Into Tech

The only problem with car docks for iPods is that you still need to take your eyes off the road to locate your favourite track, jointly fumbling with the control wheel and the steering wheel.

Of course, you should only do that while the car is at a complete standstill but no one actually seems to bother. If you do care and don’t really want to crash, then check out the forthcoming muso dock which will allow you to talk to your iPod or iPhone, finding those tracks without once straying over into the wrong lane.

According to the makers, DirtectVoxx:

Creative do a nice line in little media players. The Zen Stone and the speaker-enabled Zen Stone Plus are decent alternatives to the wee iPods but Creative has slipped out a new player in Hong Kong called ‘Krystal’, which looks like its targeted at the sporting set.

For those that like to jog and tune out simultaneously, the 4GB Krystal may interest you.

We have covered our fair share of tiny - or pico - projectors here on Gizmodo but to date, most of it has be a bit foggy over who will deliver what, and when.

Now, it looks like projector house, Optoma, will be the first out the door with a real product based on Texas Instruments’ mini-DLP technology, DLP Pico. You can see an early demo of DLP Pico technology here.

The miniature standalone projector - which you can see above - weighs just 4ozs and will go on limited sale in Europe and Asia at the end of this year with a full rollout in early 2009. The Optoma Pico will be able to project images up to “100 times larger” than you’d see on source devices like iPods, smart phones, and digital cameras. Great fun at parties and very handy for those that present a lot for work.

Optoma’s director of product management, Jon Grodem, commented:

Cable spaghetti getting you down? Then you might want to take a peek at the latest offering from Bluelounge, the creators of the cool Cableyoyo.
This is the minimalist-styled SpaceStation, an all-in-one USB hub and desktop cable management system. Ideally, you’d use this with a laptop. It sits 5mm above the desk level and cables [...]

The BBC is planning to sell its otherwise free programmes on iTunes. A selection of programmes like Ashes To Ashes, Little Britain, Life on Mars, Torchwood and others, will be available to download on iTunes for £1.89 per episode.
The irony is that you can get many of these programmes already - for [...]

The BBC is planning to sell its otherwise free programmes on iTunes. A selection of programmes like Ashes To Ashes, Little Britain, Life on Mars, Torchwood and others, will be available to download on iTunes for £1.89 per episode.
The irony is that you can get many of these programmes already - for [...]

It’s not just little bespoke gadgets pimp outfits that do ridiculous things with phones and iPods you know?
High St. retailer Selfridges is about to offer a blinged out iPod touch designed for those looking to pop the question with something a little less traditional than ye olde ring.
This iPod Touch has been [...]

Yes, the world doesn’t yet have enough iPod docks so IXOS has announced a new portable dock called the Argo.
The shiny £50 dock comes complete with FM radio functionality and 12Watts of output from four speaker drivers, which isn’t bad for a portable dock.
The Argo runs off the mains or, if you [...]

The whiff of commercial love is in the air people, as St. Valentine’s Day approaches like a dark, menacing cloud and men scurry about fearfully, looking for something at least a little bit different from choccies and overpriced flowers.

We recently covered Microsoft’s Valentine’s Day assault with customised Zunes of Love, and now here’s Etchstar [...]

Apple has decided to ignore the growing displeasure of certain users of its new DRM-free, iTunes Plus service. I scribbled a bit about this yesterday and while I assumed that Apple would have to comment on why DRM-free music is tagged with a customer’s name, account and email details, I may be disappointed. The company has already declined to comment on the issue to Wired [thanks for the heads-up, Cal].

Instead, it pointed them to a Jupiter Research analyst, Michael Gartenberg, who had been fully briefed on iTunes Plus. He said it could be used for proof of purchase tracking, prevent piracy, or facilitate upgrades through identifying existing tunes that could upgraded.

“In terms of sharing files, you’re not legally permitted to do that anyway,” he said. “You weren’t supposed to that in the first place. You’ve technically violated the service agreement. Just because you’ve taken away the locks on the doors doesn’t mean you can walk into someone’s house and walk away with the TV set.”

The privacy set are not amused. Fred von Lohmann, a senior intellectual property attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, commented:

“There’s absolutely no reason that it had to be embedded, unencrypted and in the clear. Some of the privacy problems, in light of this, is that anyone who steals an iPod that includes purchased iTunes music will now have the name and e-mail address of its rightful owner.”

Expect this to run for sometime and maybe, just maybe, Apple will someday deign to tell us peasants [a.k.a. customers] what’s actually going on. -Martin Lynch

[Wired]

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