New iPod Photo as Digital Camera Backup

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Apple has significantly reduced the price of the iPod Photo and that event combined with an accessory that enables a direct connection between digital cameras and iPod Photos has a Washington Post reviewer explaining why this device has become more attractive to digital camera enthusiasts. Read the review.

Google Maps’ Satellite View: Even Better!

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I forgot to mention (because I missed it originally), that Google Maps also has a satellite view with the same zoom and drag/pan functionalities as the map view. In fact, you can toggle directly between the map view and the satellite view. Awesome! http://maps.google.com

Forget MapQuest: Google Maps Rules!

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If you’re like me, MapQuest is useful, but clumsy. Navigating around those maps, clicking up and down is such a pain. Finally, there’s a better solution. A much better solution. And wouldn’t you know it comes from the “ease of use” folks at Google… another “beta” program. But the zoom and dragging is state-of-the-art, and you can just enter a location name and boom, you have the relevant map with complete zoom in and zoom out all the way down to fine detailed street maps. Oh yes, and driving directions too. More more intuitive and natural using local search. I guess you get the idea that I like it. Try Google Maps for yourself.

Voice over IP Phones Expanding Rapidly

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Very few people realize how huge VoIP (voice over IP a.k.a. the Internet) is becoming. The quality is now totally viable. The costs are significantly less than from the traditional phone companies. All you need is a high speed Internet connection and some moxie. Soon you’ll easily be able to do this wirelessly as well. Personally, I haven’t made the move to VoIP, but when I do I’ll probably use Vonage. Meanwhile, perhaps this AOL announcement will open more eyes as to how significant this technology is becoming.

Podcasting is, like, SO “last week”! Meet PSPCasting

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Could the Sony Playstation Portable (PSP) be the next iPod? Maybe. In any case, it’s already being used for a new kind of video broadcasting that is built on the inspiration of podcasting (see earlier posts in this blog). The facilitating technology is a new PSP-compatible video format called PSP Video 9 and the new phenom is illuminated in this article, Meet PSPCasting (Podcasts? So Last Week) from ClickZ Network.

Steve Jobs Joins Ikea (happy april fools!)

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Stranger things have happened than a guy with no furniture heading up a consumer furniture design and manufacturing company, right? Hey, if he can make the iPod a smashing success, why not dining room sets? Enjoy, and Get the gag at the UK’s The Register

Urchin Gobbled by Google

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Don’t you like the sound of that headline? Anyway, we use the Urchin web stats on our servers all the time. It’s parent, Web Analytics just got bought by Google… I’m not sure if this is good news or not. Any opinions? Here’s the story: http://www.searchengineguide.com/laycock/003904.html And the press release: http://www.urchin.com/company/news/03282005.html

Skype Me! NYTimes & the New Phone Net

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Free phone service over the Net is not new, but the improvements in quality are apparently not only making it more popular, but more intimate as well.

In a piece in tomorrow’s New York Times, Internet free speech evangelist and Grateful Dead lyricist, John Perry Barlow is quoted as saying about the free Skype Internet phone service, “The combination of anonymity and intimacy creates a special kind of environment.”

I was even more amazed to learn that “Skype says that it has over 2.8 million users in the United States and 30.6 million worldwide and that it is adding users at a rate of 155,000 a day. Skype’s biggest competitor, Vonage, a paid VoIP service, has about 550,000 customers.”

Am I delusional or is the Internet hotter than ever? Oh yea, here’s the link to the NY Times article.

Sony Playstation Portable, More that a Game Machine

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I don’t write much about games, but it looks like the soon to be released Sony Playstation Portable is worth noticing beyond it’s gaming capabilities. Among other things, it looks to be a pretty awesome video player too. This is, in part, enabled by a new storage medium called UMD or Universal Media Discs. These baby’s hold 1.8 gigabytes!

And, it won’t be long before we’ll have portable devices holding much more. For example, IBM’s got a postage stamp-sized hard drive due out within two years that is said to hold about 500 times that much. Soon, your cell phone will have way more memory than any of today’s iPods.

Here’s WebProNews.com’s “Sony Gearing Up for PSP Launch” which includes links to other relevant reviews & PSP news.

Flash movie: A Creative View of Our Media Future

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Clearly the medium of Flash movies is evolving in fascinating ways. Here’s an insightful work of visual fiction that is at the same time a provocative commentary on high-tech trends in publishing (including spins on the New York Times, Google and Amazon) while also providing a thought-provoking kind of entertainment… dare I say “edutainment”? All of this creativity is promoted, I presume, purely by viral (word-of-mouth on the Net) marketing (like this). Check out “[Connected] Google and the Media’s Possible Future: 2014” and enjoy!