Monthly Archives: June 2003

general June 30, 2003 posted by

Come fly with me…

No but seriously, why exactly would you want to build a Boeing 737 flight simulation pod in your garage? Unless you have some spectacularly empty weekends to hand? Sour grapes alert!

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general June 30, 2003 posted by

Mood music

MoodAmp is an MP3 music collection program with a difference. Quote: ‘Using adaptive learning techniques MoodAmp will manage huge mp3 collections easily and always plays music that suits your mood.’ The program scans your MP3 files, makes guesses as to the music types and starts playing stuff. You rate songs as you go, and MoodAmp learns what music goes with your different moods. Very much a work in progress, but fascinating nonetheless.

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general June 30, 2003 posted by

Chinese takeaway

The Smartbook from Zupera Technologies of China is an interesting little product. The tiny computer provides either StrongARM or Transmeta processor power, and also ships with an ‘integrated’ GPRS dual mode SIM. Not too sure what that means exactly, but assume that it’s a slot to let you insert your own mobile phone SIM card. Shirley?

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general June 30, 2003 posted by

Wireless home audio

The Barix Wireless Exstreamer looks like it came out of Dr Who’s Tardis on a bad hair day, but the specs look impressive enough to warrant mention. The unit lets you stream your PC based MP3 music collection around your home wirelessly using a WiFi card (not supplied). Just hook the unit to your stereo system, set up a wireless LAN from PC to Exstreamer and presto, Jonathan is your uncle. Priced at around �200.00 or so. Useful review here.

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general June 27, 2003 posted by

Woody workings

There’s something really attractive about a nice bit of wood, and now you can have the geeky pleasure of sitting in front of a set of wooden PC peripherals all day, if that’s your bag. The products from Wood Contour are made out of a variety of luxury hardwoods, ranging from Beech to Walnut and Mahogany. And all produced from sustainable forests, no less. Prices from around $100 to $5000 for a luxury LCD monitor.

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general June 27, 2003 posted by

Goldfinger

What do you give the geek with everything? Why a hand engraved and personalised gold plated mouse in a velvet lined box of course, silly. Only $59.99 to discerning buyers.

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general June 27, 2003 posted by

Turn the table up, Marge!

Regular Ferreteers will remember our distinct lack of enthusiasm for the Olympia Sound Bug. The gizmo was supposed to produce great sound from any flat surface such as a window or door. Well it didn’t, at least not great sound. More like a tinny rattle type sound. Well blow me down with a fevver, but here’s another similar product. The Omnivox is a rather ugly – and at �260.00 expensive – widget which promises ‘sound without barriers’. Plug it into…

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general June 25, 2003 posted by

Music as the food of love

Xenorate is a cool – and free – little multi-media player which promises to play just about every file format going. It won’t cope with the ultra modern Quicktime files currently, but apparently the authors are looking into it. Worth a check.

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general June 25, 2003 posted by

Reviews for all

I like the concept behind Review Index. OK, so it’s a bit like Epinions and Dooyoo, but the reviews are laid out in a logical and easily navigable way, which is always nice. Now all they need are a LOT more reviews.

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general June 25, 2003 posted by

Simplay Simpay

Simpay is a new mobile payments initiative led by T-Mobile, Orange and Vodafone. Simply put, it lets you pay for stuff using your mobile phone as an electronic wallet. Details are a tad sketchy currently, but this looks as though it may be the first really serious attempt by the mobile phone industry to drive the phone into new and exciting e-commerce territory.

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general June 25, 2003 posted by

Sony’s eye liner

Sony’s new EyeToy product looks to be just about the most bonkers thing I’ve seen in a long time. A camera that sits on top of the TV set and lets you insert your ‘photo’ into the gaming action. Riiiight! If this is anything like a Web cam picture it’ll be jerky, slow, fuzzy and not a lot of fun. But maybe I’m being super cynical.

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general June 24, 2003 posted by

Clone Spy

Clone Spy is a free duplicate file cleanup tool for Windows. It works wonderfully and looks great. Nuff said.

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general June 24, 2003 posted by

Webcam to phone

The Fly_Cam system can retrieve PNG format photos from any webcam and display them on your mobile phone. There’s a server in between of course, doing all the funky stuff. At the moment it runs on limited hardware (like the Nokia 7650) but the company obviously has plans to enlarge the repertoire.

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