Here's the other little product announcement I did for the IHT. It was published on March 19. Unlike the phone, I actually bought this gizmo. And the paper paid me enough for this piece to actually recoup most of the VAT the French authorities slapped on it, oboy. Here it is:
If your bookshelves are bulging, the IntelliScanner bar-code reader can help you catalogue your collection. The scanner itself is about the size of a pack of cigarettes. Once you have purchased the scanner, you must visit the Web site of the manufacturer, Intelli Innovations, and download any of several software packages, including Media Collector (for books, DVDs, CDs and video games), Wine Collector or more specialized programs intended for businesses and heavy-duty online auctioneers.
After the software has been configured, you read the bar codes of your old papery media and shiny new media with the IntelliScanner. The scanner transmits the codes to your PC or Mac via a Bluetooth connection, your computer hunts in Intelli's online archive for the corresponding data, and on your screen appears a wealth of information on each item, including author, title, publisher, price and genre (for books); artist, label and track list (for CDs); and stars, distributor, format and theatrical release date (for DVDs) - plus the cover for each book and disc.
You can tailor the list to include or exclude any of three dozen fields of data. For peripatetic types, the "location" field will be of particular interest; you can indicate whether that copy of "A Moveable Feast" is on a shelf in Paris or in Pop's attic in Peoria, Illinois.
The IntelliScanner is available at www.intellisw.com for $299.
Being the adventures of an American journalist and obscure science-fiction writer who has mysteriously been transported to Paris.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Friday, July 08, 2005
Gadget review
I've published two short gizmo reviews in the International Herald Tribune in recent months. Well, they're more product notices than reviews. I'd point you to the URLs, but the IHT search function is a little dotty today. Here's one of the reviews, before minor trims and copy edits:
Spark Fun Portable Rotary Phone
The latest cellphone from Spark Fun Electronics does not feature MPEG-4 video playback. It does not have a VGA camera with digital zoom, nor Bluetooth wireless capability. It does not have even one color display, let alone two, and it is not sheathed in anodized aluminum. If you want those features, you'll have to buy a Motorola RAZR V3 cellphone.
What the Spark Fun Portable Rotary Phone has is heft. Lots of heft. About two pounds of it, against the RAZR's 3.26 ounces. The Spark Fun also has a rotary dial, a thick black plastic casing and a coiled cord, all of which the RAZR lacks. And while the RAZR may have a certain bling factor, the Spark Fun has a ring factor -- as in clanging metal bells, for those tired of the "Crazy Frog Axel F" ringtone.
Spark Fun, a Colorado company founded in 2002 by some college students, takes old-style rotary phones and retrofits them with a custom-made circuit board, an off-the-shelf but expensive cellular module and a hand-built ringer circuit to bring 1950s technology gasping and wheezing into the 21st century. To make the phone go, all you have to do is insert the SIM chip from your overcomplicated, delicate, fly-weight, easy-to-lose cellphone. Spark Fun says the Portable Rotary will work with 90 percent of the world's cellular systems.
Spark Fun (at www.sparkfun.com) sells its phone for just $399, a bargain compared to the RAZR's list price of $599. And when you consider the price per pound, the Portable Rotary Phone's cost advantage becomes even more obvious.
Spark Fun Portable Rotary Phone
The latest cellphone from Spark Fun Electronics does not feature MPEG-4 video playback. It does not have a VGA camera with digital zoom, nor Bluetooth wireless capability. It does not have even one color display, let alone two, and it is not sheathed in anodized aluminum. If you want those features, you'll have to buy a Motorola RAZR V3 cellphone.
What the Spark Fun Portable Rotary Phone has is heft. Lots of heft. About two pounds of it, against the RAZR's 3.26 ounces. The Spark Fun also has a rotary dial, a thick black plastic casing and a coiled cord, all of which the RAZR lacks. And while the RAZR may have a certain bling factor, the Spark Fun has a ring factor -- as in clanging metal bells, for those tired of the "Crazy Frog Axel F" ringtone.
Spark Fun, a Colorado company founded in 2002 by some college students, takes old-style rotary phones and retrofits them with a custom-made circuit board, an off-the-shelf but expensive cellular module and a hand-built ringer circuit to bring 1950s technology gasping and wheezing into the 21st century. To make the phone go, all you have to do is insert the SIM chip from your overcomplicated, delicate, fly-weight, easy-to-lose cellphone. Spark Fun says the Portable Rotary will work with 90 percent of the world's cellular systems.
Spark Fun (at www.sparkfun.com) sells its phone for just $399, a bargain compared to the RAZR's list price of $599. And when you consider the price per pound, the Portable Rotary Phone's cost advantage becomes even more obvious.
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