Sun

LEXMARK Z1420 WIRELESS COLOUR PRINTER, $100.

Lexmark is hoping to reinvigorate a printer market that has gone flat in recent years with a new lineup that makes wireless more affordable for home and home office users. The cheapest is the $100 single function version, but it is joined in the lineup by the X4550, a wireless all-in-one at $150 that adds copying and scanning to the printing function. Third in the lineup is the X3550 all-in-one with wireless as an extra cost option but at $100 with the wireless option pushing the price up it makes more sense to buy the already-wireless X4550. Expected on store shelves later this month.

BLACKBERRY RED PEARL, FROM $250 WITH A THREE-YEAR PLAN TO $450 WITH A ONE-YEAR PLAN.

BlackBerry turns into cranberry with this colourful version of that ubiquitous business tool. This one is included in the Rogers Wireless lineup. Also comes in pearl white or piano black. If colour coordination isn’t important, consider the pricier but more feature-laden BlackBerry 8800 with built-in GPS and a $500 price tag with a three-year contract. These are available ahead of the BlackBerry Curve, a smaller device with an expected price of $200 US that is getting a jump on Apple’s iPhone by coming out this month.

TOSHIBA HD-A20, 1080 HIGH DEFINITION DVD PLAYER, $600

Yet another new player to add to a daunting array of entertainment devices that are making it more fun to stay home and watch the tube than to shell out big bucks to see a movie in a theatre. This is Toshiba’s second HD DVD player delivering 1080p output, the highest resolution available right now and to sweeten the pot, the company is throwing in three free HD DVD titles with some of its models, including the HD-A20. Coming with a built-in Dolby True HD decoder providing surround sound this is aimed at turning your home into the theatre.

PANASONIC SWEDE-ATSU COMPANION CHAIR, MODEL EP1273, $3,300

So it’s not a gadget you can exactly fit in your pocket but when Panasonic suggested its new massage chair as the answer to what to give mom on Mother’s Day, we couldn’t help but agree. Promising to stimulate acupoints for increased energy flow — and what mom doesn’t need that — this latest nod to in-home pampering comes with eight massage modes, pre-programming option and an ottoman to massage your calves and feet so they don’t feel left out.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

Ten-year ‘macroscope’ scheme will focus on animals, plants and fungi, with microbes to follow

Alister Doyle
Sun

BONN, Germany — From apples to zebras, all 1.8 million known plant and animal species will be listed in an Internet-based Encyclopedia of Life under a $100 million US project, scientists said on Tuesday.

The 10-year scheme, launched with initial grants of $12.5 million from two U.S.-based foundations, could aid everyone from children with biology homework to governments planning how to protect endangered species.

“The Encyclopedia of Life plans to create an entry for every named species,” James Edwards, executive director of the project which is backed by many leading research institutions, told Reuters. “At the moment that’s 1.8 million.”

The free Encyclopedia would focus mainly on animals, plants and fungi with microbes to follow, blending text, photographs, maps and videos in a common format for each. Expansion of the Internet in recent years made the multi-media project possible.

Demonstration pages at http://www.eol.org include entries about polar bears, rice, death cap mushrooms and a “yeti crab” with hairy claws recently found in the South Pacific.

“This is about giving access to information to everyone,” Jesse Ausubel, chairman of the project who works at the Rockefeller University in New York City, told Reuters.

The encyclopedia would draw on existing databases such as for mammals, fishes, birds, amphibians and plants. English would be used at the start with translations to other languages.

Edwards said the project would give an overview of life on Earth via what he termed a “macroscope” — the opposite of a microscope through which scientists usually peer.

Species would be added as they were identified.

Edwards said there might be 8-10 million on earth, adding that estimates ranged from 5-100 million. Fossil species may also be added.

The encyclopedia, to be run by a team of about 25-35 people, could help chart threats to species from pollution, habitat destruction and global warming.

The project would be led by the U.S. Field Museum, Harvard University, Marine Biological Laboratory, Missouri Botanical Garden, Smithsonian Institution, and Biodiversity Heritage Library — a group that includes London’s Natural History Museum, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Royal Botanic Garden in Kew, England.

Initial funding comes from a $10 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and $2.5 million from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Extra funds would be raised in coming years.

Ausubel noted that 2007 was the 300th anniversary of the birth of Sweden’s Carl Linnaeus, influential in working out ways to classify species. “If he were alive today we think he’d be jumping up and down celebrating,” he said.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

ROOMBA SCHEDULER: Device will work to schedule, then return to charging base

Jim Jamieson
Province

What is it? iRobot Roomba Scheduler

Price: $399

Why you need it: You love your tech gadgets and you’d rather be surfing the web than wielding a vacuum hose.

Why you don’t: You actually find vacuuming good exercise and a lot cheaper. Also, your cat hates the darn thing.

Our rating: 3 mice

It’s a vision right out of The Jetsons or any number of other works of science fiction you could mention.

The robot as the servant of humankind, doing all our menial tasks while we spend our time doing more important things.

Just how far you want to take having a machine doing your work for you will determine your interest in iRobot’s Roomba Scheduler.

iRobot, the U.S-based company that specializes in a wide range of robotic devices used by the military and industry, also has a line of domestic models.

This Frisbee-shaped device will vacuum your house while you’re away at work or out having fun.

And the Scheduler, as its name suggests, allows you to set the machine to an automatic cleaning schedule, after which it will return to its charging base.

But be aware the Roomba Scheduler doesn’t vacuum the way a human does. It does so in a pattern and has sensors that make it change directions when it bumps into an obstacle.

It is especially good for picking up hair from shedding pets.

But don’t think you can just set the Roomba loose and have your whole house vacuumed.

It may have issues with changes in terrain, such as going from a hardwood floor to a thick area carpet.

The device comes with two “virtual walls,” which send out signals to keep the Roomba out of certain areas.

It also has built-in sensors to keep it from tumbling down stairs.

Available at Home Outfitters.

© The Vancouver Province 2007

 

Sun

Griffin AirDock with remote, $70 US.

Everybody, or so it would seem judging by the number of products in this category, wants to connect an iPod to a home entertainment system, especially TV sets and sound systems. The difference with the AirDock is that it enables users to pull up photos, music, TV shows and movies via a remote control. The package includes the audio cable. As well, the dock lets users link their iPods to a computer for both data synchronization and battery charging.

Hello Kitty USB Keyboard, $40 plus shipping.

There is something so startlingly and compellingly awful about even the concept of a Hello Kitty Keyboard in eye-bruising pink that we just had to include it among the items featured this week — even though it only appears to be available through eBay UK at this moment. The seller is located in Taiwan, according to the eBay site. But you don’t really need to know this because there is absolutely no way you’re even going to think about ordering it. Right?

SmartShopper, $150 US.

Almost the first thing that people thought as a useful task for home computing was the compilation of a shopping list. And yet the fact is that the closest most of us ever got to this was listing grocery items in a Word document, printing them out and circling them. Well, those days are over. Now you can speak items into the SmartShopper — which has a library of 2,500 items with room for even more — and then have them printed out on a list which you can take to the store. Not that anybody really needs this, but that’s not the point.

Wireless Outdoor Solar Speaker, approx $230.

Again, we have to caution you that this item appears to be available only in the U.K. (www.firebox.com), but it’s a worthy concept that should soon make its way here. You plug your iPod into the base station and its solar panel that generates electricity. Then the panel unit transmits your music to the main speaker device that looks like a giant thermos. Oh joy. You can share your music with everyone around you. And the rest of us will be so pleased.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

You can hear me now

Kent L Colby
Other

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OLYMPUS SP-550 UZ: Point-and-shoot with many features of an SLR camera

Jim Jamieson
Province

What is it? Olympus SP-550 UZ digital camera

Price: $599.99

Why you need it: You want to increase your capabilities as a photographer but you still want to have the ease of a point-and-shoot.

Why you don’t: You want your digicam to be small enough to slip into your shirt pocket.

Our rating: 3 mice

Anyone who’s taken a point-and-shoot to get an action shot of his or her kid’s soccer game knows that can be a hit-and-miss proposition. In fact, it’s usually more miss than hit.

For those of us who aren’t quite ready to take the leap into the interchangeable- lens world of SLR cameras, Olympus has just released a new ubercamera that offers many of the features you would expect from a more complex package.

The 7.1-megapixel SP-550 has some features that jump right out at you, the most gaudy being its 18x optical-zoom lens. This basically allows the user to shoot telephoto, wide-angle and macro shots, all with one lens. The range, in 35-mm language, is from 28 to 504 mm — the largest among consumer-level digital cameras.

The second part of the package that jumps out at you is the shutter speed — two high-speed shooting modes and a burst rate of 15 frames per second.

The specs are impressive, but reviewers have quibbled with image-quality issues at the highest speeds — no surprise, considering it still requires an SLR to capture a professional-quality action shot.

Still, the SP-550 is an impressive package. Part of the high-speed feature is something called Pre-Capture, which enables the user to capture the action before fully pressing the shutter button. As well, it offers 30 shooting modes and high-quality audio and video.

Power usage is good, with an estimated 500 shots on four rechargeable AA nickel-metal-hydride batteries.

Available at London Drugs, Future Shop, Lens & Shutter and Kerrisdale Cameras.

© The Vancouver Province 2007

 

Peter Wilson
Sun

Digital images, music files and downloaded videos not only hog space on hard drives, but they’re also valuable assets either in dollars or as memories.

And a sudden crash can wipe everything out, including your most precious photos.

As well, with the addition of high-definition television to our lives, a lot of us want to get that content from our computers to our living room.

Tech giant HP believes it has the answer with its latest lineup of devices — including its Media Vault and MediaSmart TV — and it came to Vancouver this week to show them off.

Basically, the Media Vault is a network-connected device — with either a 300 or 500 gigabyte hard drive ($1,300 and $1,500 respectively) — that connects to a home network.

“It allows you to back up all of your content from all of the different PCs and notebooks in your house,” Jeff Cates, consumer business manager for HP Canada’s personal systems group said in an interview.

Then, added Cates, all that content can be streamed out to other devices like your high-definition television set via a directly connected Ethernet cable or wirelessly.

If you need more capacity for the Media Vault or simply want to duplicate what’s on the main drive, you can simply add another one in the slot provided.

“And there are USB ports on the back as well as the front so you can add extra drives,” said Cates. “And there are three print servers built in so you can print from all of your computers to a single printer.”

While the Media Vault can be used with Macs as well as Windows machines, Cates pointed out that Microsoft’s upcoming media server platform will allow users to access content from Media Vault while they’re on the road. Or they can let friends and relatives get access to photos and music.

HPs first MediaSmart TV also connects to a user’s home network.

“HP has been the first to come out with [Internet protocol]-based TV,” said Cates. “What that means is that you can connect it to your home network, your notebook, your desktop and pull all the content out. So you can see your pictures, your videos and hear your music through it.”

Although the present 37-inch model ($1,800) offers a 720p picture (the highest broadcast quality), other HP MediaSmart TVs will feature a 1080p picture, or one good enough to handle HD DVD content.

“As well as having access to what’s on your PC, the Media-Smart TV also allows you to go out to the Internet and pull content,” said Cates. “It’s similar to Apple iTV but it’s not going back to a proprietary solution.

“You’re able to go to partners like Cinema Now and Rhapsody and pull content from their sites. With Cinema Now you could buy or rent a movie and download to your PC but stream to the Media-Smart and it will all operate through a remote.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

Sun

Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Standard and Premium $1,500 and $2,250 respectively; and Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Standard and Web Premium, $1,250 and $2,000 respectively.

Okay, these aren’t gadgets they’re software packages, but, by gosh when Adobe comes out with its latest in digital editing suites (one created for print design and the other for those who provide content for the Web, mobile devices and so on) techies listen. And that’s especially true since this is an amalgamation of the best from both Adobe and Macromedia. For details it’s best to head to www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/ where you can get a gander at what’s on offer. Upgrade pricing is also available.

Olympus Stylus 770 SW, $450.

Here’s a camera designed to work even if you fall 10 meters into water or end up there on purpose. The Stylus 770 SW is a 7.1 megapixel ultra compact designed for a rugged lifestyle. It’s waterproof (to a depth of 10 metres), shockproof (for a fall of up to 1.5 metres), freezeproof (to –10 celsius) and crushproof (up to 99 kilograms of pressure.) Oh, and it comes with a built-in manometer, which measures water and air pressure.

Panasonic Canada Strada CN-NV905U Double Din navigation receiver, $2,000.

Not only can the Strada CN-NV905U help you find your way to your destination in Canada, the United States and Puerto Rico with a seven-inch LCD touch screen with a nifty graphic interface and a voice guidance system, but car occupants can also either listen to satellite radio or (please, not the driver) hook up their video iPod for some video entertainment or just to listen to songs. As well, it comes with a built-in DVD slot for videos and audio and a built-in 30 gigabyte hard drive. Updates to the software can be added via DVD.

Solutions Memo Pen, $30 US.

You know how it is, you’ve got a pen, but you need a piece of paper to write something on and you don’t want to do it on the inside of a candy wrapper or on the corner of your lottery ticket. The memo pen (at www.solutions.com) comes with a scroll of more than two feet of paper and two replacement paper cartridges. And best of all, it says on the website that instructions are included.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 

USA Today

SanDisk’s new Sansa Connect music player — with built-in Wi-Fi ability — is the sweetest challenger to the iPod I’ve seen. The Connect is the only portable I’d at least consider buying over one of Apple’s iconic devices.

Truth is you’d need a crowbar to loosen Apple’s grip on the digital music market. And SanDisk — better known for supplying memory cards than MP3 players — may have one.

SanDisk’s 4-gigabyte flash-based device isn’t perfect. But I wish its Wi-Fi networking and other appealing features were included on iPods.

There are other music players with Wi-Fi out there. On balance, Connect looks better and is easier to use.

 

To enjoy the full benefits, you need access to an open Wi-Fi hot spot, plus a subscription to Yahoo Music Unlimited To Go ($15 a month or $144 a year). Unfortunately, Connect doesn’t currently work with T-Mobile or other prominent subscription-based hot spot providers.

With Yahoo To Go, you get customized Internet radio stations, photos through Flickr, plus the ability to download subscription songs to the gadget without a computer. Through Yahoo Messenger, you can also swap recommendations with friends or see what other Connect users on the same Wi-Fi network are listening to.

Out of Wi-Fi range, you can operate it like any MP3 player, though its functions are limited.

The Connect includes an expansion slot for tiny MicroSD cards to bolster the number of stored songs or photos. An optional 4-GB card costs $100. It can hold about 1,000 songs without a card. (It works with MP3 and WMA formats.)

The nifty $250 newcomer went on sale online and at Circuit City this month. Here’s a closer look:

Subscription music.

I’m a fan of these rent-a-tune services that let you listen to a boatload of music for a fraction of the cost of buying individual 99-cent downloads.

It’s pretty simple to download subscription tracks wirelessly from Yahoo to the Connect, with a huge assist from a mobile entertainment technology start-up called Zing. Yahoo offers more than 2 million songs.

There are a few ways to add music to the player. The “Get More Music” icon lets you access My Yahoo playlists or Yahoo’s lists of top songs by genre. By pressing a Zing button, you can request songs, albums, playlists and music mixes, plus access recommendations by friends. But you won’t know if selections arrive until checking your music library.

You can similarly use Zing to get songs as you listen to Yahoo’s Launchcast Internet radio, provided they are available. If you don’t like a song streaming from Launchcast, you can fast-forward to another.

Sansa’s chief drawback — it’s a biggie — is the inability to search for specific songs or artists. To find The Sweet Escape by Gwen Stefani, I had to scroll through a list of Yahoo’s top songs and hope it was there. It was.

As with any Microsoft-based PlaysForSure device, you can also connect Sansa to a PC via USB and transfer songs from Rhapsody, Windows Media Player and other PC jukeboxes. You’ll need Yahoo for the wireless goodies.

Indeed, though you can listen to music in your library when you are out of Wi-Fi range, you must remain a Yahoo subscriber to keep listening to downloaded tracks over time. The good news is your subscription “license” is updated each time you connect wirelessly. And the device will periodically wake itself out of sleep mode to pull in new licenses, provided you are in range.

Design.

Though not as stylish as most iPods or as small as a Nano, the shiny black Sansa is light and attractive, even with a stump on the top left that sticks up like a chimney. The device feels comfortable in your palm.

Sansa looks cooler when you turn it on. The clickable thumb-wheel lights up in purple; I was impressed by the vibrant 2.2-inch screen. Flickr’s daily “most interesting” photos look terrific. Album art thumbnails are too small.

The simple user interface looks nice, too. You control what’s on the display via the thumb-wheel. Pressing “home” brings up an onscreen semicircular menu with various icons (music library, Internet radio, settings, etc.). Rotate the wheel until the icon you want leaps out front and center, a little like the dock icons on a Macintosh computer with OS X.

Quibbles: I kept trying to turn the wheel, iPod style, to alter volume, which seemed more natural than the side buttons for that purpose. And the system seemed slow to respond at times when I pressed buttons.

Battery.

Sansa gets juiced up whenever connected via USB to a PC. You can also plug in an AC charger. But the battery life doesn’t seem great. For the record, SanDisk says you’ll get about 6 hours with Wi-Fi turned on, double when off.

Notwithstanding a few shortcomings, Sansa Connect is a worthy device. If only Apple would take the hint and add Wi-Fi and subscription music to the iPod.