jkOnTheRun

Speaking without speech

New Scientist is pointing us to a new technology from Ambient that makes speech without talking a reality.  The Audeo is a band worn around the neck that lets the wearer simply think words and they are converted to real words that can be transmitted or spoken aloud mechanically.  The Audeo can open up great possiblities for those who cannot speak, such as ALS sufferers who can use the Audeo to speak with others either in person or even on phones.  The technology has already been proven to allow the control of motorized wheelchairs by thought and it is expected it will soon surpass the current 150 word vocabulary as the technology is improved.  Talk about a great innovation for those who cannot speak.

Computerworld- the two laptop minimum

Bob Russell of MobileRead sent me a link to a story on Computerworld that looked like it could easily have been written by someone we know and hopefully love.  Author Mike Elgan has written a very interesting article about how the small laptops like the EEE PC have changed the way he believes the road warrior should equip themselves for getting the most work done.  He states correctly that there is nothing better than these tiny laptops for getting work done on airplanes and during layovers on business trips.  He goes on to state that these laptops are too small to get the most work done in hotels as you need to get the biggest screen you can carry to be the most productive.  Thus, his "two laptop minimum".  He explains his thought process:

1. Regular laptops have gotten far cheaper. Moore and his law have brought down the costs of miniaturization, LCD real estate and other components.

2. Researchers have established an inescapable correlation between screen size and productivity

3. The Asus Eee PC and its ilk have transformed the market -- and pricing -- for tiny laptops.

For the most part I agree with Mike although in my case it's currently a 3 laptop minimum.  I don't even own a desktop PC like Mike thinks you need at home, no I'm quite happy with my 17" MacBook Pro with a second monitor attached on my desktop.  Throw in the HP 2710p and the Fujitsu P1620 and my 3 laptops are hard to beat.  I would disagree with Mike on needing a bigger laptop for working in hotels on trips however.  I find the P1620 to be a full-function laptop with no compromises for getting things done but that's likely just me.  I'm writing this on it as a matter of fact.  Mike's article is a good read though and shouldn't be missed.  Have a look at it and let us know what you think about Mike's premise.

Gigabyte M528 jkOnTheRun Edition- coolest UMPC out there

The Gigabyte M528 is a pretty cool UMPC that has appeared at CeBIT in a great video by Chippy and jkkmobile.  It's a pretty full-featured UMPC that fits in your hand as you can see in the video.  Valto over at PimpMyUMPC thought that the Gigabyte could be better and has created what in my opinion is the best UMPC I've seen yet, of course I'm biased.  Would you pay for this?

Tactical Bail Out Gear Bag- for serious geeks only

You can't ever tire of hearing about bags to carry your gear around in and the more serious the bag the more serious a geek can be satisfied by the bag.  Reader Scot Phelps gets the "most serious geek" moniker from me after he let me know about the gear bag he is using, one I've never heard of before but I have to admit this is one serious gadget bags.  Designed for police use, the Tactical Bail Out Gear Bag is one of the most capable bags I have seen to be as cheap as it is.  You won't find a bag anywhere with more pockets for stuff than this Tactical bag and at only $30 it's got to carry a ton of stuff when you need it.  Just look at the list of gear that Scot is carrying around in his Tactical Bag:

• My work MacBook + powercord
• HTC Advantage
• Datebook, pens, notecards, glasses, iphone + headset, business cards
• Wall Street Journal
• Smokemask (hey- smoke kills more people on trains than crashes ever do)
• Pure digital videocamera
• Sirius Stiletto radio
• Coffee mug
• Hand wipes
• Pocket knife, flashlight, and utensils
• ...and an apple.

Glad you are carrying an apple around with you Scot.  Thanks for sharing your cool bag!

35 incredible HDR images. Stunning.

This has nothing to do with mobile tech, but these images are too stunning not to share. Earlier this week, Smashing Magazine highlighted 35 HDR images that I can't describe with any words. The HDR or high dynamic range imaging technique uses multiple exposures of an image and combines parts of them to extend the range of what looks to be a single exposure. It produces breathtaking visuals in my opinion and is surely something I'd love to get involved with. Unfortunately, that's going to require a new camera purchase which is out of the question, so for now, l'll just be satisfied with the talent of others. This one to the right is among my favorites in this particular collection.

(via TRFJ)

Update: Wow. Once again, I learn more from the readers than they learn from me. Mel commented that my two-year old Panasonic LUMIX might be capable of taking a burst of pics at a range of exposures and he was right! A quick trial download of a $99 app and 15 minutes later resulted in a lame, but fun, first attempt. Here's the farm out back of my home office.

HTC Advantage refresh available for pre-order; at what price?

The updated HTC Advantage, the x7510, must have an imminent release soon. The new unit was expected to hit geek wallets everywhere this month and pre-orders have started on both sides of the pond. The problem with pre-ordering is that nobody can seem to agree on the price. It's not like it should be price fixed, but based on the variances, you can get a new Advantage and an Eee PC for what some folks are charging.

Pocketables reports that GearTrade is looking at $800 for the x7510 while two other resellers are asking for $1300. With a new UMPC on the way, I'm going to pass on the new Advantage even though it's already appealing in it's current form. If I was serious about purchasing one, I'd probably hold off and see what happens to prices when the device actually becomes available. The $800 price might be a tad low, but it's probably more accurate than $1300. Has anyone taken the plunge on a pre-order?

Intel's Atom: did you know...

... that Intel sees in the Atom in 60 million device units that cost between $100 and $299 by 2011?

... the chip-maker expects another 47 million Atom-powered devices in the $299 to $399 price over the same time period?

.... these sales figures could become a reality because the starting price for the second generation Atom CPU in bulk orders is expected to be only $44. That number will likely continue to drop over time.

.... that 25 Atom-powered notebooks will be available by mid-year, 2008? That's just a few short months away.

... that the target screen size for these notebooks is between 7- and 10-inches?

The Atom might not provide me what I'm looking for under the hood of a portable desktop replacement (or it might, we'll have to wait and see), but there's no doubt in my mind that this push by Intel is no small task at the bottom of a checklist. This is clearly a major initiative in the mobile space. Bigger than I first thought and more than the news out of CeBIT would leave me to believe. Let's check in at the end of 2008 on this and see how Intel did.

UPS teases me about my Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium

That's just SO not right. I know the Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium shipped yesterday and I paid for 2nd Day Air service. That means I should have the device as early as tomorrow, but I thought it also meant I'd be able to track it today. You know, like hit my browser refresh button a few hundred times today just for the chance to see one, maybe two location updates. I may get the device tomorrow, but I think I'm getting ripped off today. It's all part of the experience UPS! Or am I the only one who does this? ;)

Update: Oh UPS. Still no tracking data and now you have the nerve to ring my doorbell... with an unexpected package for Barb?!? Evil. Pure evil.

Lenovo outlet offers X60, X61 tablets at deep discounts

Unlike the last price drop tease *cough* Nokia *cough*, this Lenovo news is the real deal. CrunchGear points out the Lenovo Outlet store which offers notebooks in the R, T, X and Z series. The X Series Tablet PC has it's own little outlet and I see prices that are up to 50% or more off. Yup, as an example, there's some originally priced units upwards of $2,900 that are now selling for under $1,400. If I had to guess, I'd say that's the average price for an X60 or X61 Tablet PC through the outlet although there's currently five units in the $899 to $1,267 range. Sweet deals for a sweet Tablet PC! Probably a "get 'em while you can" thing, so if an X60 or X61 was on your radar, it should be beeping loudly right about now.

Mahalo videos the Modbook Tablet

We haven't heard a lot since the shipping announcement about the Axiotron Modbook and I've been waiting for someone to give us a good video of the Modbook in action.  Mahalo's Veronica Belmont has done just that and the resultant video is a great display of the Modbook and also of how useful the Tablet format is for creative efforts.  She shows how the Modbook is helping artists, cartoonists, photographers, music creators and others to create the stuff they do with the greatest of ease.  Who knows, after seeing this video maybe buddy t lewis will be switching to the Modbook?

Touch screen won't wake up? A fix.

One weird problem I have experienced with the Fujitsu P1620 and a couple of other UMPCs is that occasionally the touch screen would go dead.  It never happened often but when it did the only way to get the touch screen to come back on was a reboot of the system.  I have seen this on both Windows XP and Vista and it happened twice on the P1620 when I started to troubleshoot it in earnest.  What I discovered was a simple fix that might help anyone else who has suffered from the touch screen malady.

One of the differences in hardware on the P1620 over the predecessor the P1610 was the change to a USB-based touch screen controller.  I got to thinking about this change when I had the second failure of the touch screen to wake up and realized that it always happened upon a resume from sleep.  I know that Windows defaults to allow the OS to shut USB components down as part of the power saving features so I checked in the Device Manager to see if that was the case.

Sure enough if you look under HID (Human Interface Devices) and open the FCL USB Pen Tablet component you find that under the Power Management tab the touch screen is set to allow power management to shut this device down.  Now I can't think of a single circumstance when you would ever want the touch screen controller to be shut down so just deselect that option on that tab and you should be home free:

So far my touch screen has not turned itself off and since the fix is so easy it's worth doing even if yours hasn't turned itself off yet.  It might save you some trouble down the road.

Updated: Nokia drops N810 price by $90 then ups it $50

Not sure if Nokia is making way for a WiMax-enabled Internet Tablet or trying to boost demand, but from a budget standpoint, it really doesn't matter. The Nokia N810 is now listed for $389 on the Nokia N-Series site, which saves you $90 over the old price. This is the newest model, a refresh of the N800, which adds a slide-out QWERTY keyboard so you aren't limited to the on-screen virtual entry system. It also has the latest operating system (which can be installed on the older N800) and integrated GPS. You might find better online deals, but it's nice to see that Nokia is offering a good price for this versatile handheld too. When I want a pocketable web-centric device, I grab the software upgraded N800 from my desk and go. With AJAX and Flash 9 support, it's great for the web-based activities I'm often doing. Bear in mind that you'll either need to use the integrated WiFi or bring your own web connection to the N810 as it has no WWAN capabilities by itself. Of course, if you have a phone that uses DUN or Bluetooth PAN, you can use that with the N810.

Update: Robert Nelson over at Gadgetell points out that this might have been a one-day deal or foul up by Nokia. The price now reflects a $439 price tag. Um... Nokia?!?

Add a desk to your treadmill for $19 and burn 600 calories a day

Wow, when I moved my road bike into my home office, I had the best of intentions. Most days however, the only muscles I'm exercising when at home are my friends "gluteus" and "maximus". As in my bum, for those not into Latin (which I took just for fun in college, but that's another story for another day).

So every once in a while my bike makes a handlebar cameo appearance in one of our videos to show off the dust. That's why I was so impressed by Jonathan Fields and his treadmill desk setup. He blogs, writes and remains productive while slowly walking on his treadmill during the day. He says he burns around 600 daily calories with a slow but steady one-mile-an-hour pace, all while writing on his computer. He's used a $19 Target shoe rack along with Apple wireless keyboard and mouse for his desk, making the implementation simple and inexpensive. In his article he has a link to a blog devoted to treadmill desks, so if you want to compute and stay healthy at the same time, this is a great resource. I should also mention that Jonathan had a high paying position but left it in favor of pursuing a self-employment career he fully enjoys. I'm in the midst of the same activities, but it remains to be seen if I'll see the success that Jonathan does. I highly recommend you read his about page for more info; it's definitely inspiring!

(via Steve Rubel's tweet)

It's time to give away a MoGo Mouse- who wants it?

The folks at Newton replaced my defective MoGo Mouse but since I already had bought an HP branded one the replacement is sitting in its brand new box.  We want to give it away to a lucky jkOnTheRun reader so listen up to what you need to do.  Think long and hard about how having a flat wireless mouse will affect your life and tell us in a comment.  Be creative and whimsical and eloquent in your comment and try and move us to sling the MoGo in your direction.  We'll keep the contest open for two days after which we'll close the comment thread and Kevin and I will select the entrant that we feel is the best.  Not one of those "randomly selected" winners, no we will blatantly select the one we feel is the coolest entry that moves us.  The MoGo is a $60 mouse so it's worth a little bit of work so pull out your old creative writing textbook(s) and get cracking.  Get your MoGo on and may the best writer win.  Our decision will be final no matter how much grousing you do or how much you disagree with us.  It's our site after all.  Note this contest is not open to employees of jkOnTheRun nor their families.

Best Idol season yet