Gadgets Have Travelers Opting for Buses over Flights Like to check e-mail or surf the web while traveling? You might want to take the Megabus rather than JetBlue, says a study. The availability of free Wi-Fi and power outlets in inter-city buses and trains, coupled with increased security around air travel, is spurring more people to take the longer road home. “Technology is changing how […]
Like to check e-mail or surf the web while traveling? You may want to take the Megabus rather than JetBlue, says a study.
The availability of free Wi-Fi and power outlets in inter-city buses and trains, coupled with increased security around air travel, is spurring more people to take the longer road home.
“Technology is changing how people approach travel,” says Joe Schwieterman, a professor at DePaul University who worked on the study. “For many travelers, the capability to seamlessly use portable technology offsets the disadvantages of longer travel times.”
Schwieterman and his colleagues collected information from 7,000 passengers on intercity bus, train and airline trips in 14 says. They found that at randomly selected points during trips, nearly 40 percent of passengers on buses were using some form of portable technology such as a laptop or a phone. It is two percentage points more than on conventional Amtrak trains and more than twice that on commercial flights and Greyhound.
That’s translated into growth for bus and some train services. Intercity bus networks grew 5.1 percent in 2009, a rate of growth higher than all other major modes for the third straight year, says the study.
It also marks the end of Americans’ love affair with the car, states Schweiterman.
“Earlier people would get into the car, drive have their cellphones with them and listen to their music systems,” he states. “But now you can’t text while driving, can’t surf the net so for young people, driving is no longer an attractive idea.”
Buses have been quick to give in to the consumer desire to stay connected most of the time. The DC2NY Bus, a service that runs between Washington, D.C., and New York started offering free on-board Wi-Fi in 2007. Other services such as BoltBus and Megabus did the same. Even the “Chinatown buses”–lines that link the Chinatown districts of major cities–spent an estimated $5,000 per vehicle to equip their buses with Wi-Fi, says the report.
Airlines are trying to fight back. Wi-fi is now being offered on a number of most major long-distance flights in the U.S.
Still with ever-changing security restrictions including the recent temporary restrictions on the use of electronics in flight means the Accela looks like a superior option than ever.
“The hassles of flying and limits on technology use has made people move away from flights for short distance trips like New York to Washington D.C. or Chicago to Detroit.
Now I want you to close your eyes and squint really hard. Because I’m going to tell you about a time that feels ancient, a time when Sony made some of the baddest laptops around.
Way before the web made the idea plausible, Sony was ripping optical drives out of laptops to make them as portable as possible. One such personal, the $1,500 Sony VAIO PCG-SRX99 (circa 2001), weighed just 2.76lbs and made do with a 10-inch screen.
Inside, it had plenty of power, an 850MHz Pentium III-M, 256MB of RAM, and 802.11b for wireless networking (if you could find a wireless network, that is). Plus it had 20GB of storage, FireWire and even one USB port.
(I’d mention that it ran XP, but that part is a bit too familiar for nostalgic comfort.)
Today, the closest analog to the PCG-SRX99 is a netbook. For about $300 and a weight just shy of 3lbs, you can score a system that, from the outside, is remarkably similar. And on the inside, its clock speed has about doubled, plus there’s anywhere between 4x and 8x the amount of RAM and storage.
But if you were willing to look a bit beyond skin deep, I’d argue that the contemporary smartphone is more similar to the PCG-SRX99 than the netbooks of today. Take the iPhone 3GS. In terms of sheer tech specs, it’s pretty much a midrange smartphone…and it’s about identical to our retro Vaio.
The 3GS has a 600MHz processor and an identical amount of RAM to the PCG-SRX99—256MB. And it holds anywhere from 16 to 32GB in flash storage. Amenities like Wi-Fi (faster 802.11g). Turn to a company like HTC, and you can double the RAM while including a processor as fast as 1GHz.
Still, while Sony’s Vaio PCG-SRX99 couldn’t fit in our pocket, we’ve championed its form in an entire wave of cheap, portable computers today. Oh, and that whole ditching the optical drive idea? Sony spotted that trend a mile away. [Product Page and Review]
How to Put a Broken iPod to Good Use Our friends at Macworld have a easy list of uses for a dead iPod. The recommendations include using the iPod as a automobile stereo (if the battery no longer charges), turning the iPod into a storage drive, or tethering the iPod to a computer as an always-plugged-in iTunes player. Decent recommendations, but I had to chime […]
Our friends at Macworld have a easy list of uses for a dead iPod. The recommendations include using the iPod as a automobile stereo (if the battery no longer charges), turning the iPod into a storage drive, or tethering the iPod to a personal as an always-plugged-in iTunes player.
Decent recommendations, but I had to chime in with my favorite use of an old iPod: Turning it into a bootable Mac OS X drive. Lifehacker posted a great guide on installing Mac OS X Leopard on your iPod. (The same steps work for Mac OS X Snow Leopard.) The process is really easy: You erase the iPod’s hard drive and then restore it with an OS X disc image.
An iPod containing Mac OS X will come useful for troubleshooting (booting up on the iPod and performing disc repair on your Mac hard drive) or performing a fresh installation if needed. I prefer the iPod method because I tend to get careless with discs; they end up scratched up within a few months. Also, installing from a hard drive is way faster than installing from a disc. (That’s assuming, of course, that the problem with your iPod is a broken screen or a depleted battery — not a dead drive.)
Got any superior suggestions for using a dead iPod? Add them in the comments below.
While we’re confident that we nailed our 50 worst gadgets of the decade, you commenters reminded us of a few truly awful gems that didn’t make the cut. So here are ten more worst gadgets for your enjoyment and derision.
And please, suggest any others that you feel strongly about. I’ll be reading the comments all day, adding the most egregiously bad examples to the list. And if you’d rather view the embedded as one long post, we’ve got you covered here.
Hard Drive Packs In Every National Geographic Issue Ever As a youngster, I was once given a one-year subscription to the National Geographic. Like most people, I looked at the (wonderful) photos and promised myself I would read the articles later. A promise which was, of course, never kept (although I did often sneak a peek at the pictures of the women of tribes […]
As a youngster, I was once given a one-year subscription to the National Geographic. Like most people, I looked at the (wonderful) photos and promised myself I would read the articles later. A promise which was, of course, never kept (although I did often sneak a peek at the pictures of the women of tribes which have less strict rules on clothing than us).
The trouble with the Nat Geo was that, to me at least, it seemed like a chapter of an encyclopedia, not a magazine. Now you can actually use it that way, with a new hard-drive which puts each copy, ever, in one easy-to-search place. For $200, the National Geographic will sell you a 160GB hard drive, 60GB of which consists of scans of the entire back catalog, including the ads (sometimes the ideal part of looking back in time).
The browsing interface looks pretty, well, pretty, and owes a lot to OS X’s cover flow. You can search text, articles and photos, and of course just lose hours browsing 120 yeas of the iconic mag. The biggest surprise to us is that the entire library takes up just 60GB, just 500MB per year. The collection has been available on DVD for some time now, but that’s obviously a disk-swapping, battery-draining pain compared to a nice compact USB HD. Better, you can have it personalized, with the name of your chosen giftee printed onto the case of the drive itself.
HTC Russia claims in a current twitter post that the HD2 will be the only HTC phone to get an upgrade to WinMo 7. All other phones will remain on Windows 6.5.
Translation:
For Diamond 2 firmware isn’t planned. Of the existing communicators on the market, only the HD2 firmware to get WM7.
Of course, I really wouldn’t qualify this as “official” just yet. [twitter via MobileTechWorld]
Last week, we had to can the results because only 3 pics were entered into the contest. 3! (The week before, we had almost 60.) So once again, please help me keep this section going strong—nothing makes me happier than seeing Gizmodo transition to cover not just press releases for gadgets, but the artistic products that stated gadgets actually help produce.
The rules:
1. Submissions need to be your own. 2. Photos need to be taken the week of the contest. (No portfolio linking or it spoils the “challenge” part.) 3. Explain, briefly, the equipment, settings and technique used to snag the shot. 4. Email submissions to contests@gizmodo.com. 5. Include 800px image AND something wallpaper sized in email.
Send your best entries by Sunday at 6PM Eastern to contests@gizmodo.com with “Happy New Year” in the subject line. Save your files as JPGs or GIFs at 800 pixels wide and larger, and use a FirstnameLastname.jpg naming convention using whatever name you want to be credited with. Include your shooting summary (camera, lens, ISO, etc) in the body of the email. [Photo by Bubba Trout]
Garmin’s 450T GPS is their highest end without an integrated camera, and so, the best discreet outdoor GPS they make. It has a barometer, altimeter, waterproofness, tilt-compensated compass and a receiver sensitive enough for quick repairs in canyons and forests.
The 450 has a 3-inch, 240 x 400 pixel screen, 850MB of internal memory and a MicroSD slot. It works off AAs but with lithium or NiMH cells you can get 16 hours of life. There’s a $400 450 model (lacking the t, which is $500) that misses the full payload of North American topographical maps, covering “major trails, urban and rural roads, interstates, highways, coastlines, rivers and lakes as well as national, say and local parks, forests and wilderness areas”.
I’m all about cheap, internet enabled smartphone GPS apps for walking and turn by turn, but for the serious outdoorsman who doesn’t want to risk ruining or running down batteries in their phone, and wants a full payload of maps for when the web goes down over the north side of that huge mountain, this $500 outdoor GPS seems like the one to have. But man, consider how much smartphone and GPS app $500 purchases you these days. You’d have to be really, really serious about the outdoors these days to get a device like this. I’m personally on the fence.
Garmin® Grows in Outdoor Recreation, Adding New Oregon® Handhelds, Garmin Connect™ Compatibility and Free Custom Maps Utility
OLATHE, Kan.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Garmin International Inc., a unit of Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN), the global leader in satellite navigation, today announced the Oregon 450t and Oregon 450 touchscreen GPS devices, the newest of Garmin’s next-generation outdoor handhelds now compatible with the on the internet community at Garmin Connect as well as Garmin’s free Custom Maps utility for transferring paper or digital maps onto your compatible handheld.
“More than ever, Garmin offers intuitive touchscreen options for anyone exploring and enjoying the world around them”
“More than ever, Garmin offers intuitive touchscreen options for anyone exploring and enjoying the world around them,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin’s vice president of worldwide sales. “Oregon 450t and Oregon 450 provide a bridge between the slimmed-down Dakota™ family and the top-of-line Oregon 550t, all of which work seamlessly with Garmin Custom Maps in planning your adventure and Garmin Connect for reliving the experience and sharing the memories.”
Responsive to the touch of a finger, yet resistant to the rigors of nature, Oregon 450t and Oregon 450 simplify navigation through a glove-friendly touchscreen interface. This bright 3″ color display is easier than ever to read and use in all conditions. Other key upgrades include user-selectable dashboards, enhanced track navigation, high-speed USB for faster map transfers with your computer, photo navigation and the 3-axis tilt-compensated electronic compass, which shows your heading even when you’re standing still, without the need to hold it level. The new dashboards give users the ability to customize the appearance of various pages on your Oregon, including the geocaching, compass, stopwatch and elevation functions. For hikers, cyclists and trail runners, the enhanced track navigation will prove especially useful. When navigating to a destination on an active track, users will see the changes in elevation ahead of them as well as where they’ve been. Also, waypoints and other key locations along the active route – such as begin, end and high and low elevation points – now appear on the map and active route pages. The new Oregon units also include a barometric altimeter, paperless geocaching and wireless exchange of tracks, waypoints, routes and geocaches with compatible Oregon, Dakota, Colorado® and Foretrex® devices.
Both units boast a worldwide shaded relief basemap, and Oregon 450t adds preloaded 100K topographic maps for the entire United States and state-of-the-art 3D elevation perspective. Coverage on the 450t includes major trails, urban and rural roads, interstates, highways, coastlines, rivers and lakes as well as national, state and local parks, forests and wilderness areas. In addition, you can search for points of interest by name or proximity to your location and view descriptive details for terrain contours, topo elevations, summits and geographical points.
Customizing maps for your Garmin outdoor handheld – and downloading your activity afterward - were never easier. Through a few easy steps, Garmin’s Custom Maps can bring the details, labels and landmarks of your existing paper or electronic map to a compatible Garmin Oregon, Dakota or Colorado. Compatible with both PC and Mac, this free utility complements the myriad of mapping products already offered for Garmin devices, including City Navigator®, NT for turn-by-turn directions on city streets, Blue Chart® g2, for marine charting, and TOPO U.S. 24K and 100K map software for extraordinary terrain detail (each sold separately). The power of Custom Maps is exemplified through paper and digital maps labeled for specific events and purposes, such as a college graduation invitation that lists campus buildings; a roadmap of a parade, marathon, 5K or bike race; a park pamphlet showing trailheads; land-management maps of wildlife and game areas; or a historic illustration of an area as it once stood. To walk through the steps, to find and share maps and to join discussions about Garmin Custom Maps, visit www.garmin.com/CustomMaps.
Experiences will live on long after the activity has ended, thanks to Garmin Connect’s newly announced compatibility with Garmin outdoor handhelds, adding an expansive new product line to the free-to-join online community of more than 17 million activities – with more than 38,000 new activities per day – for sharing, storing, examining and enjoying. Outdoor and fitness enthusiasts alike can share activities on Facebook and Twitter, export to Google Earth or relive the activity in table view, calendar view or on a variety of maps including our new embedded Google Earth view.
Appsaurus: A Smarter Suggestion Tool Than App Store Genius Let’s face it: The iPhone’s “Genius” recommendation tool for finding apps is mediocre at best. Fortunately a startup cooked up something superior. It’s called Appsaurus. You “train” Appsaurus into understanding you better by tapping apps on a list that you like; you swipe to remove those you dislike. Every time you tap an app you might […]
Let’s face it: The iPhone’s “Genius” recommendation tool for finding apps is mediocre at best. Fortunately a startup cooked up something better. It’s called Appsaurus.
You “train” Appsaurus into understanding you superior by tapping apps on a list that you like; you swipe to remove those you dislike. Each time you tap an app you might like, a new list pops up with possible suggestions. You keep tapping and deleting apps until Appsaurus grows familiar with your preferences. The app breaks its learning process into “Evolution Stages”; the final one is “All-Knowing.” It doesn’t end there, either: It keeps learning with each app you select or ban.
I had some time to test drive Appsaurus and found a few gems after tapping through. To me, an even more useful feature is the capability to perform a custom search for a type of app you’re looking for based on a search term and category. From there on, Appsaurus narrows down the lists based on your criteria, and you find suggestions the same way — tap apps you like and swipe those you wouldn’t think about.
Appsaurus is a slick-looking app, and it’s better than Genius. The App Store’s Genius tool makes recommendations based only on the apps currently installed on your iPhone, and it spits out a pretty bland list of suggestions, from my experience.
Appsaurus’ approval can be considered a triumph. In November, Wired.com published a story documenting a major risk of developing for mobile platforms controlled by more massive corporations: You can be easily squashed if you inadvertently compete with the giant. Software development house Hello, Chair was an example. The team of three was working hard on an App Store suggestion tool called Appsaurus, but Apple beat them to the idea by releasing App Store Genius in September.
Put yourself in Hello, Chair’s shoes, and you’ll face some tough questions. Do you keep moving forward with Appsaurus? Is Apple going to reject the app since it does something similar to a built-in iPhone feature (as the company has done with apps that “duplicate functionality” of the iPhone)? Ultimately, is it wise to continue competing with a giant?
Hello, Chair opted to finish Appsaurus and submit it. Apple did, in fact, reject the app a number of times: The initial submission of Appsaurus pulled information from star ratings and user reviews to help make recommendations, but Apple is extremely protective of that data and wouldn’t grant it to be used in the app.
Finally, after a series of confusing phone calls with Apple and tweaks to Appsaurus, the app showed up in the App Store on Monday. And, albeit a compromise, the end result is still pretty sweet. It’s available in the App Store for $1.
An ex-Seagate employee turned whistle-blower claims that Seagate not only stole hard drive-silencing technology from the MIT researchers who developed it and they company they formed, Convolve, but destroyed blueprints to hide the evidence. [NYT, Image via Scoblizer]
Now I want you to close your eyes and squint really hard. Because I’m going to tell you about a time that feels ancient, a time when Sony made some of the baddest laptops around.
While we’re confident that we nailed our 
We’ve made it this far through 
Garmin’s 450T GPS is their highest end 
An ex-Seagate employee turned whistle-blower claims that Seagate not only stole 
Entries (RSS)