Posted 11/06/09 at 04:25:36 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Asus has extended its O!Play HD media player family to include the Air HDP-R3, the first model in the series to feature WiFi connectivity and a multimedia card reader. Nothing else has changed apart from these two additions. The O! Play AIR HDP-R3, as the new media player model is called, features 802.11n WiFi, HDMI 1.3, a multimedia card reader, a USB 2.0 port, one eSATA/USB2.0 combo port and a RJ-45 LAN port. The Air HDP-R3 retains the aesthetics and the dimensions (181x125.3x47.7mm) of the original O! Play player - one without WiFi. The only departure from the original's design is in the form of the WiFi indicator on the player's front. Its price hasn't been revealed.

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Posted 11/05/09 at 01:30:00 PM by Mark Edward Soper

RAW mode, a feature of virtually all digital SLR cameras and an increasing number of high-end point-and-shoot cameras, enables your camera to capture all of the image data in your photographs in full quality without distortion caused by JPEG data compression. RAW files enable you to repair white balance and color temperature problems, solve exposure problems, and adjust color intensity and other settings far better than you can with JPEG files. Unfortunately, you must use software that supports RAW files to optimize your picture and export it to a format you can use for other purposes, such as JPEG or TIFF.

Thankfully, you don't need to spend a fortune on software to edit RAW images. Or be a hardcore digital photography buff, either. 

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Posted 11/03/09 at 04:55:32 PM by Bart Salisbury

Technology produces a marketplace that is both fascinating and puzzling. The fascination comes with the incredible devices that are rolled out in a constant stream of “wow.” Puzzling in that some of these devices don’t seem to make a lot of sense.

Peek, a New York mobile start-up, has introduced the TwitterPeek. It is a device with the sole purpose of allowing you to post and read tweets. That’s it. Nothing more. And it goes for $100, with an $8 per month service charge after six months. Or you could spring for a life time of tweeting nirvana for $200. (Exactly how long is a lifetime in today’s digital world?)

This isn’t Peek's only foray into mobile messaging. There is also Peek Classic and the Peek Pronto, designed for email and text-messaging, but not for making phone calls.

It would seem that the functionality of the TwitterPeek is available on most smartphones. And certainly handheld WiFi devices, like the iPod Touch, can manage this as well. And better yet, these devices can actually do other things, like make phone calls or browse the web, or listen to music, or watch video.

If there’s a market, then there’s a market. Still, all-in-all, puzzling.

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Posted 11/03/09 at 02:55:02 PM by Bart Salisbury

It didn’t take long for the other technological shoe to drop. Ribbit has hopped out a beta for Ribbit Mobile, a direct VoIP challenge to Google Voice. And one, by the looks of it, that just might fuel a VoIP arms race.

Ribbit Mobile is a cloud-based VoIP telephony service. Much the same as Google Voice, you get a phone number to which you can route your phones capable of conditional call-forwarding. Once there Ribbit Mobile can do everything Google Voice does with a call. But it doesn’t stop there. Ribbit Mobile also offers a nifty feature set not yet available in Google Voice. For example, Ribbit Mobile can route your call to any or all other phones you choose, or to Skype, MSN Messenger, or Google Talk. Ribbit Mobile can also alert you to missed calls via email, Skype, Google Talk, or SMS. And Ribbit Mobile has widgets which allow you to connect with iGoogle, Facebook, and MySpace. Best of all you can place calls directly from your browser.

Ribbit Mobile will be offered in two levels. One will be free, with services like voicemail transcription automated. The other, a professional level, will be fee-based, and will come with additional support. Currently, both levels are in beta. Sign-up for the beta is on-going.

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Posted 11/03/09 at 02:26:47 PM by Bart Salisbury

The Nook is off to a rough start. Spring Design has sued Barnes & Noble over what it alleges are the misappropriation of trade secrets and the violation of a non-disclosure agreement. Spring Design is claiming that pirated design features from its dual-screen Alex eReader, incorporating them in to Barnes & Noble’s Nook eReader.

The point of contention for Spring Design is something it calls the Duet Navigator. This design feature consists of a gray-scale upper screen for reading text, and a lower color screen for navigation. Interestingly, the Nook possesses the same basic design feature. Spring Design says it started filing patents on the Alex back in 2006. (The patent on the Duet Navigator is still pending.) Barnes & Noble apparently co-opted the ideas while working with Spring Design earlier this year.

Darren Murph, over at Engadget, made the early call on this: “Judging by the hastily prepared web site coincidentally appearing on the eve of the B&N device launch, and the domain’s registrar, Albert Teng, who has numerous patent applications (not patents granted) covering ‘electronic devices having complementary dual-displays,’ we’d say this announcement is quite possibly a desperate attempt to lay claim on intellectual property rights instead of a real product with real manufacturers and real content partners.”

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Posted 11/03/09 at 02:25:27 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Technology purists may still swear by the ubiquitous DVD. It is probably a sense of nostalgia that usually deludes them when a much loved technology draws perilously close to the brink. But the writing surely has to be on the wall for the DVD if one of its biggest backers and beneficiaries is busy bracing for its demise.

Best Buy has announced a new deal with Sonic Solutions. It will use the latter's Roxio CinemaNow service to stream DVD titles to a wide range of internet-enabled devices, inlcluding Blu-ray players, TVs, PCs, smartphones, and personal media players. Users will be able to enjoy their favorite movies on a host of devices after they purchase them on DVD: pay once and watch on any device.

“All these guys — Best Buy, Blockbuster and Netflix — realize is that the era of the boxed DVD is about to end,” Creative Stratigies' president Tim Bajarin told the New York Times. The service is set to debut early next year.

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Posted 10/30/09 at 04:52:26 PM by Bart Salisbury

There are few things in life as uncomplicated as driving a car. Really, there’s not all that much to it. Turn the key, engine revs up, put it into gear, point it in the right direction, step on the gas, and off you go. The Federal Highway Administration tells us that in 2004 the United States had 199 million drivers and 237 million cars. How hard can it be if nearly 90% of adults can drive?

As simple as this task is, there are all sorts of folks who want to make it easier. Modern cars are replete with little reminders: Do we have enough gas? Did we leave a door open? Are our headlights still on? But that doesn’t seem to be enough. Others want to make sure we know not only all about the car, but all about the entire transportation infrastructure that surrounds the car. TomTom will give us directions on how to get back and forth from work. (We haven’t figured that out?) And OnStar will tell us that we were in an accident. (How do we manage to miss something like that?)

And the end is not yet in sight. The goodly folks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) want to build us a “plastic pal that’s fun to be with.” MIT’s Media Lab, its SENSEable City Lab, and Volkswagen have come up with AIDA, a cute little robot best-friend to sit on our dashboard. Not only will AIDA tell us about our car, and about traffic, it will bore symbiotically into our minds to second guess what we want to do.

What can AIDA do? According to Assaf Biderman, an associate director of the SENSEable City Lab: “Within a week AIDA will have figured out your home and work location. Soon afterwards the system will be able to direct you to your preferred grocery store, suggesting a route that avoids a street fair-induced traffic jam. On the way AIDA might recommend a stop to fill up your tank, upon noticing that you are getting low on gas. AIDA can also give you feedback on your driving, helping you achieve more energy efficiency and safer behavior.” First, if you can’t do this stuff you really shouldn’t be driving. Second, one nag in the car is quite enough, thank you.

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Posted 10/29/09 at 05:28:15 PM by Bart Salisbury

Forbes sat down recently with Peter Chou, the chief executive and president of HTC, and had a little chinwag. You might be wondering so what--who’s Peter Chou and what is HTC? Good questions, and your lack of familiarity is one of the things on Chou’s mind. HTC is the fourth largest global producer of smart-phones, and seventh larger global producer of cell phones (based on market share). HTC makes the Pure for AT&T, the Dash for T-Mobile, and the Ozone for Verizon. But, until recently, has packaged its phones for cell phone providers, so HTC remains a tad less known than Apple, which ships fewer phones than HTC.

HTC’s strengths are innovation and diversity. HTC was first on the scene with an Android phone, and is produces Windows Mobile powered devices. HTC has struck deals with nearly every major cell phone provider. All that’s missing is visibility, Chou hopes this will be corrected with an up-coming global ad campaign: “You.” HTC wants to move itself into the first tier of cell phone makers: Nokia, Sony-Ericsson, and Apple. It has the products, Chou believes, it lacks the name recognition.

Chou’s outlook on the market is interesting for a CEO. Competition doesn’t frighten him. Instead he views it as a positive: “You cannot expect you are the only player in town…You need other players to come and make the ecosystem stronger.” And Chou is still bullish on Windows Mobile, even though the brand has taken a bit of a dive because “innovation has been a little slow.” (A polite way to say Microsoft messed up on development.)

Chou, however, is careful not to spread HTC too thin. With all the portable electronic opportunities available: netbooks, eReaders, tablet computers, HTC plans to stick with what it knows best. “There is a lot of pressure to do these things, but we are a relatively small company and need to be very picky,” Chou said.

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