« August 2004 | Main | October 2004 »
September 30, 2004
Nintendo DS Box Art
Isn't it pretty? Just another thing to get you excited about the release of one of the two major handheld systems soon to be on the market. As you can see, Nintendo is also advertising the Metroid Prime Hunters demo which is packed in with the system.
Click here to discuss the Nintendo DS on the Gear Live Message Boards
Related:
Nintendo DS Price and Launch Date
Posted by Andru at 11:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Gear Live Playlist: Ray Lamontagne, Citizen Cope, Jamie Cullem, Damien Rice, Nick Drake
Playlist takes a look at the world of male singer-songwriters this week, a tradition going back to Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams and Bob Dylan, and continuing today with a whole list of gifted musicians. New releases by two American newcomers, and some recent releases and a collection essential from their British counterparts. Enjoy the world where all you need is an acoustic guitar and a lyric sheet.
NEW RELEASES
Ray Lamontagne – Trouble
In the interest of full disclosure, my reason for buying this album was Ray Lamontagne’s connection to my native state of Maine. The singer-songwriter has spent the last few years living in a cabin in the woods of Wilton, Maine, with his wife, kids and no electricity or cable. Apparently being cut off from society leads one to search the soul, because the lyrics on "Trouble" are incredibly personal and poetic. One can’t imagine a bigger life change that going from a log cabin to a major label deal with RCA, but if “Trouble” is any indication, the transition has been seamless. A review in “The Portland Phoenix” summed it up best, “I want him (Lamontagne) to get really famous, just so someone will make a movie of his life so I can watch it”. With his gritty voice, which sounds like a white Otis Redding, listening to Lamontagne read the phone book would be better than a lot of albums out right now. The phone book doesn’t make an appearance here, but with lyrics like “Listen, try to ignore, all this blood on the floor, it’s just this heart on my sleeve, and it’s bleeding” and backup vocals and violin by Nickel Creek’s Sarah Watkins, “Trouble” is one of the best albums I have heard this year. Because of the aching “Burn” and the beauty of “Jolene”, “Trouble” gets a 9/10.
Citizen Cope – The Clarence Greenwood Recordings
In the vein of G. Love and Everlast before him, Citizen Cope is a singer-songwriter who fuses folk with hip-hop in interesting, but ultimately disappointing ways. Citizen Cope’s backing music is great, layered with great bass lines and numerous instruments, but his voice and lyrics are just plain mediocre. The nonsensical “Pablo Picasso” is baffling, and ultimately disappointing. The rest of the album is full of sickly cheery lines like “The sun gonna rise in a mile” and the run of the mill reggae/hip-hop/r&b talking points of Babylon and Jah. Seems like Cope is trying to angle for an image, the white guy with soul, or the singer-songwriter who prays to the gospel of Bob Marley. The bright spot on the album is “Sideways”, which is still repetitive, but a pretty decent song. All in all, “The Clarence Greenwood Recordings” gets a 6/10.
BEST RECENT RELEASES
Jamie Cullem – Twentysomething
The pop music world has been invaded recently by what many critics call “old souls”, young artists covering/sounding like their much older counterparts. Artists like Norah Jones, Joss Stone, Michel Buble, Nellie McKay and now Jamie Cullem. Cullem has been a star in his native Britain for a little while now, but is attempting to crash the U.S. market with his blend of jazz, pop and soul. Cullem wrote about half the songs on the album, with the rest of the songs covers of Radiohead, Jeff Buckley, N.E.R.D. and Jimi Hendix. Ultimately, Cullem’s strongest skill is his reinterpretation of jazz-pop standards like “I Could Have Danced All Night”, “What A Difference A Day Makes” and “Singing In The Rain”. To update these songs while still retaining their folksy charm is not easily accomplished, but Cullem does it with aplomb. Jamie Cullem is definitely a polished performer, which is a strength and definitely a weakness, lacking much in the way of original songwriting and vocal range, Cullem relies too much on borrowed material. Not a bad listen, but if you are looking for something serious or though provoking, this isn’t it, but sometimes that is what pop music is all about.
Damien Rice – B Sides
After the release of 2003’s “O”, Damien Rice has toured ceaselessly, while winning 2003’s Shortlist Award (a rather prestigious honor). “B Sides” is filled with live & unreleased versions of songs from “O”, as well as a couple of songs that didn’t make the “O” cut, but really should have. The album starts with “The Professor”, which is one of the best-written songs I have heard in years. Basically a look at love from the eyes of an academic, who tries to understand attraction as a scientific or logical endeavor, but obviously fails miserably. The line “loving is fine if you’ve plenty of time, for walking on stilts at the edge of your mind” is just an example of Rice’s poetry. The only weak point on this seven-track disc is “Moody Monday”, which is quickly forgotten because of acoustic live versions of “Delicate”, “The Blowers Daughter” and “Woman Like A Man”. All in all, if you didn’t pick up “O”, grab that disc, but if you are a fan of Damien Rice, or even a fan of just good music, grab “B-Sides”.
COLLECTION ESSENTIALS
Nick Drake – Pink Moon
I first heard Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” on a Volkswagen commercial, which is not a common place for me to be introduced to an artist. I couldn’t get that song out of my head, so I bought “Way To Blue: An Introduction To Nick Drake”, basically a greatest hits album. I kept coming back to the fact that my favorite songs on “Way To Blue” were all on “Pink Moon”, so I quickly got my hands on that album. “Pink Moon” was the last album Nick Drake recorded before dying from a mysterious overdose of anti-depressants, robbing the world of another great artist about to break big. “Pink Moon” is the sound of Nick Drake reaching deep inside it laying it down on the reels, of a man using just his voice and an acoustic guitar to explain himself, of Drake’s melancholy but somehow hopeful view that even though the sky is cloudy, hopefully soon the sun will shine. The first track, the title track, was obviously the biggest hit off of the album, with incredible acoustic guitar work, and Drake’s voice at near perfection, achieving a balance that holds throughout the cd. There is something in Drake’s voice that lulls you into a calm that even though life may be hectic, even though the rain might fall, it’s not really as bad as it seems. “Place To Be”, “Which Will” and “Parasite” and songs stripped to nothing but emotion, no overproduction, no multi-track layering, just pure emotion. My favorite track on “Pink Moon” is , with a chugging, repeating guitar loop and Drake humming along, almost a farewell to his fans “Know that I love you, Know I don't care, Know that I see you, Know I'm not there.” We just wish that you were still here.
Posted by Andru at 08:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 29, 2004
New palmOne Tungsten Image on Amazon
Today an image of an upcoming Tungsten handheld was posted (and then removed, apparently) on Amazon.com. As you can see, it appears to be a slider-less model, with a 320x480 display. Rumors are also pointing to a release as early as next Tuesday. October has traditionally been a month for new handheld announcements by palmOne, so I'm inclined to believe this news. There's no word as to whether it's the successor to the Tungsten E (most likely) or if it will be billed as the Tungsten T5. I'm still holding on to see how long my M515 lasts, but if it did break, I'd probably jump for one of these, considering I don't like slider designs.
Click here to discuss this story on the Gear Live Message Boards.
Read More 
| PalmInfoCenter
Posted by Hector at 03:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 28, 2004
Next From Gratis: Free Handbags
Gratis Networks business model has swept the internet up by storm over the last few months, and now they are back with something that isn't as high tech. Despite that fact, I still received over 100 emails about the subject, so why not put it up? The next big thing from Gratis is FreeHandbags.com. What's the catch? The same as what you are used to from FreeIpods.com. Sign up here and complete and offer. Get five of your friends to do the same, and you score yourself a Prada, Coach, Louis Vuitton, or Kate Spade female handbag. Don't laugh. Some of these bags actually cost more than a 20 GB iPod.
Posted by Andru at 02:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
TiVo: The Price is Right
No, I am not trying to get you to set the old Bob Barker game show to Season Pass! This is a message for those of you out there who STILL have yet to pick up a DVR because of the price. Although many cable companies are starting to release combo DVR/Cable Tuners, just about anyone will tell you that they aren't as good as TiVo. Now just about anyone can get one, because they are just $49.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate from Circuit City. I know, mail-in rebates suck - but in this case I think it may be worth it. I mean, who wouldn't want to hit instant replay whenever one of Barker's Beauties hits the screen?
Read More 
| Circuit City
Posted by Andru at 11:18 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 27, 2004
Archos AV400 Video Recorder Review
There's something to be said for the promise of convergence. Having one single device that handles multiple tasks will save you carrying space at the very least. At its best, you can save serious dough when a unit is more than the some of its parts. Today, Gear Live takes a look at Archos' latest offering, the AV400, a DVR-like recorder that also allows you to view photos and play music. Click below to see how this $550 device stacks up in terms of functionality and usability.
Click here to discuss this story on the Gear Live Message Boards.
PRODUCT SPECS
Capacity: 20 GB (Model Reviewed). Also Comes in 100 GB.
Interfaces: USB 2.0 high-speed, compatible USB 1.1, PC & Mac. Built-in CompactFlash™ Type I slot to accept CompactFlash™ memory cards and optional 4 in 1 CF adapter (not included) for SD, SM, MMC, MS and MS Pro.
Video recording: MPEG-4 SP with ADPCM stereo sound.
Music playback: Stereo MP3 decoding @ 30-320 kb/s CBR & VBR, WMA (including protected files), WAV (PCM & ADPCM).
Music recording: From any analog source in stereo sound in WAV format.
Voice recording with built-in microphone.
Photo viewer: JPEG (except progressive) or BMP.
Display: 3.5" to 3.8" TFT, 320x240 pixels, 262,000 colors and TV output.
BUILD
The Archos comes in a pretty solid package, with a brushed metal finish and a dark, sleek screen. The unit feels pretty hefty when you first pick it up...much heavier than say a PDA device. I felt pretty scared of dropping it, as I could only imagine what type of circuitry magic was done in order to fit a 20-gig drive and a bright color screen in such a compact form-factor. The unit does come with a slightly padded storage case, though. It has a velcro tab to open its lid, and allows the AV400 to come out with a small pull at its edges. Still, I would rather look for something with a metal exterior for better protection if its rummaging around in my bag. Here's hoping someone offers this soon.
What you have here is a unit that feels really nice to hold. I have very big hands, yet the controls remained readily accessible. In fact, it reminded me a little of a game pad because you wrap your index fingers across the top of the unit as you navigate through the menus. You’ll have to move your left thumb to the side a bit since there is more screen on that side. I also liked how there were rubberized corners on the player, which can help protect against accidental bumps, and also gave it a little bit of grip for my fingers and for surfaces you lay it on or prop it against.
MEDIA QUALITY
Songs sounded nicely, with all the catchy bass and rhythm that you would expect them to. No hisses or pops found here, though I wouldn’t expect there to be any considering this is not Archos’ first player. Like any hard drive player there will be a slight lag between song selection and playback. Still, 20 gigs is quite a bit of space, and it’s nice to know you can probably store about 5,000 high quality recordings here.
What wasn’t as great was video playback. The screen also wasn’t so nice with digital photography, but we’ll get to that in a moment. On the video side, you’ll need to make sure that you bump up the sampling rate in the settings to make sure they look good when you pipe them out to the TV. It’s a little deceptive because movies may look fine on the small LCD at first. Adjusting the settings to the max will record video at better quality. Even then I saw some fudges around edges, but that could’ve been from the broadcast itself and not due to the player.
TRANSFERING DATA
Data went through to the player at a pretty zippy clip via the USB. Really, there was nothing unusual here. We really need to commend companies that will allow you to transfer things without using some proprietary software. You plug it in, and it shows up in Windows as a removable drive. It’s really pretty simple.
From there you drag and drop folders to your liking. Having a player with such a large screen allows Archos to let you rename files once they are transferred. I know how frustrating it is to find some misnamed MP3 on your player, but you have to wait until you get home to make the adjustments. An onscreen keyboard lets you make your changes, although I wish it was a touch screen because you’ll need to scroll over to each letter for inputs.
TV CAPTURE
The manual that comes with the AV400 is pretty small but thick, which is what happens when you have something in 6 different languages. The result was a dearth of English instructions. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to connect this thing for proper TV recording. There was a separate pictorial poster though, with "Quick Set Up" connections nicely simplified.
I plugged things in as instructed, which called for composite cables to go from the back of your cable box to the cradle. I turned on the player and went to the Video Record icon to select it. The moving TV image instantly showed up on the screen along with several options assigned to the soft buttons. You've got to love when things work the first time. Still it would’ve been nice to have a bigger manual so newbies can feel more comfortable. Connecting to the TV will require you to set the player on the included cradle, and plug in a specialized connection from the cradle to the side of the unit.
Capturing the video showing on your screen was a pretty simple affair. The middle button on the D-pad acts as the start and stop buttons for recording. When you exit the menu, the unit will save the video and assign a filename to it, usually something like “VID000001”. You can rename things later. I was able to figure out how to set up future recordings easily enough by feeling my way around the menus. Just like a DVR, you can set for recordings to begin slightly earlier or end slightly later after the regularly scheduled time, just in case.
There were various slots for recordings, each one allowing a different channel, date, and time. However, don’t expect anything as nice as the EchoStar system found on your cable company’s DVR box. The included menus are pretty simple, and won’t let you browse through a channel’s future programming and select record with a single button when you see something you like. Unless of course, you take the time to set up your AV400 to sync with My Yahoo TV Listings. The fact that this feature doesn't come built into the system is a let-down. I have to rely on some 3rd party website for efficient searches and scheduling of my recordings.
It helps to know a network’s start times, along with their duration. Plus be on the lookout for shows that might run a little longer than usual, like those 90-minute Apprentice episodes that kicked off the new season. Once you actually have the TV program on your player, it's a real treat watching it on the train while everyone else has to suffer through newspapers and basic MP3 players.
CONNECTIONS
So far things sound pretty good, right? Well, there are certainly some shortcomings that would make you hesitate about buying these. Let’s start with the most obvious one. First you have the cables. When you pull out the cradle for this unit, you will notice a massive tangle of composite and S-Video wiring that’s used to connect to your TV. Once you figure the things out, it’s not as imposing, but jeez, why couldn’t they have swappable connectors or something?
All the wires, each about 4 feet long, sort of coalesce into the cradle in a bunched up fashion. This will include composite in (L/R audio, and video) composite out (again, L/R audio and video) and S-Video in. What, no component in or outs? Then again you may not miss those... Luckily, once you’re connected, you can just plug the unit into the docking station and be able to play without fussing with wires again. However, if you plan on taking the Archos out to a hotel or a friend's house, and you want to view things on their TV, you may get these weird looks while you bust out the long bunch of cables, and wrap them around so that you don’t knock anything over. Also, the size of the docking station, when combined with the irremovable cords is pretty cumbersome, and you’ll need to think about that when you’re traveling. This won’t be a problem if you’re planning on viewing things by yourself from the unit while traveling. You don’t need to use the cradle every time to charge, since that cord can be taken out separately.
NOT A DVD PLAYER!
Now for the most unusual experience I’ve had with the player. Getting a non-mpeg4 compliant AVI video to play on this thing is almost an impossibility. In other words, you’re not going to be able to simply load in your DVD movie on this thing and take off. I was immensely disappointed with this, because I thought with 20 gigs of space that I would have the ultimate in entertainment satisfaction. Sure, the player will record pretty easily from a broadcast, DVR style. But trying to rip DVD contents will require some pretty shady software, and even then you’re not going to be able to load it.
The player comes with some software executables that will supposedly convert other forms of video to the AVI required, but the front-end and options were so confusing and archaic that you’ll quickly give up. The strangest experience was when I tried to convert a 43 meg mpeg video to AVI. The software appeared to do it, but when I began transferring the file to the player, I found that the file was now over 2 GB large! The Archos is simply not a DVD player. It’s being marketed as a DVR-like TV recorder, and that’s what you get, along with the MP3 and photo-viewing.
THE SCREEN
When you turn this thing on, you’re going to be impressed by how bright the screen is. The startup screen, which comes on for a few short seconds, has some vibrant primary colors coupled with the Archos logo. There is a slider for brightness in the setup menu though there are only three settings for it. As with most portable devices and PDA’s you have some power saving features in the way of setting the idle time before the screen shuts off, including a “never” option.
Watching recorded video content is a real treat. Sure the resolution isn’t as nice as a full blown TV set, but it’s still impressive. We’ve all seen portable TVs that will fit in your palm, but most of them rely on over-the-air broadcasts, while the Archos could potentially display anything that has been on a cable channel, albeit in a recorded fashion. I snagged a few minutes of the Discovery channel, and smiled as the station’s watermarked logo spun on the lower right corner, coupled with nice dramatic moving images of the nature at work.
Where the screen falters a bit is in dealing with digital photography. I had no problems transferring files to the device via the USB connection, but when they actually show up on your screen they appear a tad too blocky for my tastes. I’ve seen some better images on my wife’s Tungsten E. Checking the specs on these two models, sure enough you’ll find that the Archos has a 320x240 resolution, while the Tungsten E sports 320x320. Black and white images fare a little better on the Archos, but pictures with subtle details really look “jaggy” or pixilated if the player is held closer than a couple feet away from your eyes. This is with files that were over a meg in size, mind you. Video, at least from the player itself, had less problems because the image was constantly moving, and you tend to not fixate on any one thing for too long.
CONTROLS
Menu navigation is a breeze with the AV400. One the right side of the face of the unit, there is a metal-colored directional pad with a “select” button on its center that allows you to easily navigate through the various icons. If you need to go back one step, you can click on the small “x” button to the lower-left of this pad. No matter how much I plunged through the depths of the system, that “x” button, when hit repeatedly, will take you all the way back to the root menu, if you need it.
Below these controls there are three soft keys laid in a row, though the middle key is positioned a bit lower than the other two. They are context sensitive, and so will do various things depending on the type of media you are watching, or the type of information you want to display. For example, bring up a picture and the first button allows you to cycle from 1-pic, to 4-pic and 9-pic views. The center button will bring up options to view the properties of the image, delete it, or set it as a wallpaper. Some images will work better for wallpapers than others, since the icon fonts might get a little lost against the backdrop. Finally, the third button will allow you to hide the information displayed with the image so that it is completely unobstructed.
In video mode, the buttons will let you slow down the playback speed, set bookmarks for where you left off on the video, or again hide the text. For music the buttons will allow you to adjust the setup of your player (including a simple equalizer), bookmark the song, or browse through the music files in the directory that you are in. Songs can be sorted by the usual categories: genre, artist, album, etc. There is also a remote control included with the player, for some basic navigational functions.
FINAL VERDICT
These days, I believe convergence isn’t such a great thing. The Archos does some things fairly well, including TV broadcast-recording and solid music playback and features. But the tangle of cords required, and the lower resolution of the screen really hold it back from complete greatness. You’ll find considerable problems trying to get any DVD content loaded (read: it’s next to impossible) and the video conversion software needs serious heart surgery.
The Archos scores marks for being solidly constructed, with intuitive controls, but loses out on a screen that doesn’t have that smooth film-like sharpness that you’ll find on current PDA’s. It’s a good product, considering the amount of storage you get, with features simply unmatched in most players, but it needs to be a master of those features before we can fully recommend it as the "ultimate media player".
Product Information:
Company: Archos
Price: $450-$550 USD
Availability: Now
Posted by Hector at 04:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 26, 2004
iRiver H320 Ships October 6, 2004
The next big thing in the portable MP3 player world is about to hit the US. All indications point to the iRiver H300 Series of MP3 players shipping in less than two weeks in the United States. The iRiver H300 is literally stacked with a multitude of features which make it stand out ahead of just about anything else out there, including the Apple iPod. Some of these features include:
- 260,000 color 2" TFT LCD screen
- Supports multiple music and image formats: MP3, OGG Vorbis, WMA, ASF, JPG, BMP
- 16 hours of battery life per charge (takes 3 hours to charge)
- Charge via USB
- Transfer photos directly from a digital camera to H300 via USB
- FM Radio Tuner and Recorder
Posted by Andru at 10:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 23, 2004
Nokia Unveils New Megapixel Picture Phone
In October, Nokia is looking to launch the all new 6670 cell phone, which includes a 1 Meg camera, tri-band, Bluetooth, and a high resolution screen sporting 65K colors. The camera also features a 4x digital zoom and photo-editing capabilities like crop, frame, and text-adding. Looks like we'll finally be able to print those phone-photos we take in a respectable 4x6 size. In a sign of growing trends towards convergence, the camera will also allow video-recording. A foldable Nokia wireless keyboard and a wireless headset is also in the works for the 6670. Oh, did we mention that it makes phone calls too? Still, with my big fingers, I'm a little worried about being able to accurately press that last row of keys.
Click here to discuss this story on the Gear Live Message Boards.
Posted by Hector at 04:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sony Gets Into the MP3 Act
Looks like Sony has finally faced the hard facts of the digital music business, and is making a major shift in support for the MP3 format. The company plans to introduce new music players that support the format in Europe as early as this year. Sony's also looking to allow owners of its current models to get MP3-compatibility via software upgrades. Sony can be pretty stubborn when it comes to propietary media. Just look at their Memory Sticks and the MiniDiscs. Good to see that their coming to their senses, in a move that should help them improve their position against rivals such as Apple.
Click here to discuss this story on the Gear Live Message Boards.
Read More | CNN
Posted by Hector at 04:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 22, 2004
palmOne Reveals New Keyboard and Other Accessories
Recently, palmOne unveiled three new accessories for the Fall. First up is their new cross-platform compatible Universal Wireless Keyboard which is designed to work with handhelds and smartphones from palmOne, Dell and HP. Hey, $70 isn't too much for what can essentially replace a laptop for your typing-on-the-go needs. Also new is a leather Treo 600 smartphone side-loading case; and a Bluetooth GPS bundle, which comes with a Zire 72 handheld from palmOne.
Click here to discuss this story on the Gear Live Message Boards.
Read More | Palm Infocenter
Posted by Hector at 04:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 21, 2004
Redesigned PlayStation 2 Drops November 1
Our previously rumored PStwo release has been all cleared up. Rather than being a brand new product launch, it is more of an alteration to the current product. As you can see by the picture, the PlayStation 2 has been redesigned to be smaller, lighter, and just more compact. It reminds me of a thin DVD player. Sony has even taken the liberty of adding an on board ethernet port for those of us wanting to jump online while gaming. The updated console is about the size of a book, or thin laptop, making it a lot more portable than the previous iteration.
Click here to discuss the Sony PStwo on the Gear Live Message Boards
Read More | ABC News
Posted by Andru at 12:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
DVD Release List: 9/21/2004
Obviously, the big release today stars Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls. Oh, what? The Star Wars Trilogy came out today also? Crap. Always the last to know. Either way, whether you are hopelessly in love or getting ready to head to your next fan club convention, this week the movie industry has got you covered. Click the link for more of this weeks DVD releases.
DVD RELEASE LIST: SEPTEMBER 21, 2004
- Star Wars Trilogy
- Popular - The Complete First Season
- Mr. Show - The Complete Fourth Season
- Mean Girls
- King Solomon's Mines
- 500 Nations
- Coffee and Cigarettes
Posted by Andru at 09:22 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Official Nintendo DS Launch Date and Price Announced
Nintendo has finally let the cat out of the bag, and announced the official Nintendo DS price and launch date, and as Gear Live had reported previously, you will be able to play this thing at the Thanksgiving family get-together (if it isn't sold out). Yup, the Nintendo DS will be in stores on November 21, 2004 at a price of $149.99. To avoid what will certainly be a sellout, preorder yours today. Oh, and we hate to say we told you so, but we told you so!
From Nintendo:
Consumers immediately will be able to pick up and play the new system, as it comes with a free software feature, PictoChat, embedded in the system hardware. PictoChat allows DS owners to write messages with an on-screen keyboard or the stylus and send them wirelessly to other DS users nearby. Users can text chat, draw artistic messages or share secrets, all without saying a word. And a Nintendo DS in sleep mode will spring to life if it senses another DS in transmitting range, alerting users to each other's presence and setting the stage for an impromptu conversation or game session.
More than 100 companies have signed on to create games for Nintendo DS, while Nintendo itself is already developing its first 20 titles. Electronic Arts, the world's largest independent software developer and publisher, already has announced that its powerhouse franchises of Madden NFL, The URBZ: Sims in the City, Need for Speed Underground, Tiger Woods and GoldenEye will support Nintendo DS.
The DS will also include a Metroid Prime: Hunters demo as a pack-in. Prime Hunters is a multiplayer-capable FPS, while PictoChat is a communications software that lets players send messages and drawings to each other. For Nintendo, this will mark the first time since The SNES where a fully functional game is packed in at a system's launch. Industry insiders will notice how this announcement coincides with today's PSP-extravaganza at the Sony TGS event. This will be an interesting war.
Click here to discuss this story on the Gear Live Message Boards
RELATED:
Nintendo DS Design Finalized
Posted by Andru at 08:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 20, 2004
Napster Looking for Third Life
I can remember when Napster was the only game in town. These days, thanks to Roxio's aquisition, it's relaunching itself as a subscription-based music service, in the face of some very stiff competition. Here's the deal: For $10 a month you get unlimited access to more than 750,000 songs that you can play only on your computer. This model provides a better profit margin for Napster, which doesn't have proprietary music players to support its business, ala Apple. That's looking to change soon however, with this Fall's upcoming launch of Napster To Go, which will allow users to transfer their songs to other compatible music players, for an additional $5 a month.
Click here to discuss this story on the Gear Live Message Boards.
Read More | Wired News
Posted by Hector at 05:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 17, 2004
Sony PStwo: The Next PlayStation Drops on October 26
At least that is the buzz in the game world right now. I have noticed the decline of PlayStation 2 stock at my local retail outlets, and wondered if people were buying them up in anticipation of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. However, now it is a bit more clear. Apparently, Sony has been clearing the stock of the current PS2 so that they can launch the next iteration of the console - the Sony PStwo. Confused? You shouldn't be.
A few years ago, in anticipation of the PlayStation 2 launch, Sony released the PSone. It was a regular Playstation, just mini-sized. It was a great move, as it allowed Sony to continue selling the old hardware while early adopters opted to pick up the newer, sleeker PlayStation 2. So what exactly is the PStwo? Well, it is just a much smaller version of the current PlayStation 2. About 30% smaller. Despite it's size, don't expect a price drop. All signs point to the console remaining at $149.99 USD. Oh, and the GTA: San Andreas delay? That was so that the game would launch on the same day as the PStwo. Good thinking on Rockstar's part.
Now if only Microsoft could think of a way to shrink down the enormous XBOX.
Click here to discuss the Sony PStwo on the Gear Live Message Boards.
Posted by Andru at 08:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Airbus to Allow Cell Phones on Planes by 2006
Looks like plane companies are doing all they can to distinguish themselves and draw in new customers. Can you imagine sending SMS messages and making phone calls with your own cell phone while in flight? Using a small onboard base station, European planemaker Airbus has been able to route calls via a satellite to the ground and its terrestrial telephone networks. We wonder if this explains those weird plane designs we've seen: Check out the Airbus Swan Maxi, and also the Super Transporter.
Click here to discuss this story on the Gear Live Message Boards
Read More | CNN
Posted by Hector at 04:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 16, 2004
Nintendo DS Preorders May Reveal Price and Launch Date
Wal-Mart, Gamestop, EB Games and other retail sites currently have the Nintendo DS for sale on their respective websites via preorder. While this is nothing out of the ordinary, many are wondering if the launch date and price furnished at these sites are legitimate, especially since Nintendo has yet to make an official announcement on either. All sites have the DS listed as being available on November 30, 2004 (my birthday, send a DS) at a price of $199.99 (or if you're Wal-Mart, $199.82!). This is not the first time retailers have listed pricing and launch dates before the manufacturer, and it isn't always spot on. My sources are telling me that the date is a safe one. I believe the Nintendo DS will be availble in retail stores before Thanksgiving - and for $50 less.
Posted by Andru at 11:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Goal: 1,000,000 Firefox Downloads in 10 Days
We are all well acquainted with the fact that Microsoft Internet Explorer is going downhill fast. The U.S. government has recommended we stop using it, and top executives at Microsoft have admitted to switching to Firefox on their home PC's. This is all with good reason. Internet Explorer is full of holes which are exploited constantly. With everyone getting behind Mozilla Firefox, the trend is very apparent. In fact, over 20% of Gear Live readers connect using Firefox, with about 71% using Internet Explorer. Let's up this number. Click on the image above, or click here and download the best browser available. Use of the link will add to the tally at Spread Firefox, so help us reach 1 Million, and take back the web in the process.
Posted by Andru at 09:13 AM | Comments (0)
Help Save Betamax To Keep Technology Moving Forward
The folks at Downhill Battle have launched the Save Betamax campaign, which included a National Call In Day on September 14. While the official Call In Day is over, we can still make a difference with phone calls, letters, and emails to our local state representatives. What is the deal with Betamax? It's like this:
Many years ago, the entertainment industry tried to do away with VCR's citing that it was illegal to make unauthorized copies of their material. Courts decided that there were many legal advantages to the technology, despite the fact that few might abuse it. They let it stick. Betamax gaded away because the VHS standard beat it out, however, the court decision stands to this day. The Betamax ruling is the only thing that protects your right to own a VCR, tape recorder, CD-burner, DVD-burner, iPod, or TiVo.
With the recent Induce Act, lobbyists are trying to get the Betamax decision overturned, which would create a huge liability for any business that makes products which can copy sound or video. It would give the entertainment industry the power to essentially veto new technology. Want to help keep our precious tech moving forward? Check out savebetamax.org.
Posted by Andru at 08:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 14, 2004
Sony Reveals Two Secret Games
Give a warm welcome to the newest member of the Gear Live team, Dorian Lake! Dorian will be reporting on videogame industry news and happenings, along with in-depth game reviews.
Two exciting PlayStation 2 games were revealed by Sony of Japan last week. The first was what a lot of Sony fans have been waiting for: a semi-direct sequel to ICO. While previous news stories had christened the game NICO, the actual name of the game will be Wanda and the Colossus. At this point not much has been revealed about the title, besides the fact that the same development team behind ICO is making the game and it will share much of the same style as a result. You can go to the website devoted to the game here. (caution: the site is in Japanese)
The second game is titled Genji, which is being developed by the former Capcom developer of Street Fighter 2 fame, Yoshiki Okamoto. He left Capcom to create a separate company (named Game Republic) and this game is the result. Set in an alternative Japanese history in the year 1159, very little has been revealed as far as gameplay. You can go the website devoted to this game here.
Hopefully in the near future (the Tokyo Game Show, perhaps?), more will be revealed about these Sony-published games.
Posted by at 11:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Gear Live Playlist: Libertines, Dizzee Rascal, Muse, The Streets, Johnny Cash
Apparently we are flying the Union Jack in this edition of Gear Live Playlist. Four of the five artists are UK acts, including a few rock bands and a couple of British rappers. Yes, I said British rappers, no longer an oxymoron. Both Dizzee Rascal and The Streets are considered rappers, but both artists bend the definition of that word to its limits. The Libertines and Muse both have released solid efforts, and finally, Johnny Cash’s “At San Quentin” is a record that everyone needs to own. So, enjoy our trip that begins in the British Isles and ends in maximum security prison, here’s Playlist.
NEW RELEASES
The Libertines – The Libertines
GQ UK calls The Libertines “The most important rock band in Britain since The Clash”, I call that a pretty damn clueless statement. Although their 2003 release “Up The Bracket” received great critical applause, “The Libertines” is definitely a disappointment. A band that must be struggling to keep up with expectations, The Libertines seemed to rush this album to market, giving this disc an unfinished feel. Somewhere between punk and pop, this album falls somewhere between good and mediocre. “Last Post On The Bugle” is a drunken romp of a song, with slurred words which ends up inconsistent musically. “Don’t Be Shy” is an extremely bad sketch of a song with repetitive lyrics and redundant instrumentation. But there are also some very bright spots such as “The Man Who Would Be King” which is a great song with great tempo changes and clear vocalization. Another bright spot is “Narcissist”, which has an almost rockabilly feel, and ends up being just a great, fun song. But the problem ends up being a lot of the songs sounding the same, which is disappointing, so overall “The Libertines” gets a 7/10.
Dizzee Rascal – Showtime
Dizzee Rascal blast onto the scene with the 2003 Mercury Prize winning “Boy In Da Corner”, which received critical success in the U.S., but did not fare very well commercially. On “Showtime”, Rascal’s UK Garage style is back, complete with bizarre electronic beats and rapid fire delivery. UK Garage can be described as rap, electronic, reggae and drum n bass put into a blender. Rascal’s second album shows maturity, with much tighter production, and clearer lyrics. Highlights on this album include the hyper “Stand Up Tall”, the world music style of “Learn” and the manic “Hype Talk”. There isn’t really a weak track on the album, but Dizzee Rascal is going to be a love-hate relationship in the US, either you are a rabid fan, or you can’t really stand him. This album is definitely the stronger of the two, so if you want to give UK Garage a shot, this album is a 8/10.
BEST RECENT RELEASES
Muse – Absolution
Like fellow rockers Jet, Muse gets a lot of guff for sounding derivative, in Muse’s case the comparison is to art-rock masters Radiohead. But also like Jet, Muse manages to still rock well enough that you don’t really care, because lets face it, all pop music is derivative. “Absolution” is full of lead singer Matt Bellamy’s falsetto, coupled with piano slamming, synth riffs and crashing guitar and drums. The highlight on this album is the track “Time Is Running Out” that has gotten some radio and video play. This chugging, hard rock song is definitely one of my favorites right now. “Stockholm Syndrome” is balls to the wall rock, leaving Bellamy screaming over angry guitars and drums. “Hysteria” is exactly that, “Blackout” slows things down for a minute, and the beautiful “Ruled By Secrecy” finishes the album off. So even if Muse sounds like Radiohead, who cares, this is a good disc.
The Streets – A Grand Don’t Come For Free
The follow-up to a critically lauded debut, “Original Pirate Material”, “A Grand Don’t Come For Free” is a concept album that tells the tale of love gone wrong and the theft of a thousand pounds by a friend. To call the music of The Street’s Mike Skinner rap is a misgiving, it is more like spoken word over rap beats, sometimes keeping with the beat, sometimes going astray. When listening to The Streets for the first time, it might take a little while to get accustomed to his style, but when you do, you will be caught up in his story, easily the most cinematic rap album I have ever heard. Although each song does advance the story, many songs can be taken out of context and still enjoyed on their own, such as “Could Well Be In”, “Wouldn’t Have It Any Other Way” and the British radio hit “Fit But You Know It”. The strongest songs on the album are easily the incredible “Blinded By The Lights”, a song that captures the club feeling perfectly, and the best breakup song I have ever heard, “Dry Your Eyes”. Overall, this album is amazing, a concept album that actually works. You get caught up in the story, the first time I heard this album I had to listen to it straight through, I needed to know how the story ended. If you are sick of the same old cars, jewelry and girls that American rap can’t get past, grab this album.
COLLECTION ESSENTIALS
Johnny Cash – At San Quentin
Late in the 1960’s, Johnny Cash apparently felt that his place was in jail, but not as an inmate, but instead performing live for the convicts. In 1968 Cash released the classic “At Folsom Prison” which was quickly followed by 1969’s “At San Quentin”. Although both albums deserve a place in your collection (and can be purchased in a two disc set), “At San Quentin” is the stronger performance. This remastered version, released in 2000, features audio restoration to all tracks, but more importantly restores the conversation between Cash and his audience. This banter quickly reveals that Cash didn’t view his audience as convicts, but as men who had made mistakes and deserved some entertainment. “Folsom Prison Blues” makes a very appropriate appearance at this show, as does the premiere of the track “San Quentin”. Shel Silverstein’s “A Boy Named Sue”, which gets riotous laughter by the audience, is presented for the first time without censorship. The classics “I Still Miss Someone” and “I Walk The Line” get an incredible treatment by Cash and his backing band, The Tennessee Three. There are plenty of spirituals on this disc, which definitely espouse Cash’s religious side, but the songs do not come off as preachy, but instead as very powerful explanations of “The Man in Black’s” faith. The conclusion of “At San Quentin” is also the highpoint, a medley of “I Walk The Line”, “Ring Of Fire” and “Folsom Prison Blues” as well as others. I am sad to say I never got to see Johnny Cash live, but with the prison albums as close as I will ever get, I can’t be that disappointed.
Posted by Andru at 10:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 13, 2004
Full Screen Thumboard for Palm Tungsten T3
There's a new shareware application that will display a full-screen thumboard in lieu of the standard system keyboard on your T3. Considering how the T3 screen is expandable, this should be a pretty comfortable option. Thumboard is compatible with all Palm OS applications which use a standard text field. It also provides visual and audio feedback for every key press, along with automatic repetition and "hold" for the keys that use it most frequently (such as backspace, delete, directional pad). The keyboard can be accessed or hidden with just a hardware button press. You can download Thumboard here. The shareware application costs $14.95 USD to register and includes free updates for a year.
Posted by Hector at 05:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 12, 2004
Nintendo's Next Peripheral: Mario Party 6 Microphone
No word yet on whether this peripheral will be bundled with Mario Party 6, scheduled for release on December 6, 2004. However, after much speculation on exactly what Nintendo was referring to when they stated that Mario Party 6 would be employ a very different gameplay mechanic when compared to the previous iterations, gamers began coming up with multiple possibilities. An Eye Toy-like camera, a gyroscope controller, and a few other ideas all seemed plausible. Finally, Nintendo has let the cat out of the bag. The Nintendo Gamecube Microphone is the device that will be used to interact with the new Mario Party title. As you can see in the picture, the microphone plugs into the second memory card slot, which means you don't have to give up a controller slot to use it. What does it do? Well, one game described is a 3-on-1 minigame where the lone player must yell "Fire!" into the microphone to attack the other three players. Now, why can't this just be done with a controller again?
Posted by Andru at 04:42 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 11, 2004
Burnout 3 Game Review
This has been a pretty exciting week for me. First I was able to snag a hard-to-find Rio Carbon unit. Then I managed to pick up EA’s latest racer, Burnout 3 for the Playstation 2 on its release date. After getting tired of waiting for the next Gran Turismo, I decided to give this racer a try. My library really needed a solid traditional racer, and boy does this thing deliver. We know that all of our readers love to play games as well, so click below to read Gear Live’s first of what we hope will be many game reviews to come.
GAME INFORMATION
Release Date: September 8, 2004
Price: $42.99-49.99
Features: Online and Split-Screen Play
System: PS2 and XBox
THE EXPERIENCE
A small yellow number “3” appears in the center of the screen, before a quick count-down to “1.” As the countdown ends, you slam onto the gas, hearing the tires squeal in anticipation. Clouds of smoke erupt from the backs of the racers ahead of you, before fading away to reveal the grainy asphalt. You're now cruising as fast as you can, squinting for a chance to see the leader, when another rival passes your right side.
"Now’s my chance," you say to yourself. You forcibly steer to your right side, scraping shards of metal off the opponent. Slowly you edge him over to the wall, until you feel he’s deep in enough to succumb to it. He’s launched into the air in a sparkling chaos of twisted metal, flying tires, and broken glass. Your speed boost is now increased, so you pull down on the turbo, your eyes widening as the road becomes a speeding blur of gravel and oncoming traffic…
This is the experience that is Burnout 3. People with weak hearts need not apply.
PLAYABILITY
Criterion has really hit the nail on the head with this year’s version of Burnout 3 (BO3). It's deep, insanely fast, silky smooth, and charged with so much wickedness that your jaw will drop repeatedly while tearing through its streets. The controls are very intuitive, requiring only a quick glance at the thin manual to get a hang of everything. You have gas and brakes each on dedicated buttons, and a turbo button located at R1 for an extra boost. Finally, you can use the R2 button for the crash-breaker maneuver during the crash modes, which we will get to in a bit.
PRESENTATION
Looking at the menu screens, the various modes of play are presented adequatetly. Once you enter the World Tour mode (the main section of the game), the various locations around the globe are zoomed towards the screen as you select them, before they “sharpen up” as if you were bringing a digital picture into focus. You see the run of the track from an overhead perspective, and the name of the event is displayed on the right side of the screen, along with other locked events.
Loading times were not too bad, but you do have them often, especially when events are very short, which gets a little annoying. The game saves before it tells you what you’ve unlocked at a particular event, which felt sort of backwards at first, but I can understand allowing the menu system to move quickly right after an unlockable is presented. You'll hear an announcer welcome you to the circuit you’re about to play, similar to the announcer in SSX3, but not anywhere near as good. It sounds a little generic, and feels almost like an afterthought rather than something Criterion really invested in to make you feel like you're in the midst of a great racing community.
CONTROLS
I thoroughly enjoyed the controls to the actual racing. They're quite simple really, and you’ll have no trouble executing power slides by using the brakes and gas simultaneously. You’re going to need to too, in order to make some of those turns without slowing down too much and to also fill up your boost meter. Performing different maneuvers will net you more boost, located on the lower left of your screen.
So you’re encouraged -– no, wait -- strongly urged, to pull off wicked driving techniques in order to get rewards. We’ve seen this type of thing in the “Kudos” system of the Project Gotham series, but this time around, making your opponents crash into various ledges, trucks, walls and buildings is fundamental to your success. On an unfamiliar track you’re bound to have a little more trouble navigating the turns of course, but on others I found that I came in first place on my very first try.
PROGRESSION
BO3 rewards you quite often. It feels like you’re always unlocking some new racer or some new event. This is primarily a function of how much damage you can cause during a race, along with how you finish. I find it funny that you earn gold silver and bronze for such wanton destruction, especially so close after the Olympic Games. When you finish a race, the game will oftentimes lead you to a garage where you'll find a new ride. Based on points awarded for your finish, or driving finesse, you can unlock anything from compacts and muscle cars, to eventually trucks, vans, and F1-type racers. While in the garage, the camera continually spins around the vehicle in a 360 motion. I found it akin to walking around a car to “check it out” after you’ve acquired it.
Unfortunately you can’t modify your car and engine like some of the more recent racers, but then again that’s not what this game is all about, so it doesn’t feel like a huge omission. Also, as you earn more vehicles, they do look like they’re being tricked out with different parts and paint styles, which is not bad for an arcade style racer. There are two main categories of vehicle characteristics: top speed and weight. You will see the lighter cars catch more air on the hilly freeways, which can be a good or bad thing. Good because you get points for such maneuvers that result in unlockables and speed boost. Bad, because you may be jostled out of positioned easier.
The thing will be a little more of a letdown is the lack of licensed cars. However, I can understand this. If you were a manufacturer, how would you like to see your car smashed to smithereens? Yes, it’s only a game, but it’s also an image thing that could speak to the unreliability or fragileness of the vehicle you put out.
Other good things abound. Sometimes, when racing you’ll push a rival car into the edge of a wall so hard, that it will spin madly out of cont(
Posted by Hector at 05:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 10, 2004
Solar Powered Clothing: Coming Soon From SCOTTeVEST
You know just when you get off work after a long day and you just want to listen to some music on the way home, it seems that your MP3 player is ALWAYS out of power? Or how your cellphone dies at the moment you need it the most? Well, so does SCOTTeVEST - and they want to do something about it. They have recently announced the pending arrival of the Solar SCOTTeVEST. What exactly is it? Check it out. It combines the SCOTTeVEST FineTEX coat with a solar panel which connects to a power source in one of the pockets. You can then power any device that has the capability to be charged via USB. That means when your iPod's juice starts running low, you can just plug it into your pocket while on the go and the tunes will just keep flowing. On the negative? You must be in direct sunlight for 2-3 hours for a full charge; however, direct sunlight is not a requirement. Oh, and of course being a SCOTTeVEST, this jacket is loaded with pockets. Thirty to be exact. Click below for more information and additional images.
RELATED:
Interview: Scott Jordan, SCOTTeVEST CEO and Founder
SCOTTeVEST Three.0 Spring Review
PRICE:
$534.98 - Pre-order
$624.98 - Normal
Posted by Andru at 09:38 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Nokia Announces New Retro Style Phones
With so much competition in the cell phone arena, it looks like everyone is trying to stand apart in the crowd. Recently, the Finnish phone giant Nokia announced its newest line of phones, inspired by a 1920's style and feel, featuring dark colors, mixed with etched steel and chrome highlights. All of them include a digital camera. The new Nokia 7260, 7270, and 7280 phones are pictured above.
Read More | CNet News
Posted by Hector at 05:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 09, 2004
JetAudio Cowon iAudio 4 Color MP3 Player
With the portable MP3 player market being virtually flooded with choices, many stick to the brands they know (naturally). Sometimes, however, it can pay to venture out into new territory. You may be pleasantly surprised. We recently tested the JetAudio iAudio 4 Color MP3 Player and came away impressed. If you are looking for a solid flash-based drive, this may be the one. Click below for the full review.
iAudio 4 COLOR MP3 PLAYER REVIEW
While many people clamor over hard drive based MP3 players (Apple iPod, Creatize Zen, iRiver H120, etc.), there are those out there that just don't have a need for a portable audio device with a hard drive big enough for multiple thousands of songs. This is why flash based players are still around. They are small, and usually get the job done for those that just want to carry around a relatively small number of songs in their pocket.
A quick look at the iAudio 4 MP3 Player (which also has a voice recorder, and FM tuner) doesn't make it stand out from the pack. However, once you pick it up and turn it on, it's individuality becomes apparent immediately.
INITIAL IMPRESSIONS
The packaging of the iAudio 4 is a smart, eye-catching approach to showcasing the product. The MP3 player is out in the open, so instead of looking at graphics when holding the box, you are actually looking at the real thing. All pertinent information in on the back of the box, which by the way is a nice, shiny purple.
Taking it out of the box, I realized that JetAudio went all out as far as accessories go. Included were the following:
iAUDIO 4 unit
Protective Case
One AAA Battery
Cresyn Earbuds
Armband
Software CD
Users Manual
USB Cable
USB Cable adapter
Neck Strap
Scratch Resistant Film
Quite impressive. While the iAudio 4 felt great in my hand, the buttons felt a bit "loose". Nonetheless, I was eager to turn it on and get started.
USING THE UNIT
Okay, so you press play and the unit turns on (after battery installation of course!). That was easy enough. Now before we move on, let's talk about what many might consider to be the main feature of this MP3 Player. See that big display screen that is almost the size of the entire unit? Yeah, can't miss it. Well, it light up in different colors. In fact, it can display 124 different colors, and you can control which ones and when.
The colors are controlled by individual RGB settings that you can tinker with. You can have it glow red when playing MP3's, but then display a soothing magenta when recording your voice. There is also an awesome random strobe effect you can do as well.
Navigation: Back to using the unit itself. Like I mentioned earlier, while the iAudio 4 is tiny, the screen is a huge percentage of its size. Due to this, the screen is easily legible. However, this is one where you may want to take a gander at the instruction manual. The navigation system can be a bit tricky, and once you read up on it to see what exactly you need to press to do what, it becomes second nature.
There is a very convenient Menu button that allows you to tweak the player to your hearts content. We are talking just about everything you may want to customize, including backlight settings, EQ, bass boost, recording quality, and more. It is great to see a player with this level of customization out of the box.
Music: Now, despite it's multitude of features, the fact is that if you buy this, you are buying it to listen to music. This is where the player needs to get the job done. How did it do? Wonderfully.
The music sounded great through the included earbuds, but the included playback options let you cuztomize the sound further. For example, I sometimes have to listen to music with only one earbud in. The iAudio 4 allows you to shift the balance of the music from left to right (and anywhere in between) using the Pan option.
There is also a nice feature that allows you to enhance the sound of MP3 files to give them a fuller sound. I am not sure how it is accomplished, but it does make them sound a little better. You can also play with the preloaded EQ settings and tweak them to your desired levels as well.
Synching: While you can use the included JetShell software to do all the work, I found that since JetAudio went with the superb decision that allows this player to been seen as a normal flash drive as far as Windows is concerned, that this is the way to go. Simply drag and drop your files directly to the player through Windows Explorer, and you are good. This is perfect, because everyone already has a CD ripper and music player of choice (iTunes, Windows Media Player, WinAmp, etc.). Now for the negative: It only suppots USB 1.1. This means that when you start the transfer process, you probably want to go do something for a few minutes while it completes the transfer.
Other: Also included is a line-in for recording from device to device. It is easy enough, and doesn't seem to cause any distortion in the sound. It's nice if you want to record something from tape to the iAudio 4 unit. Voice recording is just a great addition, and also works without fuss.
EXTRAS
JetAudio was nice enough to also include a protective case, better than average Cresyn earbuds, an armband, and a neckstrap. Most companies would expect you to pay extra for some of these items, all of which JetAudio threw in with the purchase price. The earbuds, as I said earlier, deliver a nice, full range of sound (although bass could stand to be better). Nice to see a company that isn't skimping on the extras.
FINAL VERDICT
Looking at the whole package, I am generally happy with the quality and performance of this product. The battery life is great, although it would have been nice to have had a rechargable internal battery. The only other negatives are the buttons which seem flimsy, and the bass which is not as strong as it is on other players playing the same track. I reviewed the 128 MB version of the product, which doesn't hold much music at all. I recommend springing for the 512 MB or above models. It is a great product for a student, or those that like to listen to music while exercising. If JetAudio can build on what they have here, you will soon find them to be a player on the portable audio scene.
Product Information:
Company: JetAudio
Price: $142.99
Availability: Now
A big thank you to JetAudio for sending us this product to review.
Posted by Andru at 07:52 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
RIM Launches New BlackBerry
The new BlackBerry 7100t (a.k.a. "Charm") looks more like a traditional phone than its older model, with a new 20-character keyboard: a combination of a telephone keypad and the traditional QWERTY keyboard layout. It will be available for $199.99 exclusively through T-Mobile USA. The design shows that most of the keys have more than one letter. To compensate for this, the device includes predictive software to guess which words the user is typing. RIM hopes to draw in a new market with this newly designed model, but insists that it's still a "BlackBerry."
Read More | USA Today
Posted by Hector at 05:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 08, 2004
MP3 Players: The Truth Behind The Numbers
Looking at the packaging and marketing used by various drive-based MP3 player manufacturers, one might have false expectations of just how much music the product can hold. I think it's time for a little consumer education so that we can all be smarter shoppers. Reading reviews of products like the Apple iPod, Sony Walkman, Dell Digital Jukebox, and the like you will find journalists quoting the number os songs the player can hold - however, there is some fine print to be looked at when considering one player over another strictly based on this specification.
I'll take the iPod for example. Apple states 5,000 songs for the 20 GB version and 10,000 songs for the 40 GB version. Now, let's take a closer look: These numbers are only valid when storing songs that are 4 minutes long, which are encoded in 128 kbs AAC format.
From Apple:
Capacity
4GB, 20GB or 40GB hard disk drive(1)
Holds 1,000, 5,000 or 10,000 songs in 128-Kbps AAC format(2)
Stores data via FireWire or USB 2.0(3) hard drive
Capacity based on 4 minutes per song and 128-Kbps AAC encoding.
The same arguement applies to the Dell DJ. With the DJ, Dell quotes higher numbers than the Apple iPod. However, this is because they are encoding with a different codec at a lower bit-rate than Apple. That is what gets you the high numbers.
From Dell:
15 GB1 model stores over 7,000 songs2.
20 GB1 model stores over 9,000 songs2.
Assumes audio format is 64 kbps WMA encoding with average song length of 4 minutes. Dell DJ 15 stores up to 3745 songs assuming audio format is 128 kbps MP3 encoding with average song length of 4 minutes. Dell DJ 20 stores up to 4962 songs assuming audio format is 128 kbps MP3 encoding with average song length of 4 minutes.
Obviously, encoding music in 64 kbps WMA format is going to allow for more songs to be added. But how good will the songs sound in that format? Most any audiophile will tell you that it will sound substantially worse than a 128 kbps MP3 file.
Looking at how Rio advertises the Rio Karma on their webpage, it is similar to the Apple iPod site, except that they don't specify song length or bit-rate.
From Rio:
20GB drive can store 10,000 songs**
**660 hours of WMA or 330 hours of MP3 music (over 10,000 WMA or 5,000 MP3 songs)
They haven't even included the fine print telling you that the songs need to be 4 minutes long, or the bitrate they must be encoded at. Obviously, if I encode my 10 minute long symphonies in 384 kbps MP3's, this no longer applies.
A quick look into the Creative Players might be of good use as well. I'll use the Creative Nomad Touch 20 GB for example.
Just take a look at the picture and read the fine print:
The Creative Nomad Jukebox Xtra has a different standard compared to the Touch.
From Creative:
Huge 60GB storage lets you bring up to 16,000 WMA songs (80kbps) or MP3 songs (128kbps) everywhere you go (Based on less than 4 minutes per song)
A recent Forbes article on the new Sony Walkman makes the error of saying that the 20 gig Walkman can hold more songs than the 40 GB iPod (13,000 Sony vs. 10,000 Apple).
From Forbes:
Sony's (nyse: SNE - news - people ) reinvented Walkman is actually comparable to an iPod Mini, in terms of physical size, but its ability to store 13,000 songs on only 20 gigabytes rivals Apple's (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) ability to cram 10,000 tunes onto 40 GB.
From Sony:
Store up to 13,000 Tracks at 48kbps when using Sony's ATRAC3plus™ audio format.
ATRAC3plus is a totally different codec with a 48kbps bitrate, and again, the songs are measured as being an average of 4 minutes long.
Now, unlike the examples above, iRiver stresses hours of music played.
From iRiver, regarding the H120:
Plays over 600 hours of digital music*
*Over 600 hours of music based on Windows Media format at 64kbps.
iRiver H140:
Plays over 1200 hours of digital music*
*Over 1200 hours of music based on Windows Media format at 64kbps.
So what have we learned? It is best to look at how much hard drive space you will need to help decide which player you will buy. Some players support different codecs, and you will need to take that into consideration as well. If you don't mind 48 kbps ATRAC3plus, the Sont might be the best for you because you can fit so many tracks on it. However, if you like using iTunes, then an iPod is your only solution. Whatever you do, don't take the manufaturer's word for it. Hard drives hold information, and whether it is a 20 GB Apple iPod, a 20 GB Dell DJ, or a 20 GB Sony Walkman - they all hold 20 GB of info. None holds more than the other.
Posted by Andru at 08:55 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 07, 2004
Gear Live GMail Giveaway
Google's GMail free email service has been around for months now, but is still in beta. This means that if you want an account, you need to be invited by someone who is a beta tester - or else you are out of luck. Being that Gear Live is all about the readers, we are now your hook up.
We will be posting GMail invitation links with every new story posted. They will not be so obvious, so you will have to click around to find it each time. Who knows - the graphic used with a story might be an invitation link, one of the ads on the right may be a hidden invitation link, or one of the links within an actual story might link to GMail rather than the subject itself. We will try to be creative, emphasis on try. We will probably fail miserably. Please let us know if you pick up an invite from this site!
Nonetheless, to get this kicked off, click on the GMail logo to the right for the first GMail invitation.
(Thank you to everyone who sent in GMail invitations for us to give away. If anyone else would like to help out and donate invites, send them to me at andru
Posted by Andru at 03:09 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
DVD Release List: 9/7/2004
Today's DVD releases are definately heavy on the comedy, with Saturday Night Live "Best Of" sets, Eddie Murphy: Raw, Clerks X, Will and Grace and more. Of course, there is more for those who enjoy the more serious flicks. If you like a combination of both, pick up Soul Plan, which was seriously unfunny.
DVD RELEASE LIST - SEPTEMBER 7, 2004:
Posted by Andru at 11:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sony HDR-FX1: Consumer High Definition Camcorder
Those of you who are of the mentality that smaller is better, may want to rethink that philosophy - at least as it pertains to camcorders. We all know that high definition is where it's at in terms of jaw-dropping visual quality. How nice would it be to be able to record our home movies in the same vein? Sony has just introduced the world to the HDR-FX1 High Definition Camcorder. Why should you care? Put simply, it enters another consumer level high def recorder into the market, and that brings prices down. This bad boy records in 1080i, and when compared to a regular camcorder, the difference is immediately apparent. A test recording of written text from a book showed that even the fine print was legible on the HDR-FX1 in comparison to the same recording on a normal camcorder where the text was blurry and illegible.
The HDR-FX1 weighs a good 4.4 pounds, and is set to go on sale next month in Japan for about 400,000 yen. That equates to roughly $3,600 USD. The recorder should be available in the States by the end of 2004.
Posted by Andru at 08:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 04, 2004
Rio Carbon Review
Leave it up to Rio to make a product so hot that you can’t find it anywhere, except in the back closets of your local Best Buy. There weren’t any on display, but you see, it always pays to ask. Even the limited edition, with a run of only 500, was sold out in a matter of a couple days! Gear Live finally has its hands on Apple iPod Mini’s direct competitor, the Rio Carbon 5 GB digital audio player. This little number sports an extra gig of space than the Mini, offers 20 hours of life on a Lithium-Ion power supply, and is supposed to have one of the best desktop software systems available.
Click here to discuss the Rio Carbon on the Gear Live Boards
Click below to read our latest review!
INITIAL IMPRESSIONS
The first thing you'll notice, like many pieces of technology these days, is the player's size. This thing is so small, it will actually fit in the palm of your hand, and I mean the central part of your palm, as in not resting on the fingers at all. And it should be. After all, Rio claims that this is the smallest 5 GB player on the market. It feels solid and light at the same time, which was an interesting combination for me.
The back of it is a highly polished metallic-like finish, a magnet for fingerprints. Luckily most people won’t be looking at the back too much. The front is a smooth gray-colored plastic. Along the edges of the sides and the bottom there is a rubber-like grip strip. This is supposed to present slippage I imagine. I didn’t even notice it at first, but it should help when handling the player out in the open.
ACCESSORIES
The Carbon comes with a USB 2.0 cord to handle your file transfers. It also functions as the charger, taking power directly from your PC. The cord also connects to a thin wall AC adapter so that you can charge when you’re away from the PC. You simply slide the cord into the adapter and plug it into a wall. There is also a software CD for music management, which I’ll get to in a bit, though don’t worry, you don't need to software to transfer files into the unit.
The player also comes with a “pleather” case for storage. It’s quite a snug fit though, so you’re going to have a little trouble sliding it out. To make things worse, you can’t view the screen through the case, unless you purchase an additional another type. You can however, access the power and volume controls, along with the ports for charging and headphones. Speaking of headphones, they look like the usual cheap plugs that everyone is including with their players, but they do a good job, actually. They fit snug into my ear, had an appropriately long cord, and the sound was clear and loud. I typically use a pair of in-ear tubes from Koss, that offer some increased bass response and better isolation from outside noise.
DISPLAY
The first thing you’ll notice about the display is its milky-creamy color when it lights up. The text shows up nicely, even though there doesn’t seem to be that much screen-estate anyway, but it’s quite functional the way it is. By default it’s set to dim out after 5 seconds, but you can increase this, to 10 and 30 seconds as well. You will see that the battery icon shows a slightly lower amount of charge when the LCD is lit, but then jumps back up when the LCD is off. You all know lights can work to drain a battery, so this shouldn’t be surprising.
When you leave the player idle for a bit, the light won’t just shut off abruptly, but fades out slowly, which is a cool touch. This way you can see when it’s going to dim and make another input before it happens, if you need to. The small play/pause, skip and stop icons on the pad in the front of the unit also light up when the Carbon is in use. Finally, there’s a Rio logo on the face of the unit that lights red as well. The light looked a tad brighter on one side of the logo than the other, but it was still another pleasant surprise.
When you’re charging the player, a large battery icon shows up on the screen, with a bar that continuously runs across it and then loops. Nice to see it wasn’t just some text that blinks “Charging.” When done charging from an AC source, an icon with a plug shows up on the screen, with the word “100%”
DISPLAY INFORMATION
When playing songs, the unit will display the battery indicator, artist, song, playtime bar, volume level, elapsed time, track number and number of tracks, which will vary depending on the playlist you're using. Pressing the scroll button or the middle button on the D-pad will cycle through some additional data: format, bitrate, size, date and time, time remaining, and EQ setting. There will be more on this later, but I liked how you could assess the menus without having to pause the song. It’s a feature you would think is a given, but believe me I’ve seen it not there on other players.
The menu system is really intuitive. You can scroll through the whole thing and make selections with the scroll wheel all by itself. As options are selected they are highlighted and stick a little further to the left on the overall list. You won’t have a problem at all getting around this thing. It’s another reason people don’t bother reading manuals anymore.
FEATURES
You may have heard that this is a no frills player, with not much going for it besides the storage capacity and battery life. As if those weren’t reasons enough to own this. Let’s discuss what you do get in terms of features.
Here’s a run-down from the official web-site:
5GB* of memory stores up to 80 hours of MP3 or 160 hours of WMA Music*
Plays MP3, WMA, and Audible audio formats
Built-in mic for voice record
Easily drag & drop data and music files onto your player
Rechargeable battery offers up to 20 hours of battery life on a single charge
USB 2.0 for faster downloads
Charge from USB or the included power adapter
Windows® & Mac® compatible
Includes Rio Music Manager, the most intuitive way to create & manage your digital music library
* At 128kbps MP3, 64kbps WMA.
Pretty basic, but very functional and solid. I don’t know about you, but I don’t use my mp3 players for managing my workday, or storing my phone numbers. That’s what my Palm is for. Still, you also get a stopwatch here. You don’t get line-in recording, nor do you get a tuner. But if you’re looking at size, functionality, battery-life, and storage space, you will still have quite an excellent package.
PLAYBACK FEATURES
The best way to create the right properties for your songs (genre, artist, album, etc) is through the included Rio Music Manager software. This way you really open up the possibilities for music playback.
For example, you can have the player go through songs only by a given artist, or only a given album, or only a genre of music. It's up to you what's played. These criteria will create a “playlist” from which the Carbon will choose. I appreciate this feature because I’ve seen smaller capacity players that don’t include this – they have just a series of songs and you have to either play your entire collection as a playlist, or choose each song you want to hear in particular. By the way, you can do this here as well.
The scroll wheel on the upper right of the unit functions as a scroll-control when a song list or menu options are displayed on the screen. Even during mid-song, you can access the menus to change your playlist, which is great. That way you can have a continuous beat coming at you, as you decide what move to make next.
You can have songs shuffle within a category. Normally they would play alphabetically. You still advance deom snog to song in a given sequence, though it's shuffled. in other words it won’t jump around randomly when advance to the track. This way you can go back to the song you just heard as well..
You also have the option to play songs that have just been recently uploaded to your Carbon, from the last day to the previous month, to help keep your music-play fresh. You can also play playlists, if you like a certain sequence of songs that don’t match in terms of a particular genre, album, or artist.
Another feature is the EQ. There are five presets, but you can also make a custom EQ depending on how you like your frequencies played. Within custom, you can change five sliders to your liking. When you save your settings in this option, and other settings like it, you need to press the middle button on the D-pad, and a big “checkmark” will scroll up on the screen to let you know it’s been changed. Hitting another button will cause a big “X” to show, indicating that there was no change, except for you possibly changing your mind of course.
THE SOFTWARE
The Rio Manager software allows you to browse and manage the mp3’s you have on both the player and on your PC. You can change the attributes to the songs, like the genre, which I had to do very often, since I’ve never bothered before and I wanted the player to sort things in a particular way. I was able to use the software without even reading a manual, a testament to how user-friendly it is.
It can sort by all the parameters of a song, including name, artist, album, genre, year, size, and the date it was loaded to you PC. This last category came in quite handy, since I would rip songs onto the PC, and would always be interested in the ones I just completed, so that I can then select them to transfer to the Carbon. The software also has a built in search feature, so you can locate that old David Bowie track you misplaced, without having to go out to Windows File Search. I only wish that I was able to click on multiple songs and set their genre in one shot,instead of going though them individually. I had some pretty long sessions with this, but it pays off in the form of nice organization on your player.
CONTROL
As I mentioned, you have a scroll wheel on the upper-right corner of the unit, which is also depressible to make selections. There’s another button beside the wheel, on the right side of the unit. By hitting that first, you can open up the menu, then use the scroll wheel to navigate. In this fashion, I was able to play any variety of songs I needed. You do have the option of using the D-Pad to move around the menu navigation, but this felt so much more quicker, especially when you have long lists of menu items. You can just scroll with a much faster speed.
You will end up using the D-Pad primarily for pausing and advancing tracks. It has a very healthy click when it’s depressed, offering a nice bit of resistance. You can also lock the unit by pressing the middle button on the D-pad while holding down the menu button on the right side of the unit. The D-pad icons light up nicely in the dark, but it’s more of an aesthetic since you can find your way around without them so easily.
The player fits nicely in your hand, especially since it has these rubberized grips along the side and bottom. Southpaws may feel disappointed that the scroll wheel is on the right, since they won’t be able to use their thumbs. I’d imagine they could use their index finger when holding the unit in their left hand.
SOUND
Did you know that Bill Clinton uses hearing aids? Well, so do I. So take what I say about volume with a grain of salt. I’m not deaf or anything, but if you talk low enough I might not clearly make out a couple words. That said, I found that I had to use the player at medium volume in order to feel comfortable. Your mileage may vary, because I would think that maybe I’m missing a lot at the one-quarter mark that you would be fine with.
You certainly won’t need to play this thing at max though. Hovering around 3-quarters is probably as high as I would have it most of the time. Music was very clear. I didn't find any hissing, or distortion, with the included headphones. However, there've been reports that the player will produce static sounds using a headset cord with a metal rim at its connector. Indeed, I did encounter this problem on a cord that met that description. It happens when you jiggle the cord, and not when it's stationary.
Rio appears to be working on a solution according to its website, but for now you can try using an adapter or extension if you insist on using your pair of phones and it falls in that category. I found that most headphones actually have a rubber rim, so this wasn't a problem with my personal phones, nor the phones that the player comes with. Outside of this issue, and some people do take it seriously, you will find that because the player has a lot of storage, you will hear songs you’ve never heard on phones before, and they really do sound rich and beautiful. Just check your headphone cord type before you purchase, and have another one handy if it has a metal rim.
TRANSFER SPEEDS
I have a pretty new PC, an AMD Athlon XP 3000+, with 512 RAM. With this, I was able to transfer a 4 meg mp3 file to the Carbon in less than 2 seconds, which was a pleasant eye-opener to me. This thing really makes quick work of transferring new music over. That said, if you’re going to transfer an entire CD album, you’ll need to make time for the ripping and then transferring. On average, album rips and transfers took about 5 minutes using the Rio Music Manager. Not bad at all.
DATA USAGE
Like most players, you’re able to record more than music to the device. To test this capability, I like to transfer a large "Matrix Reloaded" trailer to units I review. I transferred a 60-Meg QuickTime movie trailer to the unit in 15 seconds. USB 2.0 is a real sweet thing, especially when coupled to some substantial storage. I played the film back directly from the player and it ran without a hitch, even when jumping from spot to spot on the file. Nice job all around.
Whenever you use USB-based devices, it is imperitave that you safely disable the device through the “Remove Hardware” icon on your system bar. I made the mistake of thinking that I could unplug and re-plug the drive at will without paying any mind, and the result was that the Carbon crashed. Fortunately, the manual on the included CD described how to do a reset of the player in this event. You can use the needle-hole at the top of the unit next to the headphone jack to accomplish this. Since practicing proper USB removals, I didn’t have nay more problems in this respect. Thank God.
CAPACITY
Let me say this one thing, this player is going to be great for most people, but not everyone. If you want to store hundreds of full CD’s on this thing you’re going to be disappointed. By my estimates, you could store about 75 or 80 15-song albums on this thing. Still, that is a lot of storage for something so portable. With this thing you’ll never have to worry about running out of space if you use it for those key songs in your albums that you really like. Again, this actually has one gig more than the iPod Mini for the same price, and in a smaller form factor, so you really can’t beat the value.
FINAL VERDICT
This is a solid number from Rio that they can be proud of. Both the desktop software and the Carbon menu systems are so intuitive that you won’t bother reading the manual. You get rich, clear and long lasting sound, in such a small package it’s really a marvel of technology. For those of you with a decent (but not enormous, as in, hundreds of CD’s) collection of songs this player is a great little product. Heck, even the headphones are decent. The Rio does lose a point because of that niggling static issue on other types of cords, though. Either way, at a price point that is the same as the iPod mini, and yet with almost double the amount of battery life (20 Hours!), plus an additional gig of storage, you have an all around excellent package, and a wonderful investment to keep you entertained on those long commutes. The AC adapter charges the unit at an even faster rate than the USB connection, and the playback options are plenty. Highly recommended.
Product Information:
Company: Rio Audio
Price: $249
Availability: Now
Posted by Hector at 10:26 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Free iPods, Flat Screens, and PC's Received
It seems that Gratis Networks' free offer sites have taken the internet by storm. The fact is that to this day, there are still many who doubt the whole Free iPod, Free Flat Screens, and Free Desktop PC sites. It is understandable. After all, nothing in this world is free, right? Wrong. In this case, many people are getting expensive electronics without spending a dime. We have compiled a bunch of pictures submitted by Gear Live message board members and readers, as they submit their evidence showing that these offers are for real. The fact is that Gear Live has helped over two hundred people earn free iPods, desktop pc's, and flat screen monitors and televisions.
Click below for the images. We will continue to add more as they are received.
Posted by Andru at 12:10 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
September 03, 2004
Game Boy Advance SP Price Drop Confirmed
As it turns out, our previous speculation was correct. Nintendo has officially reduced the price of the Game Boy Advance SP handheld portable to a cool $79.99. If you have not yet picked up one of these, now is the time to do it, as the SP is totally chic and fits in very nicely with other high tech gadgets. Nintendo has set up a new site, Start Mayhem, to push the new price point.
Posted by Andru at 11:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 02, 2004
Acclaim Entertainment Files For Bankruptcy
Acclaim Entertainment, longtime videogame maker, has finally filed banruptcy due to their inablity to find funding. The company has made it known for the last couple of months that they were hurting financially, and the lawsuit from Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen (due to their poor selling games) surely didn't help. The videogame publisher is responsible for franchises such as NBA Jam, All Star Baseball, Turok, Juiced, BMX XXX, and others. Games that have been completed will more than likely find homes with other publishers - however, games like 100 Bullets and The Red Star may have more difficulty since they are unfinished.
Read More | Gamepro
Thanks Doug!
Posted by Andru at 02:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Mobile Phone Sales Set New 2nd Quarter Record
Globally, cell phone sales have hit an all-time record of 156 million for the 2nd quarter alone. I can remember way back, when I resisted the thought of having a cell phone myself. These days, it seems, it's a necessity. Nokia leads the pack in terms of overall market share, increasing slightly to 29.7 percent. Motorola holds on to 15.8 percent of the market, while Samsung Electronics is at 12.1 percent and Sony Ericsson is at 6.6 percent. LG Electronics rounds out the list at 6.0 percent.
Read More | Yahoo! News
Posted by Hector at 09:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Microsoft Launching Online Music Service
Looks like Apple is coming up against stiff music-service competition these days. First there was RealNetworks, and now Microsoft is getting into the act. It sounds like its service will look very similar to the popular iTunes online music service, with one big difference: Music files will be saved to your devices in the WMA format, allowing for a broader distribution to various handhelds. Microsoft stands to gain some increased revenue in the form of increased advertising dollars on its MSN Website. They also hope to spread the appeal of the Windows Media file format.
Read More | Yahoo! News
Posted by Hector at 05:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 01, 2004
Video Game Sales Flat Compared to 2003
Looks like everyone is waiting for the arrival of new consoles. Either that, or gamers are saving their hard-earned dollars for the the explosion of games announced for this Fall. In any case, analysts predict that sales for the entire year are expected to be flat compared to 2003, at $18.2 billion, though that amount was an all-time record.
Read More | Yahoo News
Posted by Hector at 04:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack