Only a prototype, but this bluetooth watch is the first example of something I’ve wanted for a long time - using bluetooth to export user interfaces to a disparate device. Just imagine having a couple of black boxes in your pockets/bag. One’s your phone, the other your ipod, but neither have displays. For that you have a watch (or something similar) which interfaces with the devices and provides a UI. Maybe, just maybe things are actually going to go that way!

So they announced the new 60Gb colour screen iPods today (see gizmodo for details). Colour was kinda due, I’m not sure about the merit of having your image collection on a device with such a small screen, but it’s great that they fixed the battery life.

Still missing those obvious, useful features which all apple’s competitors are picking up on - recording, radio, inputs, USB host support…. Silly apple, I hope being cool continues to be good enough because you’re falling behind on the features :)

It took a while to arrive (being shipped from Japan), but Sue’s birthday gift to me arrived today :) Check out the pics and video. It has 72 LEDs and it says PIMP on the back ;-)

This Newsweek article has a few scant details about the New iPod. It looks like they’ve slightly improved its battery life and fixed the scrollwheel/button issues (I dislike the lack of tactile feedback when you press a button on the 3G iPod, now they’re using an iPod mini-style scroll/click wheel, which is nicer). They’ve made a couple of firmware tweaks, but that’s about it. There’s none of the stuff a lot of people were hoping for - a radio, inputs and recording, or a better remote, which is a shame.

Update: I guess it’s official.

The video from NotCon is up - or at least for most of the talks. Definitely worth a look if you didn’t make it.

So I seem to have managed to convince two people in the office to buy iRiver iHP140’s now. Of course, I still don’t have one - having foolishly purchased an iPod instead, and now I’m constantly taunted by their superior listening equipment while at work :p

I picked up the tomtom navigation software for my iPAQ, to use in conjunction with my bluetooth GPS receiver. It’s actually pretty good software, and awesomely useful in the car.. However it’s less useful on foot right now, as there doesn’t appear to be a way to switch off the “snap to road” feature. In fact, it’s pretty hard to find any half decent GPS software with decent UK maps that does allow this.. I’ll keep looking though.

Yay, my WiFi Seeker arrived :D

The new iRiver H320 reviewed. The colour screen, USB host support and image viewing seem useful, but they’ve done away with one of the best things about the current iHPs, the LCD remote! Big disappointment :-(

Check out this green laser pointer - now that’s seriously bright - maybe I really could be a jedi when I grow up… (Gallery here). (via Engadget).

So the other week I was wandering down Tottenham Court Road, (famously densely populated with electronics shops), and every other window had something with the Ferrari logo on it..

There’s the Ferrari Laptop and the Ferrari camera. Then there are umpteen Ferrari branded clocks and stopwatches.. That’s on top of all the usual pens, mouse mats, keyrings, etc.

Isn’t this overdoing it a bit? Are Ferrari short of cash? How many clocks, watches or “desktop weather centers” does it take for the Ferrari brand to lose its cool?

This doesn’t bode well..

German women fed up with a man with a poor aim can turn to the ghost-shaped gadget, which lurks under the toilet rim and, if the seat is lifted, declares in a stern female tone:

“Hello, what are you up to then? Put the seat back down right away, you are definitely not to pee standing up … you will make a right mess…”

Apparently it’s coming to Britain!

IPOD Battery by Battery Technology Inc.
The iPod Battery is a rechargeable lithium ion Battery pack that can be charged for over 400 times and at 40 hours per charge, that’s 16,000 hours of run time from the iPod Battery!

Ok so it’s bigger than the iPod, but I can think of times when it would definitely come in handy. Sadly is says it doesn’t charge the iPod battery, just passes through. Seems to me it would be handy to carry a portable charger..

E3 opened today, and handheld gaming evolved a notch. The first pics of the Nintendo DS were released - dual screens, bluetooth, and ugly retro looks which I hope aren’t going to make it to launch. (via Gizmodo)

Looking a lot nicer for games and video so far, is the Sony PSP (more pics here and here). Definitely good looking, but the use of another proprietary music format for listening to music on the device is a big turnoff..

More on Sony’s dedicated portable music player - the VAIO Pocket and the new Sony Connect music service. Some more details emerged on how the device functions, but unfortunately it turns out that the device only plays Sony’s proprietary, DRM’d ATRAC format - not MP3, OGG, WMA, AAC or anything else. In fact, if you want to get your mp3s on the device, you have to re-encode them as ATRAC. So you have to either buy all your music from Sony Connect (which has gotten several terrible reviews), or re-encode your collection with significant quality loss.

This is such a disappointment. The hardware is promising but it’s completely neutered by DRM and attempted lock-in… And this coming from the company that brought us the Walkman, and fought so hard to bring us the VCR..

Cory comments on what appears to be the slow death of Sony as a cutting edge consumer electronics trend setter.

Back from 1976-1984, Sony was the company that spent hundreds of millions on the defense of its VCR, bringing it all the way to the Supreme Court, arguing that the entertainment industry didn’t have any right to its business-model; that if new technology could make the old business irrelevant, that was tough shit, and the movie companies needed to stop pewling and get with the program (they did, and made lots of money, besides).

But ever since Sony “acquired” Columbia, it’s been acting like its electronics business was a minor business unit that couldn’t afford to disrupt its precious entertainment arm (despite the fact that the entertainment arm’s contributions to Sony’s bottom line are minimal when compared to the gadget biz). When the first MP3 players appeared in the market, from little companies like Creative Labs, Sony brought out proprietary devices that played stupid formats like RealAudio and OpenAG, which no one wanted to hear. On the other hand, these formats did come with use-restrictions that kept Sony’s music execs from getting too anxious and sad.

Blah, anyway. On the plus side of DRM’d music lock-in - playfair has been revived as Hymn. This nifty tool unlocks your DRM’d iTunes music store files (while still leaving your ‘name’ on the files, so you behave), enabling you to listen to them on all your PCs and portable devices as you see fit. Fair use strikes again!

Whoo finally, the advent of wireless net access on planes (via engadget). I’ll take the internet over crappy food and dull movies any day.

This TV Watch is a device I’ve been dreaming about since I was 10 :) It’s been a long time coming!

Sorry I’m late guv, my phone crashed. Ok it sounds cool actually, but I’m somewhat jaded by my recent experiences with PocketPC stability :p

Looks like someone finally did something useful with their chemistry degree - laptop fuel cells :)

Oh yeah, and the Xclef music player just got upgraded to 80GB, with a 137GB version in the works (via Gizmodo). Alrighty! Especially interesting as I’ve downloaded 4.6GB of music from allofmp3 over the last 2 days and my iPod was full before I started.

I ran again. Further today. Plus I hurt a little less. Just a little. I have a long way still to go - I see all these joggers serenely plodding along with headphones on, and I wonder if that will ever be me. Right now I wouldn’t be able to hear anything over my own frenzied struggle for breath :p

Well hello, bunch of fun stuff from Sony today - first up an iPod challenger. The ~20 hour battery life sounds good, but it looks a little bulky and only holds 20GB.. (via AkibaLive).

Then (jumping immediately onto my “gimme, I want one” list), this wireless PC/tablet. It’s not technically a tablet because it runs full blown XP (*cough linux*) but check out that form factor - 16.7×10.8×2.6cm and 550g. Gorgeous looks too.

This is the cream of the crop though - a digital video recorder with more than 1 terabyte of storage and (count them) seven TV tuners. Not that you would ever need to simultaneously record seven shows, but I bet it could do some mean picture-in-picture. Unreal. (via engadget).

I ran again today. Not fast, or far, but again. For now, I’ll settle for that :)