.oO Tailwind

Like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, then have a play with this game. Be warned! you might be some time

Continuing a space theme, here is an R2D2 translator. You can download the output.

In 1959 a man went up in a balloon to the edge of space to jump out. He was ata height of 40km (!!!!). Completely mental. Why isn’t this an extreme sport?

Struggling to sleep? Try a bedtime tune to relax yourself.

Ever wondered what the system is for completing a Rubiks cube?

More drums. The most amazing drum solo ever?

Ever lost a manual for a product you own? Well, fret not, here’s a BIG library of user manuals.

Molecular Nanobots? In your bloodstream? What? Im actually sacred.

Amazon’s new eBook device the ‘Kindle’ was released this week.

I find this an interesting one.

It was very well covered yesterday on lots and lots of blogs with pretty much everyone saying it’s rubbish. The 400 or so reviews on the Amazon page are largely negative too, this is an interesting point in itself for Amazon.

Here is a video of the out-of-box experience as captured by Robert Scobble:

The packaging looks okay, quite cute for it to come in a ‘book’.

Here is a video of using it and experiencing some issues

I was watching the Amazon demo thinking things like ‘Wouldn’t it be good if you could look-up words as you read. Oh, it does’, ‘Wouldn’t it be good if it wasn’t based on wi-fi hotspots. Oh, it isn’t.’ And so on…

Featurewise, it’s quite nice. It ticks a few boxes and for this reason Amazon will shift a few I’m sure.

Then I thought about the product design and decided that it’s a lame dog. It has some weird, flimsy, asymmetrical form that looks a little like James Bond’s underwater Lotus Esprit.. A little 80s.

Kindle

Lotus Esprit

The interaction looks far too complicated and it smacks of ‘get it to market quick’. It could have been soooooo much better, so much more desirable, so much easier to use. Also it seems that the interaction itself is awkward, scrolling up and down aligning a little cursor with menu commands rather than selecting them.

However I am a fan of the electronic paper screen, it’s just a shame it couldn’t be tough screen, but then that would defeat the point right?

But this isn’t the problem I se with this device.

My main reasons this won’t be the ‘next big thing’

• People love books. A bookshelf says a million things about its owner and people love the tactility of paper, the romance of curling up under a reading lamp in a comfy chair and losing themselves.

  The books we read represent us in some way, they have ‘self-expressive benefits’ to quote ‘Aaker’. To have read, own and display works by Shakespeare, Brontë and Dickens says something about the individual. The collection of books one has says something about the owner. Why else would we all have bookshelves? Okay, so they are practical, but they could easily be hidden.

  The same goes for newspapers. It brands an individual to be seen reading the FT, The Independent, The Guardian, The Sun, The Daily Mirror.

• It has DRM and apparently spies on you . Has Amazon learned nothing? You can’t ‘lend’ books. PEOPLE LOVE LENDING BOOKS!
• The product design sucks and the interaction is a little fussy. Before iPod, listening to music, changing track, albums and artists etc was a little less-than-slick. iPod made it slick. The Kindle flashes as you do things. HOW ANNOYING! This is not slick. It’s slow.

  You have to pay for blogs if you download them but can browse them in the web browser for free. Weird.

• People don’t consume books like they do music. With music you flit between things. The Kindle can’t ‘do an iPod’ which changed the way we listened to music. It broke the CD model. The Kindle has nothing to break, no stranglehold to release.
• People don’t want another device in their bag. “Keys check, wallet check, phone check, blackberry check, laptop check, kindle…? Sod it I have my phone/blackberry/laptop”

The name Kindle is rubbish.

It’s exciting because:

• It’s a very cheap mobile bookshop
• The screen is a great step forward
• It has the potential to change the way [some] people read

Sure some will fly of the shelves, but at $400 it’s simply too much for £50 man. People will offset the amount of books they read and think it’s not worth it.

It appeal to the niche. The tech geeks, the academics but it won’t light the fire for my younger brother. As one reviewers says:

“If you travel a lot, or require rapid and accurate access to references (as I do), the Kindle is definitely soon to be a necessity. I am a medical student, and I loaded an entire medical library onto the one I’ve been beta testing”

Having said all this, I might get one… For research purposes of course.

We have a new shiny iPod in the shape of the 16Gb iPodTouch. Much like an iPhone it uses the multi-touch user interface to engage its user in some beautifully inuiative interaction and employs that fantastic landscape-portrait ability first seen in iPhone.

The new Nano is fat and horrible. I don’t like it one bit so am not going to talk about it. It’s iRubbish.

Watching the guided tour it’s easy to see that it works in just the way that you would expect it to, so be prepared for a fanfare from Apple fans. I’ll give you the feature headlines because there will be plenty of detailed appraisals of iPodTouch’s first day at school all over the web by the time I get into work. Gizmondo’s 5 Things We Love, 5 Things We Hate and Engadget’s Liveblog for starters.

Apart from the fact it’s a multi-touch screen product that allows you access to pictures, videos, music and more the main news is that has wireless capability allowing you to do three main things:

1. Allow you to browse the iTunes music store
2. Allow you to use Safari when browsing the web
3. Allow you access to YouTube videos

What’s really curious is that if you are in Starbucks (only in a select few locations for the coming year all US. 3 this year, 2 more by March ‘08), you can browse and download from the iTunes Store for free. You can use Starbuck’s wireless for free.

Excuse me, but how is that a good thing? Why is that worth a few minutes of the Guided Tour? Not only that I find it a rather odd decision by Starbuck’s given that they are trying to turn themselves into a record-come-bookshop anyhow? Just check here and here (this link via Barbd).

The iTunes Music store isn’t the full blown offering available online which to me seems a bit pointless. Do people who buy via wireless in Starbucks buy a certain type of music..? I guess they do.

Following hot on the heels of the acclaimed iPhone this product feels very much like an, errrrm, iPhone. Just without the phone. It looks so much like it and at only 8mm think I hope there aren’t cases of people rushing out the door thinking they’ve grabbed their phone when all they’ve got is their iPodTouch. Which could have a phone, looks like it has a phone. But doesn’t.

I guess they need to cater for those who aren’t going to buy the iPhone, but couldn’t it have been a little more different? I need to check the disk sizes that will be available, but I personally need a helluva lot space than that, so I’d be definite iPod/iPhone fodder. But with only 16Gb and everything so much like its cousin, I won’t be spending those hard earned pounds.

But then I guess I’m not the target market. I’m iPod Classic target market. Damn you Apple! You just made me spend more money. in no more than 3 lines of blog!

The new iPod will bring a new audience to the church of Apple, no doubt about it. They have met and exceeded expectations with this iPod line-up I have to concede.

Interaction-wise, of course it ’sings’ the way you’d want it to. During the demo, the rather irritating speaker explains how you can customise the primary buttons at the foot of your iPod menu allowing you to access you library ion your terms. Easy, obvious but nice and something ‘other’ companies would miss.

It’s fantastically realised and the interaction, they way you skip through photos, music etc is reason to buy it in my book. I’ve had the privilege of using an iPhone (not lyet launched here in the UK) and oh my, it’s good. It’s oh-so-very-multi-touch-good. With an Apple on top.

From a personal standpoint my iPod 3G has finally died a death. It still works, but it’ll only last 45 seconds unless it’s connected to a power source. It lasted better than most as I’ve squeezed 3.5 years out of it. However, the criticisms I had of that product was that Apple had designed a computer peripheral and not a mobile product. I haven’t heard many stories of iPhone screens scratching but I hope they’ve cracked the mobile product aspect of the design.

I can just see the horror on people’s faces when they first drop their iDevice. You know the feeling. Brand new shiny mobile phone leaves your hands only to skip across the tarmac picking up it’s first ‘customised-by-you’ touches. Back to my iPod I’m still freaking annoyed that a £300 product has been designed to fail in this way. iRubbish.

Also, is it me or is everyone else getting just a little bit iBored of the iBrand?

So, I need a new phone, I need a new iPod. Choices, choices. Space or whizzy stuff?

Link: Apple Keynote,

Apple - iPhone - TV Ad - Large

Oh it’s gratuitous. It’s obvious and everyone else has blogged it. But MY GOD this UI is lickity slick. I love the way you get a full tour of the phone features in the context of a story. less than 30secs and I’m sitting there thinking.. ooh, ahh, yes, yes, yes!

But then, I’m a self-confessed Apple fanboy who can see no evil.

I still defend my 3Gen iPod and it’s naff 35 minute battery life and easy-to-scratch screen. One of the iPod design flaws was that a computer peripheral was designed and not a portable product. Let’s home the iPhone is a portable product and that the battery doesn’t fade. That would be a real shame.

Why oh why oh why to mobile phone manufacturers set the keypad tones of their phones to be on by default?

‘Beep, beep, beep, beep, beeeeeeeep, beep, beeeeeep’.

I’m sat next to a guy on the train at 6:50 am and he’s beeping at me!

Surely no-one in their right mind wants it switched on? I presume the only reason I ever hear it in public is because the perpetrator doesn’t know how to switch it off.

Damn them.

During my day I stray upon, or I am sent lots of links to cool and interesting things. So I thought that I’d start posting the good ones here.

I’ll try to do this on a weekly basis to keep the interest up for you and promise to cover interesting products, websites, business initiatives, technology and whatever else comes my way.

I apologise not, for the odd breakdancing clip. None today though I’m afraid.

Nominees for the 2006 weblog award - Not this year methinks.

No relevance here, other than this stuff works.

Vicks First Defence (Times Article)

Catch a cold early enough and it stems it, knocks it n the head, pays it off. you cold either stops or doesn’t get any worse.

It’s not that pleasant tot take/use as you spray a superfast jet of ’stuff’ up each nostril. That said, the short discomfort is kinda worth it compared to a cold.

if like me, you are not winding down in the run up to Christmas due to stupid workloads and you want to get through it without crashing on the first day of your holiday, I suggest you buy some.

It’s worth every penny of the seven british pounds it costs.

When I was at university studying I always wanted to see this on something, a volume dial that goes up to 11!

See gizmondo.

cassetteOriginally uploaded by Snow_badger.

Says-It allows you to make your own faux records and cassettes by adding in some text and overlaying an image.Not amazing, but quite cool. You can buy fridge magnets. Nice.

I’ve just found out that Picasa is finally available for OSX.

It apparently includes a iPhoto plugin allowing you to upload from there if you’ve spent the last few years meticulously tagging your images.

Shame I’ SO committed to Flickr.

Bit late guys. I suppose I’ll have a play though.