January, 2005 — Tech News and Analysis

Archive for January 2005

The Bellster Bellyache

Jeff Pulver knows how to get attention. So when he announced his newest product, Bellster, it very quickly became the darling of the blogsphere. Wall Street Journal weighed in with a nice article, and so did tons of other publications. Martin had suggested something … Read More »

Mac Mini Musing?

There is a lot of news coming out about Mac Mini. Now I know I suggested that it could be a PVR. Another random thought – can we daisy chain two of these Mac Minis together, and get better power output than a G5 machine? … Read More »

 
 

Verizon Bulks Up

Remember the geek in Verizon Wireless commercials, repeating – can you hear me now? ad nauseam. Well, its not fancy selling. Verizon Wireless takes its voice quality claims seriously and has been spending tons of money trying to fill out any holes in its network. Read More »

Panoramic wallpaper

Isn’t this desktop gorgeous? Comes in three sizes and a matching Pocket PC theme is available too, from McDeb, the best theme and wallpaper artist on the web. Read More »

For Sale: Powerbook 15 & Sony Wega TV

I am going to be moving apartments shortly and have a few items to sell, if anyone of you are interested. Apple Aluminum Powerbook 15 inch, 1.25 GHz with DVD burner, bluetooth, wifi, 1.25 GB of memory and 80 GB hard drive is the top item … Read More »

GMail invites

Got 6 GMail invites to give away. Email me or PM me on the forum if you want one. Read More »

No power, no problem

I am sitting in my home office with no power. Rolling thunderstorms are passing through the area and they have knocked the power out, hopefully for less than 3 hours. That’s how long the Sony U battery will last on a charge. I am posting this … Read More »

More Telecom Marriages Ahead

Business 2.0 Telecom Report: The news of the SBC/AT&T marriage is going to spark a new wave of couplings in the telecom industry. Telecom watchers have been waiting for the industry consolidation for some time because the telecom business is once again going through a … Read More »

Tom Goes IP-Logging

Tom Evslin, co-founder of ITXC Corp, and one time head honcho of AT&T’s dial-up business has joined the ranks of IP bloggers. In case you did not know, he was also responsible for Microsoft Exchange’s precursor, MS Mail. Seriously smart guy, with opinions. Now that’s … Read More »

Consumer Union hates SBC & AT&T Merger

The deal is barely a day old and Consumer Union has come out with a statement saying this is bad for the consumers. From a consumer perspective, I think this deal is not that much of a problem. AT&T has pulled back from consumer business and … Read More »

New jkOnTheRun discussion forum now live!

Need a good place to hang out and discuss cool stuff like mobile technology, gadgets, software and other neat things?  The new and easy to use jkOTR discussion forum is now open and ready for your insightful posts and discussion!  OK, you can just lurk if … Read More »

My month with Treo 650

* Cingular has just released Treo 650 Business 2.0: Like many other Treo fans, had been looking forward to the new 650. It boasted Bluetooth wireless, a much-improved screen, and a keyboard that was a delight to type on. Would it be worth dropping … Read More »

More Must Reads

A company has developed Linux drivers for the Gunze touchscreen on the Sony U and will be publishing a HOW-TO and drivers soon.  Linux runs fine on the U series UPCs but currently lacks the drivers to operate the touchscreen.  More details as they unfold… Read More »

Well, Apple has finally updated the Powerbook line. After more than a year since the last upgrade, users expected some substantial speed bumps. What the got is a different story. Instead of the rumored dual-core G4, or dreamed of G5, we got a minimal 1.5ghz increase … Read More »

First it was the Sprint+Nextel merger that put the WiMAX ready spectrum out of reach, and now we have a situation where one of the most ardent supporters of the technology in the carrier space going straight into the arms of a company which … Read More »

Some evil x86 geek has taken our beloved Mac mini and desecrated it by putting a Nano-ITX form factor motherboard in it. Poor Mac mini. Please send me the original components so that I may give them a good home ;) Read More »

WSJ broke the news that two companies have reached a tentative deal and it could be announced pretty soon. According to the report, AT&T CEO David Dorman will become the president of the joint company, while SBC Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre is going to … Read More »

Dave’s iPAQ has reviewed the Bluetooth version of the iTECH Virtual Keyboard (VKB) as used with an iPAQ Pocket PC.  The author really likes the VKB and shows a lot of pictures of … Read More »

Since my original post about the Mac Media Center Project there has been another project started along the same lines. The new project is know as iTheater. There isn’t that much difference between the two projects other than the fact that … Read More »

Why AT&T is a great deal for SBC? AT&T and SBC Communications are close to shaking their mitts on a $16-billion merger, which will see former Ma Bell become part of the SBC empire. Both Wall Street Journal and The New York Times are reporting … Read More »

Apple should hurry up and come-up with a windows version of its IPhoto software. Why? Because Google’s Picasa software for manipulating photos is pretty nifty. The new release, version 2, has taken a lot of visual cues from Apple’s iPhoto and has made it … Read More »

I am discovering as I age that it is easier to procrastinate than it used to be. I’m not sure what the reason is but these days if the task at hand is not one I’m going to enjoy there’s an even money chance I will … Read More »

For a few days, I have seen a Packet 8 meme form slowly. Most VoIP bloggers have started to dig their teeth into the prospects of the company, which is a proxy for what stock market punters really think about VoIP. Packet 8 is the … Read More »

Imagine the amazement on the faces of all your friends when you boot OS X on your PC. I’m not sure how useful or complete this would be but it sure would be cool to boot OS X on the Sony U.   You need an OS … Read More »

Red Herring (the new one) reports that Nicholas Negroponte, author of Being Digital and the Wiesner Professor of Media Technology at MIT, has roped in Advanced Micro Devices, Google, Motorola, Samsung, and News Corp. to build a $100 PC which will have a 14-inch color … Read More »

The instant and on-demand desires of a bunch of geeks is going to change the television game, and the revolution has already started, says The New York Times. They point to MythTV, an open source PVR technology, Bit Torrent and Videora, a software I … Read More »

So Friday I was working on my laptop sitting in the easy chair in the living room, laptop on my lap sitting firmly on the lapdesk, when I decided to go do something else and plug the laptop into the charger.  I set the laptop … Read More »

After a long day of playing with my new toy, I have a few gripes. Small as they may seem, they are substantial enough to consider possible iModification. The first shortcoming I noticed was that when working in indirect sunlight, on overcast days, the feedback LED’s … Read More »

It is good to see Mike Masnick and I are thinking along the same lines about watching television content on our handsets. Our opinions are slightly different, but still I like this point of view – “Even if you can tie entertainment functions to … Read More »

For last three years, pretty much every single telecom and networking executive I know has been saying that the future of their respective companies was in Asia. The Asian giants – China, India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan – have become major consumers of telecom … Read More »

Sierra Wireless, the Canadian company that makes modem cards for connecting laptops to wireless cellular networks had a 3G reality check, as it missed its numbers by a mile and issued a guidance which had the investors scrambling for exits. Company sliced its revenue expectations for … Read More »

My dear friend Atanu Dey, who writes a controversial and always enlightening blog, Deesha is Indian blogger of the year. Congrats. Read More »

Best Buy now has the 1.25GHz Mac Mini and the 1.42GHz Mac Mini now listed for pre-ordering up on their online store. Best Buy’s site also notes that its stores will soon begin selling Apple’s 512MB iPod shuffle–but not the … Read More »

A new site has sprung up for Sony U enthusiasts and owners.  Uaddict is brand spanking new and doesn’t have much content up yet but the site is nicely designed and I’m sure we’ll see some good stuff soon.  They plan to have a user’s … Read More »

I promised some pics to compare the size of the Moleskine and the Sony U750 so here are just a few.  I took some to show the size comparison between the Sony, Moleskine, Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000 and Toshiba e800.  There are also a few pics of … Read More »

Jonothan Coulton is the geek acoustic musician. “A Laptop Like You” is his ode to his Powerbook. While you’re at his site, pick up “Smoking Monkey” from the iTMS. Ya know, help a starving artist out. Read More »

The Mac Media Center Project, an open source project to develop a complete media center interface for the Mac mini, launched this past week. There’s already links up for how to connect all your A/V hardware (also see Engadget’s how-to for more on that), … Read More »

I finally got my 1GB Shuffle today. The nice FedEx man dropped off a huge box. (huge relative to the size of the shuffle its self). Upon opening said box, I was confronted with 4 things: 1 iPod Shuffle box; approx the size of 4 jewel … Read More »

Light Reading: Who wins, who loses? Hardware perspective from Light Reading. Adtran Inc. and Sonus Networks Inc. could benefit from the merger, while Lucent Technologies Inc., Nortel Networks Ltd, and Avici Systems Inc. may suffer. Deployment of SBC’s fiber initiative, Project Lightspeed, could be pulled … Read More »

(Hat tip: MacNN) Chalk this one up to still being a rumor, but one I think is in line with Apple’s “iPod halo” marketing strategy. According to a report released by Merril Lynch, Best Buy may begin selling Macs again. The analyst firm … Read More »

The Virtual Laser Keyboard (VKB) has been virtual far too long and that may now be corrected with the introduction of a web site that is selling them.  The VKB is a laser keyboard designed to be very portable by projecting a virtual keyboard … Read More »

The Economist has finally pricked the WiMAX hype bubble. Sure I have been crying hoarse about this crap, but hopefully now finally rest of the world will see the light. With $500 in consumer premise equipment costs, the technology doesn’t make economic sense even as … Read More »

Linux Devices reports that Motorola will introduce eight to 10 smartphones in 2005, and a large number of those will be powered by Linux, which apparently is coming from a small Linux vendor Montevista Software. More details here. Read More »

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