October, 2006 — Tech News and Analysis

Archive for October 2006

Trouble In DSL Land

The DSL ecosystem might be in for a rocky ride, at least in the near term. A few days ago we had pointed out the slowdown at AT&T and BellSouth when it came to net new adds. Embarq did not meet analyst expectations, and many … Read More »

Rodfather attempts HDTV tuning on the Q1

Since I’m a slacker and haven’t had a chance to test a USB ATSC tuner on the Q1, Rodfather dropped $100 and gave it a shot. He picked up the … Read More »

 
 

Canon ELURA 100: camcorder of the year

Now I’m no video camera expert, but I’m glad to see I chose correctly. CamcorderInfo just ran through the best of the best in the video-cam space, which is actually getting pretty crowded with the new high-def offerings and all. Would you believe that … Read More »

Don’t forget your passport

This is mobile tech news only because it can affect millions of travelers going to Mexico or Canada.  Currently you don’t need a US passport to travel to either of those countries but the rules change next year effective January 7.  US citizens can currently use … Read More »

VIA C7®-M Processor powers new 15.4” portable computer Taipei, Taiwan, 26 October 2006 – VIA Technologies, Inc., a leading innovator and developer of silicon chip technologies and PC platform solutions, … Read More »

Orange-branded Bluetooth speaker from Acoustic Energy

So you’ve got a Bluetooth-enabled phone loaded with killer digital tunes and you want to share. Calm down RIAA, I only meant that folks might want to play the media for others to hear….and not charge money….or transfer files. So like you can possibly plug … Read More »

Logitec external drives save juice

Logitec (no, not that one) is offering some interesting external hard drives in 40-, 80-, and 160-GB capacity. The 5200 RPM drives by themselves are nothing new, they use a speedy USB 2.0 interface for transfers, have some shock protection built in … Read More »

Comparison Shoppers Get New Tools

Online shopping is supposed to be worth $211 billion in the U.S. alone this year, according to Forrester. At this point everyone from the big guys, the established names, on down, has a shopping comparison site, helping people … Read More »

Who’s best at promoting the UMPC platform?

That’s the question that Steve is asking over at Carrypad via an on-line poll. It’s a great question really because there’s little doubt in my mind that marketing efforts for UMPCs leave much to be desired. It’s as if the devices were simply put out … Read More »

BrowseBack: Web page memory comes at a price

If you want to keep track of your web browsing history, consider Smile on my Mac’s BrowseBack. But be prepared for the memory, processor and disk space resources it will require. BrowseBack is a $30 application which will search the history of your web browsers and … Read More »

Mobile Email: Push vs. Pull

By Ian Bell The ferocity of a Blackberry’s vibration mode, which at last check was supposed to be a discrete form of notification, is a seismic event that has always made me cringe. Such hoopla should certainly be set aside to herald the arrival of a truly … Read More »

Odeo RIP, Hello Obvious Corp

Odeo, a San Francisco-based podcasting start-up has decided to call it a day. The company started by Pyra Labs (Blogger) co-founder Evan Williams has completed a management buyout. Evan Williams, Biz Stone and other Odeo employees have started a new company called Obvious Corp., which … Read More »

More Must Reads

As the hundreds of online video sites give themselves a hard look following the YouTube deal (and the Universal lawsuit), more and more of them are telling us they want to polish things up. Two things in particular keep coming up: partnering with a … Read More »

The great folks over at iCube were generous enough to loan us a FlyBook V33i-ELV notebook and guess what arrived today? Yup, it’s here! … Read More »

PDA and phone owners who own Vaja cases will tell you that you won’t find better workmanship or finer leather in any case.  We have reviewed some of those cases here on jkOnTheRun and I have to admit I have often thought how great it … Read More »

Techcrunch reports that News Corp., had expressed interest in buying Digg, but nothing has happened thus far, and Digg might raise more money. I think the world of Digg, but frankly have no idea what it is worth. Some say $150 million. One blogger thinks … Read More »

Matt Miller over the Mobile Gadgeteer has been beta testing T-Mobile’s new HotSpot@Home service and shares some of the details now that the program is public. The new service … Read More »

HP’s hw6920 Mobile Messenger is Cingular’s Halloween treat for you next week. The smartphone handheld has support for the GSM/GPRS/EDGE wireless data network and includes Wi-Fi, GPS, infrared and Bluetooth integration. The GPS will work with various software, but Cingular is touting the TeleNav … Read More »

Folks if you are in the market for a faster wireless connection for your laptop, then there is good news for you. Sprint has started turning on its next generation wireless network, starting with San Diego, and will have 20 cities online by end of … Read More »

Sprint Nextel has turned on its EVDO Rev A network, and started offering the service in (where else) San Diego, home of Qualcomm and Padres. (Most Qualcomm related technologies make a debut in San Diego.) The company is planning to turn on 20 additional … Read More »

Let’s face it: can you really "LIVEdigitally" without having the right RSS reader? I’m not sure you can and I don’t think Jeremy Toeman believes it either. That’s why Jeremy wrote up a very detailed RSS roundup over at his LIVEdigitally blog; Jeremy covers … Read More »

A survey by In-Stat says that US and Canadian consumers believe that they cannot live without broadband. For someone who has been champion the speedy connections for a while, this does come as a great bit of news, though it does seem obvious. According to the survey, … Read More »

If you are a Sprint customer in San Diego then get yourself ready for some super-fast EV-DO Rev. A lovin’ as the carrier has rolled out the upgraded 3G service in your home town.  Sprint promises to upgrade 20 cities to Rev. A by the … Read More »

Why would a Mac user need a PDF application when Preview.app does a great job of displaying and printing PDF files? Preview.app is a good basic application, but for those who need advanced PDF features, such as creating a PDF form or reordering pages, there’s Read More »

Kevin first turned us onto Pandora a while back and it has become my favorite way to listen to music anytime I have a WiFi connection.  It is uncanny how Pandora takes a suggestion from me about different music that I like and offers me … Read More »

I’ve made it no secret that I love my Ultimate Ears Super.fi Pro 5 earphones, I have never heard better sound from any headphones nor earphones.  The Pro 5s are expensive at $249 … Read More »

Kevin Tofel is a bad influence.  When he posted about the great deal Amazon was running on the iGo Stowaway Sierra Bluetooth keyboard I couldn’t pass it up and it arrived yesterday.  What can I say, the Sierra is as good as the original USB … Read More »

Joe Sharkey wrote an interesting article in the New York Times exploring the practice of computers being confiscated and searched at points of entry to the United States. It doesn’t seem to be particularly common or widespread, judging by a small number of accounts … Read More »

Another day, another social music discovery service. iLike, which we’ve covered before, will tomorrow open its private beta. The real measure of these services is how well they find new music for you, but if we had to judge on looks and ease of … Read More »

Smart reader, Sangeeta points out that you have to pay 33 cents for every 1111 calls (searches), while Google is offering “community” type search for free. Alexa needs some hackery, Google Co-op needs some street smarts. She suggests a mash-up that combines Alexa website … Read More »

It’s been over 10 months since we saw the Opera Mini browser hit cell phones; Palm Treo and RIM Blackberry owners have reason to sing today: they too can join the Opera-lution. By pointing their device at http://mini.opera.com, Treo and Blackberry owners can enjoy … Read More »

This one isn’t for the faint of heart, so BE CAUTIOUS! Alex was having noise issues with the fan inside his Toshiba M400, so he did what any … Read More »

While we mentioned Loma Linda’s fiber plans last week, the truth is that the U.S. falls behind many countries in Europe and Asia when it comes to fiber deployments (which many readers kindly pointed out). The OECD says that fiber is becoming … Read More »

Today I check my Mac news as I always do, and I see four reports of the Apple Store going down for maintenance. Then it birthed the new Macbook Pro’s! Us macheads have got it all wrong though. We get excited when the store has that little … Read More »

James is already seeing the benefit of a Solid State Drive, or SSD, in his Samsung Q1 UMPC and if prices keep dropping, you could too. CrunchGear stumbled across another SSD manufacturer that I hadn’t found yet; and trust me: I’ve been looking. Read More »

Of the six major DSL providers, two of the biggest are showing signs of a DSL slowdown. BellSouth reported its 3Q earnings today and said that the company had added 176,000 new DSL subscribers, up from 128,000 in second quarter 2006 but down when compared … Read More »

By Michael Simon Ten years ago, if you went to Europe and needed to download e-mail, you were looking at a 20-minute process. You’d pull out a heavy laptop, find a dataport, get an up-to-date local access number – and then wait while the modem connected, … Read More »

Apple gave the official "you all know it’s coming, but now we can talk about it" announcement this morning: the Apple MacBook Pro is getting refreshed with Intel’s Core 2 Duo processor. Shipping starts next week directly through the Apple cart store. … Read More »

Looks like T-Mobile quietly launched its dual WiFi/cellular phone service called “T-Mobile Hotspot @ Home” yesterday in Seattle. Potential customers can sign up for the service at www.theonlyphoneyouneed.com. The T-Mobile service is based on Unlicensed Mobile … Read More »

Sascha Segan goes where no geek has gone before: underwater with the the G’zOne phone from Verizon Wireless. This $299 CDMA offering is a ruggedized model made by Casio that’s advertised … Read More »

More often than not when Quicksilver is blogged, the topic focuses on simply launching apps or some other pretty basic use. But here on TAB, I’ve tried to show some of the more advanced features of this amazing program. Recently David at TUAW … Read More »

Overflow, from Stunt Software, is another addition to the expanding line up of file and application launcher options on the mac. Everyone has their own preference as to how they like to access their most used items as quickly as possible, … Read More »

You know you like old-school stuff, you have your original Atari game console, you regularly fire up the Intellivision to relive those past moments of glory.  We’ve got your number.  The folks at uneasysilence have got your number too and have brought back one of the … Read More »

Rissler Research has spent a lot of time thinking about the best way to carry a laptop in a car for true mobility.  Their goal was obviously to create a car mounting solution that was not only functional but easy to break down and carry with … Read More »

We are always trying to push computing technology to the limits here on jkOnTheRun where you might guess our credo is “because we can” but I have to admit I totally missed this bit of wizardry.  Some enterprising people on Big Bruin have created a Read More »

loading external resource
Click to log in with: Not you?
Comment as guest:
By continuing you are agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
Submitting comment...
results