David Pogue thinks the Pleo dinosaur is meh. He’s seen it all before with Aibo, and despite all the “it’s so lifelike!” ad and editorial copy devoted to it, the charm wears off pretty much the same day you buy it: “My surprise, though, was my kids’ reaction. They thought it was really, really cool—for the first half-hour.” He’s proposed a new website idea where you’d sign up for the latest Hot New Thing coming out of CES, Toy Fair, Macworld, etc., then pay an ever-shrinking percentage of the original sales price to own it when your turn came in line.
gadgets
In MP3 Showdown, Winners Are iPod Touch And Sansa View
By 1.24.08
Okay, so it’s not like there aren’t 15,000 MP3-player reviews already on the web, but SmartMoney decided to jump on the bandwagon and rate five 8-gigabyte MP3 players. Instead of hard stats and lab tests, they handed the devices to an NYU music instructor and audiophile and asked him to walk around the city playing with them. The Apple iPod Touch—at $300, the most expensive of the lot—came out on top, which probably doesn’t surprise anyone, but the SanDisk Sansa View performed well too.
New Service Lets You Resell Your Old Gadgets At A Fixed Price—For A Fee
By 1.18.08
TechForward, a new company in Los Angeles, provides fixed buyback prices on used electronics like cell phones and iPods. The catch is you pay up front—it’s an added fee when you first buy the device—for the right to resell your gadget to them a year or two down the line, and the amounts they’re offering are usually dramatically lower than what you can get if you sell it yourself on Ebay.
Are The New Apple Products Worth Buying?
By 1.16.08
The dirty-sounding finance blog “Make Your Nut” works through the pros and cons of the latest Apple products, so that you can “make sure you enter into your purchases with eyes wide open.”
Gadgets Are Great… If Your Customers Can Figure Them Out
By 1.8.08
With all the geektastic frenzy of CES going on, one man, Bob Sullivan from the Red Tape Chronicles asks: “But will these things work?”
In a quiet, nearly empty conference room on the other side of the city from the 140,000 enthusiasts cramming the Las Vegas Convention Center, a roomful of wet blankets was discussing a dirty little secret of the high-tech industry, a small sacrilege during this annual celebration of all things geek.
Build An "Upgradeable" Home
By 12.27.07
Wired has a short article subtitled, “How our technolust helped bring down the housing market.” The article is more sensible than the headline, however—it really focuses on new developments in the housing market, and how expensive it is to retrofit even newly built homes with new (or future) technology: “‘[Remodeling] can be done, but you really need to want it,’ says Kermit Baker, a Harvard economist who studies the remodeling market.” What’s needed, the author argues, is an approach to new home construction that treats homes as dynamic spaces that can be more easily reconfigured to meet the requirements of new owners. Not that anyone is building a home right now, but it’s an interesting thing to keep in mind when you’re ready to leave your shantytown and re-settle in the suburbs.
Save Money By Buying Last Year's Gadgets
By 12.14.07
The evolutionary cycle of gadgetry is fast enough now that you can score some great deals on last year’s products, which are perfectly fine for all but the most technologically literate (or obsessed) people in your life. A perfect example: the first generation Zune, which can be found for as low as $80, has a bigger screen than a non-Touch iPod, and a 30 gigabyte capacity. Yes, it’s also got lots of drawbacks. But that’s why it’s $80, and for the average consumer who just wants a decent mp3 and movie player, it does the job nicely.
Cutting Back On Features When Gadget Shopping
By 12.12.07
The next time you go shopping for a camera, cell phone, video recorder, or other gadget, you can save money by deciding what features you really need, and moving down the model line instead of up to the most feature-packed gizmo, writes SmartMoney. For example, “Only 31% of cellphone owners actually use their phone to take pictures, while only 15% browse the Internet, and less than 10% listen to music, download games or watch videos.”
CompUSA Will Close All Stores After Holidays
By 12.8.07
Last Tuesday, based on industry-insider information provided “on background,” we told you that this could be coming, and here it is: CompUSA announced Friday it will close all its stores after the Christmas shopping season. So to all you doubters, we offer a rousing, “nyah, nyah.” Rumor of the impending shutdown was also given to The Boy Genius Report via a leaked internal Best Buy memo.
When Should You Buy A Warranty?
By 12.7.07
SmartMoney has added its opinion to the argument of what warrants extended coverage and what doesn’t. Here’s their list of when and why you would want to buy that extended warranty—adjust their advice accordingly based on your own tolerance for risk and your history with dropping and spilling things.
Gift Guide For People Who Love Data
By 12.6.07
If you’re a data and/or gadget junkie, or you know someone who is (and they’ve already got enough Ambient Devices), infosthetics has put together a guide to 20 info-centric gift ideas—like this $29 poster that maps the “genealogy of pop/rock.”
Cellphones Could Replace Boarding Passes
By 12.5.07
You might be able to board flights using just your cellphone, if a three-month test program by Continental Airlines at Houston International Airport is successful. Under the proposed system, a special code, in a mass of black and white boxes, gets sent to your cellphone or PDA. At the gate, the airline scans it with a barcode reader. You must still show photo ID. Air Canada has been using it since September and says the number of people using it has doubled every week since inception. Imagine that, a new security procedure that is both more secure, and more convenient. Just hope your batteries don’t run out.
Find Out How It Sucks
By 11.27.07
HowItSucks.com is an interesting project that scrapes just the negative consumer electronic productive reviews from Amazon.com. Search by type or brand, and a red bar shows you how much it “sucks,” based on the negative feedback. Pass the mouse over the item and the popup lists the essential statement from three of the reviews. Could be an interesting tool for comparison shopping. Negative reviews are a good starting point if you’re trying to choose between similar products. You always need to be a critical reader, though. I bought an iPod sports band once and on the Apple site were all these people complaining about how it was too big and was falling off their arm. I then thought about how a number of Apple users are very picky and have twig-like bodies, whereas I have chunky biceps. I bought the sport-band and it fit perfectly.
By 11.23.07
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The “Give One, Get One” laptop sale from One Laptop Per Child has been extended through the end of December. OLPC says it’s pulling in about $2 million per day in “donations.” [Gizmodo]
Don't Buy Warranties For Your Gizmos, Says Consumer Reports
By 11.21.07
The executive editor of Consumer Reports spoke to Newsday about warranties and service plans for consumer electronics, and how it’s pretty much always an unnecessary add-on that you should avoid. The stories that make it to the Consumerist are usually the exception; in reality, it’s rare that consumer devices break before you replace them anyhow.
The Best And Worst Tech Gadgets Of The Year
By 11.21.07
It begins—the year end “best of” lists! If you’re gearing up for the gift buying frenzy that will begin on Friday, here’s a quick slideshow of some of the most inspiring and least impressive electronics in the marketplace right now.
Where To Get Help When Your Gadget Breaks Down
By 11.9.07
When your iPod, Zune, CueCat, HP printer, DVD player, or game console goes on the fritz, you no longer have to put it in that closet where you store all the stuff that doesn’t work but that you don’t think you should throw away. There’s now a whole world of self-help forums and repair advice websites online where you can trade tips with other owners of consumer electronics—weird things companies would never tell you, like using a piece of folded paper as a shim to get a failed hard drive working again in your iPod.
