Nokia 770

This might be the way I’ll listen to Internet radio and consume Google news with my Cheerios. The Nokia 770, which will go on sale this fall for about $350, is a miniature tablet intended primarily for surfing the Web over a Wi-Fi connection. It’s designed for the casual Web browser, at home or at the nearest cybercafe. The tablet, which uses a 4.1-inch touch screen, can play videos and download music, photos and syndicated news from the Web. The rechargeable battery is good for up to three hours of browsing.

I can imagine myself turning this rascal on instead of booting up the Thinkpad.

Not podcasting.

Mark Ramsey (Radio Marketing Nexus) explains the difference between posting mp3’s for download and podcasting:

“…podcasting represents the passive movement of audio to your iPod without having to download it yourself. If you think that’s not different then consider the difference between going out to a restaurant and having your meal delivered to you at home.”

Another one of those things you have to experience to understand.

Archos PMA430

“The new Archos PMA430 is a 30GB multimedia player (music, photos, videos), an audio and video recorder, a PDA, a wireless Web browser, and a game machine. In fact, it’s everything but a cell phone and camera. At $750 street, the PMA430 costs as much as a notebook computer. But it does just about everything you’d want a multimedia computer to do, and you can slip it into a jacket pocket.”

–PC Magazine review

Treo 650

I paid about $500 for Barb’s Treo 600 a couple of years ago when they first came out. The Treo 650 is now the smartest of the “smart phones” and the 600 has dropped to about $300. Whatever value you choose to assign, it’s still the most expensive thing eaten by one of our pups.

iPod

I find it interesting when words or objects of popular culture make their way into novels (I believe I posted on this the first time I saw Sheryl Crow’s name in a novel). I spotted a reference to iPods in Robert B. Parker’s Bad Business [pg 197], which was published in March of 2004.

“Vinnie put the shells on the coffee table and leaned the shotgun against the couch at the near end. Then he took an iPod and some earphones out and put them on the coffee table.”

Nokia’s 6620

Nokia’s snazzy new 6620 gives Internet radio its due. It boasts plenty of impressive video features, including a still camera that produces surprisingly good photos. But it’s the radio, available on a service through AT&T Wireless — now part of Cingular — that sets it apart. Why is the radio so important? Because it’s live. Viable live TV on handsets is at least a couple of years away. Radio works right now.

SanDisk Digital Music Player

I gave some serious thought to purchasing an iPod or similar digital audio device. But the buggers cost $300-400 and I didn’t want to pay that much. And I don’t have 10,000 mp3 files, anyway. But I have started downloading and listening to interviews from IT Conversations.

Listening to these on my laptop was somewhat limiting so I sprung for a SanDisk Digital Music Player. This little gem has 512 meg of (flash) storage and will play for 15 hours on a single AAA battery. It was on sale at Best Buy for about $120 and I can take it back if I don’t like it.

So when would you use a device like this? Today I went to see National Treasure and got there about 15 minutes before the movie began. Popped in my ear-buds and listened to the first part of a talk by Richard Florida (The Rise of the Creative Class).

It got me thinking again about this whole podcasting thing. The stuff I’m interested in will never be broadcast on a traditional radio station. Or, if it is, I’m unlikely to know about it or pick up that station. But the IT Conversations website has hundreds of hours of content that I’m very interested in. And I can go and get it whenever I want. And listen to it whenever and where ever I want.

Radio programmers have always been about trying to find the right combination of music, news, talk, whatever… that would appeal to the greatest number of people within their coverage area. Lowest common denominator. That doesn’t work for me anymore. I want to listen to what I’m interested in. When I want to listen to it. Where ever I might be. The web makes this possible.

Microsoft’s new search engine

I took Microsoft’s new search engine for a spin tonight and can’t say I was impressed. Looked a lot like Google but it’s hard to knock them for that. And it probably does some things that Google doesn’t but I didn’t take the time to try find out what they might be. I did an image search for “Steve Mays” and came up with two photos that truly capture the real me. But I’m a Google Boy to the very end.