<![CDATA[[MobileRatty] tag: non-standard]]> http://mobileratty.com/tag/non-standard Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:35:56 +0000 iRatty Engine http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss <![CDATA[ Fresh Pics of Collapsible, Portable Microsoft Arc Laser Mouse [Laser Mice] ]]> http://mobileratty.com/article/eecde0bdecd5a72cfc9c0b96bb36a6fb http://mobileratty.com/article/eecde0bdecd5a72cfc9c0b96bb36a6fb Thanks to tipster Alex, we've got some fresh hands-on pics of the new Microsoft Arc mouse, which we got a first look of back in July. The $60 mouse folds down to half its size for easy portability thanks to what the packaging calls a "strong metal hinge," and the glossy veneer, to quote Blam, is indeed "flip and drool" worthy.

According to Alex, the tiny USB dongle attaches to the underbelly of the Arc when not in use via a magnet, and there's a storage bag for travel purposes. The packaging quotes a 30-foot range, and jumping is non-existent, says our tipster. Thanks, Alex!


]]> Sun, 07 Sep 2008 12:00:00 +0000 arc tipster alex alex microsoft arc mouse tipster strong metal hinge fresh hands-on pics travel purposes easy portability Fresh Pics of Collapsible, Portable Microsoft Arc Laser Mouse [Laser Mice] <![CDATA[ New Dell Keyboard and Mouse Are Destined for Millions of Cubicles Across the Globe [Keyboards And Mice] ]]> http://mobileratty.com/article/e59fa8e722f3884db74d04e2ef09226a http://mobileratty.com/article/e59fa8e722f3884db74d04e2ef09226a When we're talking office PC accessories today, there's boring, and then there's Dell boring. Regular boring gets you a quick trip to irrelevancy. Dell boring, on the other hand, gets your product onto the desktops of a million cubicle drones the world over. And that's probably where we'll see these pre-release products from Dell. The safe, non-threatening design reminded TechWareLabs of Logitech, which makes sense given the G3/G5 design cues, but we at Gizmodo practically fell asleep. The LED indicator is pretty, but unless you're a typist into some serious keystroke entry porn, we imagine you can easily hold off on buying these and just use them when they show up at work in a few months. [TechWareLabs]


]]> Sun, 07 Sep 2008 09:30:00 +0000 dell design g3g5 design cues keystroke entry porn million cubicle drones led indicator easily hold quick trip pre-release products New Dell Keyboard and Mouse Are Destined for Millions of Cubicles Across the Globe [Keyboards And Mice] <![CDATA[AAA Mobile Upgraded with New Features]]> http://mobileratty.com/article/8626accbfb8e48fa2a9d28f3d784dde7 http://mobileratty.com/article/8626accbfb8e48fa2a9d28f3d784dde7 AAA has announced the latest version of its wireless navigation program, AAA Mobile, with several new features including fuel prices, live traffic alerts and weather forecasts.

Find the best fuel prices: With fuel prices a worry for many motorists, AAA Mobile users can quickly find the best prices by receiving a list of gas stations with prices nearest to their current location or in a specified zip code or city. Once they find a station, AAA Mobile will provide audible turn-by-turn directions on how to get there.

Find out what’s ahead: Whether driving in out-of-town traffic or on the daily commute, AAA Mobile’s new real-time traffic feature helps motorists find out what’s ahead and alternatives on how to get there. AAA Mobile alerts motorists to traffic congestion, accidents and other new developments on their route and provides detour options to compare against their current estimated time of arrival.
AAA Mobile Screen Shot
AAA Mobile also allows users to take a look ahead at the weather by providing current conditions and seven-day forecasts for their current location or any city around the world.

Find things to do: Want to see the latest blockbuster movie? AAA Mobile can help find which movie theaters nearby are playing the movie, provide start times, navigate users there and list nearby restaurants to consider for dinner.

Using the mobile activity planning feature, AAA Mobile users can search for show times, critics’ ratings and other details for movies, concerts, plays, sporting events and other social events near their GPS location. Users can navigate to theaters or event venues and search for local parking, restaurants, ATMs or other points of interests near the location.

Help friends find you: AAA Mobile users can let friends know where they are with a push of a button by sending their GPS location to another wireless phone. When sending to other AAA Mobile users, friends receive the address and can navigate to you. With non-users, your location’s address is delivered via text message.

Continue to find AAA travel expertise in your phone: In addition to offering turn-by-turn audible directions with on-screen maps, AAA Mobile continues to provide users with AAA’s travel expertise in their wireless phone with AAA TourBook® travel guide information, including complete listings of AAA Diamond Rated restaurants and lodgings and points of interests. AAA Mobile also offers listings for ATMs, more than 100,000 Show Your Card & Save® merchants, AAA Approved Auto Repair facilities, AAA branch offices and other types of businesses.

For those users who are AAA members, they can send their GPS location directly to AAA and be connected to roadside assistance operators.

Current users can upgrade to the latest version of AAA Mobile at no additional charge. They will receive a prompt on their phone when the new version is available to download.

AAA Mobile, powered by Networks In Motion, will launch on several wireless carriers and be available on a variety of GPS-enabled phones during the next two weeks. For a complete listing of providers, pricing and compatible phones, visit AAA.com/AAAMobile.

As North America’s largest motoring and leisure travel organization, AAA provides more than 51 million members with travel, insurance, financial and automotive-related services. Since its founding in 1902, the not-for-profit, fully tax-paying AAA has been a leader and advocate for the safety and security of all travelers. AAA clubs can be visited on the Internet at AAA.com. ]]> Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:46:46 +0000 aaa aaa mobile aaa mobile continues aaa mobiles aaa diamond aaa clubs visit aaa aaa mobile users current conditions AAA Mobile Upgraded with New Features <![CDATA[ Food Network's Alton Brown Talks to Giz: Caribbean Adventuring With a Garmin, an iPhone and a Shload of Cameras [Interview] ]]> http://mobileratty.com/article/4e0be4c39fcb707c08a3be8c9c547dcc http://mobileratty.com/article/4e0be4c39fcb707c08a3be8c9c547dcc Tomorrow night at 10PM, Food Network kicks off Alton Brown's latest TV show, Feasting on Waves, where the Mensa-smart kitchen geek and his crew hop into two 50-foot catamarans and sail around 15 different Caribbean islands in search of quality cuisine, shooting and editing the hi-def episodes right there on the boats. It turns out, despite his disdain for specialized kitchen gadgets, Brown depended on regular high end tech to make a cooking show on a boat happen.

How do you produce a TV show from a sailboat?
One of the things about the Feasting shows in general is that they have a very small crew, and we are moving with very little space. We are extremely packed and technology dense. We had two 50-foot catamarans—it sounds fun but it wasn’t that fun.

So you shoot and edit as you go?
This year we decided to go completely tapeless: Panasonic P2 cards on 200s. We’re downloading them into our portable Avid edit system. We take as much audio equipment as we take video equipment. The funny thing is, professional audio hasn’t gotten a whole lot smaller. Although hi-def cameras have gotten smaller, lenses have gotten better and battery time has gotten better, audio is still the tricky part of the process for field reporting.

I see you were also using a little Panasonic?
I was lucky enough to be one of the first people in the US to get Panasonic’s HDC-HS100 AVCHD camcorder. It’s got a nice little Leica lens on it. We take everything through a DaVinci color correction system. Once we do that, you really can’t tell the difference between my little camera and the big cameras—it’s all 1080i. We have some scenes that were 100% shot with just my camera.

How did you connect to the internet?
It’s kinda funny, the entire time that I was in the islands, I had perfect e-mail with my iPhone. The entire time. I think there was once, during a midnight crossing, the Anegada Passage, where I lost internet for about half an hour. The rest of the time, I was getting e-mail through either EDGE or something else [probably GPRS].

I did not even take a computer with me on that trip. I decided I just didn’t want to see a computer for a while. And at the time, I figured you know, computers, boats, water, scuba diving. I thought about taking the ToughBook along, and then I thought about taking the Asus because that’s a great little box. Then I thought, the hell with it. I took a few pads of paper, some pens and my iPhone.

You also carry GPS everywhere, right?
As a motorcyclist, as a hiker and as a pilot, I’m pretty sold on Garmin. In the first Feasting on Asphalt, I had a touchscreen weatherproof version of the StreetPilot for my motorcycle that even worked with gloves on. I just really love how their interfaces work. You don’t even need manuals for most of their stuff, the stuff is so intuitive.

In New York, I use Google Maps with my iPhone, because I know where I am—I don’t need GPS. If I was going some place where I needed GPS, I’d use my Garmin Colorado [shown in top pic], which I really really like. It’s a really great marine box. It’s splashproof, but it comes loaded with all the marine functions, so it’s really easy to do marine chart info if you get the right cards for it. You can sail the world with one.

So it was your navi on land and sea?
Everywhere. We basically documented the entire Feasting on Waves journey in the Colorado. Every place we went, we popped a waypoint. It’s got so many easy functions for calculating distance it made navigating around the island easier. Even islands that didn’t have roads at all, we could get good topographic information.

Do you adhere to the old sailor’s adage that you should never have just one form of navigation?
Abso-stinking-lutely. When I fly, I may have full GPS on the plane, but I got a full set of charts too, and I keep the charts out while I’m flying to make sure I know where I am. In this day and age, if I have a major power outage, I just whip out my handheld, the 496, a spectacular handheld aviation GPS. But there could be a catastrophic satellite failure, different things could happen that could make GPS unusable—I guess.

I think your unit would fail before the satellite did.
Something could happen to satellites, you never know. So I always want to know where I am on paper, too.

And on the island, what was your backup?
There were a lot of times where I didn’t have a backup. On islands, I sometimes didn’t have anything else, because there aren't reliable paper maps for those places. The only time I wasn’t using Garmin to navigate was when we were underwater—I don’t think they have an underwater unit yet. We did a fair amount of scuba diving, and you’re still on your own under water. You still gotta use a compass.

I think you just invented something.
Underwater GPS would be spectacular. I don’t know how deep you can go with that technology without having serious problems. Even 50 to 70 feet would be useful. I wonder why they haven’t done that yet. I’ll ask Garmin when I can get that. For rec diving, having that kind of application would be fantastic.

Note: I asked Garmin why there wasn't a scuba GPS, and I got a quick reply: "The reason for no scuba GPS is simple... the signal is deflected by water."

So how do you keep everything charged up?
That’s a problem. Especially on the boats, it was really difficult. We got down there and realized that the power systems on the boats which were all 220V—the power wasn’t clean enough for our editing computers. On St. Martin, we had to go buy a Honda generator to run on the back of the boat to give us good steady clean 120V.

The Colorado runs on AAs, so I took a batch of rechargeable AAs. I ran the recharger for that in the cabin where I also charged my iPhone and my little camera batteries. I had to have three chargers. My other camera only runs on regular batteries, not rechargeables.

What kind of camera is it?
It’s an old metal Canon EF—about 30 years old. I also carry a 35mm Leica point-and-shoot with a fixed 40mm lens. I was shooting slide film in the Canon and print film in the Leica.

So you’re not shooting digital?
Not on this. I wanted Ektochrome—nothing looks like Ektochrome. I’m old school that way. I have a pretty decent Canon digital, and a Leica digital as well, but I didn’t want to have to deal with the chargers, and I wanted super robust technology, so I went film. I like film. You can’t beat it. I spent most of my career as a cinematographer before I went to culinary school, so I just got a thing about film emulsions. It’s still the way I think. I just don’t appreciate digital photography as much as I should.

I know, I know—we managed to get through an entire discussion about a food show without talking about the freakin' food. Good thing there are already clips of the show (alas, non-embeddable) up at Food Network's website, so take a look. The awesome photographs of Alton were shot—digitally—by Marion Laney, ForgottenGulf.com.


]]> Sat, 06 Sep 2008 06:00:00 +0000 food garmin scuba gps scuba food network gps food network kicks carry gps entire Food Network's Alton Brown Talks to Giz: Caribbean Adventuring With a Garmin, an iPhone and a Shload of Cameras [Interview] <![CDATA[Microsoft job posting hints at cross-platform Zune environment?]]> http://mobileratty.com/article/f34f45a596dc724bad5b0c3864529a27 http://mobileratty.com/article/f34f45a596dc724bad5b0c3864529a27 Filed under: , , , , ,


We've heard Microsoft make vague references for some time about a Zune-like experience involving non-Zune devices (Windows Mobile phones, Xboxen), and it looks like they may be making real moves in that direction. A recent job posting from Redmond for a "Software Development Engineer in Test" calls on someone who "dream[s] about having a mobile phone based entertainment experience powered by a unified entertainment service across devices such as Zune, Xbox and PC." Someone, the ad reads, who will, "create a 'Connected Entertainment' experience, realized through the Zune service, that spans multiple devices such as Zune, Xbox, PC and Mobile phones." Sure, it's not exactly a bold-faced advertisement for a cross-platform Zune environment -- but it's pretty damn close.

[Thanks, Ryan]
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]]> Sat, 06 Sep 2008 01:35:00 +0000 zune devices non-zune devices cross-platform zune environment zune-like experience mobile phones windows mobile phones zune service spans multiple devices Microsoft job posting hints at cross-platform Zune environment? <![CDATA[Samsung's Green Gadget Returns Mean Free for All]]> http://mobileratty.com/article/5adf94bf14f0197a7283d8a03a105c5b http://mobileratty.com/article/5adf94bf14f0197a7283d8a03a105c5b Samsung has announced free recycling for all Samsung-branded consumer electronics in all 50 states, beginning October 1.

Samsung has just announced its Recycling Direct, a program that will enable consumers in all 50 states to recycle Samsung-branded consumer electronics devices like televisions, monitors, DVD players, home theater systems, cameras, camcorders, printers, peripherals -- essentially, all Samsung-branded consumer electronics.

(Look for the one in the photo above at a recycling center sometime this century ...0

The exception will be home appliances (too bad about my washer and dryer when that day comes), which can't be accepted at the drop-off points, although a growing number will be accepting them.

Recycling for Samsung-branded electronics will be free; consumers can also drop off non-Samsung electronics for recycling and safe disposal for a nominal fee. The program will include a number of collection sites, including permanent drop-off centers in all 50 U.S. states.

Samsung is working directly with recycling companies rather than intermediaries and claims it is only working with operations that meet Samsung's criteria and are a good match with its environmental philosophy: Samsung says it is utilizing recyclers that do not incinerate, landfill or export toxic waste to developing economies, and that it will be tracking and monitoring all the recycled electronics to ensure they're disposed of properly. The company plans to publish the results of the program on its Web site. 

Now if everybody else will please get in line ...

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]]> Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:47:56 +0000 consumer electronics devices electronics non-samsung electronics samsung gadgets blog gadgets drop consumer electronics permanent drop-off centers Samsung's Green Gadget Returns Mean Free for All <![CDATA[iPod nano 4G leaked, no logo]]> http://mobileratty.com/article/f29f499d199920dd8b45e623823e6d22 http://mobileratty.com/article/f29f499d199920dd8b45e623823e6d22 iPod nano 4G leaked, no logoLooks like real honest to God iPod Nano 4G hardware, but you’ll notice it has no Apple logo and it probably is equipped with non-Apple software inside. Call Anakin Skywalker and the rest of the Jedi council. Begun, the clone wars have. Those who don’t visit gadget sites are doomed to buy this thing. You’ll also notice that this clone is thin as an anorexic supermodel, which has us hoping that the Nano 4G will keep its slim form.

[Macrumors]

]]> Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:52:03 +0000 nano god ipod nano call anakin skywalker clone clone wars visit gadget sites non-apple software inside jedi council apple logo iPod nano 4G leaked, no logo <![CDATA[iPod nano 4G leaked, no logo]]> http://mobileratty.com/article/d93843e6906ace0e888c0dcec2552031 http://mobileratty.com/article/d93843e6906ace0e888c0dcec2552031 iPod nano 4G leaked, no logoLooks like real honest to God iPod Nano 4G hardware, but you’ll notice it has no Apple logo and it probably is equipped with non-Apple software inside. Call Anakin Skywalker and the rest of the Jedi council. Begun, the clone wars have. Those who don’t visit gadget sites are doomed to buy this thing. You’ll also notice that this clone is thin as an anorexic supermodel, which has us hoping that the Nano 4G will keep its slim form.

[Macrumors]

]]> Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:52:03 +0000 nano god ipod nano call anakin skywalker clone clone wars visit gadget sites non-apple software inside jedi council apple logo iPod nano 4G leaked, no logo <![CDATA[Childrens TV And Video Game Manager]]> http://mobileratty.com/article/fda1883be8aa6a19e937c0fb06c853a1 http://mobileratty.com/article/fda1883be8aa6a19e937c0fb06c853a1 I know that life these days are much more comfortable compared to our parents’ and grandparents’ time, and our choice for entertainment is greatly expanded compared to non-electrical means of yore. Kids and teens alike love video games at the moment, and this is one industry that shows no signs of slowing down - yet. How do you make sure your children don’t overdose on video games and TV shows? Simple - with the Children’s TV And Video Game Manager.

This device consistently imposes limits on TV, video game, or computer usage, helping your child learn how to effectively budget time. The device to be monitored plugs into the time manager’s locking outlet. You can create accounts for up to six users, each with its own daily or weekly time allotment, PIN, and “block out” times, where the device can’t be used–for example, from 3:00 p.m. to 5 p.m., to ensure time is set aside for schoolwork. When a user’s time allotment is exhausted, the device sounds a warning so that equipment can be powered off normally. You can also temporarily override the system to add or subtract time from a user’s account, and display usage reports to gain an understanding of your family’s time management aptitude. Settings are accessed easily from the unit’s touchpad.

The Children’s TV And Video Game Manager retails for $79.95.

[ Children’s TV And Video Game Manager copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Pressy idea: Educational Toys

]]> Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:00:17 +0000 tv childrens tv video game video game manager users users time allotment device sounds device effectively budget time Childrens TV And Video Game Manager <![CDATA[StellarWindow helps out Stargazers]]> http://mobileratty.com/article/a20c1f70d03fd1a0f04dd3f26cc9703e http://mobileratty.com/article/a20c1f70d03fd1a0f04dd3f26cc9703e StellarWindow helps out Stargazers
For those of you who want to look at stars, but don't want to deal with the whole telescope thing, you might want to try the StellarWindow.

The StellarWindow is a USB stick that comes with tilt sensors and a compass, which allows you to move your laptop around like a telescope that you don't need to focus. Once you are pointed to what you want to look at, go ahead and view some 3D stock photography for more info.

In other words, the StellarWindow makes stargazing and astronomy a lot simpler. You should be able to get it sometime this year for about $250.

Source See full article.

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]]> Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:35:56 +0000 telescope 27worldwide telescope worldwide telescope alpha month telescope winner stellarwindow world wide telescope webkinz pet stock photography lot simpler StellarWindow helps out Stargazers