So you don't think you need an iPad?

Here's a reason for you...


Shame it was an April Fools day joke over at ThinkGeek.

I think there may be potential here...

Goggles to the World

If you grew up in the 1970's these should be a familiar icon:



As a kid, I know I spent many a day exploring the world in 3-D thanks to a View-Master disc of some far flung place.

Sadly those days are disappearing in the era of portable digital entertainment. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Just another sign of the times.

If my memory of her has an expiration date, let it be 10,000 years...

I'm a relative latecomer to the HD revolution, but baby, let me tell you: Now I'm a believer.

All it took was the right gear together.

Once in place, there is nothing quite like rediscovering a classic movie you love explode on the screen in technicolor.

That's what Wong Kar-Wai's classic, Chungking Express did for me tonight. It's like falling love with an old friend, all over again. Criterion did an sublime job transferring a movie long neglected -- you should see the grainy junk Asian copy I had!

Wong's meandering camera and Christopher Doyle's stunning cinematography are a perfect match for high definition. The movie isn't meant to be sharp, clear and booming at all times, like some of the other more notable HD movies out there.

What the experience does for this film is allow the colors to pop, the soundscape of chaotic Hong Kong to shine and the subtle, wonderful performances of the actors to shine through.

It was a reminder of what I love about cinema. I look forward to rediscovering my old favorites anew as they start appearing in HD as well.

May they all be so lovingly presented as Chungking Express tonight.

Pick Up Where You Left Off

Who would have thought a little key fob could be the future of radio interactivity.

It's the brainchild of an avid NPR junkie faced with that dilemma all of us public radio lovers run into from time to time: What do you do when you get somewhere, but you're halfway into a story you want to finish hearing.

Up until now, that meant staying in the car a bit longer.

Enter the Radio Bookmark. It looks like the bastard child of a car key remote and a USB jump drive. But what it does may bring radio into the interactive age.

Now when you get home and have to shut off All Things Considered mid-sentence, you can press a button, plug the fob into your computer later, and keep hearing the story on your computer.

The best part of it is that it's being offered exclusively through public radio stations themselves, in lieu of other cheesy thank you gifts. Especially in tough times like these, I can see some real value in a station offering something genuinly useful as a membership incentive.

As much as I love my growing ugly Colorado Public Radio mug collection, I'm glad to see they're actually on board with this new gizmo.

This may be a reason to renew my membership this year, despite the unfortunate death of The Bryant Park Project...

Lighting Up Your Tunes

Simply brilliant.


Picture being able to get sound from anywhere you have an empty light socket. Suddenly the integrated home sound system industry cringes in fear of obsolescence. Your home is instantly wired for music, everywhere.

Just like other great light bulb ideas, we're not quite there yet.

It's a sign of the times though: The wireless media revolution continues.

The Man Who Can't Be Moved

Now that iTunes has finally caught up with all our recent computer and hard-drive switches, we are facing the dreaded limits of DRM protection on some of our music.

I know that there are solutions to all of this, and that you can go through the whole rigamarole of deauthorizing computers or burning encrypted tunes so you can then reload them, but frankly, I can't be bothered.

Listening to my music -- that we paid for -- shouldn't be so complicated.

So the iTunes Store is now officially banned in our house until they unchain my music.

For the most part, this is easy. We're still old school and buy most things on CD. At least that way you know you own your music, and it provides a handy backup copy, just in case.

That said, there's something to be said for DRM-free, click-and-download convenience.

So tonight, on a lark, wanting to hear some stuff by the The Script, a new Irish band that I missed as a free iTunes single last week, I decided to test drive AmazonMP3 for some instant gratification.

The result?

Suprisingly simple, and, more-importantly, easily transferable.

Amazon has set up a program that downloads seamlessly into iTunes, making the process hassle-free. Copying the files over to our other computer worked perfectly.

I know this is exactly what the music labels want to hear. That the marketplace is shifting to Amazon, providing competition to Apple's dominance in online music.

Unfortunately this all just continues to leave a bad taste in my mouth.

The bottom line is that I want to buy my music on iTunes. I like my iPod and iPhone just fine, and like the convenience of having a one-stop hub for it all.

I know it's all a silly old pissing war between the dominant online music store and the still-petrified old-school labels, but come on guys, why aggravate a customer who still doesn't mind paying for the songs?

Oh yeah, The Script album is actually really good. Here's a taste of them live, singing The Man Who Can't Be Moved:

Farewell to Analog TV

On February 17, 2009 TV goes digital across the United States.

Are you prepared?

This transition may trickier for some. Luckily, help is on the way...

Sky Ride

I think I found my dream car:


Now all I need is $194,000 and some flight school.

Nevermind that it hasn't actually gotten off the road yet, I think I would look pretty swell in that driver's seat.

The Evolution of Hippy Solar Cells

I have a love-hate relationship with solar panels.

I love what they do (in theory). I hate what they look like (in actuality).

With oil prices falling along with the global economy, time will tell if renewable energy still draws the attention of our next president. That said, the solar energy industry is finally releasing itself from the shackles of outdated designs.

The biggest problem with old-school solar panels has always been the need to aim them precisely in order to get any of the sun's power into them. Hence their often haphazard placement of them with little-to-no aesthetic thought put into it.

Say goodbye to panels, and hello to adaptable and, FINALLY, more design-oriented thin-panel solutions.


While these solar coils are meant for commercial building roofs, it's easy to see how this design could be incorporated into modern building exoskeletons and even into residential buildings.

It's a step in the right direction. If mass-produced, they have the potential to be less of an eyesore, cheaper and easier to install. Assuming energy prices rise over the longer term, the economic arguments may finally develop to give building owners realistic incentives for retrofit old buildings.

The devil as always is in the details, so don't expect to see stuff like this on the massive scale we need anytime soon.

It does give hope that the technology is finally catching up with the times. It makes sense to integrate innovative solar solutions into the things we build, without having to completely sacrifice design.

Reinventing the Lightbulb

Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs have gotten a lot of hype lately as the biggest evolution of lighting in your home. The problem is, they are a lousy replacement for that old box of bulbs you have in your garage. The light is awful, they flicker and they stubbornly will not work with dimmers. Then they are toxic when you need to get rid of one.

It begs for a better solution, and luckily I'm not the only one who thinks so. Enter Frog Design with their new LED concept lightbulb:



You've been seeing LED lighting pop up for a while in novelties and as mood lighting in trendy places (think colored backlighting). They use significantly less energy than conventional lightbulbs, and have a much longer lifetime. The problem has been getting the LED technology to emit enough light to match current lightbulbs.

The Frog concept assumes there are powerful enough LED emitters out there, and then figures out a way to make them compatible with any old lamp you have lying around the house.

It is a clean innovative solution that has the potential to finally wean us off wasteful incandescent bulbs. Imagine not having to change a lightbulb for thirty years!

Lets see if this concept actually makes it to your local supermarket aisle. I would bet that if not this design, someone out there is working hard to bring LED technology into our homes.

It makes sense.

Pocket Rocket

If you've hung around me, you know how addicted I already was to my good ol' iPhone. When bored, instant Internet access is a dangerous thing to have in your pocket.

Now with the new application store, you'll be lucky to ever see me without the phone in my hands. It's almost as if Apple had given me a shiny new toy last week.

Now, not only can I surf and check my e-mail way more than anyone really should, I can kill brain cells with games and applications galore.

Changing my status on Facebook is way too easy now. Bored? Instant Sudoku.

Imagine my surprise today to stumble upon an iPhone version of De Blob, an upcoming Wii game that I have been looking forward to for a while.

Oh this iPhone is a dangerous, dangerous rocket to have in your pocket.

3G would be a very dangerous upgrade to have now too.

I can hold off the temptation for now.

The question is: For how long...

The Illusion of Propaganda in the Digital World

With Iran showing off it's missle prowess this week, what's wrong with the front page of all these major newspapers?


One of those four launches never happened. The image was digitally altered from this photo:



With photos getting beamed around the world, in this case by Agence France-Presse, and published in newspapers and websites alike instantaneously, how do you know something is real?

This isn't a new problem. Think back to the O.J. Simpson trial when Time Magazine controversially altered a photo of the former football star for it's cover.

The challenge for media in the digital age is how to catch these things, and more importantly, how to acknowledge when they've been duped.

Iran clearly wanted to show four launches.

The real story is that their missile tests didn't quite go according to plan.

Guzzling Your Gas More Efficiently

From NPR's All Things Considered today:

Here's a quiz. Which saves more gas: trading in a 16-mile-a-gallon gas guzzler for a slightly more efficient car that gets 20 mpg? Or going from a gas-sipping sedan of 34-mpg to a hybrid that gets 50 mpg?

Check out the answer HERE.

You may be surprised.

Beyond changing the way I will look at buying my next car, it raises interesting questions about the metrics used by the government and the car industry in general.

When is the last time your car actually met the miles per gallon benchmarks they sell you on?

I know mine never have.

If you can get it, live the hydrogen dream

Forget hybrids.

They're old school now.

Honda has a hip new hydrogen fuel cell ride rolling out this year. Zero emissions, baby!


There are a few notable catches:

Yes, the FCX Clarity is all that and a bag of super-efficient chips, but with only 200 expected on the road in the next three years, good luck getting one.

Once you do, I dare you to find a hydrogen fill-up at the gas station around the corner...

Leopard smokes the Vista

My office smelled of smoke this morning, and I knew it wasn't a good sign. A quick check of the air conditioning ducts and I was able to rule out something being on fire, since it was just my office.

Then I noticed it.

My desktop computer, dead to the world. Something fried and went to electronic heaven.

Now, in every crisis lays opportunity, and in this case, that meant buying a new computer, which is always fun. But therein layed a moral quandry of loyalties. A few months ago I switched back to the Mac side of the world at home, could I do it at work too?

Sadly, no. I did look longinly at the iMacs, but there are still some pretty compelling reasons to stick to the Microsoft side of the universe for work.

So, off I lumbered back to my office with a new HP desktop ready to set it up. Keep in mind that I recently had to set up a new Macbook Pro laptop recently, which was a breeze to do.

Microsoft's Vista fails where Apple's Leopard soars: It's a godawful mess of an operating system. You can almost see where engineers sat together in dimly lit rooms saying, "Ooooooh lets make things translucent so people think they look pretty, and let's see how we can clutter the screen with widgets and why don't we hide the shutdown buttons so that anyone already used to our crap systems can figure out how to restart the damn machine when it crashes two minutes into setup."

Yes, it crashed two minutes into setup. To the point I had to shut it down on the box -- even after realizing what the inconspicuous round little power button on the ugly new START menu was for -- because the programs were unresponsive, even after a CTRL-ALT-DEL or two.

I only played around with Vista for a little bit today, and I'm sure I'll get used to it. I'm just amazed how Microsoft took a clean, relatively workable XP and came up with this mess. I may still need my Windows, but my heart is clearly back where it belongs: My Macbook is a worthy successor to my old black-and-white Mac 128k that I loved.

As far as the HP, it will do. I just don't have any grand hopes for it.

Lasers for Stoplights

Next time you think of running a red light, an industrious designer has a solution to help stop you in your tracks.


The proposed Virtual Wall would beam a plasma laser image across intersections, to more effectively warn oncoming drivers.

Even that idiot that cut me off this morning while fumbling for his cellphone and reading the newspaper would probably notice he was running through some angry red pedestrians.

Prohibitively expensive to imagine installing on every intersection, I have a feeling the old green-yellow-red pods aren't going anywhere, ayytime soon.

So I'm a little bit ashamed to admit this, but...

...I actually wore one of the watches listed on oobject's latest list.

Repeatedly.

It's not this classic:


Give it your best guess HERE.

My lips are sealed.

The Thing About Making it Easy...

More anecdotal evidence that the music companies face an uphill climb to replace iTunes...

Gee, who would have thought that integration and ease of use might matter more to the masses than just DRM.

Two Tribes Go To War

I've always been a sucker for the second disc in those "Special Edition" DVD collections that show you how they pulled off the special effect shots. Clearly, I am a child of the Star Wars era.

For a long time the mesh between clever editing, models and matte shots made the unbelievable, believable. Then computer effects came in, and made Terminators and Bullet Time seem so simple.

That is part of what makes this video done by the BBC all the more impressive. Taking a page from Saving Private Ryan, a team of three managed to do in one weekend, what Steven Spielberg needed a cast of thousands and the best technical wizards in Hollywood to do.



The power to awe is now in the hands of anyone with a video camera, some ingenuity and a vision.

This opens up worlds of possibilities for the global audience.

Glasslight

A clever idea from a young Australian industrial designer could change the way we look at windows in our homes, while providing an eco-friendly energy solution. According to Core77 Damien Savio has figured out a way to merge a window with solar lighting.

No word on how well you can see through the Lightway during the day, but six hours of 60w strength ambient lighting is night is pretty amazing. You can even take one of the panes and play sci-fi explorer using it as a uber-modern flashlight.

Of course, the window itself is just a concept and Savio is working on the patents and stuff (silly lawyer things). But the idea alone merits interest, even if I will probably complain about the light quality.

So far, my experience with eco-friendly lightbulbs has been anything but bright:

Our annoyingly dim compact fluorescents have been properly banished to the garage.