live coverage. Engadget puts up a post every 3.8 seconds during CES (this is not a fact, I am just guessing). Make sure you tap into theirs (or Gizmodos or your own favorite gadget blog) during the course of the show. They might find something you hadn’t heard of before, and you might miss it otherwise.
15. Lower your expectations. If memory serves, the last time a company introduced something that was genuinely new and interesting at CES was Moxi, about 6 years ago (which was about the last time they were really interesting, unfortunately). The show is rarely the place where a company will launch newly innovative products, although it is a great place to see the ones that were announced in the past. Expect bigger/flashier screens, cameras, etc, but don’t expect something new and amazing.
    Expect some cool stuff. I’m going to go out on a limb and say this year will be a cooler one than expected at CES.  First, the way mainstream media is positioning it sounds like there’s only 4 companies left demoing and about 17 attendees at the show.  Sure, the count is down from last year, but so what?  The truth is we’ve seen more, and pardon the phrase, “riffraff” come to CES than ever before.  This is an industry show, not just some random tech meetup or Web conference, and major manufacturers and retailers are here for business.  I’ve received tons of interesting pitches so far, and I think we may be pleasantly surprised with CES 2009.

Lastly, for a moment of brash self-promotion… I’m working with five cool companies at CES 2009 (several of these have new stuff coming just in time for the show!), and would love for y’all to get some time to see them at the show.  They are: Boxee, Bug Labs, DeviceVM/Splashtop, TuneUp Media, and a new startup who’s actually launching a new gadget at the show. Yup, it’s going to be a very exciting CES!

And it’s not an HD Video Scuba Mask (yes, that’s a genuine product being pitched at the show)!

I’m roughly shoulder-deep in CES prep now, with 5 cool clients at the show (Boxee, Bug Labs, DeviceVM/Splashtop, TuneUp Media, and a new startup launching a gadget at the show), plus ShowStoppers, and also figuring out the booths I’ll go visit.  It’s a lot of work, and I’ve been at it for quite a few years now.  My friend Robert Scoble came up to San Francisco this past week, and we had a chance to sit down and chat about CES planning and strategy.

Robert refers to me as “The Three-Time CES Champion” (blush) as I’ve been fortunate enough to participate in three different products worthy of Best of CES distinction.  All three times were utterly exhilirating, all for different reasons.  At the end of the day, I completely enjoy the entire process of demoing products at CES, and can’t wait for CES 2009!

By the way, for those of you who manage or staff booths at the show, I put some suggestions up on the Stage Two blog.  Read the full post for details, but here’s the cheat sheet:

• Ignore the anti-hype.
• Wear comfy shoes.
• Bring supplies.
• Know your audience.
• Funnel your traffic.
• Emphasize the team spirit.
• Don’t mistreat competition.
• Ignore nobody.
• Expect to be on the record.
• Adapt your script.
• Engage in discussions.
• Give no schwag.
• Be neighborly.
• Take and give business cards.
• Be on time.

I’ve been thinking about a bluetooth headset for a long time.  Since I got my iPhone, I’ve almost exclusively used the included iPod headphones / speakerphone to talk with other people.  But it tangles often and it’s starting to get worn out - the rubber on the earpieces has rubbed off completely.  :(  That combined with the California headset law (and the joy of playing with new toys) convinced me to try to go blue.  Eric Benderoff’s review of several top bluetooth headsets gave me a little background, and the pure sex appeal of the Jawbone II gave me a starting place.

There are a lot of different possible categories from which to assess a gadget like this: form factor, simplicity of use, pairing ability, sound quality, battery life, durability, cost…  I don’t often write really analytical reviews which numerically asses and assign rankings to devices, but this time I plan to for the sake time and conveneience.  Elsewise this review will ramble, extensively.  Long.

I will rank each of the above categories with a numeric ranking between 1 and 10 (naturally) and then average out the scores.  By doing this I am essentially saying 1.) that each of the chosen categories have equal weighting, and 2.) that other possible categories (say, color) do not factor into my assessment.  Those are both true things, so take my review with the appropriate grains of sodium hydrochloride.

Form Factor: 10 (this is a sexy looking gadget, slim, black, ribbed and fancy)

Simplicity of Use: 7 (as bluetooths go, it’s pretty easy to start, pair, adjust and figure out what’s happening)

Pairing Ability: 7 (turn it on, and turn on bluetooth on your phone - they just seem to find each other)

Sound Quality: 6 (I can hear people OK.  When I need to turn the volume up high, it seems to get a little fuzzy.  People can hear me OK.  Not great, but OK.  This might be due to poor pairing, or simply the nature of the device. )

Battery Life: 6 (battery life seems to be about what you’d expect, or just a hair better.  I seem to get about 2-3 hours of active talk time.  If it sits idle on a full charge for a couple days, I can still use it.  If it sits idle after a full charge for 5 or 6 days, not so good. )

Durability: 4 (the device body seems to be fairly compact and well made, I expect it will last as well as anything else out there.  The ear pieces are another issue.  As you’ll see in the pictures below, one of my stems broke.  Jawbone is kind enough to package multiple stems [for differently sized and shaped heads / ears] so I had a backup, even though it’s a suboptimal size.  I did NOT mishandle nor manhandle the ear piece - just rotated it as it’s designed to be rotated, and the little sucker just snapped.  Boy was I irritated. )

Cost: 4 (this is a pricey little sucker.  I’ve seen it at the T-Mobile store for as little as $99, and at a Verizon store for $129.  If you shop around you’ll find it for somewhere over $100.

If we assume that each of the above categories carrie an equal weighting, then the score on the Jawbone II bluetooth headset comes out to 6.29 (10+7+7+6+6+4+4=6.2857147)

I like this device’s style and simplicity.  It’s elegant, pretty, fairly easy to use, and the it sounds good.  Not “oh my god holy crap” amazing, but it sounds good.  The cost of the unit, and the fact that the stem broke in the manner it did are both very offputting for me though, and they are the biggest limiting factors in my estimation.  That particular pair of issues (high cost with questionable durability) is expecially disagreeable.  I’ll be interested to see if/how the company responds to my customer service request.  If they do, I will update this post.

Forced to give a numeric rating between 1 and 10, this device averaged out to a 6.29.

This review is also available at 1TO10REVIEWS.

Disclaimer: We know, love and work with the people from 12seconds.  Impartiality is severely dented, if not discarded outright.

Today 12seconds.tv did a few cool things:

1. They’ve re-designed their website - cool new look and feel, with a strong focus on video consumption
2. They’ve concluded their invite-only Alpha phase and opened up in a public Beta where anyone can register and use the site
3. They’ve had their iPhone application approved and launched in the iTunes App Store (for $0.99)

I’m happy for their progress from Alpha to Beta, and I think the re-design looks great.  But I’m most excited about the iPhone app.  You all know (both of you) that I’m an iPhone user, and one of my few frustrations with the device has always been the lack of a video recorder.  Apple steadfastly refuses to release one, and there’s no third-party video recording application available (unless you choose to jailbreak your phone). This annoys me.

12seconds did not manage to sneak a video recorder through Apple’s QA team.  But they did create about the best possible workaround.  App users will take 3 photos (or choose 3 from their picture library), record twelve seconds of audio, and then post their creation to their 12seconds account (unregistered folks can create an account on the fly, in their phone.)  Somewhere in the cloud, the pics and audio are combined and then spit out as a twelve second video slideshow.  Users can email a link to their video directly from their phone  Each video has it’s own unique URL on 12seconds.tv, and can be emailed, embedded (as HTML) or downloaded onto your hard drive.  Here’s a demo video on how to use the app.

iphone app for 12seconds.tv from Sol Lipman on Vimeo.

One thing I really like about this app is the story telling aspect.  The series of pictures with audio narration really give you that James Earl Jones feeling of comfort.  Also, if you flub the audio and need to re-record, you can do so as many times as you like.  With traditional video, if you blow it, it’s blown.  The moment has passed. Here’s one video I recorded with a trial version of the app.

Cold Cuts - Chinese Food Style on 12seconds.tv

The app is a first draft.  It works, and it’s intuitive, but there are some features I’d like to see added, including wanting better flexibility in choosing photos and saving drafts.  But on the whole I think the app is very usable.  There’s just room to improve.

Kudos to the 12seconds team on a great launch and a cool app.  This is the best solution to the video-recording conundrum that Apple’s created that I’ve seen yet.

Related Posts:

MG Siegler at VentureBeat

Greg Kumparak at MobileCrunch

Rodney Rumford at FaceReviews

This post is also published on 1TO10REVIEWS.

Note: this is a guest-written review from Gitamba Saila-Ngita, I felt I didn’t spend enough time using MP3 players myself (not to mention any athletic activities whatsoever) to do an adequate review of the product.

These days the iPod™ is ubiquitous, even to the extent that the term “iPod” has become synonymous with MP3 Player but, it might not be the only game in town! There are other options–especially when you want to take your music to… the extreme!

I recently had the opportunity to check out Freestyle Audio’s SoundWave. Their slogan, “Take Your Music There”, which is coupled with lifestyle images of the outdoors, and instantly got me wondering whether this little 2″x3″ device could withstand the wear and tear of mother nature. The SoundWave comes with everything you need to get started right out of the box; such as waterproof headphones, a replacement belt clip, USB™ transfer cable, arm band, and my personal favorite, 50 free music downloads from the eMusic service (Apple please take note).

The device also comes with a slew of pre-installed tunes which allows you to take it for a spin as soon as you’re ready. It can hold 2GB of music via internal storage (no SD slots to expand it), and packs a substantial 18 hour playback time.

Getting started was fairly quick and rather painless.  After I set up my eMusic account, I uploaded some music onto the device before taking it out for a swim. One major difference between SoundWave and the iPod is that the SoundWave has no official software interface to your computer. This may not be a “make or break” deal for all MP3 Player users, but whether it be iTunes or Windows Media Player, it is definitely a convenience to have something that plays well with not only your music but your gadgets too.

Now before I go further, I’m always rather skeptical of any waterproofed electronic, ESPECIALLY something like an MP3 player.  Usually the “waterproofing” is inadequate, or you sacrifice size to put your device into something as massive as an Otterbox. In some cases you could be like our friend David Spieser who had his iPod™ Shuffle “Waterproofed” for a pretty penny.

Once in the water, things got kind of dicey. The SoundWave features six buttons, each with multiple functions that are displayed on simple and very tiny digital screen. I found the buttons very difficult to press. This may be partly due to the waterproofing, but it definitely made skipping through songs mid-swim a challenge. There is also a 5 second fade out when you skip, so trying to get to that next song to pump up your work out gets really annoying very quickly. I recommend setting up a play list, or enabling the shuffle function to make your work out as fluid as possible (On a side note, for some reason even with correct IDV3 tag encoding all my songs, no matter where I put them, displayed as gibberish - I am still trying to figure out why that happened). I swam for about an hour and also submerged the device up to its maximum depth of 10 feet.

To my surprise, the device showed absolutely no signs of taking on water. The waterproof earphones held up great too, although I wish they were slightly more comfortable (it uses a standard headphone jack so I imagine you could find something waterproof that suits you). The sound quality both under water and above is not bad. The little guy also supports the WOW audio codec and multiple types of EQ to help tailor the experience to your liking.

All around, the Free Style Audio’s SoundWave can take the beating you dish out while getting your sweat(or swim!) on. I recommend this to people who’ve been looking to bring a tough and rugged portable music player with them on active outings, where you won’t need to worry if it can take on a variety of physical and active elements.