The UMPC is not even out yet and as I had pondered Slingbox and Vongo support right away for the device, it turns out the Slingbox will support it with a special version of their slingmedia software.

What a sweet fit this will be. The Slingbox was my favorite geek purchase in 2005. Wonder what 2006 will bring? The UMPC is looking good at the moment and James Kendrick got my hopes up and then spoiled them with his ‘exclusive’ gaffe. The Xbox 360 is in the running too if it doesn’t continue to play the Phantom of the Retailer Opera.

What gadgets are on your radar this year?

I tried to stay away from being sucked into too much of the Origami hype, and now the details have finally come out along with a name change: Ultimate Mobile PC.

Otto Berkes, the architect and General Manager of this new device indicates via this video that this is designed to fill the gap between portable device and Tablet PC and will run any program that will run on Windows, although it might not be practical. Details:

- will ship and run with Windows XP Tablet Edition (and will be Vista ready, but no Aero glass), which includes the Tablet Input Panel (TIP)
- hard drive options will be from 30GB to 120GB
- RAM
- built-in WiFi and bluetooth enabled
- dual array microphones with noise reduction, (Otto: “would make a fantasic VoIP device.”)
- stereo speakers
- stereo headphone jack
- stylus or touch screen use
- native resolution 800×480, 7″ screen
- USB ports on both side (for keyboard, mouse, etc)
- could have a variety of additional options like compact flash
- some models will have docking capability
- VGA output (1024×768 or higher depending on card driver)
- built-in back prop in design so you can sit on desk at an angle and watch movies (I’m thinking Slingbox or Vongo on this thing already)
- will be released in the “next few months”
- expected price range: $599 - $999 USD

Coming in at and under the $599 price point the portable Windows Media Players have been a big yawn to me, but this thing has potential if the battery life doesn’t totally suck. I’m guessing battery life will be comparable to laptops (2-8 hours) depending on what hardware and software are running. The power supply wasn’t shown, but a few Channel 9 users are rightly pondering that in light of the oversized Xbox 360 brick.

It’s hard not to be optimistic about this device, especially with an architect/GM as excited as Otto. I look forward to seeing this one on store shelves, but then I’m still looking forward to seeing the Xbox 360. With the higher price, it will probably be easier to find.

Thanks Scoble, this was one of the better Channel 9 videos.

Michael Gartenberg reviews a pre-production Intel Ultimate Mobile PC unit.

As part of the Search Champs swag, we received a 256MB thumb drive.

The 3 1/2″ floppy disk seems almost dead, following its longer dead cousin the 5 1/4″ floppy. Yeah, maybe these thumbdrives aren’t as inexpensive as floppies for handing around data, but they are smaller and more convenient than CDs. I do worry about losing the thumbdrive itself, and not pictured above is the necklace that attaches to it so that I’ll have to lose my head too during transport. I’ve seen other drives that attach to keychains (handy).

I don’t move much data around between devices with physical media being that all our drives are networked so I’m curious what are other good uses for thumbdrives now that I actually possess one? I already own a Pocket PC and though the storage space there is pretty limited, it seems to work for storing passwords in an encrypted database. I’ve seen some advanced fingerprint (biometric) thumbdrives which could be a more portable way to carry those passwords everywhere.

Surprised that this is my first thumbdrive? Guess I just haven’t seen the need to go out and acquire one, although whether or not something is useful doesn’t always sway my gadget purchases. I can see thumbdrives being pretty useful at conventions. Who else here owns one or more and what do you use them for primarily?

Update 1/28/2006 7:40pm PST: TorPark combines Firefox and ToR the onion router for anonymous browsing.

Updae 1/29/2006 7:33pm PST: PC World: 23 Things to Do With a Thumb Drive

At Search Champs today there was a non-NDA part with some demos we are allowed to blog about. My notes (I’m blogging via tablet so forgive brevity):

- Microsoft Gadgets to be available for XP “possibly sooner’ than Vista
- TV recommendations via live.com available soon
- pictures to be included, where relevant, in RSS reader on live.com starting tomorrow
- saw Windows Live Expo (Freemont). This is used for selling items person to person. Think classifieds. Unlike the primarily text driven Craigslist, there are images and pictures. Some integration with Messenger. Free to make listings.

The MogoMouse makes it carrying around a mouse very space friendly by fitting it inside the PCMIA slot.

Seems a bit pricey at $69.95 and the feel of it might be suspect, but intriguing design and definite points for hiding away in the PCMIA slot.

Hat tip to Digg.

I probably should have done some comparison shopping and asked folks first before buying the Kodak z760, but when it comes to pictures Kodak is a good name.

As for their camera quality? Didn’t have a clue and no, the picture above was taken with our older camera, not the new one. The price seemed to be pretty good: $198 with the docking station and for an extra $20 be picked up an additional lithium batter ($50 normally).

After the fact and while charging, I decided to do some checking on the z760 and found this review from a customer who paid $298.00 for just the camera and uses the words: “BUY THIS CAMERA!!!”

I did some Googling and found that this camera came out in May 2005 and was selling for $449 USD then. Seems like we maybe be scored a good Black Friday deal.

I’m just a camera rookie, at best
This is our third dedicated digital camera purchase. Our first was a Casio which we used for a couple years, then we bought the HP 315 photosmart a couple years ago for $400 which has served us well but is definitely showing its age. This Black Friday morning WalMart was running an enticing deal: $88 for a 4.1 megapixel camera so we went down there. Of course, they were sold out by the time we got there so we looked around for other deals running. The Kodak seemed compelling, so off to the register we went.

After those first three hours
After unpacking the camera and charging for three hours I had our weekly radio show to host, so I wasn’t able to start shooting any pictures. I did open up the camera instruction manual and discussed on the show the various camera modes with other webmasters. Fortunately for me, the audience had a few people who knew much more about photography than I.

We went through things like: shutter speed, ISO speed, apeture, back and front lighting, scenes and more. All things I’m sure most seasoned photographers already understand very well. I admitted that I’ve been primarily a point, shoot and process in Photoshop guy. It occured to me after spending some time going back and forth with listeners in the chatroom that it was vastly more practical to start with a quality source photograph rather than try to massage a lousy one in Photoshop.

Love those closeups
One of the scene (SCN) modes is close-up allowing pictures as close as two inches. I decided to take a picture of one of the studio phones. Check it out here (opens in a new window). Jowl posted this over at Webmaster Cookbook blog and also a picture of himself cartoon-style:

This was created with the Kodak EasyShare software (”fun things” plugin) and compressing and filtering using Photoshop. Here is a few more photos I took in various lighting situations and camera modes:

Check out the dust and smudges shown on the hinge. And now look at my glasses that need cleaning in this next shot:

Da plane, da plane!

Transferring pictures from the camera dock
This couldn’t be easier, you just put the camera on the dock and press a button. No fooling around with USB cables. The accompanying EasyShare software organizes the pictures by date/time in albums that you can view and then drag to other folders and modify.

I like this camera not only for the price but for the number of features. Yes, I have much to learn, but this has given me new energy in trying to become a better photographer which hopefully translates into better pictures on this blog. That is, if we don’t overcompress them for the web, anyway. It has also given me some new photography-related ideas. Where those ideas go, if anywhere, I’ll write about in the future.

The Kodak z760 camera is easy to use and yet has enough powerful features so that skilled photographers can take good quality pictures. Grade: A.

Speeky created and patended photo paper with a magnetic strip that can contain up to 15 seconds of audio.

The comic on their page shown above cracks me up. They are working on making this record time up to three minutes.

CNET yesterday: High-tech photos give new meaning to “talking pictures:”

the Speekysmart printer is not yet on the market. Founder Giancarlo Zanetti is shopping for a hardware manufacturer. “We are now negotiating with two printer companies–one of these is an Italian company, the other is a Japanese company,” Zanetti told CNET News.com. The spellings may be inconsistent, but the Speekysmart printer, Speakpaper and the accompanying magnetic reader are all being marketed under an umbrella Speeky brand, he added.

This reminded me of what you can already do digitally using OneNote. You can make notes and record audio and/or video and sync up the notes. This functionality is particularly usefu on a Tablet PC slate in a meeting or appointment setting.

For those who still like holding pictures in their hands, Speeky might have some market. I’d rather use my Tablet and OneNote. What about you?

I’ve been checking out Yahoo’s newest goodie: Shoposphere (shopping.yahoo.com/shoposphere/). The ever productive Yahoo Search Blog has the details:

The Shoposphere and Pick Lists are examples of social commerce. We believe the community of shoppers is one of the best sources for product information and advice. The Shoposphere is a place to discover interesting and cool products thematically arranged into Pick Lists by other shoppers. It’s always changing. It includes new lists in a “product stream” and highest rated lists which are a fun way to explore new products and trends.

Pick List
The object is to search around and save products to a list. You can create your own list or use one of the pre-defined lists: My Wish List and Stuff I Own. I added a few CDs [see my Yahoo Shopping Wish List] I’ve been enjoying listening to tracks on LAUNCHcast [Hmm review]. CDs I’d like to own. One of which we already ordered through Amazon that wasn’t available in any retail stores (a Quiet Riot CD from 2001).

The problem I have with lists like these is maintainence. Somebody (usually the list creator) has to maintain these lists or they become outdated and no longer useful. What good is a wish list where you have since bought the items? I have started an Amazon wish list just about every year back as far as I can remember and they are cool for a few hours, maybe a few weeks and then become dated and forgotten; I’d have to research these URL(s) to link them here and even that seems like too much work.

This isn’t any kind of bash against the Yahoo’s entry to this area, it’s more of my own experience with these type lists and services. I flirted around with epinions for awhile too which is sort of similar to what the Shoposphere is doing. I even made $4-5 for my time.

Shoposphere
As for the Shoposphere which lets other reviewers vote on how useful your custom pick lists are? One advantage for this service: serendipitous shopping. It could help you find items you are interested in possibly buying without having to surf through various online stores. Some of the early user-created pick lists are interesting like Gadgets for the Lazy. I found a couple things to add to my Wish List.

Overall, I can see why Yahoo did this, but how much time will I really be spending there? Especially after the holiday shopping season? Probably very little. What about you?

Update 5:36 am PST: Almost instantly after publishing this (don’t you just love how that happens?) I thought of one webmaster-related usage: if you share interesting, useful lists people might check your profile and visit your website.

Mobile PC has made a cool list: How many of the top 100 gadgets have you bought? Our list is below, how do you compare?

1. Swingline 747 Stapler 2002 (#99)
2. Pez Dispenser 1927 (#98)
3. Rubik’s Cube 1974 (#89)
4. Black & Decker Dirtbuster 1979 (#88)
5. Hohner Harmonica, 1857 (#85)
6. Zipo Windproof Lighter 1932 (#81)
7. Hasbro Lite-Brite 1967 (#77)
8. Master Lock Padlock 1924 (#72)
9. Tyco Toys Tickle Me Elmo 1996 (#71)
10. Atari Pong C-100 1976 (#70)
11. Mattel Football II 1978 (#65)
12. Motorola Bravo Numeric Pager 1986 (#61)
13. Mattel Magic 8-Ball 1946 (#57)
14. IRobot Roomba 2002 (#51))
15. Etch-A-Sketch (#50)
16. Texas Instruments Speak & Spell 1978 (#46)
17. Sandisk Compact Flash Card 1994 (#38)
18. Nintendo Game Boy 1989 (#25)
19. Biro Ballpoint Pen 1938 (#24)
20. Telephone, 1876 (#23)
21. Swiss Army Knife 1891 (#20)
22. Apple iPod 2001 (#12)
23. Tivo Series1 1999 (#10)
24. Atari 2600 1977 (#9)

Thanks to Jerry Kindall for the link!

After being at CES my wife said she wanted a SPOT watch, so I ordered her the Fossil Abacus AU4002 from Tiger Direct. Today it arrived and tonight while setting it up, we learned a few things about MSN Direct service which I’ll share below.

Lots of packing as you can see. They really don’t want this watch broken, which is a good thing of course.

The watch face is smaller than earlier models, so hopefully this won’t draw too many weird stares.

When you first unpack it the instructions say to put it on charge for 5-6 hours, which we did. It sits on a relatively heavy duty plastic cradle and you just need to line up the watch with the number of buttons on the watch.

While charging the watch I signed up at direct.msn.com. The first time I made a bonehead mistake and signed up under my .NET passport (don’t do this if you are activating the account as a gift for someone else or the watch will be assigned to you). So I called the friendly MSN Direct support desk at 866-658-7032 and they reset the account so I could go in under my wife’s .NET passport account and sign up again. During the sign-up process you can look at a map of the available coverage area which in my wife’s case was covered by “Greater Seattle Area” as shown below.

Lastly, my wife went to MSN Direct customize the channels. She was a bit disappointed that she couldn’t get her mutual fund update because MSN didn’t carry that symbol (why not?!), but she could get her horoscope sent and receive MSN messages which seemed to make her happy. Now she waits because it takes 12-24 hours to receive the initial welcome message and then she can begin to receive her updated content. I signed her up for the $59.95/year plan that comes with one free month.

Turning on the watch was a bit awkward (hold down the three buttons on the right and then release). Took a few times to make that work right.

All in all it’s a pretty nifty watch, but the fact that it doesn’t come with RSS feeds (so her favorite headlines could be streamed) and that the content and initial charge put it nearly a full day out of use brings the grade down a bit. Overall grade: B-