[MobileRatty] tag: primary

SnorePro zaps, records snorers

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 10:14:40 +0000

Perhaps the most irritating thing about sharing a bedroom with a snorer is their invariable insistence that you are lying That you shake them awake every hour throughout the night, not because they've disturbed your sleep, but because you delight in disturbing theirs. That the bloodshot yolks of your eyes in the morning and the pendulous sacks of grey flesh that underhang them are simply the cosmetic props of your plot to undermine their self-esteem. That there are more effective ways to harass and humiliate the oneiric — whether a hand dipped in a bowl of water or simply by covering them in millipedes as they sleep — never seems to occur to the snorer, It's enough to want to cure them of snoring the only surefire way: with a pillow.

The SnorePro is a device that attempts to supplant spousal smothering as the method of last resort for curing the chronic snorer. It has two primary functions. The first is that it measures your snoring and sends a mild electric shock every time it catches you somnambulently trying to suck the skin off your own face. But better: it actually records you when you snore, presumably proving once and for all that you actually have a problem.

If that works, it's great, but I've shared beds with girls who snored so much they spit up ceiling tiles the next morning, who still invariably denied that they would ever do anything so unladylike. I'm betting the electroshock treatment is the surer bet.

SnorePro [HBI via Slippery Brick]

Outdoor grill unfolds, looks at home on Tatooine

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:18:53 +0000

Check this awesome grill out. If you liked the iQue grill, you’ll like this one. Hampton Grills has pulled out all the stops with this grill that resembles a moisture evaporator on the planet Tatooine. It unfolds into three separate grilling stations, each with their own individual temperature controls.

You can do it all with this one whether you grill, steam, smoke or grill, rotisserie, stir fri etc. It all can be done on this one grill. The whole unit folds up at the push of a button, which is pretty damn spiffy. The grill also features nearly 1200 square inches of primary cooking space on three independent grill stations. It will cost you though. The Hampton Grill is priced at $4,000.

It took over 12 years in development and comes in nice bright colors.

[Bornrich]

Cellular South Debuts Affordable Family Plans

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:34:07 +0000

Consumers looking to save money in a tight economy while not sacrificing value and service can now turn to Cellular South for the most affordable family plans in the wireless industry.

Cellular South is offering family plans that cost less and offer the best value when compared to similar basic plans for all other major wireless carriers.

By switching to Cellular South and taking advantage of the new family plans, consumers can reap annual savings ranging from $120 up to $240 based on comparable rate and service plans offered by other leading wireless carriers.

By rolling out its family plans in time for the holidays, Cellular South is offering consumers an easy way to start reaping the savings from its industry-leading service right away.

The "Family Talk" plan offers families a choice of 700 or 1,400 minutes to share. The Family Talk plans include 700 or 1,400 nationwide minutes, plus unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling with other Cellular South customers. Starting at $49.99 a month, these plans offer options to fit any family size. Plus, families can add up to 4 lines -- for $9.99 each – on either plan to share in the minutes and take advantage of the unlimited mobile to mobile calling with their family members or other Cellular South customers.

Richmond said the Family Talk plans offer unprecedented savings for families when you consider that free nights and weekends – beginning at 7 p.m. each day - are included at no extra charge. "Comparing our plans to competitors, consumers can see right away which carriers are 'family-friendly' and how they can really stretch their wireless communications budget in a tight economy," he said.

Cellular South also is rolling out the industry's first "Text & Talk" plan aimed at families with youngsters or teenagers who mainly use text messaging as their primary means of communication. The $19.99 a month Text and Talk plan, the only plan of its kind currently on the market, includes unlimited nationwide text messaging plus 200 nationwide anytime minutes.

The new Family Talk and Text & Talk plans join industry-leading "Smartphone" and "Total Unlimited" plans in helping consumers get more out of their wireless devices and realize a significant savings at the same time.

The Smartphone plan, designed for the way consumers use their phones once they switch to a BlackBerry or other smart phone, includes unlimited mobile web, e-mail, text messaging and mobile-to-mobile calls, plus 500 nationwide anytime minutes, for only $49.99 a month. The Total Unlimited plan includes unlimited nationwide calling, unlimited text messaging, mobile web and e-mail for $79.99 a month on most mobile phones and $99.99 a month for smart phones.

In addition to its new Family Talk and Text & Talk plans, Cellular South offers consumers the best value in wireless today, including:

3G high-speed data access in six times as many markets as other carriers in its primary footprint and - with its nationwide network of networks - no other carrier has a larger 3G high-speed data network.
Special holiday promotions, including free activation, free first month of service and a free BlackBerry Pearl smartphone when customers sign up for a two year voice contract and a one year data agreement.
Time and money-saving ways for customers to shop on their mobile phones anywhere and anytime - through mShopper™ and Cellfire®. mShopper™ provides access to more than 100 online merchants and 13 million products to track competitive deals and notify users of sales. Cellfire® offers customers valuable mobile coupons from such well known retailers as Kroger, Sears and Hollywood Video.
Discover Center specialists in every Cellular South retail location to show customers how to get more out of their mobile phones, including helping relieve the stress of holiday shopping and providing access to rich news, weather, sports and retail shopping content on the mobile web.
Through the wireless industry's first customized, co-branded mobile web content platform with Viigo, Cellular South offers smartphone users one-click access to real-time news, weather, sports, travel, stock market results, entertainment, blogs and other valuable information from over 5,000 of the best Internet content channels.

Lost in the big city: study Nokia

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:36:38 +0000

In London, it is impossible not to lose. According to a recent study conducted by Nokia - the largest supplier of devices that support map data, the capital of Britain lost more people than any other city in the world. And so, even compared to Bangkok and Beijing, which are almost twice as much in London.

These results were obtained in the course of study, one of the largest of navigation. As part of its holding polled 12 500 people from 13 countries around the world who talked about their abilities orientation in space and habits in the use of navigation. Also, the study showed that one in ten people (10 percent) thought it impossible to navigate in London. In the capital of Britain should PARIS (9 percent), Bangkok (5 percent), Hong Kong (5 percent) and Beijing (4 percent). These major administrative centers and one of five cities in the world in which most easily lost. Moreover, lost in London, be careful, asking the way the local population - one third Londoner acknowledged that deliberately pointed the wrong direction.

The results of research in Russia surprised no less. And while the Russians claimed they are well oriented in space - 74 percent of those surveyed recognized that the path they still lost the case. Nearly half of all inhabitants of Russia accuses of failing to navigate in space rush, as well as partners, seated in the back seat of the car.

More than 25 percent of those surveyed in the choice of direction to rely on tools online and mobile navigation. To be precise, 13 percent use mobile phones as a primary navigation tool, but that a few years ago, the number of users in this way navigation was zero. It is best to focus the Germans: a third of them claim that has never lost. This is not surprising, since Germany - a country with the highest percentage of the population relying on satellite navigation.

Every tenth woman recognizes that it is not in a position to decide on a traditional card, the number is twice that of men with the same problem. These data suggest that the decline of traditional maps and a compass with each passing day becoming closer. And last but not least because the ability to read maps in the world is generally very low.

Interesting findings of the study in Russia
• More than three quarters (77 percent) of Russians believe that there may well oriented in space.
• Romantic Russians use an alternative reason for dating, asking passersby to the right direction, 9 percent use it as justification for flirting.
• More than half (59 percent) people of Russia relied on street signs to find their way. And the figure is higher than that of any other nation.
• Nearly one in ten Russian (12 percent) prefer not to use the identification guidelines, which dictates the way strangers. Instead, it mostly just mashet hands in the right direction.
• Nearly half (42 percent) of Russians blame rush that they have lost.
• Nearly one in five impulsive Russian (18 percent) accuses a partner in the back seat in poor orientation in space.

Intel Gets Ambitious With Flash Memory

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:05:44 +0000

Flash memory, so far identified with consumer products, is set to become commonplace in large enterprises.

Intel and Hitachi said they will jointly develop and deliver flash-based solid state drives for servers, workstation and storage systems. The first products are expected to be available in early 2010.

"Intel is already in mass production of 32-nanometer lithography," says Brendan Collins, vice president of product marketing for Hitachi. "If you already have that it gives you a big advantage in being able to deliver a lot of flash technology at low cost."

The new solid state drives are intended to complement hard disk drives in business environments and in storage applications where high performance and power efficiency are the main requirements, say the two companies.

The drives will be branded, sold and supported by Hitachi and will use Intel's NAND flash memory technology and manufacturing. Intel and Hitachi jointly developed the controller for the flash memory and future development on the product will be shared by the two companies.

Solid state drives (SSDs), once popular in just consumer products such as ultra light notebooks are slowly spreading into business applications. SSDs are less fragile than hard disk drives and offer high response times but they tend to be also much more expensive than the latter.

"Though it has always been fast enough, this is the first time that SLC (single level cell) flash is actually mature enough in terms of data integrity and endurance for large enterprise customers," says Collins.

Other hardware companies such as Sun Microsystems are also evangelizing SSDs for enterprise users.

Intel and Hitachi are yet to determine pricing on their upcoming flash drives but say it is likely to still cost about eight times that of hard disk drives.

"The primary market for this is financial services," says Collins. "There are systems that process billions of stock transactions a day and need need screaming fast response times but not a lot of capacity. This would work well for them."

Photo: Inside a Solid State Device

Art Basel Miami Beach 2008 Preview

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:22:20 +0000

by Ariston Anderson

For anyone who has been to Miami Art Basel, the biggest art event of the year in the States, they know that walking the giant halls Miami Beach Convention Center can be a religious experience, surrounded by some of the best galleries in the world. And veterans know that some of the most amazing new art lies outside of the main halls, in any one of the various satellite fairs, from Aqua Wynwood and Pulse to Bridge. Cool Hunting will be on the ground in Miami this year to bring you the latest and greatest in new art and design, but first, a preview of the shows and events we're most excited about. Click on the map of the Wynwood Arts District to see an enlarged version.

Scope

The duo behind FriendsWithYou, Sam Borkson and Arturo Dandoval III, are turning the lobby of Scope Miami into a giant interactive "Fun House" complete with giant creatures, an anthropomorphic bounce house and plenty of other pop art toys. It's the perfect exhibit to leave your kids at while you peruse the more serious works at Scope.

While you're there be sure to check out Shepard Fairey's solo show at booth 370, presented by Jonathan LeVine. Fresh off the heels of his iconic Hope graphic for Presidential elect Barack Obama, this new body of work is a must-see for Fairey's high graphic style.
SCOPE: 3-7 December, 2951 NE 1st Ave

Cincinnati's Country Club

Cincinnati's Country Club will showcase new work from Cheryl Dunn, Jacob Dyrenforth, Barry McGee and SIMPARCH at the Nada Art Fair. The fair will also feature live performances every day on a special stage, designed by art collective SIMPARCH and Chris Vorhees, an iconic band shell featuring geodesic building principles which transforms in response to active and stagnant states. Don't miss the Thursday performance which features ROM (Matt Crum and Roberto Lange) scoring a David Ellis' motion painting.
3- 7 December, 1400 North Miami Avenue

Primary Flights

For the second year in a row, Primary Flight hits the street of Miami with a curated show of graffiti writers and street artists including Blackbooks, Chris Stain, Crome, David Choe, El Mac, Ewok, Logan Hicks, Michael De Feo, MSG, Ron English, Sabar and many more. The pieces will be installed throughout the streets of Wynwood. Click here for a map to create your own tour. Additionally, Primary Flight artists will be repainting Miami's Wall of Fame, featuring the best Florida writers around.

Check it out at Miami's RC Cola Plant: 550 NW 24th Street
4 December 2008 at 7pm

Carmichael Gallery

The Carmichael Gallery of Los Angeles will be putting on a huge show at the Gen Art Vanguard New Contemporary Art Fair. Featured artists include street artists who have crossed over into the gallery and auction world, including Eine, Flavio Samelo, Flip, Know Hope, Labrona and The London Police. Like any good Gen Art event, they'll be hosting a party the night of 5 December 2008.

Tickets are $20 for general admission, $40 for VIP. To purchase tickets go to Gen Art.
4-7 December 2008, 2135 NW 1st Avenue

If you're already in Miami, tonight you can check out the opening of It Ain't Fair, brought together by NYC's "Downtown Don" Aaron Bondaroff. The show will bring together work by over thrity artists, brought by galleries like Deitch Projects, Peres Projects, Nueva Galeria De La Barra and Picturebox and TV Books, as well as some amazing curators like Tim Barber, Kathy Grayson and Terence Koh. It Ain't Fair takes place in Our House West of Wynwood, (O.H.W.O.W.) which is guaranteed to feature some amazing multimedia exhibitions as well as performances by A.R.E. Weapons, JD Samson, TV Baby and The Gossip, just for starters.

Opening night, 2 December 2007, 8pm-Midnight. Runs through 7 December 2008.
O.H.W.O.W. is located at 3100 NW 7 Avenue, Miami, Florida 33127.

Pageonce Announces a New Travel Service to be Released This Week

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 09:11:31 +0000

By Ravit Lichtenberg (blog)

pageOnce, a presenting company at the AlwaysOn Venture Summit taking place in Half Moon, will be announcing today the addition of Travel to its suit of services—making users’ itineraries available on their iPhone directly from booking sites. Changes in flights or standby status will immediately show as well. The update will launch this week—users will be able to download it as soon as it is integrated into the iPhone and Blackberry grid.

Pageonce is the iGoogle/netvibets/friendfeed of anything that has an account login. Guy Goldstein, pageonce Founder and CEO, has a bold vision: he wants to help people manage their plethora of online services no matter where they are and on the go. It’s the real “your internet your way.” Goldstein’s vision is to help people stay connected to all the information they manage in one place no matter where they are. In the near future, pageonce will introduce value-add functionality to each of its primary services: users will be able to see weather updates before heading on a trip, or manage a financial budget on their investment accounts as examples. I predict the emerging real-time geo-based capabilities will play an important role and give pageonce lots of opportunities for growing their offerings and customer base.

Permalink: Pageonce Announces a New Travel Service to be Released This Week from Ubergizmo (US, FR) | Good deals | Hot: Storm Review

MacBook Air Rev. B mini-review

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:31:00 +0000

We've spent a bit of quality time with the new MacBook Air, and while there's little on the surface to denote a change, Apple did quite a bit under the hood to turn this into a serious laptop -- of sorts. Full disclosure: we (meaning a certain Paul Miller, specifically) have been using a Rev. A MacBook Air for the better part of a year as a primary machine, to very much frustration, so we had some pretty big bones to pick with whatever revision Apple might toss into our laps. Luckily, our fears were unfounded; read on for all the gory, romantic details.

[Images courtesy of Sam]

Gallery: New MacBook Air hits the streets

Continue reading MacBook Air Rev. B mini-review

Filed under: Laptops

MacBook Air Rev. B mini-review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

nanovision mimo 7-inch mini monitor hands-on review

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:30:25 +0000

A few weeks back, I came across these cool looking Nanovision Mimo mini computer displays. At the time, there was no way to buy these minuscule monitors outside of Korea. Now, for the first time, you can buy these displays in North America. And thanks to the guys over at The Gadgeteers, I’ve now had a chance to put one of these little LCD screens through its paces.

While Nanovision is making several models of these diminutive displays, the one I got to try out was the UM-710, which is the most basic of the three models available stateside. While the UM-710 ($129 USD) only works as a secondary monitor, the UM-730 ($169 USD) adds a webcam and microphone, and the UM-740 ($199 USD) ups the ante by adding a touchscreen.

The model I tested came in a high-gloss black plastic that’s reminiscent of the exterior of the Playstation 3. The black model is definitely a bit of a fingerprint magnet, so you might want to check out the white model if you’re anal retentive about those things. Personally, I prefer the black model, as I think it looks cooler on my desktop. (Plus, it’s the only color currently available outside of Korea).

Setup of the Nanovision screen couldn’t be much easier. Just attach the display to the included stand with a simple turn of the shiny chrome thumbscrew, install the included driver software, and plug in the included USB cable between the display and your computer (the display comes with a dual USB connector in case one port doesn’t provide sufficient power). Thanks to the USB 2.0-based connection, you can connect multiple monitors without need for an additional video card. Keep in mind that each display you add will eat up somewhere around 50 to 75 MB of your system memory.

The drivers I tested were a pre-release of the English language version of Nanovisions DisplayLink Core software. I only got to test the Windows version, but OS X support is also supposed to be included. The software installed easily and without much incident on my Dell Latitude laptop, running Windows Vista Pro. The only challenge with the driver was that after installation, it messed with the resolution of my main display, and I had to reboot. After the reboot, all went smoothly, and the mini Mimo display started to work as a mirror of my main screen. A simple tick of the “Extend” option on the included task bar application turned the external display into its own unique desktop. You can decide whether the screen is extended from the left, right, top or bottom of your primary display. For more precision, you can tweak this using the Windows standard multiple monitor properties controls.

When I first connected the display, I was immediately impressed by the sharpness of the 7-inch 800×480 widescreen display, which packs a singnificantly higher pixel density than typical PC monitors. There was a little bit of flicker when I first plugged in the display, but bumping up the backlight control on the side of the display by one or two notches immediately resolved this issue. The photo below doesn’t nearly do justice to the sharp focus of the diminutive screen.

The Mimo displays all feature a pivot feature, which lets you rotate the monitor from landscape to portrait mode with just a simple twist of your wrist. It took me a few minutes to figure out that the display doesn’t auto-sense the pivot. Even though the box says “auto-pivot”, it turns out that you do need to go into the task bar app and set the rotation manually. It’s unclear to me if there is or isn’t a motion sensor inside the screen and if this is a software bug or just bad labeling on the box. Either way, the display worked quite well in either orientation once I figured this out.

I did find that off-axis viewing angles of the screen were quite a bit better in landscape mode than portrait mode, however, so you’ll need to make sure the display is oriented properly if you’re operating in portrait mode for optimal brightness. After playing with both modes, I decided to stick with landscape since I could watch videos or open web pages most efficiently on the screen in that orientation.

A couple of minor things to be aware of with the Mimo. First off, I couldn’t find a way to apply color correction to make the display match my primary screen. While there might be a way to do this with Windows color profiles, I couldn’t figure out a way to make that work. Nanovision should consider including color correction software to make this possible. One other minor issue is the stand. The arm only has a single pivot point, which somewhat limits the angles you can set the display to. Also, if you swing the arm back too far, it’s very top-heavy and can easily tip over. That said, with proper adjustment of the arm, it’s not a big deal. There’s also no cord-control for the small USB cable, so it does interfere a bit with the sleek lines of the monitor.

At first, I wondered how much I’d use a display like this. But after just a few hours with the Mimo, I was hooked. I pawned off all of my Windows Sidebar gadgets, instant messenger windows, and used the display as a holding place for extraneous palettes in Photoshop whenever I worked on larger images. The mini-screen is exceptionally sharp, so it’s even possible to read entire web pages on the display while working on other documents on your larger screen.

Overall, I was really impressed with this pint-size monitor. It took just a couple of minutes to get set up, and it looks really great (especially in landscape mode). While you probably wouldn’t trust the color accuracy of the display for image retouching work, it’s more than capable of handling the secondary display usage that it was designed for. And while I wondered about USB’s ability to handle fast-motion data, I managed to play back full-screen video clips on the display with not the slightest stutter.

If you’ve ever find yourself running out of space on your computer screen, you need one of these. If you just want a cool toy for your desktop, you need one too. I’m already feeling like I can’t live without one, and want to order the touchscreen UM-740 as soon as its available. It’s already made me more productive, and it just looks really damned cool sitting alongside my other monitor. To get your hands on one, head on over to The Gadgeteers, who have worked hard to bring these slick little displays to North America for all of us to enjoy.

Intel VP says netbooks are "fine for an hour"

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 07:14:00 +0000

Intel's never made a secret of the fact that it developed the now-ubiquitous Atom chipset primarily for mobile devices and low-powered netbooks for at emerging markets, so it's not totally surprising to hear Intel sales VP Stu Pann say the company doesn't see netbooks as potentially cannibalizing sales of its existing processors -- but we are a bit intrigued by his seeming dismissal of netbooks as everyday machines. According to Stu, a netbook with a 10-inch screen is "fine for an hour. It's not something you're going to use day in and day out." That's probably true, of course, but it's harsher language than we've heard from Intel in the past -- and it's more or less in line with AMD's recent decision to ignore netbooks entirely in favor of more capable machines "above that form factor." Of course, Intel execs can pretty much say whatever they want as long as the company is basically the only player in the netbook game, but we think a lot of people actually are willing to use a netbook as their primary machine, especially in this economy. Could you handle a netbook as your daily driver? The comment box awaits.

[Via jkOnTheRun]

Filed under: Laptops

Intel VP says netbooks are "fine for an hour" originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Nov 2008 10:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments