Hardware and gadgets

The storm of the century may have blown over by November 6th, but if power is still out in some places in the northeast, I wonder what the Plan B is for voting if all the local governments have are coal-powered (i.e. electric) voting machines? If all the old manual voting machines have been recycled for scrap, how will they handle the power outage? If they still have the old manual voting machines in storage somewhere, do they have a well-designed contingency plan to haul all those machines to each voting precinct and train the poll tenders to set them up and use them on short notice?

You can now buy the new Logitech HD video camera, called the TV Cam HD. The device combines a high resolution HD video camera, integrated four-microphone sound input, and Zeiss remote control zoom lens. The breakthrough is that Skype is built in, meaning you don't need a computer. The camera can work with your home WiFi or Ethernet network, and an HDMI jack plugs the video and audio right into your existing flat panel TV.

Apple pundits, prior to the release of the new iPhone 5 yesterday, were saying that the new device would be no big deal because Apple had nothing to add in the way of features. In a way, that's true; there is nothing like the iPhone 4S release of Siri, the voice input software. But Apple kind of busted through the old engineering joke: "Quicker, cheaper, better: pick any two." Apple has managed, with the iPhone 5, to offer a phone that is faster, lighter, and thinner: customers get all three! Apple is saying this is the best iPhone they have ever built, and I believe them.

Amazon has released its new Kindle HD, and it is really something. It's nice to see someone giving Apple some real competition, rather than just copying what Apple does (cough, cough, Samsung...).

Here's another report on backlit tablet devices and how they disturb your sleep cycle. The Kindle does not cause the same problems, as it uses the reflective e-ink technology.

Update: I was reminded by a reader that the Kindle Fire is backlit, so that is a device you should NOT be using at bedtime. The less expensive black and white Kindles are the e-ink models and do not have a back light.

Sometimes little things can have big impacts. The BioLite HomeStove has the ability to make a lot of lives better while reducing tree loss in many parts of the world. The innovative cooking device is a highly efficient "jet" or "rocket" stove that burns small amounts of wood while generating a lot of heat.

I was given a Kindle for Father's Day. I had thought about getting one for a while, but have become risk averse when it comes to new gadgets. There is always some new gadget that is supposed to save me time and money, and they almost never do. And I read a lot on airplanes, and they don't make you turn off your old-fashioned paper book during take off and landing. But I had a three day business trip just after the weekend, so I took the Kindle along.

I was hooked almost instantly.

A new study says that a whopping 38% of new iPhone buyers were former Android and Blackberry users, suggesting that Apple's combination of good hardware and excellent software integration continues to set a high bar for competitors.

MacRumors reports a rumor (heh) that Apple might be working on a break-through new digital camera that would be based on the camera software and technology in the iPhone. Speculation is that the supposed Apple camera would have an entirely different form factor than the typical digital cameras, all of which are designed around the legacy form factor of the analog film SLR.

In what has become a kind of ho-hum announcement, Apple smashed sales records again, with 3 million iPads flying off the shelves in the first weekend. To put this in perspective, the original iPad took a month to sell one million. It took three months for iPad 2 to hit 3 million--and three days to sell 3 million of the iPad 3.

So on the one hand, the new 4G networks are going to solve all our bandwidth problems without any of those pesky fiber cables running everywhere. On the other hand, Apple roles out a new tablet device, and the very same super fast networks are likely to collapse under the strain.

The buzz that Apple will introduce an Apple TV sometime this year continues. Speculation about the product includes claims that it will incorporate Siri voice recognition so that you can just talk to it and eliminate the remote control. Other theories include the idea that it will look and behave much like an iPad, and that it will essentially be a big iPad, with the ability to run most iPad apps.

If Apple does introduce a new "TV" device, I am pretty sure it will:

Now this is a good idea--a replacement AC outlet cover that includes two USB ports. There have been some replacement duplex outlets around for a while, but they require a little more work, as you have to re-wire them into the outlet box. This RCA wall plate is simple--unscrew the existing wall plate, replace it with this one, and you are done. You have two USB ports and 1 AC port. I will note that the replacement outlet devices preserve both AC outlets.

Wired has an interesting article on the slow and steady approach Microsoft has taken with the Xbox. Wired describes the huge sales numbers for the Xbox over the Black Friday weekend, noting that it can't just be gamers buying a six year old design.

What has happened is that Microsoft has been able to sign a lot of content agreements so that you can use the Xbox to replace your TV, with lots of on-demand video from a wide variety of content providers.

A cryptic reference in the wildly popular biography of Steve Jobs suggests that Apple has something up its sleeve with respect to the TV set. MacRumors reports on a NY Times story that suggests Apple's intelligent agent technology, called Siri, may show up in an Apple-branded TV set. Instead of complicated remotes, we will just talk to our TV and tell it what we want to watch.

The iPod is ten years old today. The iPod was the brainchild of Steve Jobs. There were plenty of other MP3 music players at the time; most of them were much less expensive and smaller than the iPod, but the iPod was easy to use, both from the interface of the iPod itself, but key to the music player's success was the way the iPod synced with iTunes on your computer--a layer of complexity was completely eliminated, and that made all the difference.

The pundits wailed and moaned that the iPhone 4S was a big disappointment, that it did not have enough new features to interest users, that Apple had a flop on its hands, and that perhaps the company was losing its ability to execute since it was not able to deliver an iPhone 5.

Uh huh.

Apple announced that it sold 4 million iPhone 4S models in the first three days of sales. That is more than double the 1.7 million iPhone 4 sales in the same time period. In other news, Apple stock hit an all time high.

I had a chance to try out an iPhone 4S over the weekend, and I think Siri, the voice recognition service built into the phone, is potentially another Apple game changer, just as the touch interface on the original iPhone was a game changer.

CNet reports that the new iPhone 4S has broken sales records again, with more than a million pre-orders on the first day. The previous best was 600,000 iPhone 4 orders on day one. This is a bit amusing, because when Apple unveiled the new phone last week, a lot of pundits panned the device, complaining that Apple had fumbled, that it should have been an iPhone 5, that the 4S model did not have enough new features, and basically, that Apple had screwed up.

Amazon has just announced the Kindle Fire. You won't be able to get your hands on one until November 15th, but you can order one now. If Apple was planning to release an upgraded iPad before the holidays, Amazon just stole all of Apple's thunder.