The Gadgets Page

Last week, I blasted the JVC RAP10 for being a sucky iPod boombox, but what do I think is better? Honestly, there is nothing that is perfect, but the XtremeMac MicroBlast is the closest I’ve found. Here’s how it stacks up:

• It Only Costs 40 Bucks: You’ll have to look around for that price or wait until it goes on sale like I did, but at $40, I can risk it being stolen off my desk or from behind my back. Even then, I’m going to cry, but I wouldn’t even be willing to take that JVC RAP10 outside the house if I dropped over 100 bucks on it.

• It Sounds Okay…: I have to admit. The sound is nothing compared to the Logitech mm28 Speakers we have in the basement. At about the same size, the Logitech blows the Microblast out of the water, but the Microblast cost half as much. I get what I pay for.

• The iPod is SECURE: My Nano clicks into the box securely and it takes a little work to get it out. When I pick the thing up to walk down the street, the cover snaps over my iPod and it’s safe as can be.

• I Can Even Walk and Listen: Even with the plastic cover secured over the iPod and speakers, I can still listen to my music. The treble goes away and the sound quality is reduced even more, but I don’t care. I can blast my tunes while I walk around bringing the soundtrack of my life to everyone I meet.

• It Runs on Batteries or AC: That’s cool when I want to listen to my music at home on at my desk at work, I don’t have to wear my batteries down. When I’m out and about, I can crank it with four AA batteries.

• It Needs A Handle: It’s so small that it really doesn’t need a handle, but if I want to walk around town with it, I’m going to need to hack a cool handle. Anyone have any ideas, because all I’ve got is crochet skillz.

So, it’s not perfect, but it’s the closest I’ve ever found. Last summer, I sold my JVC CD boombox for ten bucks to the girl across the street. I realized that for the first time since 1986, I didn’t have a boombox. Ever since then, I have been searching for a good boombox that will work with Mike’s Nano. You can’t believe how disappointed I have been. When I saw the Microblast at the local music store, I didn’t buy it because I KNEW the speakers wouldn’t be the best.

I finally decided that sound quality isn’t as important as portability.

When I’m listening to my iPod with friends, I can offer them an earbud, but that is kind of gross. The iPod is amazing, but it isn’t meant for sharing music with buddies. It’s meant for personal listening. I finally caved and bought the Microblast and I’ve been happy with it.

You are looking at the new JVC concept for an iPod boombox called RAP10. You can read this article from Digital World to hear how “great” it is.

• Digital World JVC’s iPod Boombox

Let me tell you how much it SUCKS.

The people who are designing boomboxes, ghetto blasters and portable stereos have been working in huge cubicles for so long that they forgot what people need. They haven’t used a boombox since they were fifteen and their brains have forgotten what they needed when they were fifteen and have been filled with ideas like “White is the new black.”

I haven’t!

I still vividly remember what it was like to be fifteen or working in a crowded office and needing a portable stereo, so let me tell you why the JVC RAP10 sucks.

• 115 Bucks?!: Do these people really think that the kind of people who want a portable stereo are willing to drop $115 on it. That’s in ADDITION to the minimum of 100 bucks for the iPod. The sucky thing about boomboxes is that they are portable, which means they easily get stolen. Over 100 bucks is way too high to risk on something that might be gone when you come back to work the next day.

• It’s Too Big: I know sound quality is important. I know it’s hard to get good sound out of tiny speakers, but that boombox takes up too much real estate on my work desk. I need room for files and and my computer monitor. I bring my ghetto blaster to work because they don’t let me put music on my work computer, but I don’t want to dedicate an acre to the thing.

• The iPod Sits On The Top: Instead of securing my iPod into the unit, it just sits on top. That’s fine if you’re taking the thing to work (aside from the desk space problem), but it leaves it vulnerable if I’m dancing too near the thing. What about if someone wants to steal my iPod? They could just lift it and run off. Too vulnerable.

• I Can’t Walk And Listen: One of the visual icons of the ghetto blaster is the guy with it on his shoulders, blasting away his tunes. That guy can’t do that with his iPod precariously resting on top of this thing.

So, what do I recommend instead? I haven’t found anything perfect, but I have found something that is passable. Stay tuned on Monday to find out!

If you aren’t quite fit enough to ride your bike to work and live within 18 miles, you can go with this electric bike option from Mongoose. Mike and I saw it the other day at Shopko for less than three hundred dollars, so for just a small investment, you can have transportation to work.

Here is a close up of the motor. It plugs into a wall and is supposed to take you between 15-18 miles on a single charge. While you’re working your way up to being able to do it yourself the whole way, this little motor can help you up hills or get that last mile in.

Here is a close up of how the chains are attached. The motor has a gear on one side and your pedals have the gear on the other side. It’s a very efficient setup. You can’t beat the gas mileage! When gas prices are so high right now, the idea of limiting my dependence on my car is very appealing. For only $280, I can have another option and so can you!

You can find out more about the bikes on Mongoose’s website:

• Mongoose.com – Electric Bikes

The iPod is five years old this week! Joy of Tech celebrated with a funny comic:

If you want to see the original Steve Jobs pitch for the iPod, it’s right here:

I wrote about it here:

• The Gadgets Page » Steve Jobs Introduced the iPod in 2001

My five year old iPod is still wheezing away, although it has been sitting dormant while I run with my Nano and its Nike+. Wow! I can hardly believe that iPod is only five years old!

For an excellent history of the making of the iPod, read this article from Wired:

• Wired 14.11: The Perfect Thing

The design for the iPod started out with foam board and fishing weights. Just see how far it has gone!

Oceanus is the high-end dress watch brand of Casio, the famous Japanese maker of digital instrument watches. Seiko and Citizen, the other two major Japanese watchmakers, long ago gave up on trying to sell digital watches to the public, leaving the market almost entirely to Casio. Oceanus is Casio’s attempt to compete seriously against Seiko and Citizen in the analog dress watch market, and to do so they knew they’d need to make watches that were both beautiful and compelling for the $500 and over price point.

Citizen has its extraordinary Eco-Drive movements that are driven by solar energy and never need a battery. Seiko has its very nifty Kinetic watches that are powered by the movement of a weighted pendulum that drives an electrical generator. Both use low power movements (often eschewing the power-sucking second hand) to make sure they have enough battery reserve to last many months without recharging.

I’m a big fan of the high-end Japanese dress watches because they have every advantage of the Swiss mechanicals with an order of magnitude better accuracy. So of course I’ve been excited about Oceanus watches since I first heard of them.

Unfortunately, there are no Oceanus retailers in my home city of San Diego. I’ve never considered buying watches online because you can’t tell from a photograph whether you’re going to like a particular watch and you won’t be able to size the bracelet yourself unless you happen to own specialty watch repair tools. But a recent road trip afforded me the opportunity to stop at an Oceanus retailer (Modern Watch Company in Glendale, CA, who were extraordinarily helpful) so I picked up a titanium Oceanus 5-motor, which is a completely analog chronometer that is nearly indistinguishable from a Swiss chronometer except by brand.

To compete in this price category (which is also populated by Swiss automatic mechanical watches) Oceanus decided to up the ante: They’d produce a dress watch equal to Seiko and Citizen in visual detail, include solar power to eliminate the battery, and produce higher accuracy than a typical Quartz movement by automatically synchronizing the time to the radio signal put out by the Fort Collins atomic clock. I’ve always wanted an atomic timekeeping watch, but every one I’d seen prior to Oceanus used a plastic case and frankly looked quite cheap despite the fact that they cost over $150. This signal can be received over most of North America, and by synchronizing to it nightly, the watch will always be exactly accurate simply by knowing which time zone it’s located in. Or, at least, that’s the theory.

It took a while to get the watch synced to the atomic clock signal. And by a while, I mean five days. Firstly, the signal is only receivable late at night. Secondly, your watch actually has to be somewhat facing the direction of Colorado and with a clear view through a window and sitting upright. Nothing else really works. Even with those conditions on my night stand, I only receive the sync signal about every third night. More than enough for accuracy, but it takes a long time just to determine if you’re ever going to get it. And in coastal areas, I was never able to receive it probably due to thermal ducting caused by the warm marine layer.

That said, the watch is still a reasonable watch, but it’s got one exceptionally incongruous problem:

The second hand isn’t a second hand.

It’s there, but it doesn’t indicate seconds. It indicates the time zone. The actual second hand is on a small dial at the 6-o’clock position. Why? Because moving a large second sweep hand takes a lot of power. The much smaller second hand below takes far less torque to move, which is important in a low-power watch mechanism run by a solar cell. To be fair, the new Citizen Eco-Drive’s do the same thing—I don’t like it in them either.

The small second hand as an additional complication is an innovation that some Swiss Chronometers have moved to in order to increase their power reserves. But those Swiss chronometers don’t also include a hand that confusingly looks exactly like a traditional second hand. So what you wind up with is a watch that appears to be stopped, unless you notice the tiny hand moving at the 6-o’clock position. Now, I know you can get used to it, but unless this was the only watch you were going to wear, I wouldn’t want to.

They use the hand to indicate the time zone (and a few other things) in the dual-time mode. It’s not a bad idea (they have to use something, after all) and I completely understand why they thought it was a good engineering trade-off, but going against the grain of a century of watch-making tradition for a nebulous feature that could have been solved another way is a really poor design decision. People expect devices to work according to standards. We don’t want to have to re-learn individual devices. We especially don’t want to have to explain to people what’s wrong with our brand new watch.

At the end of the day, I love the way the watch works, and the accuracy and ability to automatically change for daylight savings is awesome. If not for second hand issue, I’d say it’s the perfect watch.

Product Reviewed: OCW600TDBA-7AV

Similar Products: OCW600TDBA-1AV OCW600TDA-2AV OCW600TDA-7AV OCW600TLA-1AV OCW600TLA-7AV

If you are a Gamer Girl, check out Frag Dolls. It’s a website that caters to girls who like to play video games. Or does it?

• Frag Dolls

The part I liked best is that they have a weekly calendar where you can meet online to play games with other girls.

What I didn’t like about the website is that it isn’t very friendly. Sure, the graphics show lots of girls sitting on the couch with game controllers, but the weekly schedule is filled with abbreviations. I know what Call of Duty, Splinter Cell, and Halo 2 are, but SCDA? GRAW? Even Uno? I’m not that out of the loop in the gaming world. If I don’t recognize these abbreviations, then a girl who has stumbled on this site trying to find another game that she likes isn’t going to be helped by the Frag Dolls.

The biggest problem with the gaming world is that it’s such an insider-driven environment that the people who are on the inside have no concept of what it’s like to be starting out. If a girl realized that she really liked to play the Lord of the Rings games, where would she go to find more that she liked?

Sadly, Frag Dolls isn’t going to help her nearly as much as IGN or Gamespot.

In fact, based on this picture, it looks like Frag Dolls is more about titilating male gamers than about Girl Power. Was that schedule for guys who want to meet girls online? Shucks! I would have really like a good Gamer Girl site!

This article from the BBC interviews Kirsten Kearney, a member of The Frag Dolls.

• BBC NEWS | Technology | All women gamers, please stand up

Kirsten is right on target with her ideas. She believes the new Pink Playstation might attract girls, but just slapping a coat of pink paint on something isn’t necessarily going to help:

“But pink is not enough. There needs to be changes across the board. So, for example, if I go to choose a character to play as and they are all male then I am going to think this isn’t aimed at me.”/p>

Even when they try to be inclusive, it’s pathetic. I love the game SSX3 for the Xbox, but I only have a couple of female characters to choose from. The male characters outnumber the females by a longshot. So, I have to choose between the Japanese girl or the blonde. I’m not either. I go with the Japanese girl because she has dark hair, but she swears in Japanese. It kind of busts up the illusion of the game. I don’t really feel like I’m the girl on the screen.

With Animal Crossing, however, I can eventually make that little cartoon girl have dark hair (don’t ask me how many Bells I spent at Shampoodle trying to get the right hairdo). I can choose her clothing based on my tastes and I can even design clothes to my liking. THAT is a game that was made for me.

I don’t want a pink Playstation (even if it’s that really cool coral color of pink like the Nintendo DS Lite came out with). I want more games like Animal Crossing that seem to believe that girls AND boys will want to play them.

I stopped reading Engadget and Gizmodo because they were always talking about cool cell phones and other gadgets that I just knew were never going to make it to the United States, much less Utah. I was sick of hearing about the cool stuff in South Korea and Taiwan. It was making me jealous and there was nothing I could do about. NewsFactor Network has the reason why those cool toys don’t make it to us:

• NewsFactor Network – Tech Gadgets Banned in the USA – By Elizabeth Millard

I always thought that the demand for bright pink phones with fur wasn’t high enough, now I realize that companies try things in their country first to make sure they’ll fly here. Here are the reasons cool gadgets don’t make it to the States:

• Work out the bugs: Manufacturers like to release products in their home countries to work out the bugs and product defects. It easier to deal with them before exporting them to the States.

• Test demand: They want to release a small batch of a product to test the market. Just because the consumer testing says there’s a demand, doesn’t mean there really is one.

• Sometimes it just won’t work: Some products don’t work as well in the States as they do in other countries because our systems (telecom companies, broadband companies, etc.) are different.

• Consumer VS. Business: Japan gadget sales are driven more buy consumers, whereas businesses are the driving factor to gadget sales in the United States.

• The Best Vs. Good Enough: Other cultures are more willing to pay a premium for the best, fastest and smallest, whereas the perception of the United States is that we want something that is “good enough.”

• Horrible Profit Margin: The cost of exporting products is steep and can cut profit margins down to nothing.

• Difference in Patent Law: Since our patent laws are so different, it creates a huge workload to export technology and try to protect your patent in all the countries.

I always felt like manufacturers in other countries underestimated our respect for smallest and fastest, but that is only one factor in the huge equation. It feels so much better to know the reason that I can’t get that cool ultra-tiny GPS phone from Europe.

Via: Tech Gadgets Banned in the USA – Yahoo! News

It has been almost two years since the lawsuit against Yourself!Fitness was first reported. It seemed like a silly case. Roger Avery, the screenwriter for Pulp Fiction, was suing Microsoft and ResponDesign for the idea behind Yourself!Fitness.

• IGN: Yourself!Lawsuit

Roger Avery stated that Microsoft had come to him for ideas on how to encourage women to buy an Xbox and he came up with the idea of a game that takes you through yoga poses.

That previous statement is an example of everything that is wrong with the gaming industry regarding women gamers: they asked a man to help them attract women gamers.

Why is it so hard to ask women?

As silly as it sounds that Microsoft might have asked some screenwriter what they should do to attract women gamers, it seems even sillier that Roger Avery thinks he has a case. The idea of having a game at takes you through yoga poses is such a small part of Yourself!Fitness. In fact, I only have used that section of the game in order to write about it in my review. I used to use Yourself!Fitness a lot and when I did, I never used the yoga section. In fact, I can’t believe that this lawsuit has gone on for so long.

Because of the lawsuit, a sequel to Yourself!Fitness has been delayed, if not cancelled. Here is the latest information from the Yourself!Fitness forums:

I have just gotten a response from my contact at Y!F Support (the person who set me up as a mod), confirming that there is unlikely to be a sequel. He adds – “But it is still remotely possible, if international sales are good and the lawsuit ever gets settled.”

Yourself!Fitness was a revolution in the exergaming industry, but their demise isn’t going to kill the idea. DDR Supernova and the new game, Dance Factory, are two examples of recent games that include physical activity with gaming.

Hey, Microsoft, next time you need information about what women want in a game, try asking a woman. You might get better results than, “Uh, maybe if the game did yoga or something. Girls might like that…”

For more information about Yourself!Fitness:

• Starling Fitness » Yourself! Fitness for the Xbox

It has been two weeks since I first laid my hands on Animal Crossing and I’ve done a lot of obsessing over it. You can read my intial review here:

• The Gadgets Page » Nintendo DS: Animal Crossing

Firstly, the fish and bugs are not limited resources. If you fish too much, you will end up catching more boots and tires than fish. It’s just the game’s way of telling you to put down the game for awhile. The reason my nephew didn’t have beautiful butterflies floating in the air everywhere is because I was playing at midnight. I should have looked on the ground for all those crickets I was hearing. They weren’t just sound effects, each cricket song represents a critter you can nab.

The reason why Las Habras looked so desolate and dry compared to my nephew’s abundantly green landscape is because my nephew had been playing with the date on the game. His game is in July (and about to celebrate the fireworks display), so the grass is a strange green and blue mixture. Additionally, because he had played with the date feature, he was overgrown with weeds. What I had mistaken for beautiful greenery is actually a sign that he had been “time traveling.”

If you pay off your house, you automatically get upgraded to a bigger house, even if you tell Tom Nook, the store manager, that you don’t want a bigger house. He thinks you’re just joking and builds you a new one anyway (complete with bigger mortgage). Strangely, I am able to enjoy the bigger house AND pay my “tithing” to the museum. The first of anything that I catch goes to the museum and all the rest goes to Tom Nook. I still leave the bugs alone, but that’s because they don’t bring in a lot of money and I really like to see the butterflies floating by.

It didn’t take me long until I was reeled into the materialism of the game. In fact, I like shopping in Animal Crossing far more than I do in real life. I found the group of furniture that appeals to my sense of utilitarianism the most and I have been madly collecting everything with the word “Ranch” in its name. I don’t have a house big enough to hold all of my furniture, so I’m storing it until I upgrade. My upgraded house will be done tomorrow. Tom Nook promised me.

You can design clothing for the game. I thought it was a silly feature and felt ripped off that I spent 350 Bells (money) for the privilege of designing without getting money for the designs that the villagers are wearing, but I tell ya, the second I saw one of my beloved animal friends wearing that design, I rushed to Able Sisters to fill their store. Now, all the animals are wearing shirts with big M’s on them. The M is for Merriton, the town name, by the way, NOT Moncur, like my nephew thought when he saw them.

Most importantly, I am strangely in love with all the characters in the game. They have a weird AI that is both repetitive and surprisingly random. They will ask you to give them new catchphrases. If they are cool enough, the catchphrases pass on like slang within communities does. I told Deena, my adorable duck friend, to say “AFLAC” after every sentence, now half my town is using that phrase. It’s really weird to hear a squirrel say “AFLAC.”

Saddest of all, I think I love this game because I’m so lonely. The game actually fools my brain into thinking I’ve socialized with people. Because I work at home, I no longer have any coworkers to commiserate with. I have been struggling with this loneliness for a few months now, but suddenly, I have a pocket full of friends that love me. All they need is a little bit of my time every day. Why aren’t real friends like that?

If you have been playing Animal Crossing and feel a little at a loss with all the things in the town to do, here are some excellent resources:

• The Official Animal Crossing for Nintendo DS Website

• IGN Guides: Animal Crossing: Wild World Guide (Nintendo DS)

• Gamespot FAQs – Animal Crossing: Wild World Walkthroughs and Guides

I found the FAQs on the Gamespot site to be the most helpful.