Hardware and gadgets

The popular TV show Mythbusters tackled the challenge of cracking locks that use fingerprint scanning technology, and quickly discovered three easy ways to fool a fingerprint scanner. One them involved nothing more than a copy machine and warm spit.

If you like blue jeans and have a spare $250, you might want to pick up a pair of Levi Redwire (TM) jeans. They have a built in docking cradle for iPods that lets you pull the iPod out of a special pocket while it is playing. Why a cradle? The jeans also have an integrated iPod controller that sits outside the pocket, so that you can have your iPod safely tucking inside the pants but still access the controls.

Microsoft has released details of its long-awaited music player, and it is pretty interesting. It's called Zune, and is obviously trying to beat the iPod by adding stuff that the iPod does not have. Included extras are WiFi networking, a slightly bigger screen, and an FM receiver. It comes in three colors, including brown, and I have to say that from the pictures, brown seems like an awfully unattractive choice.

Apple announced a slew of new and upgraded products yesterday that disappointed some Apple fans who had hoped for an iPod phone. Pundits have begun yet another "Apple is becoming obsolete" mantra, but beating up on Apple is nothing new, and for nearly thirty years, the pundits have almost always been wrong about Apple. With cellphones challenging the iPod as a music player and Microsoft's new music player about to be released, it is easy to see why you might think Apple's best music days are behind it.

Amazon is offering an eBook. Dozens of companies lost their shirts with ebooks in the late nineties. Back then, laptops were expensive and PDAs had tiny screens and were hard to read (Apple's Newton was the exception). So many thought that ebooks--light, portable readers--would catch on. But the number of titles available for any given platform were limited, and too many manufacturers opted for proprietary book formats that made publishing a nightmare.

This article argues that the age of the iPod may be over. For the last two quarters, iPod sales have fallen slightly, if you can call selling more than 8 million of the devices in each quarter "slow sales." The theory is that because so many people have iPods that youth no longer see them as cool. I guess it is pretty horrifying to discover that your grandfather has the same music player that you do.

This new Skype-compatible VoIP phone is cordless, which fixes a limitation that has always made Skype and other Internet phone services clumsy--you had to be tethered to your computer. With this phone, a little widget plugs into a USB port and you can wander around the house or office with the cordless handset. As more phones like this become available, it will drive even higher use of VoIP.

Dell has dropped out of the MP3 music player market as another casualty of the iPod juggernaut. The iPod has, as I predicted, become a platform, because it does much more than play music.

Logitech has introduced an integrated desk set: it is a completely wireless keyboard with wireless mouse, wireless headset, and wireless speakerphone. It is a neat design, but I remain wary of Bluetooth accesories, especially wireless headsets. Although Bluetooth is a low power system, I have never liked the idea of gigahertz radio frequencies going directly into my brain all day long. Ditto with cellphones and cordless phones.

Many of us spend too much time sitting in front of a computer, often while seated in a poorly designed chair and/or a poorly designed desk space. Here are some tips for avoiding repetitive strain injury (RSI) and/or surgery.

Some crooks in England figured out how to steal credit card numbers from credit cards that have embedded RFID (Radio Frequency ID) tags in them. The RFID tags can be read at a distance.

This little device uses the videoconferencing facility of Skype (the VoIP software) to send a television stream to anyone with Skype. It's one of those odd little devices that often end up in ads on late night TV, and will probably amount to nothing, but it could become the monster that ate the Internet. It sounds like you could plug this into your cable or satellite TV jack, then have your computer call you at work to stream your favorite soap opera to your work computer, among other devilish uses.

This fuel cell powered portable power source is pretty neat, and suggests the future of portable and emergency power. The device runs on hydrogen stored in a removable tank, and provides a trifecta of power: 120 volt AC, 12 volt DC (cigarette lighter plug), and a 5 volt USB port. That just about covers every kind of device you would ever need to recharge or power. The USB port is a nice touch, since lots of devices can now be charged via a USB port, including many cellphones.

Someone asked me this morning why Apple had not come out with a cellphone (we'll ignore the awful Motorola phone that had some iTunes support). The cellphone marketplace is extremely crowded and highly competitive; Apple would not have any real advantage in marketing an Apple-branded cellphone, and phones need more than the gorgeously simple iPod interface.

A new study of college students suggests that iPods are more popular with that age group than beer, which normally occupies the top slot among the things that college students prefer most. In recent years, more and more technology-related items and activities have been the top ten list, including instant messaging and Facebook. Facebook, the popular Web site for young adults, actually tied with beer for second place.

There is something strangely pleasureable about reading this article. PCWorld has compiled its list of what its editors think are the 25 worst tech products of all time. It's a bit like watching cable TV shows like "World's Worst Drivers." You know you should not take pleasure in other people's misfortune, but somehow, you just can't change the channel.

In what has to be one of the strangest, but potentially quite practical, iPod accessories, you can buy a tie designed to hold an iPod nano on the backside. If you have never seen a nano close up, they are extremely small and very light, so this would actually work pretty well. And it looks like the tie would match your Nike/iPod sneakers.

Dell is going to start installing Google software on its new computers. While this is yet another shot across the bow of Microsoft, the more interesting part of this to me is that Dell will get paid to do this. While Dell will doubtless market this as a convenience to customers, I'll bet a lot of them won't appreciate the effort. Corporate buyers of Dell equipment will likely tell the company not to bother.

Once again, Apple has raised the bar with its Nike partnership. A coin-sized transponder that you stick inside specially-designed Nike sneakers sends exercise information to your iPod in realtime. It's a clever gagdet because it makes both Nike sneakers and the iPod more valuable (to some people) than either product individually. iPod watchers were initially in a frenzy because they thought the device used Bluetooth (a wireless protocol) to communicate, suggesting that Bluetooth wireless headphones might soon work with iPods.

Cupertino, CA (4/1/06)

On the 30th anniversary of the founding of Apple computer, the company unleashed a bombshell on the financial markets with the announcement that the company had inked an agreement to purchase General Motor's troubled Delphi unit. Delphi makes car radios for the entire GM product line, and also manufactures a wide variety of other automotive parts and accessories.