Bigmouth Strikes Again: Carrie Marshall's blog

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Category: Technology

Shiny gadgets and clever computers

  • How Apple can make iPhone developers love it again

    John Gruber hits the nail on the head:

    Here is a complete list of what Apple must do to increase developers’ trust in the App Store system:

    State the rules.
    Follow the rules.

    That’s it.

  • Better e-book readers are coming

    Excellent news. We’re not quite at the point where I’d want to dump my daily paper for a digital Daily Me, but we’re getting closer.

    The iRex Reader 1000 offers a 10.2-inch diagonal E-Inkscreen, far larger than Kindle’s 6-inch screen or even iRex’s own 8.1-inch diagonal iLiad, its last e-book model. That stretched display is designed to work with any file format, be it an e-book, a full-sized PDF, a Word document or HTML. Like earlier iRex devices, it sports a stylus and touch screen for taking notes and marking documents.

    …Business-targeted readers also come with business-sized price tags. Though Plastic Logic won’t yet reveal the price for its device, iRex says its basic reader will start at $650. (By contrast, Kindle sells for $360.) Adding a writable screen to the iRex reader will cost another $100, and equipping it with wi-fi, Bluetooth and a 3G cell connection for downloading documents will raise the price to $850.

    But nonbusiness consumers, take heart: Cheaper, book-focused e-readers are also likely to be revamped soon.

  • Techno arse

    Great post on Broadstuff:

    If you read Techmeme, the aggregator of news in the Technosphere, you may not have noticed that the world’s financial markets nearly collapsed yesterday and that the world is again looking at a 1930’s style Great Depression scenario. You would not know that artist Damien Hirst flogged off £70m of “fine art” including the Formaldehyde Shark above – nor will you know that art prices nearly always reach top levels at the same time that commercial property development hits the point where it implodes, which is the guaranteed signal of recession.

    You will, of course, be very well aware of the latest Apple, Blackberry, Google etc shiny shiny stuff though.

  • Plastic Logic’s e-book reader: I want one

    Details and video at TG Daily.

    Manufacturer’s blurb:

    Differentiated by a stunning form factor (the size of 8.5 x 11-inch paper), the Plastic Logic reader features a big readable display. Yet it’s thinner than a pad of paper, lighter than many business periodicals, and offers a high-quality reading experience – better than alternatives of paper or other electronic readers on the market today.

    The Plastic Logic reader supports a full range of business document formats, such as Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint, and Adobe PDFs, as well as newspapers, periodicals and books. It has an easy gesture-based user interface and powerful software tools that will help business users to organize and manage their information. Users can connect to their information either wired or wirelessly and store thousands of documents on the device. The reader incorporates E Ink technology for great readability and features low power consumption and long battery life. The Plastic Logic reader is scheduled to ship in the first half of 2009.

  • Got a Sony Vaio? Don’t like fires? You should probably read this, then

    Sony’s recalling a whole bunch of Vaio TZ laptops because of an unfortunate “burny burny” feature that’s slipped into some of them. The recall includes these models:

    • All model numbers beginning “VGN TZ1” (e.g. VGN-TZ11XN/B)
    • All model numbers beginning “VGN TZ2” (e.g. VGN-TZ21WN/B)
    • Certain model numbers beginning “VGN TZ3” (e.g. VGN-TZ31VN/R)

    Full UK details here. [Via Engadget]

  • Thoughts on using Apple’s Time Machine as a remote wireless hard disk

    Nope – at least, nope for iPhoto and iTunes libraries. This is a job for Captain Ethernet.

  • Google Chrome: that’s no moon

    Google’s much-anticipated operating system turns out to be real – but it’s built into a browser.

  • Ubiquity: this could be awesome

    Sorry, on deadline just now so this’ll be quick: Mozilla’s Ubiquity could be amazing. More on MetaFilter.

  • Baby-proof my iPhone

    An unusual request: does anybody know of a crystal case for the first-gen iPhone that *doesn’t* let you use the touch screen? I want to use it as a portable video player for baby bigmouth, but the touchscreen means she turns off the clips in seconds and then beats me around the face with the phone. Any ideas?

    It’d be great if there was a preference that turned off the touch interface during video playback…

  • A happy Xbox experience

    My Xbox 360 developed the dreaded Red Ring of Death the other week, and after trying the various troubleshooting tips it was pretty obvious that the ‘box was broken. So with a sinking feeling I called tech support to try and arrange a repair.

    What I expected was this:

    • Hours on the phone being passed from pillar to post
    • Days and days before my console was picked up
    • A couple of months without an Xbox while it sat in Germany gathering dust
    • A returned Xbox with “there’s bugger-all wrong with it” written in biro on it

    What I got was this:

    • Talking to a real person within a few minutes
    • An emailed shipping label that arrived during the phone call
    • Pickup of the console within three hours
    • An email update telling me it was fixed a week and a half later
    • Delivery a few days after that, on the promised date
    • A note explaining that my motherboard and DVD drive were buggered, so they’d been replaced
    • A complimentary month’s membership of Xbox Live

    Credit where credit’s due, that’s made me feel very positive about Microsoft.