This'll Work

Garmin GPS Fire Hazard Recall

2010-08-26T15:24:43Z

GPS maker Garmin has announced a voluntary recall of 1.25 million of their popular units because of a potential battery fire. A little over half of those were sold in the United States. All registered owners will get a letter from Garmin about the recall and how to get their units replaced.

]]> Garmin says that it has found potential overheating issues when a "third party supplier's batteries manufactured within this limited date code range are used in certain Garmin devices". So the problem is limited to a subset of the lines of effected GPS units: the nüvi 200W, 250W, & 260W and the nüvi 7xx (where xx is a two-digit number). (Whew! I have a nüvi 255W and those units are all safe. Love it, BTW.)

If you have a Garmin in the recalled lines and just want to check the serial number to be sure, Garmin has thoughtfully set up a page just for that purpose right here.

My trusty nuvi 255W

Runaway Car? CR Video; Don't Pump the Brakes!

2010-06-08T14:43:32Z

Runaway cars have made some scary news in recent months and there have been a few thoughts posted about what to do if it happens when you're in the driver's seat. Surprisingly, according to a definitive article and video posted at the Consumer Reports "Cars" blog, many of those ideas are not just wrong, but a couple could actually make things worse.

The number one no-no is pumping the brakes. It turns out that in some car systems this may actual cause the brakes to stop working altogether! Instead step hard on the brakes and hold them down.

]]> The number two no-no is to turn off the ignition. Doing that may inadvertently cause you to loose control of steering. With the engine off you'll for sure loose power steering, making your car very hard to steer; and, if you accidentally turn the key too far you might actually lock the steering wheel, making it impossible to steer at all!

Instead, stomp on the brakes and hold them down and then put the transmission into neutral. The Consumer Reports folks helpfully suggest practicing this technique as some modern shifters may actually make it hard to find neutral when you need it. With the car in neutral and your feet on the brakes the car will come to a stop and then you can shut down the engine safely.

If you have a newer car with a starter button, read your owner's manual about how to turn off the car in this sort of situation. There is no standard, but typically it will be to hold down the "Start" button for 3 or 5 seconds.

Check out the video and read the very helpful article here.

Facebook Sails Rogue App Boat on River Denial

2010-06-07T13:52:09Z

Facebook has had and still has a very serious problem with malware running on its own developer platform. These so called "rogue apps" use the loopholes in Facebook privacy policies to take Facebook users private data from users and users Facebook "friends".

It's bad enough -- really, its worse than bad enough -- that the more or less legitimate Facebook apps have a free hand with users' private data, but, for some reason Facebook management has, untill now, pretty much turned a blind eye to the rogue apps that are just there to spam and/or steal private data.

Now Facebook declares that, as of June 2, 2010, "[they] are requiring every developer to verify his or her Facebook account to create new applications. This is the same quick process that users go through when they want to do things like upload large videos"

]]> There are a few odd things showing in that Facebook statement.

First: it clearly implies that Facebook wasn't requiring developers to validate their accounts before. In other words, anybody could make up an identity and then, with no checking whatsoever by Facebook, have unrestricted use of all the app developer inner workings that gives them access to users' private data.

Second: developers must validate before they create "new applications". So, in other words, all of the existing rogue apps still have a free hand to roam the fertle fields of Facebook.

Third: they are telling us that common legitimate Facebook users have, until now, had to submit to a more rigorous validation than application developers. Is it even necessary to say that this is outrageous?

Fourth: That's all? Are you kidding us Facebook?

No; they are not. Here's what they say;

We're taking this step to preserve the integrity of Facebook Platform, ensuring that every application is associated with a valid and real Facebook account.

You can verify your account by either confirming your mobile phone or adding a credit card to your account.

OK; so now the bad guys, some of whom do what they do just so that they can steal credit card numbers, just have to enter one of those stolen numbers to "validate" their account? Or; if you really hit them hard, they can use a $20 burner cell phone number?

Come on Facebook people. Maybe it's time to have some Congressional investigations into why Facebook keeps making its privacy procedures and policies worse for consumer users while it continues to leave steamship sized loopholes for "developers" to come and take private data.

How about a large fee or bond for Facebook developers? Or, if that's too steep, how about an app review process? Something like what you have to go through to get an app in the iTunes store? It really isn't that hard to figure out.

3D Computers: A Big Deal, Coming Fast

2010-05-27T21:49:41Z

Larry Dignan has an article over at ZDnet about 3D computers starting to roll out in 2010. (Mr. Dignan is referring to a report by a tech market research firm: Jon Peddie Research.

I've been thinking that 3D TV is going to take longer to catch on than the TV makers would like to think. But 3D PCs? Wow. Don't know why they didn't show up first.

The focus on the article and, apparently, the research paper is that 3D capable graphics hardware is going to be -- actually, it is -- rolling into the market in 2010 and that a certain amount of that is going to be coupled with 3D monitors and glasses and actually capable of showing 3D content.

]]> They're predicting a pretty steep ramp-up in 3D-ready PC's in 2011 and beyond, But I'm thinking that is this going to take off way, way faster than 3D TVs. I'm thinking that uses for 3D PCs will instantly shoot straight up and that the demand for working hardware will go with it.

The applications that can use 3D data are like a forest. It's easy to imagine game stuff, and certainly that will drive some consumer demand.. But the surprise will come from how data fantasies of the past twenty years can now actually be put into the hands of consumer users.

Start with the "virtual reality" apps from, say, the era of Michael Crichton's "Disclosure". It might seem a little goofy now, but put into the hands of ordinary, "real people" users to traverse the Google-net; Wow. (Actually, this could be where Bing's contexts start to really shine.)

It's an easy step from ganes and swooshing through the web to, say, Google Earth. Holy Moly; sign me up. And from that, it's very easy to see soldier-on-the-street apps based in mapping and GPS.

Oh yeah! Binocular heads-up displays with map data plus real-time intelligence from drones converted to simulated 3D overlays in the backpack PC you carry. It would be like actual x-ray vision! Like; see the bad guy in the window thru the block building in front of you.

Move from that to medical apps. Doctors and medical techs seeing ultrasounds and MRI scans in real 3D for the price of a high-end laptop computer. Excellent.

This is the kind of development and invention environment that almost feeds itself. One amazing app will lead to hundreds more. So many mundane things simulate the sense of 3D fo great effect now, and all of that data will be readily converted to "real 3D".

I'm thinking that 3D computers will actually drive 3D TV. Stuff on the little screen -- medical apps, military apps, data visualization apps, and, of course, games -- will make the practicality of 3D much more readily apparent and attractive than just the home theater idea by itself.

What it will be is all that cool stuff that gets used on the TV shows, like "Bones" and "House" and "24", will actually be ready to use and affordable on PCs. Once we consumers get ahold of that and use it, the demand to have it on big screens will blossom like crazy.

Smartphone Room Key. Interesting, But Half-Baked.

2010-05-25T19:08:58Z

An article at USA Today says that Holiday Inns is going to start testing a system that uses smartphones as guest room keys. The thinking behind it is focused on the fact that some guests would prefer to skip interacting with the front desk and just go straight to their rooms.

The idea is that you reserve your room online and then get issued a virtual "key" that goes into an app on your smartphone. No stopping to checking and be issued a key at the front desk -- you just go straight to your room and let yourself in.

The basic concept sounds great, but it's some holes that will have to be filled. But hey; that's what tests are for.

]]> The gist of the idea is going straight to your hotel room with no stop at the front desk. That sounds OK -- sort of. I don't mind stoping at the front desk briefly. It's a little reassuring to know that they know that I've arrived and am taking possession of the room. Especially that last part.

According to the article at USA Today, this attitude may be an artifact of my age, and may actually be the opposite of folks who came up in the age of social networking. II'd prefer the stop to be brief. Very brief. Like; not much longer than it takes to walk thru the reception area and nod. But I do want them to know and acknowledge that my room is occupied.

Too Many Tenants
Geek technofan here, but even I turn luddite around the idea of strangers having a key to my hotel room. Sorry to say it, but issuing hotel keys via a path that includes hotel central systems to local hotel systems is already trouble without inserting the smartphone app in the procedure.

Issuing keys via the web seems like it might increase the opportunities for those unpleasant situations when more than one party is issued a key to a room. No good.

Slow Startup
The second problem is smartphone app "start up". To make this test system work, you have to hold your phone screen up to a sensor on the door lock. Anybody who has a smartphone knows that getting an app open is not as instanteous as it appears in the TV commercials. So, now, instead of just slipping the keycard out of a pocket and into the lock, you need to fiddle through your phone apps and start the special app and hold it up to the door in proper alignment while it reads the face of your phone.

Nah... give me the keycard.

Hackers and Phone Thieves
Keycards can be stolen, sure, but they usually don't say which room they go to. In fact, other than the name of the hotel, they usually don't say anything at all. On the other hand, the smartphone app is going to have to show you the room number or it's going to defeat the whole "skip the frontdesk" point of the project.

An easy way around that, of course, is to password protect the app, but then you have to add that to the app's startup time when you're trying to hurry into your room.

Then there's the hackers. Is there a software master key?

I'm sticking with the keycard.

Facebook Leaves Consumer Date at the Internet Prom

2010-05-24T22:56:53Z

It's an odd feature of the internet business world that, over and over again, a genius idea erupts on the scene and then, like a little Mount St. Helens, blows it's own top off simply because it isn't prepared to deal with its own internal growth pressure.

The nits of what undoes these internet products and their companies rarely is technical. A good idea can survive technical glitches -- remember Twitter being crushed by volume over and over? But users kept coming back to the good idea.

Usually what undoes these guys is something like adolescent arrogance. Thinking that because you're getting really big, really fast; that this also means that you must be really smart and grown up too. That you know what's best.

Facebook is on the verge of becoming yet another genius product that self-destructs because didn't know how to deal with itself. It doesn't know how to behave itself in company.

]]> The particulars for an internet business failure most often come down to a screw up in the relationship between the business and it's users, and that's the case with Facebook too. The particular issue for Facebook is wrapped up in user privacy and matters of what is "private data", who owns it and what can be done with it.

Facebook has, in the American style, been quite cavalier about consumer privacy rights. Though it has, from time to time, said otherwise, Facebook has always acted as if it can do whatever it wants with its users' private data, including -- quite brazenly -- claim that it, Facebook, owns its users private data.

Over the years that Facebook has existed there has been a back-and-forth of words between Facebook and its users, or Facebook and privacy advocates; but none of this has ever effected how Facebook has actually really behaved with consumer private data. Facebooks' partners and application building associates can pretty much grab any user data that they want and then do anything they want with it -- including pass it around to other parties that have nothing to do with the relationship between Facebook and its consumer users.

Through most of Facebook's history the product has so good, so compelling, that the users, as a group, have either ignored or just put up with Facebook's casual use of their data. In the last year or so, though, the relationship has been changing.

The words of popular techie critics -- not just privacy advocates, but the mass-media geeks -- have started to register with consumer users of Facebook Even Pogue has noticed that Facebook has problems with privacy.

At anytime in this history Facebook could have tried to fix the problems. That is, they could have looked at the privacy problems and fixed them as problems having to do with protecting consumer privacy. Instead, Facebook looked at these as being problems of consumer perception -- that the consumers weren't seeing that it was OK for Facebook to do whatever it wanted.

For the most part, Facebook's "solutions" have been either changes to the language of their monumental privacy statement -- the gist of which is: "if you post it, we own it" -- or cosmetic changes to the ways that users can chose what can be disclosed and to whom. The only real functional changes to private data controls over this time have been to make it easier for programmers to get to and harder for consumers to protect.

So now we come to the make or break time in Facebook's history -- if we haven't already passed it -- when Facebook has the chance to do the right thing by consumer privacy and, in the process, save itself, or continue on the adolescent path of ignoring all around it because it is big enough to do whatever it wants.

Will we see Facebook making its way to join the grownups, with Google and Yahoo, or will Facebook be waving to its friends MySpace and AOL as it walks into the wall?

It's looking more and more like, "hello wall!".

iPod Touch To Get A Camera? (Only One?)

2010-05-19T20:28:49Z

Big news today for iPod Touch fans. (My hand is raised.) The Tinhe website in Vietnam has posted photos of what appears to be an iPod Touch manufacturing prototype with a built-in camera.

Don't know where or how they got it, and there's plenty of speculation about whether it's even really an Apple prototype,

I looks believable to me. It also looks like a very good idea. More like, it's about time. The camera has really been missing from iPod Touch v1.

Yay iPod Touch with Camera!

Is It Time For Adobe Flash Go? Probably.

2010-05-15T15:25:46Z

Adobe's Flash player has been around from the earliest days of the World Wide Web. As a platform for developing and showing animation on the web, the existance of Flash has helped propel some of the most significant innovations in the medium of the web. Love Flash or not, the mediums of human communications were advanced by it.

Flash has always had its issues, from esoteric arguments about its openness as a standard platform for human communications to more mundane matters of compatitibility, security, and performance.

]]> Flash has never been truly open to the world. The inner workings of the Flash player plugins have been closed and exclusive to its programmers -- first at Macromedia and then at Adobe. And, when a closed set of programmers controls important code like Flash, a platform myopia ensues that almost invariably leads to incompatibility and performance problems. Flash has suffered in this way. (The exceptions to this rule do exist, but they are few.)

The company that owns Flash, Adobe, has always exhibited a deep and abiding sense that they know better than the rest of us. This shows up traditionally in the gross overpricing of their software tools so that none but the elite can use them, all the while they try to coerce the rest of us into using their more and more bloated and insecure readers and players.

It all seems to be coming to a head now in a surprising "we're mad as hell" moment, where Adobe is being told, essentially, clean up and open up your act or the rest of us will just stop using your stuff.

The "rest of us" being spoken for, in this case, by Apple Computers and Microsoft. But, even though Microsoft and Apple are competitors to Adobe in the animation platform arena, they really are saying what needs to be said to Adobe. It is time for Adobe to get off its high horse and listen up about performance and security. Period. There is no or else. They will simply be replaced when the real rest-of-us move on. In the case of Flash, with other players and with the new, open standards-based features of HTML5. And if they don't watch their step with security and gouging prices and performance bloat, their lock on PDF and graphic software is going next.

Light Sutures: No-Stitches, Pain-free, Moisture-proof Sutures. Very Cool

2010-05-13T16:26:10Z

This is real science fiction stuff. A laser being used to quickly seal and heal wounds. But this real one does it without any smokey, flashing dramatic burning. A cool, visible-light green laser is used along with some special pink dye to excite proteins in your tissue to bind together.

Technically it's called "photochemical tissue bonding" and its new enough that, as of this writing, it isn't even in Wikipedia yet. I'm guessing that it pretty quickly get a handier name, like "laser stitching" or "light suture" (I like that one. You heard it here!)

]]> A little of the pink dye is put onto the edges of the wound or incision, and then the green laser is shined on it. The dye absorbs the green light and causes a chemical change in the proteins it touches so that they bind with their neighbors, making a moisture-tight and quite natural bond. Amazing!

Apparently it's been in testing for a year or so, but the US Air Force announced this week that it will begin testing it in forward combat situations.

The technique was discovered and developed at Massachusetts General Hospital who announced it to the world just last year. They recently completed clinical testing of the amazingly simple process and say that can be used instead of stitches, or staples, or glues typically used to repair skin wounds. It can even be used to reconnect nerves and corneal incisions as well as tendons and blood vessels.

The light sutures (sticking with my name) act instantly. It's easy to imagine that this process can speed up and make easier a lot of delicate and troublesome work in the operating room.

The developers -- Harvard Medical School professor and Massachusetts General Hospital Wellman Center researcher, Dr. Irene Kochevar and her colleague at Wellman, Associate Professor Robert Redmond -- explain that the process uses no proteins or glues that can cause additional inflammation.and that, because of the seal, there is better scar formation.

And, to top it off, because there are stitches, then, of course, you don't have to go back to the doctor to have them removed!.

This a wonderful idea. Definitely helpful to people everywhere. (Though I, personally, will hate to see what happens when body-moders get ahold of it.)

Gulf Oil Spill Crisis Overview at Google

2010-05-07T14:02:18Z

Google has published a very simple but extremely helpful Crisis Response Site following the oil spill disaster in Gulf of Mexico. Whatever your involvement or interest level in the ongoing catastrophe in the Gulf, this site will be useful to you.

An explosion in April on a deepwater oil rig run by BP (British Petroleum) killed 11 workers and injuried 17 more. First reports said that automatic systems had kicked in to stop the flow of oil from the well 5,000 feet deep under the "Deepwater Horizon" platform. Those early reports turned out to be false and the gushing well unleashed extensive damage to the ecosystem and wildlife off the coasts of four states.

The Google crisis response site is a public service site (no ads) similar to those that Google provided following the devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Chile. The site includes visual information from several sources overlayed on Google Maps plus helpful links to more news and to relief organizations so that you can find some things that you can do to help out.

LifeSavers Artic Berry Sorbets - Might Be "TeethSavers"

2010-05-04T17:21:00Z

LifeSavers "Artic Berry Sorbets" saved my teeth. I'm quite convinced of it. Really.

Now, I am not a dentist or scientist of any kind so, of course, I can only declare this anecdotally based on my own experience -- basically many, many years of experience with "soft" cruddy teeth. I even had fillings in my baby teeth! But, given my amateur standing, I am still convinced that LifeSavers Artic Berry Sorbets saved my teeth. Or at least helped.

These Artic Berry Sorbets are the large sized LifeSavers that come in a bag at the grocery store. That is, if you're lucky enough to find them.

]]> While on a quest for ways to help save the teeth that I have that aren't already drilled out, capped or bridged I came across some articles about a sugar substitute compound called xylitol. Xylitol is a natural compound sugar alchohol compound with a really slick trick up its molecular sleeve.

It turns out that like other sugars, xylitol is attractive to the nasty bacteria in your mouth that can cause tooth decay, gum disease and cavities, but, unlike the other sugars that feed the bacteria and help it grow, xylitol actually starves the evil bacteria and kills it off! How cool is that?.

Because of the caps and bridges mentioned earlier, chewing gum is not I do much of, but sucking on a nice tasty mint is something I do pretty regularly. So I was delighted to find these LifeSaver Artic Berry Sorbets a few years ago. It turns out that they are really delicious and I immediately fell in love.

So no trouble to replace my former mint habit (also LifeSavers -- BreathSavers Sugar Free, but with Sorbitol which, unfortunately still feeds the bacteria.) It turns out that, there are three flavors of Artic Berry Sorbets in a bag and that not all of them use Xylitol, but there is no doubt that along with the usual flossing and brushing and, as they say, regular dental checkups, my next check up showed little or no build up of plaque, no new soft spots and new (zero) cavities.

In the two years since I started enjoying these LifeSavers I certainly have kept up the usual dental care, but the difference between these two years and all the years before is amazing! Only one cavity!

It'd be for the real scientists to figure out exactly how much the xylitol in my LifeSaver Artic Berry Sorbets help, but I'm convinced.

Now for the bad news; LifeSaver Artic Berry Sorbets are getting harder to find. All the local stores stopped carrying them. So I've been making regular pilgramages to WalMart to get them, but it seems like they're disappearing from WalMarts too. Boo!

So, if you're wondering if I get something from the LifeSavers people to post this, the answer is a definite "no". But I am hoping that somebody will notice what I'm saying and maybe want to try the Sorbets experiment themselves -- and then maybe run up the demand for LifeSavers Artic Berry Sorbets in the stores. One can hope. I sure do.

UPDATES: 5/19/2010
Good news and bad news.

Bad news from WalMart: got a phone call from a WalMart store manager in response to a few "contact us" forms on the WalMart.com website. This contact told us that the Artic Berry Sorbets LifeSavers have been removed from the WalMart inventory -- permamently. Gone. Not coming back. Removed from the shelves. Well; at least they called.

Good news from Wrigley: a kind, thoughtful (though anonomous) email from Wrigley that actually found and listed stores within 10-15 miles that carry the most desired LifeSavers Artic Berry Sorbets. It turns out that they are all Stop & Shop or ShopRite stores, but that's OK. I drove to the closest of those and found my LifeSavers! Thanks unnamed Wrigley's person.

A side note: Wrigley does not make it easy to communicate with themselves about their products. If you follow the link on the bag, you end up at an online gaming site that provides no way (zero, none) to communicate about their products. What's up with that? If you go to Wrigley.com, you get nothing about the products and no way to specifically communicate with the product line managment. There is a "Contact Us" page, but the links and forms on it are so generic and non-helpful that you get the feeling that you're not going to get anywhere. I ended up using the "email" form but didn't even get an automated response until I got this email a couple of weeks later. To Wrigley: You and we (your consumer customers) need more transparency please. Put some communication links on that goofy gaming site, and for goodness sake, put your logo on it somewhere so that we can see that we didn't get caught in a spam or virus shill. Take charge of the communication process, Wrigley, and don't be afraid to let us talk to you. (Thanks)

Idea In The Wild: Complete Portable Eye Surgery Station

2010-05-03T20:16:33Z

This might be an X-Prize level challenge, but doesn't seem like it really should be. The idea is for some kind of device that would allow an opthamalogist to do microscopic eye surgeries in remote, non-sterile locations.

That's a a large load of challenges in one little sentence, but taken separately, they ought to be doable. Either by the mad tinkerer in a garage or by a driven team at a giant medical equipment company. I hope somebody picks it up. Here you go!

]]> Blindness from surgically repairable issues is rife in the developing world and even in the back-road parts of first-world countries. In many cases, such as with lens replacement for cataracts, the procedures are nearly as routine as having a tooth filled. But an eye is, of course, quite a bit more delicate than a tooth; needing both more delicacy and more caution on the side of sterility.

The objective here is to make a device that allows a very small surgical team, transplanted to some remote area of the earth, to execute delicate, sterile and safe operations on human eyes.

Naturally it must have all of the features and tools necessary to a proper opthalmic surgical system -- stability, minute and accurate manipulability, and so on -- but it also needs to be totally portable. Maybe fixed into a small van or container, but it must be easily transportable to rural locations. If it was small enough to pack into a few cases, that would be even better.

With so many people in the world dealing with surgically correctable vision issues, this is very much an urgent need. I hope somebody has picked up the challenge already, but, if not, take this idea and run with it.

How To Use a Flash Drive

2010-04-29T16:19:28Z

Flash drives are great little devices; small enough to fit on a keychain, but capable of holding huge amounts of data. They're handy for backing up files or for moving files from one computer to another - even between different computer types, like Macintosh and Windows PCs,

Using flash drives is easy. They don't use batteries or external power. You just plug them into a USB port on any recent vintage Mac or Windows PC and they're ready to use.

But there's one thing that you must remember: "Eject".

]]> The "eject" command is the last step to do before you remove a flash drive from your computer. Removing the drive before you eject it can cause the drive to become corrupted and all the data on it to be lost.

On both Windows and Mac's, you can find the "eject" command by right-clicking on the flash drive's icon. Or, on a Mac, you can also drag the icon from the desktop to the trashcan to "eject" it. On Windows, click on the "safely remove hardware" icon in the tray (down by the clock).

"Eject" in this case doesn't cause the flash drive to pop out of your computer. It's just a figurative term for telling the operating system to button up everything on the drive before you remove it.

Now that you know how to eject the drive, let's go back and actually use it. Start by plugging it into any USB port on your computer. Wait a few seconds for the operating system to recognize the flash drive and make it available to use.

On Mac's the flash drive will appear as a new disk icon on your desktop. Double click on it to open the flash drive in "Finder".

On Windows, the flash drive may appear as a new dialog box window asking you what you would like to do with the disk. Find "Explore files" at the bottom of that window to open the drive in "Windows Explorer". (If the dialog box doesn't open, then click on "My Computer" in the "Start" menu and find the flash drive icon in there. Double click on the flash drive icon to open it in Windows Explorer.)

On both Mac's and Windows, once you have the flash drive open in Finder or Windows Explorer (respectively) then you will be able to see any files or folders that are already stored on the flash drive.

Flash drives can hold any type of data file, including photos and music files and, of course, word processing and spreadsheet documents. You can use "drag-&-drop" to drag files to the flash drive to copy them to it, or drag them from the flash drive to copy them from it to your computer's hard drive. "Copy-&-paste" works too.

While you can work with data files directly on the flash drive in just the same way that you would normally work with files stored on your hard drive, if you're going to make a lot of edits you'll get better performance if you copy the file to your hard drive first and then work on that copy. The hard drive is usually faster to read and write data, particularly when you are saving your work.;

You may hear that flash drives have a finite number of times that each bit can be changed, but the fact is it would be nearly impossible to hit that number in normal usage. So, use your flash drive as much as you like. They are pretty marvelous.

New Blu-Ray Format Coming: Don't Buy Now!

2010-04-14T13:50:09Z

If there ever was a victory for "late adopters", this is it. The Blu-ray Association of DVD technology manufacturers has announced a brand new disc format for Blu-ray and it will not play on existing Blu-ray players.

Called "BDXL", the new Blu-ray format doubles the capacity of the discs to 128GB, to make room for more all sorts of new features. While new BDXL players will play all older formats of Blu-ray, DVD and CD discs, the old Blu-ray players will not be able to use the BDXL discs. Sales of Blu-ray players has been trending up recently, but it certainly hasn't swept the market yet, so I think we get to chalk up a win for the "I'll wait till the dust settles" crowd.

The wait won't be long -- just a couple of months. And because Blu-ray adoption is accelerating, the prices will drop quickly for BDXL players. But, for what can we use all this huge new capacity? ..

]]> Well, the movie industry is happy to have it so that they can store longer movies in higher definition on a single disc. But the really big deal for them and for TV makers, is so that they can store 3D movies on a single disc. (3D movies are, in essence, two visual versions of the same movie, so, roughly, they need twice the space. Roughly.)

There are other cool tricks in the thinking for BDXL too. One is that a rewritable version of the technology will be able to store up to 100GB. Nice for critcal data backups and for sharing HD family movies or keeping albums of the massive RAW image files that newer digital cameras make.

But an even cooler trick in the new BDXL bag is called "Intra-Hybrid Blu-ray Disc (IH-BD)". In this format, a part of the data on the disc is in permanent, read-only, non-erasible form, but another part of the disk is in re-writable form. It's not a very catchy moniker, but I think that the idea will catch on.

Think in terms of margin notes -- except, of course, that the data is digital and can be any material that you'd like to keep with it. A text book with margin notes. Medical records with comments added. A disc of National Geographic articles about the canals of Northern Europe in the read-only part, and all of your notes and photos added from your own trip there. (A fantasy. Send me, Nat Geo.),

In any case, whew; glad I waited for the dust to settle!

World Wide Radio ~ Free!

2010-04-12T21:57:54Z

Just a few years ago "radio" was whatever local stations you could pick up, or delving into the staticky world of shortwave.

Not so any more. Now essentially any traditional radio station in the world is available over the internet. In fact, many stations have more than one radio "stream" on the internet. It's become a necessity for any competitive radio station.

And it's not just traditional broadcast radio either. There are new forms of radio now. Some are like traditional but more specifically focused. For example, some internet stations exclusively broadcast radio dramas -- both old recordings and brand new.

A new kind of personally customized music broadcast has arrived in the forms of sites like "Pandora" and "Blip" and "Last.fm", These all let you create your own personalized music streams. Blip.fm even lets you be a DJ to create sharable streams of your own favorites.

This is all good for us - music fans, talk-show fans or just radio fans. There is an astonishingly rich and varied field of "radio", free for the listening, out there on the Internet.

]]> How to receive Internet radio
This is the easy part. You can tune into Internet radio with any Internet-connected computer. The faster your Internet connection, the better, but even dial-up connections can be used in a pinch.

All computers actually come with the software that you need - "Media Player" on Windows and "iTunes" on Macs - but you can download all sorts of reputable alternatives too.

There are alternatives to using a computer too. Internet radio is also reachable with some smart phones, like the iPhone, or with some video game consoles, like Xbox or Play Station. Internet radio and video is becoming a common feature on new TV's and Blu-Ray players. They hook up to the Internet via your household WiFi network. There are even dedicated "Internet radios" - some with wonderful sound quality and even with pretty wood cabinets. Internet radios for cars are starting to enter the market.

Finding what you like to listen to
This is the harder part. Not because it's hard to find something that you like - that's actually quite easy - but to make a selection from the vastness of all that's out there. Even when narrowed to "what I like", the field is enormous.

Start by looking on the "Radio" link on your player of choice, or by searching the web for "Internet radio". You may find that, like listening to shortwave in the past, sorting through the signals to find some fascinating new thing to listen to is part of the fun. And, it's free!