TechToyz: The Intersection of Technology and Life

CES 2008

The dates are set for the next CES . I was going to skip the 2008 show and go to MacWorld ,but I think we will go to Las Vegas instead.

Geek Holiday Part Two

Macworld Expo opens today too. The Keynote is tomorrow, so we have to wait another day to see which of the rumors are true. The iTV rumor is pretty interesting if it support HD content.

Geek Holiday Season

Yep. It's that time of year again. CES starts today and there are a ton of announcements coming out on Engadget and Gizmodo. I will get to Vegas mid-morning on Wednesday to start my Geek Holiday!

Blackrimglasses

I found a cool blog the other day. Ethan Kaplan has a blog called Blackrimglasses . Ethan is running a series of tech overviews of "his world" of technology. I though I was a geek with great toys. I'm an amateur compared to him. I'm learning from his overviews. Take a look:

Part 1: The Environment

• Part 2: The Applications

• Part 3: Communications

Wireless Web Access Device

I stopped by the Datawind booth at CES and studied the PocketSurfer . It's a wireless web access device that uses your bluetooth enabled phone and GPRS data services to surf the Net.

I almost bought one of these devices. I usually use a smartphone that has Internet access, but right now I am using an unlocked Razr. This would be a great way to get web access. It was light, easy to read and was amazingly fast. If I don't go back to a smartphone soon, I might have to order one of these.

Zap!

There were these funny looking electric cars running around at CES. They were pretty strange looking, but sort of got me interested in finding out more about them. They were from Zap! who makes several varieties of electric cars, scooters, bikes, etc.

Naked Conversations

Robert Scoble's new book has hit the streets. Naked Conversations is getting great reviews. My copy is on order. Take a look at it.....

Google Earth...On the Mac

Finally, Google Earth is available for the Mac platform. I downloaded it and did a test run. So far, it seems to work as well on my Powerbook as it does on my Dell laptop. Better late than never.

Bacon Brothers at CES

The Bacon Brothers, Kevin and Michael, were in the XM radio booth at CES. XM seemed to take a more low-key approach to entertainment this year. I think the crowds around their booth the last couple of years irritated the companies around them.

The Bacon Brothers did an acoustic set that was outstanding. They sounded great, answered some questions and signed autographs. I have a couple of their songs on my iPod that I bought from Apple's iTunes Store. When I get back, I'm going to grab their new CD. It sounds like it will be a very good CD.

Pepper Pad....Again?

Last year, I stopped by and looked at the Pepper Pad while at CES. Based on the info at the booth, I was pretty excited about it. It sure looked like a great "multi-function" device. The excitement turned to disappointed at the timeliness of availability and the cost.

I stopped by their booth again this year to see the Pepper Pad Plus. I really had a difficult time getting any definitive  info from the "Pepper Pad guy". The most I could pull from him was that it will "have 802.11g support and most of the other changes are fixes to bugs". He indicated the cost would be $899 again, but I could get the current version from Amazon for $749, plus a $50 rebate from them.

Hmm...Why would I buy the "buggy" version? Other sites are reporting other enhancements, but there are not any firm ideas as to availability.  This could be a very good product if it cost less and was actually available somewhere. I think a $399 price point would really make the Pepper Pad Plus fly off the shelves. For $899, I can have a decent Intel or Apple laptop now days.

On the flight back, I read an article in PCMagazine by Jim Louderback that was negative about the Pepper Pad. Now, Pepper Pad responds.