Comic book fans have long been awaiting a Digital Format for comics. The theory is that just like we have digital audio, video, and ebooks, one day we should have digital comics. There are groups dedicated to scanning comics into formats like .cbz and .cbr (renamed .zip and .rar files, really), and distributing them via the internet, but the legality of such endeavors are… well, non-existent really.
Marvel Comics, publishers of such hot properties as X-Men and Spider-Man, as well as really good comics like Agents of Atlas and Nova, have long experimented with digital formats, but mostly online. They’ve made several “motion comics” available on iTunes – but comics purists turn their nose up at such mixed media. Sure, you can get Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men run for a low price, with some neat animations, and it may be fun but it’s not comics.
Recently, comic news and rumor site bleedingcool took notice that Marvel’s newest online comic book reader was a lot like the Longbox reader. Longbox are trying to set themselves up at the iTunes of Comics. Now Marvel’s announced a distribution deal with Longbox, and that pretty much explain the reader. Indeed Marvel’s added support for a whole bunch of iPhone readers . So now you can buy a comic for 99 cents and read it on your desktop, laptop, or iPhone. DigitalLongbox hopes to add eReaders to that list soon, but one journalist has created a bit of a storm by suggesting that all this digital comics talk is a harbinger of the oft-rumored “iTablet”.
It would be fascinating to see, but considering the niche – and a large niche, but still a niche – of comic book readers vs the billions of music lovers, videophiles, and just plain readers, it’s hard to imagine comic books as the “killer app” for an iTablet, especially since you can read them just as well on an iPhone, and there are even solutions for Windows Mobile, Android, and other platforms. If you don’t want to squint, there’s always the option of using your netbook.
I’m not saying it wouldn’t be cool, I’m just doubting that it “proves” anything.
Let’s just get this out of the way – Bluetooth headsets generally look kind of silly. The bigger, older models with their tacky blinking lights remind some of The Borg (personally, they make me think the Cybermen have infiltrated Torchwood One). They also don’t always have the best sound, can be uncomfortable, and give people momentary pause as to our sanity (“Is that guy on a Bluetooth or is he just nuts?”). While we can’t recommend anything to alleviate the latter, we can happily say there are more and more Bluetooth headsets out these days that don’t look silly, and people seem to finally be paying attention to comfort. Case in point: Sound ID. Founded by an actual Ear Doctor and focusing on how the ear works, Sound ID’s products are meant to be “all day wear”, with clear sound and noise reduction. (more…)
Here are some interesting things from DigitalLook, but not exactly interesting enough to be their own article (no offense to the vendors, who were all awesome)
Note that I do have photos, but I seems to be mangling the photo functions of the blog, so I will be holding off on adding them. (more…)
What would our mobile devices be without power? Not much, right? Energizer has a booth with some cool products, announced that very day. Their Energi To Go products are like the big brother of those “quick charge” devices we see all the time at Staples and the like. You know the one – you put 4 AA batteries in and plug the other end into your phone. The catch with these is their not rechargeable themselves and they tend to be for just one product; if you’re someone who carries around a cell, pda, and MP3 player, you have to carry three packs. Not with the Energi to Go line. (more…)
I do not know how many people actually get pulled over for driving while holding their cell phone’s up to their ear. I personally know 5 people who over the past year have gotten pulled over for such an offense. Very recently California and Washington just joined their east coast brethren in banning cell phone cusping while driving.
The solution of course is just to use a headset or some kind of handsfree device. And for those of you that find the concept daunting Headsets.com will send you a free headset if you have been cited for driving without one.
And while they acknowledge that studies have studies have shown that talking on hands-free devices are just as dangerous as talking on cell phones regularly, they nevertheless want you to be as safe as possible.
Oh, the handset they will send you is the sexy sleek Plantronics Discovery 925 Bluetooth headset.
Before you hit the streets chasing down cops to see you cell phone hand just remember that a fine in California will set you back 20 bucks and some other states 200 bucks (way more than what the bluetooth costs).
While half on the topic of driving and cell phones… check out this great find from Shiny Shiny…. A seatbelt that has a pocket for your cell phone. No more digging in-between you car seats.
This is one year old Make news but it has been getting a lot of blog flair since, it would appear, someone has finally capitalized on the idea of a mobile version of a rotary phone that links up to a cell network via a GSM card. The phone has that real authentic old time rotary ring to it of course and, no, it cannot send or receive text messages
Warning. The manufactures Spark Fun warn that the phone really works but is for entertainment purposes. Oh, and you have to unscrew the battery to recharge it. Oh, and this entertainment only 2 pound phone costs 400 dollars for the black model and 500 dollars for the red.
Not really something you want to make your main phone. But hey, if you have the luxury of an extra SIM card…
The website does have an interesting description of how they managed to pull it of which is kind of cool. 1
Sometimes we just yearn for that physical connection and technology clothing company CuteCircuit understands that. Thats why they invented the Hug Shirt which allows you to exchange the physical sensation of a hug over long distances. All you need is the shirt embedded with special sensors, a java enabled bluetooth handset and a warm compassionate heart. Simply put on the shirt, give yourself a hug and let the removable sensors beam the temperature and pressure data to your mobile phone. Your phone then automatically sends the hug to the person you designated hugs to go to via SMS and actuators of wearing a similar shirt. f the other person or the sender doesn’t have the shirt she can just send an SMS text message, and it will be transformed into a hug! If you don’t need a hug you can switch it off.
Think of it as turning your cell phone into a vampire,making it able to suck the juice out of any other cell phone for its own power hungry needs. Another thing to add to your keychain.
There is no price yet or availability info but here is what it does.
It allows you to essentially ‘jumpstart’ a cellphone with a dead battery, simply by attaching it to another one with some charge. You don’t even have to wait until the battery has been charged: you can make your call right away, with the other cell thusly joined.
Everybody knows it. One of the biggest problems about mobile devices today, as they become more and more smarter, is what we have come to know as “voice time” and “idle time.” In other words, how long will the device hold up under heavy or light usage. Will I have to travel with an extra adapter to charge my phone throughout the day? etc etc… All this, as you know, has to do with your mobile devices batteries and it appears that battery technology is having a hard time keeping up with the power needed in newer and newer portable electronics.
Well researchers over at the ever so technologically smart school M.I.T believe they may have gotten the problem licked (making long charge times and expensive replacements a thing of the past) by innovating some old power technology with some new microphysics. According to Joel Schindall, the projects director, “We made the connection that perhaps we could take an old product, a capacitor, and use a new technology, nanotechnology, to make that old product in a new way.”
I know, I had to look it up as well. A capacitor is a device giving capacitance and usually consists of conducting plates or foils separated by thin layers of dielectric (as air or mica) with the plates on opposite sides of the dielectric layers oppositely charged by a source of voltage and the electrical energy of the charged system stored in the polarized dielectric.
In other words while rechargeable and disposable batteries use a chemical reaction to produce energy (which after many charges and discharges loses capacity to the point where the user has to discard it), capacitors contain energy as an electric field of charged particles created by two metal electrodes. This allows them to charge faster and longer then normal batteries. The problem with this however is that storage capacity is proportional to the surface area of the battery’s electrodes, so even today’s most powerful capacitors hold 25 times less energy than similarly sized standard chemical batteries.
The clever researchers at MIT seemed to have solved this problem with Nanotubes. The article gets very scientific on this.
The point is “It could be recharged many, many times perhaps hundreds of thousands of times, and … it could be recharged very quickly, just in a matter of seconds rather than a matter of hours,” he says.
This technology has broad practical possibilities, affecting any device that requires a battery. Schindall says, “Small devices such as hearing aids that could be more quickly recharged where the batteries wouldn’t wear out; up to larger devices such as automobiles where you could regeneratively re-use the energy of motion and therefore improve the energy efficiency and fuel economy.”
It works for cell phones to
Schindall’s group expects their prototype to be finished in the next few months, and they hope to see them on the market in less than five years.
