Technology
New Sony Reader e-book: better, still not perfect
According to Mobile Tech Review, the new PRS-700 is better than the previous Reader:
Sony has worked a near miracle with their touch screen and touch-centric user interface. The Reader is simply a joy to use in terms of ergonomics, control and navigation. This is by far the most natural way to manage, navigate and read books we’ve seen so far. Alas, its lesser contrast doesn’t warm our bookish hearts, and for those in love with e-ink’s paper-like look, that’s a tough one to swallow. For those new to eBook readers or those who don’t mind reading from matte notebook displays, the PRS-700 has greater appeal. As always, the Reader is a great way to carry around a huge library of books and avoid the storage issues of traditional books.
I was actually playing with the current model yesterday, and while it’s a lovely wee gadget it’s still not the right reader for me. What I want is the Reader’s form factor with the iPhone’s wireless and two apps: NetNewsWire and Instapaper. That’d work.
As Engadget says:
with no wireless of any sort you’re stuck filling this one via USB, SD, or MS Duo. In other words there’s still no perfect choice in the world of the e-ink reader — but it is awfully hard to ignore the Reader’s sleek exterior when compared to the Kindle’s distinctively sci-fi doorstop look.
Buying a camcorder? Don’t get a Panasonic
I bought a video camera just before Baby Bigmouth turned up - a Panasonic VDR-D250. I wasn’t greatly bothered about specs, so I quickly checked that it was Mac compatible before buying it.
It turns out that it *was* Mac compatible, sort of, on the day I bought it. A few weeks later Leopard came out, and my camera was no longer Mac-compatible.
Unlike many cameras (including most other Panasonics), my camera is only Mac compatible via Panasonic’s bundled software, which doesn’t work with Leopard and which hasn’t been updated since before Leopard shipped. That means it’s only able to communicate with OS X if you finalise the discs (in the case of DVD-RWs) and get it to act like an external DVD player, and even then iMovie chokes on the files. If you’re using DVD-R things are worse still, because OS X doesn’t like the .vro file format unless you shell out extra cash on the Quicktime MPEG Component - a prerequisite not just for QuickTime, but for other OS X video programs such as MPEG Streamclip.
Luckily for me I’ve got a copy of Toast, the all-singing, all-dancing OS X video software, and that can convert pretty much anything to pretty much anything. Otherwise I’d be scunnered.
I’m serious about not buying Panasonic, though. This is a camera that only came out in late Spring 2006, and which cost around £500 at launch. If a firm can’t be arsed ensuring that fairly pricey hardware stays current for 18 months, it doesn’t deserve your money.
Music piracy: solved!
It turns out that the answer to music piracy is simple: a logo!
Various download sites have unveiled a new “MP3: 100% Compatible” logo that - according to them - won’t just emphasise the cross-platform nature of MP3s, but will also help in the fight against piracy.
I love The Inquirer’s take on it:
You can now be safe in the knowledge that any MP3 files you download fron the INQ are safe and legal. Honest. Look we’ve got a logo and everything.
These download sites have a little more in mind than educating on MP3 compatibility – the trade body behind this initiative highlighted how this would identify legal download sites to consumers. Of course anyone brazen enough to offer millions of pounds worth of other people’s copyrighted music and movies would be in really big trouble if they were daring enough to copy and paste a logo onto a website (like we just did for example).
Amazon’s experimental interface: WindowShop
A few months back I blogged about a tech demo that made browsing Amazon more shop-like. It seems Amazon spotted it too, because its new WindowShop interface does much the same thing.
I’m not sure it’s actually useful (at least on a PC - it would probably make more sense on a TV), but it does look pretty.
Three-word videogame review: Dead Space (Xbox 360)
Scary. Gory. Excellent.
iTunes: now it’s making graphic designers redundant
What else could explain the sheer half-arsedness of these album covers, from Sugababes and Girls Aloud respectively?
Presumably the record industry has thought “hmmm, everybody downloads or rips now, so covers don’t matter. Let’s sack all the designers!”
Future pop album covers won’t have images at all. They’ll just say “Fuck you, Steve Jobs” in brightly coloured letters.
Passports and PAYG phones: if you tolerate this your email will be next
The government wants to stop people from walking into shops and buying pay-as-you-go mobiles; in future, you’ll have to produce your passport. If you don’t have a passport? Tough shit.
The reason, inevitably, is that of the millions and millions of PAYG customers, a handful are - yes! - terrorists and organised criminals (two groups famed for their ability to produce or obtain fake passports, but I digress…).
The thing is, PAYG phones aren’t the only ways for people to communicate. There’s Skype, there’s email, there’s chat over public Wi-Fi…
/looks out the tinfoil, makes a new hat
Some quotes the makers of Fracture could put on the cover
“Possibly not the worst FPS ever made. Possibly.”
“Hardly earth-shattering.”
“Several hours of tedium - guaranteed!”
“I wish I’d spent my money on crack instead.”
Nokia’s “Comes With Music” translated for the UK
Thanks to the ever-entertaining No Rock’n'Roll Fun:
Comes Without Music But You Can Pay For Music If You Like. Just Not Too Many Tunes, Eh? Don’t Go Mad Or Anything. Two Songs A Week.
Sage advice for astronauts
If you’re in the future, and you work on a spaceship, and you get a call telling you to go and check out some remote colony because contact has mysteriously been lost, do yourself a favour and call in sick that day. Skive for your life. The only reason space colonies, and the drifting spacecraft spookily orbiting above them, stop communicating is because they’ve been overrun by bloodthirsty monsters. This is scientific fact.
Eurogamer reviews sci-fi horror game Dead Space.