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Now that we've reached the end of another calendar, in continuing a tradition I started in 2003, below is a review of my 10 predictions for 2009 and an assessment of how accurate I was on each one.

1) Microsoft Launches Windows 7 to Fanfare, Skepticism
Microsoft's two pillars of financial solvency -- Windows and Office -- have been standing on shaky ground recently. Office 2007 was a decent hit, despite it not offering much new and causing significant backward compatibility issues. But Windows Vista, on the other hand, has been an unmitigated disaster. Microsoft even had to resort to tricking users into liking Vista (Mojave, anyone?), it had developed such a bad reputation. Windows 7 will be launched late in 2009 to a general consensus of "it's better," but will not be the "wow" that Microsoft needs to regain the market share it has recently ceded to Apple. But maybe that's a good thing...having strong competitors is usually a good thing for consumer markets.

When Windows 7 was officially launched October 22nd, by any measure, it came out to positive reviews and very good, if not great, sales. Of course, following a dog of a product like Vista will go a long way towards creating pent-up demand, so it wasn't unexpected. However, if you went by the press and hype, you'd think Microsoft was the underdog to Apple instead of still appearing on about 93% of all desktops. Windows 7 has slowed the slight shift towards OS X, but it's not clear yet that any ground is being made up.  Ironically, the best thing to happen to Windows in 2009 may have been the explosion of netbooks (more on that below).

2) Blockbuster Declares Bankruptcy
This may be a bit "out there," but I see exceedingly tough times at Blockbuster. And this isn't vindictiveness...I've been a reasonably happy Blockbuster.com customer for several years, now. I just think that, given the state of its business (poor), the weakness in the economy (near-critical), the nature of its service (luxury), and the rapidity with which that industry is transforming, I think Blockbuster will file for bankruptcy protection to get out of some of its debt, sell off some property (store locations that aren't faring well), and reinvest that into developing newer and more attractive services. So, they aren't going away...yet.

After spending much of 2009 desperately raising capital and refinancing its debt, Blockbuster is trying a variety of tactics to stave off its own demise at the hands of an increasingly varied assortment of competitors.  Netflix and piracy, Blockbuster's perennial nemeses, are joined by Redbox in stressing the company's sweaty grip on life even further.  However, per part of my prediction, Blockbuster announced in early 2009 that it would be closing 128 physical stores.  That number was massively expanded late in 2009 to closer to 1,000 stores.  Additionally, Blockbuster is launching a large kiosk initiative.  It's amazing how consistently the company does exactly what its competitors do, but 2-3 years later.  However, Blockbuster did not enter into any form of bankruptcy during 2009, so I'm declaring this one a failed prediction.

3) Palm Launches New OS to Fanfare, Skepticism
We've all heard the rumors that Palm will be launching "Nova," its replacement for the ancient Palm OS, at CES 2009 in a few days. I'm pretty sure that's going to happen. I'm also pretty sure that Palm will have at least one new device, if not several, running the new OS available by the end of June. While launching phones can take a while, given the carriers' lengthy testing requirements, launching a PDA doesn't, so Palm could certainly come out with two (or more) non-phone PDAs running Nova pretty quickly. And it needs to...the TX is older than my grandmother (at least in technology years). Generally, I predict there will be more nice things said about Nova, and the new devices, than critical, and it will stack up fairly competitively with Android and WM 6.5. What I do not have a lot of faith in is Palm's ability to develop and deliver the ecology of services (e.g., app stores) that customers are now expecting their smartphones to be integrated into. Time will tell on that front.

As we all now know, Nova was introduced as Palm webOS in January, 2009 at CES.  The first device running webOS was the Palm Pre, a nifty portrait QWERTY slider with HVGA multitouch screen.  Also during 2009, a second webOS device, the Palm Pixi, was announced and launched.  However, surprisingly, there were no non-phone webOS devices released.  In hindsight, I guess that makes sense, as Palm just doesn't have the resources (technical or financial) to launch 3+ separate devices in a single year.  Looking back, it's pretty clear that webOS and the Pre were well-received.  In fact, the Pre was the only smartphone to make it onto Twitter's Top-10 Trending Topics list for 2009, something neither the iPhone 3G S nor the Motorola Droid accomplished.  The two frustrating bits for Palm in 2009 have been Sprint's performance as a sole-carrier partner (in the US) for its new devices and the slow growth of the App Catalog.  However, both of these should be resolved in 2010...for Palm's sake, I hope so.

4) Blu-Ray Players Hit $99
During 2009, I think we'll see a raft of Korean and Taiwanese off-brand manufacturers launch budget Blu-Ray players. Just like the 2008 holiday sales saw BD players hit $149 in some stores, 2009 holiday sales will see them hit $99...if not sooner.

As I type this, Wal-Mart is selling a Magnavox NB500MG1F Blu-Ray Player for $98.00.  While it's just a Magnavox, it does meet the minimum criteria for confirming this prediction.

5) Apple Launches a Tablet to Fanfare
This has been a persistent rumor for years, but I think 2009 will see it actually happen. Why? A few reasons. First, Apple is looking to multi-touch as a key differentiator in its product lines, and having a full-screen, large-display MT device would make total sense. Second, it fits perfectly with the needs of the "creative class," Apple's core customer base. And third, it fills out a hole in their mobile product line that netbooks and other devices not running OS X fill nicely, and that's not a good thing for Apple. So, the technology is ready, the market is willing...and now I think Apple will be able to meet the demand.

Ha ha ha ha...um, no.  While many, many individuals would love for that to happen (if only as additional blog fodder), Apple has not announced anything.  However, there is feverish excitement in OS X fanboy camps about the iSlate being launched at an Apple event in January, 2010.  Or not.

6) Consolidation in the Entertainment Industry
2009 will be a strange year on a lot of dimensions. Not only will the stock market be hard to predict, there will be a lot of odd relationships come out of the mess. One industry that is still poised to make things happen is the entertainment industry, where I expect we'll see larger firms (e.g., major movie studios) start to acquire smaller, but very successful, examples from the newer media (e.g., game producers). A good example of the type of transaction I'm imagining would be Vivendi acquiring Ubisoft. I think Time Warner would love to swallow up Electronic Arts, but that might be a bit too big a bite unless something untoward happens to EA's stock price over the next year.

There were a number of major entertainment industry mergers and acquisitions in 2009.  One biggie was Disney scooping up Marvel Entertainment (comic books & movies) for $4 billion. While this deal hasn't been finalized, signs point to it going through. Another deal was the spin-off and merger involving Liberty Media Entertainment and DirecTV.  Is this a baby Time Warner in the making?  Hard to say, but I doubt it.  These two deals pale in comparison to what might turn out to be a merger of tectonic proportions:  Comcast buying 51% of NBC Universal.  If this goes through (in 2010), it will continue the trend of the same companies controlling the pipes and content, which could will cause consumers serious headaches in the years to come.  Or, they'll just continue to ignore the networks more and more and, instead, turn to the Internet for socially constructed content.  In that case, pray for net neutrality...it'll be our only hope.

7) Steve Jobs Announces Transition to New Role
I think concerns over Jobs' health have more merit than most of us want to admit. In 2009, I expect him to announce that he's transitioning into a different role than President and CEO of Apple (and CEO of Pixar). Something that keeps him out of the spotlight while he deals with his health issues will be valuable to keep Apple's stock price up and customer base intact. The move towards reducing his presence in near-term product launches is consistent with this strategy. But, he's far from gone...his influence will still be felt behind the scenes, but we'll see less of him in his traditional role as Apple poster boy.

Despite many people calling me a pessimist, an Apple-hater, and worse, I stood by this prediction.  On January 5, 2009, Sir Jobs sent out this infamous note claiming that his health issues were minor and transient.  But then, just a few days later, he followed up with a bombshell that he was much sicker than that and he'd be leaving until mid-year.  Given his absence at keynotes and overall behavior reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz ("pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"), his role has clearly changed.  And I take no joy in being right; Jobs is clearly a genius and consumer electronics is better off with him at the height of his abilities.  I look forward to him giving the keynote at WWDC in June, 2010.

8) Facebook Membership Growth Flattens; Twitter Surges
Signs are pointing towards Facebook's popularity beginning to peak. Just as with everything social, when moms and dads begin to frequent the coffee shop, the kids need a new place to hang out. Facebook currently has almost 40 million members in the US. While that number has been skyrocketing since it opened up membership to anyone in September 2006, I think 2009 will see a marked deceleration in its growth. The loss of perceived exclusivity and the hassle of the relatively unprotected app space will combine to make it less appealing to many long-time users and new prospects will find fewer people urging them to get on board. Twitter, however, will see continued growth as it continues to tweak and adapt its environment to meet its core users' needs.

While I'm counting this as a miss, it's actually 50% true.  Facebook's growth did not slow significantly as I'd predicted, but Twitter certainly did have the surge I thought was inevitable.

Let's look at some graphs:

You'll notice that Facebook's growth is pretty continuous up until late 2009, where some outages and privacy issues potentially took away from its momentum.  Now, Twitter...

This is a dramatic acceleration in Twitter's reach.  2009 will clearly go down in history as the year of Twitter.  In fact, Google and Microsoft so believed in it that they both inked deals to include Twitter's stream in their search engines as real-time results.

9) App Stores Dominate Mobile Software Delivery
iPhone's app store, Android's market...these types of bazaars, managed by the sponsors/manufacturers of the mobile operating systems, are coming to be the dominant mode for software distribution to mobile users. It marks a significant break from the traditional model, where mobile developers could sell software from their own sites, through 3rd party aggregators, and through carriers. This new approach is more streamlined, making it easier for users, but also more controlled, which can make it harder to accommodate large and complex ecosystems. The fact that each of the existing app stores serves a relatively small market is why we haven't seen these problems emerge to a point where they start driving users away. 2009 will see continued movement towards these controlled markets and away from the free-form/multi-channel models that previous mobile generations (e.g., Palm OS, Windows Mobile) relied on.

Undoubtedly true. Apple paved the way with this new model and, by the end of 2009, the existence of a robust app store is a requirement for any smartphone platform to be considered a contender. Apple's App Store recently passed 100,000 apps while Android's App Market has around 15,000 titles.  Palm's App Catalog just left beta status and is closing in on 1,000 apps.  In 2009, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, and Symbian app catalogs were all launched as well.  Clearly, this is the dominant mobile app distribution model for the foreseeable future.

10) Line Blurs between "Netbooks" and Notebooks/Laptops
Netbooks are currently a fairly homogeneous, and well-defined, niche of laptop computers. Most of them have an Intel Atom processor, a screen from 8.9" to 10" in size, no optical drive, weigh between 2.2 and 3 lbs, and cost $300-$500. There's a big gap in pricing then between these netbooks and the subnotebooks/ultraportables that often have slightly larger screens, way more RAM and processing power, and cost $1,500 or more. To paraphrase the old adage, markets abhor a vacuum, so I expect we'll start seeing all manner of new small notebooks come into the market in this $500-$1000 range sporting screens in the 9"-12" range with anything from 512MB to 2GB of RAM, a variety of operating systems (XP and Linux will continue to be most popular), and a range of processing and display capabilities. Not everyone needs to play Crysis on their notebook, but not everyone can get by with a 1024x600 screen and do everything inside their browser.

This was evident even early on in 2009, and now, at year's end, the trend is clearly supportive. While initial netbooks were all burdened with screens in the 8"-9" range, recently announced models have 11" and even 12" screens.  Surprisingly, the prices we're willing to pay for netbooks is increasing, too (clear up to $1,500 if you consider the impressively engineered Sony Vaio X).  Sure, it could just be that our definition of "netbook" is expanding.  But, it's hard to argue that the line between netbook and notebook is getting pretty diffused. 

So, looking back, my record for 2009 seems to be 7 right, 3 wrong...about in line with last year. Some of these were hard to determine, as I had packed in several related predictions into a single item, something I'll try not to do when I post my predictions for 2010 in the next day or two. Until then, let me know what you think in the comments below. 

Thanks, and have a great New Year!

• Compact design & easy to carry
• Fast Scanning Speed ( 2.2 sec per page)
• Special design for Embossed / Plastic card scanning
• Duplex / Simplex Full Color Scanning
• Power & Time saving (no warming lead time needed)
• Multi function with user friendly software
• Support Asian Language Recognition (Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese)

The second is for generating high-res Acrobat files.  Notice the handy setting to allow each page to create its own unique file or to automatically append pages to a single PDF file.  Also, notice that you can have different settings for the front versus the back in duplex mode. I've not seen a scanner with that level of flexibility, certainly not one in the price range of the D28 ($275-$325 street prices).

I tested the D28 out on a few different jobs.  One was a stack of business cards I'd been collecting.  I was able to churn through all 150 in about 12 minutes, and that was mostly determined by how fast I could stick the next card into the scanner each time.  Output was just fine, although auto-deskew didn't straighten out some of my more misaligned feeds.  I configured DigiDoc to save each scan straight to a PNG file (a nice touch) and then mass-uploaded them to Evernote where they're now all searchable online.

I also scanned in a couple of my daughter's drawings on the D28's max resolution (600 dpi) and they looked very good.  This isn't the right machine for scanning in photo negatives or slides, but printed materials up to about the thickness of a CD work great.  I tried sending a piece of paper with an 1/8th-inch thick sticker on it and it got caught up every time, so it's not nearly as flexible as a flatbed scanner, but then those aren't usually very portable, either.

All told, I'd definitely consider the D28 a strong contender if I regularly had small scanning jobs, moved locations fairly often, and wasn't trying to scan books or other non-feedable materials.  The flexibility of DigiDoc plus the simplicity of the D28's interface make it really simple to set up and use right away.  While I have no idea about the D28's build quality (many scanners, even expensive units, suffer feed problems even after a few hundred pages), at this price, you won't feel too bad replacing it if it stops performing up to snuff.

My apologies...again. The system clock on my webserver went bonkers a couple days ago and reset itself to Jan. 1, 2000, so recent comments will be appearing with date stamps around then. That means they'll be appearing at the TOP of the list of recent comments rather than the bottom where you'd expect them to be.

One of these days I'll replace the motherboard battery...one of these days...

Update: System battery replaced...hopefully that'll take care of that for a while.

Sorry for comments being nonfunctional for the past couple of weeks. I only noticed it yesterday and then figured out what was going on this morning.

Apparently, my server's motherboard clock battery is dead and the system time got reset to January 1, 2000, which screws up record-keeping for new comments and Movable Type automatically denies them. I will keep an eye on it until I get things moved over to a new server.

Until then, keep your fingers crossed and keep the comments coming.

I'm losing a battle, the battle to keep my personal online self separated from my work/professional online self. And losing that battle has some potentially serious consequences.

In the 15 or so years I've been "on the web," I've tried to maintain a division between my personal life and my professional life. The reason is pretty simple: some of the things I might say or do with friends and family might be incompatible with expectations for my behavior as whatever kind of professional I'm employed as at the time.

I'm not talking anything scandalous...no KKK activities, secret families, or felony indictments...but statements and actions that might seem totally innocuous in one context and to one person (e.g., joking with an old friend) might seem out-of-place in another context to a different person (e.g., to a student or client).

And that division is slowly eroding...slipping away as my ability to keep one "life" separate from the other disintegrates. Some of my work colleagues and students have started following me on Twitter and friending me on Facebook (hi, folks!), places that I've never intended to engage anyone from work (with, perhaps, a few exceptions). More confounding is LinkedIn, on which I have a complete cross-section of associations from every corner of my personal and professional lives.

Many of those connections, and the overall intermixing of my personae, are, admittedly, my own fault. When I initially set up Facebook, I accidentally let it troll through my Gmail addressbook and send out automatic invitations. Newbie mistake. On Twitter, my profile is open, meaning anyone can follow me. And, I also have this tendency to only use my real name online; I never felt comfortable hiding behind a quasi-anonymous pseudonym or fake profile. All considered, I really only have myself to blame for allowing the online division between my personal self and my work self to blur.

So what does this mean? I think it means that my online "self" will have to be much more thoughtful and considerate of the implications, for every facet of my life, of my actions online. A bawdy joke told in a small, yet public, mailing list could easily find its way to my boss' desk. A thoughtless, or even mean-spirited, comment could ultimately offend a co-worker. These unintended consequences are like civilian casualties in a war; collateral damage from acting thoughtlessly in a casual space that is, ultimately, connected in a very real sense to one's professional environment.

Perhaps this is precisely what all those Gen-Y kids were learning when their Facebook profiles and Myspace pages were being used by potential employers as reasons to not hire them; 27 photos of you drunk off your butt at a fraternity party doesn't tend to impress the HR department very much.

So, the bottom line is this, what I'm calling my Golden Rule for the digital era:

If I treat every interaction, whether online or face-to-face, as if it were happening in person, I'm sure there would be times I would handle it differently. Is it better to have less freedom to do as my basest reactionary self wants, less consideration for the human on the other end of the bitpipe? No, I think society has always relied on our ability to reign in that temptation. And the Internet changes nothing in that regard, except, perhaps, to give us more opportunities to screw up.

So, now, going forward, the real test is seeing if I can live by that rule of mine. Wish me luck!

Six years ago today, I fired up GearBits for the first time with no idea what would become of it. I was pretty sure I had no desire to turn it into a business (been there, done that), but, apart from that, I wasn't at all certain what I'd write about, how frequently, or in pursuit of what objectives (if any).

Now, it's pretty clear that GearBits has gone through several stages in its short life. At first, it was a curiosity...a chance to learn about blogging, host a webserver, and some other aspects of a techno-centric life that are best acquired through hands-on experience.

Then, I invited some friends to play. Mitch, Sam, and Ken, and later Bob, all brought unique voices, but as the site was never more than a casual outlet for occasional thoughts, it never really gelled with any of them. But, seeing friends contribute their thoughts and ideas in ways very different than I would have was educational for me and a lot of fun.

As their interest vacillated, my own did as well. While I continued to post, it became much more sporadic. I deviated from technology and consumer electronics more heavily into politics around the 2004 and 2008 elections, primarily as a cathartic tool...one small voice calling out the absurdities and injustices.

Then, in Spring 2008, something happened that changed how I see my blog entirely: Twitter. I've become a bit of a Twitterholic. As my brain is rather limited in its capacity for complex thought, many of the things I think seem to fit nicely in 140 characters or less. Since my joining Twitter less than a year ago, I've made nearly 4,000 posts (tweets). Compare that to less than 1,200 posts on GearBits in six-year span.

But why? Thinking about it, it seems there are three reasons: convenience, engagement, and reduced expectations. First, posting to Twitter is incredibly convenient; I can do it through text messages, via the web interface, on custom apps...all easy and quick. Second, given the size of the community on Twitter, it's easy to be engaged in conversations and get feedback very quickly. That's rewarding, so it prompts me to do it more often. Comments work here, too, but they're not nearly as quick and convenient to post, read, or respond to.

Third, and perhaps most surprising (to me), is that I've always felt like anything I post on GearBits needed to have some meat...be substantial. While I clearly didn't always accomplish that, I almost always strived for it. On Twitter, however, there's no such pressure to create meaningful content. When giving a talk, every sentence matters. When chatting with friends, however, there's a much lower bar to clear. And that's the way Twitter feels to me.

So, will I continue with GearBits? Probably...almost definitely. I want to continue having my own server -- it's just too convenient. Since that's in place, hosting Movable Type isn't a huge amount of incremental effort or cost. A second reason GearBits will continue is that I will, from time to time, have information I'd like to "put out there" that doesn't easily fit on a tweet. Product reviews, short essays (like this one), graphical content, etc. all fit much better on a proper blog than on Twitter. Finally, there's value in what I've already done. I don't get huge numbers of people at GearBits...a thousand or so each day...so, if it were to go away, it's not like the masses would rise up and demand I put it back up. But, during the six years I've been adding content, there are some pages that a nontrivial number of people seem to find helpful (see the most frequently commented entries, for example). So, if having it around helps a couple people a day fix a problem or make a better tech decision, then that's more than enough.

Thanks for reading (if anyone actually does) and I'll hopefully see you in another six years.

Each year, we at GearBits post some predictions for the coming year. And then, in the interest of honesty, fairness, and self-deprecation, we take a look back to see how we did. Each of our predictions for 2008 are listed below, along with an update on what actually happened.

1) Blu-Ray Wins the Format War
Yep, I'm going to pick a winner and it's going to be Blu-Ray. The one-two punch of Warner Brothers's move to Blu-Ray exclusivity (from its Switzerland-like neutrality of supporting both formats) later in 2008 and Apple's announcement that BD will be the only HD format available in its products will cement HD DVD's demise. And none too soon. I don't really care which wins...just make it snappy so that prices on players and media can plummet, thanks.

As of now, the end of 2008, it seems like forever since Blu-Ray trounced HD DVD in the format war. But back in early January, it was anyone's guess. But then, on February 18th, Toshiba officially threw in the towel. Interestingly, the Warner Bros. move I thought would happen eventually was actually announced the day after I posted my predictions. Of course, Apple hasn't yet released any products with any form of HD optical drive, so that bit wasn't exactly spot on. And I'm still waiting for my $99 Blu-Ray player. But, overall, this prediction looks pretty solid.

2) Google's Android Shakes Up Phone Industry
For a while now, the cellphone industry has been fairly static. A few smartphone and mobile OS makers have generally tussled for market share, but the overall industry has been pretty evolutionary. Google's entry will prove to be a watershed moment, with open source finally making a big impact in the handheld space (and no, I don't consider the Zaurus to be a big deal...sorry). Actual handsets running Android will be announced, if not available, before the end of 2008.

Depending on your threshold for "shaking up" the phone industry, I think most people would agree that Android made quite a splash in 2008 when the HTC G1 was launched on T-Mobile in the US on September 23rd. And we've already heard of around a dozen hardware makers signed on to release Android handsets. While handset sales still pale in comparison to the iPhone, 2009 looks like it just might be the year of the Android.

3) Palm Supports Android
This is more of a hope than an actual prediction, as I just don't know whether the egos at Palm will let the company do the right thing and admit that their next-generation OS (which has been under development since 2004!) will be a viable contender against Android (which has essentially the same technical details but scads more developer support). But, if cooler, more rational heads prevail at Palm, they'll announce that they're plans will be to produce at least one Android-based product (probably to come out sometime in 2012 :-/ ).

Ouch...I couldn't have been more wrong. While I still think Palm would have been smart to advance their product refurbishment by a full year (maybe more) by going with Android instead of continuing to pursue Nova, the company stuck to its original, go-it-alone plans. We'll see how well that pans out in 2009.

4) Microsoft's HD Photo Replacement for JPEG Image Standard Goes Nowhere
I'm not saying it's a bad idea technically; I'm just saying that JPEG is so entrenched now that replacing it would be about as reasonable a thing to try as would be replacing MP3 with any of the multitudes of better formats. JPEG, like MP3, isn't great, but it's adequate (at least for consumers) and ubiquitous. We'll still be saving all our photos in JPG (and maybe RAW) at the end of 2008...and likely long after that.

JPEG XR, the official name of Microsoft's HD Photo format, has generated essentially zero traction in the camera industry. Part of that is Microsoft's less-than-swift transition of JPEG XR into its quasi-open licensing portfolio, a move that will have to happen for camera makers and developers to trust that they won't be bitten by huge licensing fees in the future if they move their products away from RAW to JPEG XR.

5) Subnotes Will Explode in Availability (and Maybe Popularity)
I've always been a fan of tiny, sub-3-pound laptops, but I think 2008 will see a huge number of these clamshell devices come out of every corner of the consumer electronics space. The Asus EeePC and the OLPC XO Laptop are two examples. While Microsoft had a good idea in its UMPC (Ultra-Mobile PC) concept, the hardware was just never executed all that well. Frankly, I think a 7" touchscreen for Windows is just too difficult. But, going with the traditional clamshell design and using cheaper and/or smaller technologies (e.g., flash memory instead of a HDD) will bring us a raft of interesting (and some good) designs at <$500 price points. Bring 'em on! And I think we'll start to see a lot more people toting these things along that traditionally avoided laptops for whatever reason (cost, weight, etc.).

Bingo. If the shelves at Best Buy and Circuit City are any indication, these "netbooks" (the now-favored term...at least by everyone except Psion) have multiplied faster than Tribbles on Cialis. One glance at the huuuge list of netbooks over at small-notebooks.com is enough evidence to suggest that this prediction was spot on.

6) The GPS War Heats Up
TomTom, Nokia, and Garmin will exchange hostile fire over the GPS market due to convuluted agreements regarding mapping data as well as market-share for hardware. Products will continue to decline in price and improve in functionality, and >50% of cellphones will have some form of GPS functionality available on them. I guess that's two predictions in one...oh well.

I'm going to give myself this one. While we haven't heard that much more about the complex licensing agreements involving the big three, you need only walk through a Staples, Radio Shack, or Target to see a vast assortment of portable GPS units now available for under $150, most even having text-to-speech and other advanced functions. That's in direct comparison to late last year, when it was difficult to find a decent unit for under $300.

7) DRM Hits Choppy Water
2007 saw some movement away from DRM (digital rights management), especially in the music industry, but I expect we'll see similar initiatives in all areas of media. DRM has been proven again and again to be little more than an expensive technological boondoggle, and the leading innovators at the consumer media interface (e.g., Apple, Amazon, and Google) will make some headway into reversing the trend of more encumbrance for our media. The RIAA and MPAA will continue to fight it...they know how to do nothing else...but economic results will start to demonstrate that DRM actually hurts profitability.

Nope...we didn't hear much consistent with my prediction. While some markets moved towards offering DRM-free downloads, most are still heavily laden. And the RIAA actually reversed its strategy and is now no longer suing everyone and their mother for alleged downloading. So that's two different ways I was off on this one. Just goes to show that there's no telling what the content owners are thinking.

8) Major Tech Stocks End 2008 Up Significantly
These are bound to be wrong, but what the heck...nobody pays me for stock tips. I think Apple will end 2008 at 235, Google will be at 960, and Microsoft will finish the year at 50. As for other stocks, iRobot will end up at either 46 or 12 (can you tell I'm a cynical shareholder?), IBM will show tepid growth to 112, and RIM, hurt by the continued weak US dollar and facing increasing competition, will struggle to match its 1-year high of 127.

Uh, no. While I doubt many saw the massive downturn in stocks coming, tech stocks are decidedly not even slightly better off than most. Let's see how my specific price predictions held up:
  • Apple (AAPL): Predicted = 235; Actual = 86.29
  • Google (GOOG): Predicted = 960; Actual = 303.11
  • Microsoft (MSFT): Predicted = 50; Actual = 19.34
  • iRobot (IRBT): Predicted = 46 or 12; Actual = 8.95
  • IBM (IBM): Predicted = 112; Actual = 83.55
  • Research in Motion (RIMM): Predicted = 127; Actual = 38.77
In summary, do not ask me to manage your stock portfolio...you would be better served by setting your money on fire, as then you could at least stay warm for a while.

9) I Buy a New Laptop and Am Disappointed
My Panasonic CF-W2 is now three-and-a-half-years-old and I'm starting to cringe every time I turn it on (my luck with hard drives makes me skeptical of many living past their 4th birthday). I've been looking at possible replacements (e.g., Toshiba R500, Panasonic W7, maybe the Lenovo IdeaPad U110 or the rumored Apple subnote) and so far every single one has some significant trade-offs. So, I expect I'll get one and it will turn out to be not significantly better than my aging Toughbook. You'd think in nearly four years that two grand would buy something markedly superior. We'll see...

Unfortunately, I was right on this. The Fujitsu LifeBook P8010 I ended up purchasing in February is a good laptop...don't get me wrong. It's just not a heads-and-shoulders better laptop than my ToughBook was, and that's what I was expecting given the nearly 4 years newer technology and the $2500 it cost. And, given that I've already had to send it in for a repair (the power button broke off), I'm guessing the durability won't even come close to that of the Panasonic (which I still use regularly around the house).

10) Major Changes in Automotive Industry Announced
While the car business makes actual change only very slowly, we'll see some huge announcements in 2008 that will fundamentally change the future of that industry. Things like record oil prices, an increasing attention to sustainable/green technology, and significant ownership changes will substantially change the competitive landscape. Make no mistake; Toyota will continue its ascent and eclipse GM as #1 car-maker in the world. But, we will see several major announcements that will start affecting actual consumers in 2009 and beyond.

While I didn't get the stock predictions exactly right (OK, not even close), I think it's safe to say that the US automotive industry has been shaken up with major changes during 2008. We saw record oil prices (check!), more attention to green tech (check!), and the bottom dropping out of US consumption didn't leave them anywhere to go except to the Congress for help. And Toyota did indeed become the biggest carmaker in the world in 2008, just as predicted. Let's hope the Volt truly is something special...for all our sakes.

So, there you have it: our final score is 7 winners and 3 losers. I'll take it. :-)

In a couple of days, I'll be posting GearBits' predictions for 2009, so make sure you come back and check those out, m'kay?

We get a lot of mail-order catalogs at our house. For whatever reason or past sin, our mailman comes bearing some catalog or another nearly every day. As an experiment, I decided to keep every single catalog we received between the day after Thanksgiving ("Black Friday") and Christmas to see just how many we get during this most joyous of holiday seasons.

And here's the resulting pile:

Yes, that's over 12" of catalogs...121 in total...

...weighing in at a mind-boggling 34 lbs!

This is absurd on several fronts. First, we have never ordered from probably 90% of these companies, and likely never will. Second, several companies sent us multiple copies of the same catalog on the same day. What purpose does that serve, other than to illustrate how bad your marketing department's data-mining efforts are? Third, we received at least five different catalogs from several firms in this one-month period; if the first four catalogs didn't catch our eye, believe me, it's unlikely we're even going to look at the fifth.

In this age of heightened awareness towards ecological and energy concerns, it seems ridiculous that such wasteful physical marketing efforts would not only be tolerated, but be encouraged by discounted postal rates for materials like this. If it cost these companies the same per pound to ship these as it does for you and I to ship something, I guarantee you we'd see fewer of them in our mailboxes.

Motivated by a Tweet and reconstituted in the style of Indexed.

In the weeks running up to the 2004 presidential election, my yard sign was often pilfered and/or destroyed. After the 4th time, I had had enough, and rigged up a fairly simple alarm to help protect my sign. This post documents how to do it in case you're facing your own First Amendment-hating neighborhood antagonists.

What You'll Need
   • Duct tape
   • A wire hanger
   • Fishing line (string or twine can also be used)
   • A personal alarm (more on this below)

The "personal alarm" mentioned above is one of those little keychain fobs that emits a loud, piercing sound when you pull the pin out (see photo below). I got mine, a Nexxtech brand (?), at Circuit City for about $5, but they're pretty easy to find online as well as in retail stores. A cheap alternative to buying one is to find one of the several custom screenprinters who sell these and request a sample unit; many companies will send you one for free in hopes that you'll order a few hundred.

Click the "Continue reading" link for complete instructions and photos.

The variety of online tools to help us organize our lives, work with others, and generally get stuff done is just exploding. I've tried to capture some in the list below, but I'm hoping you, dear readers, will leave a comment naming some other tools you like to use.

Webmail
• Gmail - threaded conversations, search

Chat
• Google Talk (integrates conversations with Gmail)

Real-Time Group Collaboration
• Basecamp
• Campfire
• Stickam: group videoconferencing
• Skype: 1-on-1 tele- & videoconferencing, chat, file xfer

File-Sharing
• DropSend (1 GB max size)
• Wikisend (100 MB max size)

Wikis
• WetPaint

Document Sharing
• Google docs

Microblogging
• Twitter

Personal Time Management
• Remember the Milk - Web-based to-do list & task organizer with multi-media reminders

Social Bookmarking/Referral
• Delicious - "Delicious is a social bookmarking service that allows users to tag, save, manage and share web pages from a centralized source. With emphasis on the power of the community, Delicious greatly improves how people discover, remember and share on the Internet."
• Digg - "Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web."

Note Management
• Evernote: Desktop + Web, with wicked OCR for images

A week-and-a-half ago, I spent all weekend (well, about 34 hours of it) in a habitrail of meeting rooms with about 100 other people trying to do something pretty incredible: invent, build, and launch a new Internet startup in less than three days.

The event, InOneWeekend 2008, was the inaugural entrepreneurial exercise by this new Cincinnati organization, which hopes to jump-start new-venture creation in the technology-based services space (i.e., dot-coms).

After lots of thinking and working and coding and sweating (not to mention eating fast food and swilling highly caffeinated beverages), our concept was outlined and mocked up to a degree that we thought the world should be invited to share in its evolution from beta concept to fully operational service.

I, er, we give you...LifeSpoke.

Go on...click the link and check it out...it won't hurt, I promise.

LifeSpoke is, and soon will be more of, a place to save, organize, and share all your personal memorabilia and life's memories (assuming they come in handy digital format, of course). With an innovative, patent-pending interface (that we're not quite ready to share yet) and a family-oriented content model (that includes loads of privacy, security, and convenience), we're pretty stoked at the idea that moms, dads, kids, grandparents, and close friends will finally have a place to share their intimate memories and most precious media in a rich new environment.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Actually, you're thinking "I'm hungry...I wonder what's in the fridge." Hey, focus...there's just a little more to read here. You were also thinking "But aren't there a bazillion other media-sharing websites out there, like YouTube, most with sharing features?" To that I say of course! But LifeSpoke is different and will be the best solution for families and close-knit groups of friends to share their memories. While those other sites are great for stuff like watching someone's dog ride a skateboard or having anonymous 15-year-olds "friend" you, LifeSpoke focuses on the relationships in your life that mean the most.

So...go sign up for one of the limited beta invitations at LifeSpoke.com and join us as we ride this idea to wherever it takes us. Should be a fun trip.

If you're interested in reading more about the InOneWeekend adventure we had, check out these stories:
• Official LifeSpoke press release (Marketwatch.com)
• Cincinnati Business Courier article (bizjournals.com)

This past weekend, I participated in the inaugural InOneWeekend event, an attempt to jumpstart a new dot-com venture by getting 100 volunteers in a room over a weekend to design and build, from scratch, a new company. More on what IOW is can be found on the InOneWeekend website and in this story on Soapbox.

I've written up some thoughts on the process and overall experience and posted them on the IOW blog. Rather than replicate them here, I shall use the power of the Internet to offer you a link: Reflections on the IOW Experience

Back in March, I reviewed the Audio-Technica ATH-ANC7 QuietPoint Noise-Cancelling Headphones (shown). I've continued enjoying them whenever I fly, as they greatly reduce the stress and fatigue I usually get when traveling on an airplane.

Tonight, however, I discovered a more mundane, and therefore, more useful, application for these noise-silencing cans: transforming the chore of grass-mowing into a nearly pleasurable activity.

While they can't eradicate the mower's noise entirely...it's just too overwhelming...the combination of (a) the over-the-ear seals, and (b) the noise-canceling technology effectively drops the drone of the mower to easily tolerable levels. In fact, while I usually struggle to hear the radio over the mower when using my jogging headphones, even at top volume, I was easily able to listen in total comfort at only 60% volume when wearing the Audio-Technicas.

So, if you have a pair of NC headphones, give this a shot and let me know if you notice a difference. And if you don't already have a set, and you mow the grass on occasion, go grab some...your ears will be thankful.

Time.com has positively deviated from the typical "gas prices are awful, aren't they?" approach most journalists take when writing about the fuel situation. Instead of adding to the incessant yammering about how life is going down the crapper because of $4 gas, they decide to highlight 10 positives that might come about because of it:

1. Globalized jobs return home
   
2. Sprawl stalls
   
3. 4-day work weeks
   
4. Less pollution
   
5. More frugal use of transportation
   
6. Fewer traffic deaths
   
7. Cheaper car insurance
   
8. Less traffic
   
9. More cops out of their cars
   
10. Less obesity

Now, I'm not confident all these will happen just because of high gas prices, but you have to give them a nod for at least trying to remind us that some good will likely come out of this.

Read the whole story here.

Apparently, a man rear-ended a Cincinnati city bus and then claimed he didn't see it.

A bus. You know, they're quite large...pretty hard to overlook.

And what do you think the man was driving when he hit the bus?

Yep...another bus.

At least that's one problem we shouldn't have with streetcars.

Following the trend of GearBits author Hot/Not lists... here's mine.

HOT

• NBA - The classic Lakers/Celtics playoff rivalry has made me happy to watch professional sports again.
• Sci-Fi eBooks - Thanks to the new Tor.com new website promotion more people are getting into eBooks. Sign up and get some fine quality literature delivered to you for free in electronic format. It's nice to have additional reading choices on your next business flight, without the bulk of paper books.
• Subaru - I feel bad about the gas milage, but I still love driving my wife's Subaru Legacy GT wagon. Co-workers bragging about their Acura TLs are humbled when they realize that this family wagon beats them 0-60.
• Telework - Unless you have kids at home during the day, teleworking rocks. Who doesn't want to save gas money? I have a better office and faster computer hardware at home, anyway.
• Web20... at Work - You got your LinkedIn, Pulse, Naymz, whatever account last year. Now that you're teleworking, you'll need to be more social to stay in touch with co-workers. Can twitter replace the office water cooler?

NOT

• Paying Extra for Baggage - The airline baggage charge further exacerbates the problem of travel-newbs and their oversize carry-ons.
• Comcast Triple Play - The Comcast sales office in my county is extremely busy. It's busy with people returning their cable boxes.
• New Hybird/Eletric Car Designs - As of this week, I am finally bored of announcements about new designs for alternative vehicles. When will something finally appear at a store near me?
• Feedlot Beef - I just read Omnivore's Dilemma. What nasty stuff have I been eating all these years?
• Classroom Corporate Training - Is it responsible to pay for a flight and hotel for a training class in Chicago, when a webinar can get you at least half the knowledge you need? Maybe the company will take the money you save and give you a raise to help cover inflation.

Eugenio just read one of Clay Shirky's recent articles, Gin, Television, and Social Surplus, and said it reminded him of a piece I posted here a little over three years ago:

The Great Decision: Consume or Produce
January 29, 2005

Every time I sit down at a PC and every time I walk into my office at work, I'm struck with a fundamental decision: consume or produce.

I'm talking about information. Any minute can be reasonably and justifiably spent either consuming information, such as reading research papers, news sites, emails, blogs, etc., or producing new information, such as writing my own papers, putting up blog entries, leaving comments on blogs (hint, hint), composing an email, and so on.

Some people are very content to be primarily, if not entirely, consumers. They feel little or no need to share their knowledege, opinions, and thoughts with others. Some are more biased in the opposite direction, churning out an unending stream of content. ...

Read the entire post

What's particularly serendipitous about Eugenio's note is that I recently signed up for Twitter and have been trying to figure out it can be the most useful as a communication tool. Twitter, as you likely know, is much more about production than consumption -- it makes creating and distributing tiny bits of information almost frictionless, thereby further increasing the load on us as consumers.

This is still an issue I struggle with every day. I doubt I'll ever resolve it.

"No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit."
            - Sir Frederick G. Banting
              Canadian physician

Wow...I didn't realize that I've been doing this for five years now until just a few days ago. Seems like those humble beginnings weren't nearly that long ago.

I'm not really sure how you're supposed to celebrate the fifth birthday of a blog. Suggestions are welcome. In the interim, here are some notable lessons from the past five years:

1) If you post a complaint about a big company, the comments can get out of hand.

2) Some things that look interesting actually turn out to be interesting, while others don't go very far.

3) People don't follow directions.

4) Sometimes blogging is totally cathartic, but pressure to produce can sap the enjoyment right out of it.

5) It seems like a lot of people yearn for the TV of their youth.

6) Sometimes my predictions are pretty on-target; sometimes they're way, way off-base.

7) Comment and trackback spam sucks.

8) And finally, I admire those out there who can run consistently high-quality blogs (unlike this one). The effort needed to keep churning out excellent content is far from trivial, and to do it well requires gobs of both skill and sweat.

I'd like to thank Mitch, Ken, and Sam for their help in the early days of GearBits. It was fun blogging as part of a team. Maybe Bob's recent arrival will return some of that youthful exuberance.

I've been thinking a lot, lately, about what drives us to do what we do. I don't mean extreme acts of aggression and violence, like murder-suicides or throwing puppies off a cliff; research into mental illness is ongoing and I'm sure they're making progress. No, what I'm talking about is what drives us to strive for the new, the creative, the innovative, the special, the different, the excellent...I think you get what I'm after.

Sociologists and psychologists have identified a few drivers: social desirability, peer pressure, perceived performance expectations, and so forth. All those concepts rely heavily on external pressure; our views of what other people do and how they see us cause us to behave in a certain way.

But what about inherent drive? What about a personal impetus that wells up from deep within one's psyche? What about an innate need for creating something new, different, better?

I don't know if I have that, frankly. But sometimes I feel utterly compelled to veer off my rationally-constructed to-do list and do something spontaneous, in search of a moment of pure...what is it...pride? Is it pride? I hope it's not that shallow.

Is it just the excitement of not knowing what will happen? Perhaps. In a normal day, most of my time lately seems to be spent on activities where I know the outcome. A reviewed journal article. An attended meeting. An emptied dishwasher. A made bed. Maybe it is the potential for escaping the mundane that drives these fits of irrational and unplanned exuberance.

But why not just read something new and interesting? What drives us to create when we could otherwise consume? What motivates our inner sense of satisfaction that comes only from producing something that has not existed before?

I am curious about this. But I have no answers tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

Today's youths will spend most of their lives using their phones as their primary means of communication. Txting will likely continue to be a popular medium, yet many fear this will cause a decline in this generation's literary consciousness.

Perhaps we just need to adapt the forms to fit the medium. As an exercise, I have attempted what I think are perhaps the first examples of poetry in iambic txtameter. This new form uses iambs (or metrical feet having the pattern da DA, as in "request" and "corrupt") and is constrained by the 160-character limit of common text messages. How one organizes the 160 characters depends on the number of iambs in each line, but it would seem to make sense that each line should have the same number of characters (just to make it challenging). Here are a couple of examples:

With 5 iambs (40 characters) per line:
Forego the mission and behold the truth!
You cannot hide inside a church of youth
There is but one objective we can claim:
To coexist, with neither fear nor blame.

With 3 iambs (20 characters) per line:
oh wht a dreary day!
teh sky is very gray
ono! it strts 2 rain
and i get wet again!
this sux i am so mad
i really hate my dad
he took away my fone
and now i feel alone

No, they're not good poems, but maybe the format will catch on. After all, if all some budding poet has on him is his phone when the muse strikes, this may be the most he can do with it.

p.s. Yes, I suppose you could go with trochaic txtameter as well...knock yourself out. :-)

It's my great pleasure to welcome a new voice to GearBits: Bob Nonnenkamp. Bob's a good friend, a technology wunderkind, both professionally and personally, and is gifted with an eternally inquisitive spirit, so he tends to think up and try lots of cool stuff. The hope is that some of it eventually makes its way here to GearBits.

So check out his author bio and keep an eye out for Bob's posts; I'm sure they'll be interesting.

My daughter, who's 3 now, and I have discovered that we enjoy making board games together. She enjoyed Candy Land and Chutes & Ladders, but tired of them quickly. So, we decided to try and make our own using stuff around the house. After two pretty successful (i.e., she still enjoys playing them a few months later) games, we attempted our most ambitious one yet: The Zoo Game. It's fun, cost all of $8 to make, and, after spending two hours putting it together, we've spent several hours playing different versions of it. So, I thought I'd document it here in case anyone else with little kids wanted a starting point for making their own game.

Constructing The Zoo Game

The Zoo Game is your basic roll-a-die-and-move-around-the-board-trying-to-accomplish-things type of boardgame. The theme is, obviously, a zoo, and the general objective is visiting the animals in the zoo. Here's a photo of the board as we constructed it, set up and ready for play:

Around the periphery of the board are the animal cards. We made 4 cards for each of the 10 animals at our zoo (you can have as many or as few animals as you like) by cutting 3"x5" index cards in half. Each animal card has on it a sticker of the animal it represents (we bought two packs of animal stickers for $1.99 each...yeah, Michael's is expensive, but they have everything). I tried to make the animal cards look like Polaroids (R.I.P.), to suggest that we're going around the park taking pictures of the animals, but you can give them whatever treatment you like. We're planning on writing things about the different animals on the backs of the cards -- things a toddler would like, such as the names of the babies, mommies, and daddies (e.g., Elephant: Daddy = Bull, Mommy = Cow, Baby = Calf).

Above the top of the board is a stack of "Zoo Cards" -- I'll explain those later.

No note was left.

While this may seem like going full-throttle into uncharted depths of mundania, I was shocked today by how much my t-shirts shrink. Below is a 2-year-old J.Crew undershirt laid on top of a brand new J.Crew undershirt.

Both are the same material and same brand and same size (men's medium). The old shirt has always been washed in cold water and dried on medium heat, so it's not like I've been cooking the thing. Amazing, no?

As has become customary around the changing of the calendar, here are GearBits' official predictions for 2008.

1) Blu-Ray Wins the Format War
Yep, I'm going to pick a winner and it's going to be Blu-Ray. The one-two punch of Warner Brothers's move to Blu-Ray exclusivity (from its Switzerland-like neutrality of supporting both formats) later in 2008 and Apple's announcement that BD will be the only HD format available in its products will cement HD DVD's demise. And none too soon. I don't really care which wins...just make it snappy so that prices on players and media can plummet, thanks.

2) Google's Android Shakes Up Phone Industry
For a while now, the cellphone industry has been fairly static. A few smartphone and mobile OS makers have generally tussled for market share, but the overall industry has been pretty evolutionary. Google's entry will prove to be a watershed moment, with open source finally making a big impact in the handheld space (and no, I don't consider the Zaurus to be a big deal...sorry). Actual handsets running Android will be announced, if not available, before the end of 2008.

3) Palm Supports Android
This is more of a hope than an actual prediction, as I just don't know whether the egos at Palm will let the company do the right thing and admit that their next-generation OS (which has been under development since 2004!) will be a viable contender against Android (which has essentially the same technical details but scads more developer support). But, if cooler, more rational heads prevail at Palm, they'll announce that they're plans will be to produce at least one Android-based product (probably to come out sometime in 2012 :-/ ).

4) Microsoft's HD Photo Replacement for JPEG Image Standard Goes Nowhere
I'm not saying it's a bad idea technically; I'm just saying that JPEG is so entrenched now that replacing it would be about as reasonable a thing to try as would be replacing MP3 with any of the multitudes of better formats. JPEG, like MP3, isn't great, but it's adequate (at least for consumers) and ubiquitous. We'll still be saving all our photos in JPG (and maybe RAW) at the end of 2008...and likely long after that.

5) Subnotes Will Explode in Availability (and Maybe Popularity)
I've always been a fan of tiny, sub-3-pound laptops, but I think 2008 will see a huge number of these clamshell devices come out of every corner of the consumer electronics space. The Asus EeePC and the OLPC XO Laptop are two examples. While Microsoft had a good idea in its UMPC (Ultra-Mobile PC) concept, the hardware was just never executed all that well. Frankly, I think a 7" touchscreen for Windows is just too difficult. But, going with the traditional clamshell design and using cheaper and/or smaller technologies (e.g., flash memory instead of a HDD) will bring us a raft of interesting (and some good) designs at <$500 price points. Bring 'em on! And I think we'll start to see a lot more people toting these things along that traditionally avoided laptops for whatever reason (cost, weight, etc.).

6) The GPS War Heats Up
TomTom, Nokia, and Garmin will exchange hostile fire over the GPS market due to convuluted agreements regarding mapping data as well as market-share for hardware. Products will continue to decline in price and improve in functionality, and >50% of cellphones will have some form of GPS functionality available on them. I guess that's two predictions in one...oh well.

7) DRM Hits Choppy Water
2007 saw some movement away from DRM (digital rights management), especially in the music industry, but I expect we'll see similar initiatives in all areas of media. DRM has been proven again and again to be little more than an expensive technological boondoggle, and the leading innovators at the consumer media interface (e.g., Apple, Amazon, and Google) will make some headway into reversing the trend of more encumbrance for our media. The RIAA and MPAA will continue to fight it...they know how to do nothing else...but economic results will start to demonstrate that DRM actually hurts profitability.

8) Major Tech Stocks End 2008 Up Significantly
These are bound to be wrong, but what the heck...nobody pays me for stock tips. I think Apple will end 2008 at 235, Google will be at 960, and Microsoft will finish the year at 50. As for other stocks, iRobot will end up at either 46 or 12 (can you tell I'm a cynical shareholder?), IBM will show tepid growth to 112, and RIM, hurt by the continued weak US dollar and facing increasing competition, will struggle to match its 1-year high of 127.

9) I Buy a New Laptop and Am Disappointed
My Panasonic CF-W2 is now three-and-a-half-years-old and I'm starting to cringe every time I turn it on (my luck with hard drives makes me skeptical of many living past their 4th birthday). I've been looking at possible replacements (e.g., Toshiba R500, Panasonic W7, maybe the Lenovo IdeaPad U110 or the rumored Apple subnote) and so far every single one has some significant trade-offs. So, I expect I'll get one and it will turn out to be not significantly better than my aging Toughbook. You'd think in nearly four years that two grand would buy something markedly superior. We'll see...

10) Major Changes in Automotive Industry Announced
While the car business makes actual change only very slowly, we'll see some huge announcements in 2008 that will fundamentally change the future of that industry. Things like record oil prices, an increasing attention to sustainable/green technology, and significant ownership changes will substantially change the competitive landscape. Make no mistake; Toyota will continue its ascent and eclipse GM as #1 car-maker in the world. But, we will see several major announcements that will start affecting actual consumers in 2009 and beyond.

So, I'll check back in about 12 months to see how I fared. In the meantime, what do you think will happen?

And to think that someone once told me I was wasting my time saving Canadian pennies.

Canada's Dollar Reaches Record High on Fed Rate Cut Speculation

Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Canada's dollar climbed to a record against its U.S. counterpart on speculation credit market losses will prompt the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates again this year.

The currency rose 0.7 percent to $1.0791 at 8:07 a.m. in Toronto as the U.S. dollar weakened against 15 of the 16 most- traded currencies.

Read the whole story (Bloomberg.com)

The scene is a torchlit medieval pub patronized by foul-smelling, snaggle-toothed men in filthy clothing. The door opens and a blast of frigid winter air is followed by two huge, tough-looking vikings. They stomp in, shaking the snow off their furs, and the first one pounds a great fist onto the bar.

"Keep! Two meads!" he says in a harsh, low, gravelly voice. The bartender pours two draughts and slides the flagons over to the giant men.

The bigger of the two vikings then raises a finger, stares into the eyes of the quaking barkeep, and says, "Could we get these to go? And I'd like a straw."

As most any avid fan knows, the Transformers movie is opening today.

I was a huge fan of the toys and cartoons when I was a kid. That fact was reinforced when I happened upon this old Polaroid of me on my 14th birthday.

My buddy Greg also has a kick-ass Transformers collection, so I know where to go when I need a fix. But until I can visit, the movie will have to sate my appetite. If you see it, leave a comment and let me know what you think.

I'm constantly stunned by the ridiculous stories of awful parenting that appear in the news (which also makes me wonder about what doesn't appear). Just to keep track of some of these terrific examples of terrible parenting, I've created a new content category: Bad Parents

So, if you're ever feeling a tad guilty for saying 'no' to your kid's request for ice cream or for just not having the time to take him to band practice and soccer practice and drama club and Scouts, etc., check back here for some positive reinforcement; at least you're not as bad as these miserable parents. Alternately, send your kid a link to this category to remind him how lucky he is.

To kick off the new category, here's a story from the AP as reported by CNN:

Couple finishes restaurant meal while child tied in hot car

CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee (AP) -- Police in northwest Georgia have rescued a boy from a hot car where his mother's companion is accused of tying him up.

Ringgold, Georgia, police say a Cracker Barrel restaurant employee called police after seeing Raymond Minchew take the 6-year-old out of the restaurant and return without him -- then finished eating his meal. Ringgold is about 13 miles southeast of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Police found the bound boy sitting in the car, crying.

Sergeant John Gass says the child was soaked with sweat and had a rope tied to one of his ankles. Gass says the temperature was in the 80s Saturday in Ringgold.

The 61-year-old Minchew and the boy's mother -- 35-year-old Rachel Gilchrist -- were arrested and charged with cruelty to children and concealing a weapon. There was a handgun in the car.

Investigators believe the boy was in the hot car for about a half hour.

Police Sergeant John Gass says the couple contended the boy had misbehaved, although witnesses at the restaurant disagreed.

The boy has been placed in protective custody.

Original story (CNN.com)

If you're a biker or a hiker and you like to keep your gadgets charged while on the go, you might want to check out the Solar-Rider by Twisted Road Cycle Gear. It uses foldable solar cells to charge up a 3600 mAh power pack.

It's a little pricey for a charger solution, but not compared to that new Kona you just bought.

Movable Type's current combination of blacklisting, link counting, and word filtering does a pretty decent job at categorizing user comments into three categories: Approved, Moderated, and Junked. I currently have "Approved" comments (i.e., those that don't raise the filtering rules' suspicion) to appear immediately, while "Moderated" comments require my approval before appearing.

So, feel free to leave a comment. At worst, your comment may languish a bit until I approve it. :-)

Well, the weird problem with the server getting consumed by oddly constructed Perl commands is back. I think it's either some strange exploit that hackers are attempting or its a poorly formed automated commenting tool that causes Movable Type to get all tied up in knots. I don't really know...regardless, comments are now off again until I get the time and interest in trying to figure out a solution.

Since I made a series of predictions for 2006, I thought I'd go back and see how many actually came true.

1) Google Launches All-in-One Suite
I've been expecting this for some time, as have other folks, I'm sure, but I think 2006 will definitely see this announcement. Google will, I predict, launch a converged, multi-purpose, browser-based work environment -- lord knows what it'll be called, maybe GoogleDesk or something like that. Anyway, it will incorporate and integrate many of the disparate services that Google currently offers plus add a few. GoogleDesk will integrate Google search, Gmail (plus an enhanced contacts management function), Google Maps (auto-mapping of contacts, natch!), Blogger (for publication/hosting of created content), a new mini-suite of document tools based on the OpenOffice standard (so you can create word processor documents, spreadsheets, and presentation files), GoogleBase (the use of which will become more obvious with time), and Google News (of course). All these will be wrapped up in a browser-neutral (although I wouldn't be surprised for Google to cozy up to Mozilla to enhance Firefox with some special goodies), Java-based interface. Personally, I eagerly await this.

Kinda, sorta true. Google's offerings did indeed multiply in 2006, with Google Documents and a raft of other new and enhanced online services popping up. Technically, they haven't all been integrated into a single UI, but given they all work in a single browser session, that's pretty close.

2) The HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war ends...Blu-Ray wins
Yes, Sony will finally be able to claim a victory in the format wars. After so many failed attempts at ruling the world (cue Pinkie and the Brain theme) -- Betamax, minidisc, all the various flavors of Memory Stick, etc. -- Sony and friends will edge out the HD-DVD group and Blu-Ray will become the de facto format for HD content. That is, until something better comes along almost immediately, but hey, that's a prediction for next year.

The war ain't over, but I think most people who follow the industry would agree that Blu-Ray, despite Sony's floundering on the PS3, has more behind it than does HD-DVD at this point. It will likely take a few more years for the winner to become obvious -- until then, consumers will just be faced with more options they couldn't really care less about. After all, normal DVD looks pretty good on an HDTV and more people are choosing to take their video with them on the go; high-definition is the least of concerns for the joe wanting to watch Family Guy on his iPod.

3) The Linux-based replacement for Palm OS comes out
To limited acclaim in the West, it is immediately adopted by a significant number of Asian companies for its cheap, flexible architecture. The number of devices (almost entirely phones) running it by the end of 2006 will be around 10 in Asia and zero (maybe 1 or 2) in the West (US + Europe).

Wrong. Well, ALP (Access Linux for Palm) was released, but I've yet to hear of any actual adoption, so I'll just have to chalk this up to pure optimism.

4) Nokia will launch a Linux phone
Following the nascent success of its Linux-based 770 Internet Tablet, Nokia launches its first phone using a Linux-based OS. It mimics the S60 in look and feel. It does well, but not markedly so, causing much speculation and debate around the web about whether Nokia is abandoning S60 entirely.

Nope, didn't happen.

5) Democrats regain control of US Senate, make gains in HOR
The margin won't be enormous, but the Senate will once again be in the familiar (and, arguably, beneficial to the electorate) position of being led by the party not in control of the White House. More negotiation will result in 2007 and something a wee bit closer to "democracy" will return to the US shortly thereafter. Still a long way from acceptable, but closer.

Pretty much right on the money. In fact, you might say I underestimated their gains. Looking forward to a government much more balanced by checks and balances than it has been lately.

6) Windows Vista will launch, Apple users yawn
Windows Vista (launched in early Q4) will excite few, especially in the corporate ranks, due to the combination of a lack of "must-have" improvements and unattractive licensing structures offered by Microsoft. The 17 or so flavors of Vista will also leave consumers puzzled over which version is best for them and ultimately wait until they replace their hardware to upgrade. Given that processor speeds aren't increasing much and hard drives are getting easier to replace, there will be fewer changing out their PCs. Microsoft faces a tougher year than usual next year regarding financials; Windows Mobile and Xbox divisions still not profitable (but closer).

Sounds like a pretty accurate description of what actually happened.

7) Digital/HDTV makes big inroads
2006 will be the year of the migration to HDTV. Falling HDTV set prices (especially DLP and LCD), plus an exciting bounty of converging digital content, will usher in a period of rapid adoption that will continue into 2007. Content providers will actually start getting significant numbers of complaints when they broadcast non-HD content on their HD channels, leading to fewer programming lapses.

For the most part, yup. The sales of HDTVs were so large this holiday season that they actually affected the profitability of several large electronics retailers. So I guess it's clear that HDTV is taking off as expected. What remains to be seen is whether the broadcasters actually start paying attention now that HD viewership is climbing into significant numbers.

8) Satellite radio subscribership grows, but limited
Sirius and XM will continue to gain subscribers, but neither will top 10 million by the end of 2006. Someone will launch a mySatelliteRadio service that lets users listen to their personal music collections via satellite receiver (think MP3.com's old model applied to satradio). The RIAA will eat it for lunch, with a few hundred new downloading lawsuits for dessert.

XM had less than 8 million subscribers at the end of 2006 and Sirius had about 6 million, with the latter growing more quickly. Both are growing more slowly than the companies had predicted (and promised to investors), so that part of my prediction is absolutely spot on. I haven't heard of anything like the mySatelliteRadio service being launched, but given that many satellite receivers now enable playback of MP3 files, the two music sources are definitely getting closer.

9) TiVo is acquired
I don't know by whom, but I think this will happen within the next 12 months.

Ahem, no.

10) Resurgances of sci-fi/fantasy TV shows
The recent success of Battlestar Galactica and Lost, and the big money that the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises generate cause network television studios to start prepping more science fiction and fantasy content. A friend of mine thinks I'm daft to predict this -- we'll see. If not next year, then 2007. Or not.

Not exactly, at least not on the major networks. They are still heading towards the safe-and-familiar lines of reality/unscripted programming, dramas, and situation comedies. Alas, none of those are in space or in a castle somewhere. Too bad.

So, in the end, I had 5 predictions true or mostly correct, 4 that were mostly or completely wrong, and 1 that was unclear. Stay tuned for my predictions for 2007...

OK, just one more. Eric (of Allspice Ct), if you read this, ping me -- craig DOT froehle AT gmail DOT com -- I'd like to hear what's going on in your life.

While I'm at it, another childhood friend has gone missing, so John, buddy, if you're out there, drop me a line...would be great to catch up! Email is craig DOT froehle AT gmail DOT com

If you're the Aaron Maruna who lived at the end of Allspice Ct, I'm darn curious what you're up to after all these years. Our childhood friendship/rivalry (at least I saw it that way) was the genesis of some pretty funny memories, and I'd like to catch up. If you'd be up for that, email me: craig DOT froehle AT gmail DOT com

Happy holidays...

For the moment, I've had to disable comments since it's been causing some server instability. Hopefully, I'll figure out why and re-enable comments in the near future.

You can justify making your own baby wipes several different ways: They are cheaper, so you save money; there is less packaging and waste, so they are more environmentally sound; and you can customize them to your preference, so they are more to your liking.

Now, here's a simple "recipe" that takes less than three minutes per batch of ~60 wipes. You'll need the following materials:
• A roll of paper towels (normal-sized roll, ~60 sheets)
• A container, with lid, able to hold half the roll of paper towels
• Baby oil
• Baby shampoo

1) Cut a normal-size roll (~60 sheets) of paper towels in half (across the diameter) and remove the cardboard core from one half. The half-sheet perforated paper towels also work well by giving you smaller wipes.

2) Put one cup of water on to boil (~2 minutes in the microwave).

3) In the container, put a dollop of baby shampoo (about 2" diameter puddle) and a squirt of baby oil (same or a bit more as shampoo).

4) When the water has boiled, pour it into the container and swish around to mix the shampoo, oil, and water.

5) Put the half-roll of paper towels in and let water soak through towels before using (helps to put it upside down for a little while). To use, just pull a wipe from the middle of the roll and tear off.

My estimate is that this costs roughly $0.50 per 60 wipes, which compares favorably to $4.00+ for the same amount of name-brand wipes in the store. Over the diaper-wearing lifetime of a child, this can save literally hundreds of dollars, thereby helping to offset the costs of that new game console or smartphone.

Today, I attended a one-day seminar by Edward Tufte, grandfather of contemporary thinking in the area of data visualization and quantitative presentation. Well, I attended most of it...by 3:30, I was so bored and put off by the off-topic meanderings that I left.

In short, I was disappointed. This man, whose four books are seminal and excellent, had a very uneven five-and-a-half hours of presentation. While the morning part was pretty good -- it offered several useful tenets of visualization that most in the audience could probably make use of straight away -- the afternoon was a waste.

I really don't care about his sculpture or his opinions on managerial failings within NASA...that's not why I paid $270 (group rate) to attend the lecture. Rather, I was wanting to take away more pragmatic, immediately useful design principles and hoping that he'd spend most of the time walking through many of the examples that abound in his books to illustrate how he thinks about particular visualization examples and tasks.

Instead, we got long-winded and overly drawn-out discourses on just a very few of the better-known examples. Add to that the time wasted on rather pointless displays of two rare books that Tufte owns (do we really need to see the actual book, or was he doing it just to prove that he owns such rare and expensive antiques?) and you end up with about 2 hours of useful content spread over most of a day.

But then, I guess nobody would pay $360 (regular price) for a 2-hour monologue, even if it included all four of Tufte's books.

If today's presentation were a graphic, it would have a few pieces of useful, interesting information surrounded by lots of wasted space and pointless artifacts.

Yes, he's a very smart guy, and yes, his published works are both practically useful and aesthetically beautiful. But, after looking forward to this seminar for months, I just wish that the course today had been of the same high quality as the ideas and books that elevated Tufte to fame in the first place.

Steve Irwin (pictured with wife and daughter), whose over-the-top 'Crocodile Hunter' persona captivated young and old alike, has died. He was fatally stung by a sting ray while swimming near the Great Barrier Reef.

I am glad I got to visit Irwin's Australia Zoo during our trip in 2003 (see photos 11-16).

The world needs a lot more naturalists and active, charismatic champions for the environment like Steve Irwin. He will be missed.

My buddy Mitch pointed out this nifty concept design that combines a Visa credit card with a built-in money clip:

Image courtesy of Sci-Fi.com.

He knows I have a fetish for minimizing my wallet's contents and overall bulk and I'd totally consider carrying this.

While I work on the anti-comment spam elements of GearBits, I'm disabling the commenting function for all posts unless you have a TypeKey account. I really hate to do this, but I'd rather restrict it than have someone's comment accidentally get trashed via the auto-junk filter while things are being tweaked.

Thanks for understanding...things may go back to "normal" in a few days...

Well...THAT was fun. A tree fell one street over and took out a power line or two. In so doing, it sent 7200 volts to every house on our street. Damage I've heard ranged from major appliances going bad (our microwave is no longer functional, as are several other peoples') to the miniscule (a GFCI outlet was blown in our house as well).

One bit of damage was the power supply on the GearBits server here was totally shot. Now that that's fixed and our Internet service has been restored (also delivered over the power lines), we're back online.

So, sorry for the outage...maybe that whole-house surge suppressant system that Duke Energy offers isn't such a bad idea after all.

You've probably received the same email I did recently containing a couple dozen funny signs and other public typos, some of which are likely just nice photoshop jobs, but all of which are good for a laugh. Since I didn't want to keep this in my email client anymore, I thought I'd post it for all to enjoy.

Here are the first two...the rest are in the extended article. Enjoy.

I just upgraded GearBits to version 3.31 of Movable Type (which now happens to be free for personal bloggers). It's a significant upgrade from version 3.17 I was running, so please let me know if you encounter any weirdness (leave a comment or, if that doesn't seem to work for you, email me at craig DOT froehle AT gmail DOT com). Thanks.

As a lifelong fan of soccer, er, football, um...you know, that sport the rest of the world loves so much, I've been looking forward to World Cup 2006 for a while. I've always wondered why Americans generally don't care as much about the game, but I just noticed another correlate: the US press coverage of soccer is pretty lame, and that's putting it nicely.

Where a US news outlet might write that the player "kicked a shot wide," anywhere else might say something like "rocketed a disappointing miss left."

Take this comparative example of coverage of today's US drubbing by the Czech Republic.

First, some of ESPN's coverage:

U.S. captain Claudio Reyna came closest to scoring, hitting a post midway through the first half. But Rosicky scored on a soaring 25-yard shot in the 36th minute, and the Americans never got back into the game against the Czechs, semifinalists in the European Championship two years ago.

Rosicky hit the crossbar in the 68th and added a goal in the 76th minute, getting past the U.S. defense off a through pass from Pavel Nedved, Europe's 2003 player of the year, and beating Kasey Keller on a breakaway.

Eddie Johnson, who entered at halftime, provided some energy, missing just wide in the 70th minute and high in the 76th.

Now, read a bit of the BBC's take, which exemplifies the European rest of the world's passion for the game:

With five minutes on the clock Nedved fed in Grygera and the full-back's inch-perfect right-wing cross was clinically headed home by 6ft 7in Koller.

USA enjoyed plenty of possession, but the Czechs - and the brilliant Nedved in particular - always had another gear to move into.

His outrageous outside-of-the-foot cross landed on Grygera's head, but he could only nod over.

The Americans so nearly made them pay moments later, Reyna drilling a 25-yard daisy-cutter that crashed back into play off Petr Cech's right-hand post with the Chelsea stopper beaten.

Granted, superlatives and hyperbole aren't regularly welcomed in journalism, but maybe, just maybe, if Americans were more regularly presented with coverage of soccer that exuded that much savvy and enthusiasm, we might care about it more.

Or, maybe we need to care about it first before ESPN ever will. But then again, our apathy for watching people play cards on TV didn't stop them from spoon-feeding us the World Series of Poker six hours a day, now did it?

I've received this request a few times, and I've finally gotten around to coding it up.

Here is a complete list of all GearBits posts, in reverse chronological order (newest at the top), with each post's primary category, date posted, and number of comments.

From looking at that list, I also noticed that these are the most heavily commented posts so far:

Lost & Forgotten 70's & 80's TV Shows (466 comments)

Samsung DLP TV (232 comments)

The Llama Song (165 comments)

Scientific Atlanta DVR Not So Hot (138 comments)

WheresGeorge.com (122 comments)

Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD Hi-Def DVR (98 comments)

Enjoy...

I am shocked, SHOCKED that People magazine has again this year failed to recognize me as one of its "Most Beautiful People". I am SO cancelling my subscription.

Yes, I realize this isn't a very sexy gadget to talk about, but it's a satisfying technology, so what the heck.

We've replaced the guts of two toilets in our house with these Korky QuietFill toilet valves and, so far, I've been very satisfied. They were incredibly easy to install (5 minutes tops), work reliably (5-year guarantee), and are quieter than the units they replaced.

At $10-$15 at your local hardware store (we got ours at Lowe's Hardware), they're certainly not expensive. They include all the parts you're likely to need (I actually threw away about half the parts both times because they weren't necessary for our installations). Plus, they're made in the USA, in case that matters to you.

Update (3/3/07): This unit seems to be going bad already. It is making a low-level, variable whine as if a teensy bit of water was making it through some seal somewhere. I don't think I'll be replacing it with another Korky if they are going to fail within a year.

Update #2 (3/12/07): Well, the Korky Toilet Fill Valve instructions were right; it wasn't actually a problem with the fill valve. Rather, the flapper assembly was leaking, thereby causing the fill valve to slowly add water back into the tank as the water level dropped. Replacing the flapper/fill tube assembly (also with a Korky unit) did the trick. Ah...silence.

If you noticed the GearBits index page got REALLY big (2.4 MB in HTML alone), I apologize. The server clock got reset to Jan. 1, 2000, so Movable Type rebuilt the index page to include everything up to a month prior to that. And that's a LOT of posts.

Everything should be back to normal now, but if you notice something odd, please let me know. Thanks!

"Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish."
- Euripides

"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."
- William Shakespeare

"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."
- Cato the Elder

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
- Bertrand Russell

"Never give advice; the wise don't need it and fools won't heed it."
- Unknown

My wife came home from the grocery store with this box of cereal. Apparently, the product name was developed by the same engineers who designed the packaging machinery, as what marketing person in their right mind would name a cereal 'Crispy Hexagons'???

And why, oh why, would you advertise that corn and rice have been "blended" in your product? I mean, is the mental image of corn and rice tossed in a blender appealing to anyone with teeth?

Oh, Flavorite, how you mess with our minds.

I awoke tonight from deep sleep with an epiphany (or maybe indigestion, I'm not quite clear on that yet). If there are any of you out there who actually read what I post here, I want you to know that GearBits is changing, um, gears a bit (sorry).

From now on, I don't expect that I'll be writing for you as much as I have attempted to in the past. I will still be posting news and items of interest to the gadget fan, for I am too much of one of those to avoid it. But GearBits will soon (very soon) start incorporating content of a more varied, and I dare say personal, nature than it has in the past.

Why the change? Three reasons. First, GearBits is clearly not able, or intended, to replicate the services offered by other, full-time and professionally managed technology news sites. To attempt to emulate that style produces little more than sporadic posts, any one of which having perhaps only modest appeal even to me.

Second, doing something different allows me to produce a more complete record of my thoughts. Not that all my thoughts are inherently interesting to you, but as I said above, the writing will henceforth be less specifically directed at you, my dear reader(s). By writing for myself as much as anyone else, at least one person will get long-term value out of my efforts (I apologize if that one person turns out not to be you).

And third, well, because I enjoy looking back over mundane details of my life as a sort of introverted, personal reminiscing. Paging through something as banal as a daily planner from my high school years is thoroughly enjoyable to me -- sort of a temporally displaced auto-voyeurism. While my Treo keeps track of the whens and whos and whats of my day-to-day life now, there's no good place in it for more complex musings, and that is what I'd like to add to this blog.

So, in advance, I apologize if you are less entertained by more of what you see here; my intent is not to drive you away. But, should you be engaged more, or differently, that's great...we both win.

From the Associated Press

Mouse Thrown Into Fire Sets Home Ablaze

FORT SUMNER, N.M. - A mouse got its revenge against a homeowner who tried to dispose of it in a pile of burning leaves. The blazing creature ran back to the man's house and set it on fire.

Luciano Mares, 81, of Fort Sumner said he caught the mouse inside his house and wanted to get rid of it.

"I had some leaves burning outside, so I threw it in the fire, and the mouse was on fire and ran back at the house," Mares said from a motel room Saturday.

Village Fire Chief Juan Chavez said the burning mouse ran to just beneath a window, and the flames spread up from there and throughout the house.

No was hurt inside, but the home and everything in it was destroyed.

Unseasonably dry and windy conditions have charred more than 53,000 acres and destroyed 10 homes in southeastern New Mexico in recent weeks.

"I've seen numerous house fires," village Fire Department Capt. Jim Lyssy said, "but nothing as unique as this one."

The score is now:
Animals -- 1
Idiots who like to torture animals -- 12,353

My Google homepage had a great quote this morning:

"A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled."
   - Sir Barnett Cocks

Gazing into my crystal (liquid crystal, of course) ball, the haze clears and 2006 looms large. Here is what the future holds for us in the coming year:

1) Google Launches All-in-One Suite
I've been expecting this for some time, as have other folks, I'm sure, but I think 2006 will definitely see this announcement. Google will, I predict, launch a converged, multi-purpose, browser-based work environment -- lord knows what it'll be called, maybe GoogleDesk or something like that. Anyway, it will incorporate and integrate many of the disparate services that Google currently offers plus add a few. GoogleDesk will integrate Google search, Gmail (plus an enhanced contacts management function), Google Maps (auto-mapping of contacts, natch!), Blogger (for publication/hosting of created content), a new mini-suite of document tools based on the OpenOffice standard (so you can create word processor documents, spreadsheets, and presentation files), GoogleBase (the use of which will become more obvious with time), and Google News (of course). All these will be wrapped up in a browser-neutral (although I wouldn't be surprised for Google to cozy up to Mozilla to enhance Firefox with some special goodies), Java-based interface. Personally, I eagerly await this.

2) The HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war ends...Blu-Ray wins
Yes, Sony will finally be able to claim a victory in the format wars. After so many failed attempts at ruling the world (cue Pinkie and the Brain theme) -- Betamax, minidisc, all the various flavors of Memory Stick, etc. -- Sony and friends will edge out the HD-DVD group and Blu-Ray will become the de facto format for HD content. That is, until something better comes along almost immediately, but hey, that's a prediction for next year.

3) The Linux-based replacement for Palm OS comes out
To limited acclaim in the West, it is immediately adopted by a significant number of Asian companies for its cheap, flexible architecture. The number of devices (almost entirely phones) running it by the end of 2006 will be around 10 in Asia and zero (maybe 1 or 2) in the West (US + Europe).

4) Nokia will launch a Linux phone
Following the nascent success of its Linux-based 770 Internet Tablet, Nokia launches its first phone using a Linux-based OS. It mimics the S60 in look and feel. It does well, but not markedly so, causing much speculation and debate around the web about whether Nokia is abandoning S60 entirely.

5) Democrats regain control of US Senate, make gains in HOR
The margin won't be enormous, but the Senate will once again be in the familiar (and, arguably, beneficial to the electorate) position of being led by the party not in control of the White House. More negotiation will result in 2007 and something a wee bit closer to "democracy" will return to the US shortly thereafter. Still a long way from acceptable, but closer.

6) Windows Vista will launch, Apple users yawn
Windows Vista (launched in early Q4) will excite few, especially in the corporate ranks, due to the combination of a lack of "must-have" improvements and unattractive licensing structures offered by Microsoft. The 17 or so flavors of Vista will also leave consumers puzzled over which version is best for them and ultimately wait until they replace their hardware to upgrade. Given that processor speeds aren't increasing much and hard drives are getting easier to replace, there will be fewer changing out their PCs. Microsoft faces a tougher year than usual next year regarding financials; Windows Mobile and Xbox divisions still not profitable (but closer).

7) Digital/HDTV makes big inroads
2006 will be the year of the migration to HDTV. Falling HDTV set prices (especially DLP and LCD), plus an exciting bounty of converging digital content, will usher in a period of rapid adoption that will continue into 2007. Content providers will actually start getting significant numbers of complaints when they broadcast non-HD content on their HD channels, leading to fewer programming lapses.

8) Satellite radio subscribership grows, but limited
Sirius and XM will continue to gain subscribers, but neither will top 10 million by the end of 2006. Someone will launch a mySatelliteRadio service that lets users listen to their personal music collections via satellite receiver (think MP3.com's old model applied to satradio). The RIAA will eat it for lunch, with a few hundred new downloading lawsuits for dessert.

9) TiVo is acquired
I don't know by whom, but I think this will happen within the next 12 months.

10) Resurgances of sci-fi/fantasy TV shows
The recent success of Battlestar Galactica and Lost, and the big money that the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings franchises generate cause network television studios to start prepping more science fiction and fantasy content. A friend of mine thinks I'm daft to predict this -- we'll see. If not next year, then 2007. Or not.

OK, those are my predictions. I may add some more...come this time in 2006, I'll look back on these and, well, probably LMAO at how poorly I forecast the future. Until then, have a good one!

Are you having trouble leaving comments? Is the anti-spam filter telling you that you need to modify your post when there's nothing in it that seems spam-like?

If so, let me know. Either leave a comment (yes, I appreciate the irony) or email me at
CRAIG dot FROEHLE at GMAIL dot COM.

I'll admit it; I'm a bagaholic. Few things delight me more than finding the perfect bag or case for some gadget or use.

It has to be the right size -- not too big, but not too small. It has to have the right number and size of pockets, if any are needed. It has to have the appropriate closing/fastening hardware in the right spots.

I have been known to search for months for just the right case, popping into the odd luggage store or outfitter that I happen to see, just in case something there meets all my criteria. And the more true gadget geeks I meet, the more I'm starting to realize that this is not an uncommon affliction amongst us.

When I saw the Victorinox Swiss Army Eiffel laptop bag (pictured) at a local luggage shop a few months ago, I was convinced it was my ideal "everyday" go-to-work/haul-my-laptop brief. It looked to fit my 12" Panasonic W2 perfectly, with just enough space to fit the A/C cordage below it. There were enough pockets to accommodate some folders/papers, but not too many so that it'd be bulky. And it had a couple of nifty add-ons, like a magnetic close "hidden" external pocket and some nice internal organizing compartments so all my stuff wouldn't just jostle around all higgeldy-piggeldy. Since it's made of ballistic nylon, it's both durable and light in weight (unlike most leather bags). Plus, and this is a subtle issue, the strap clips are metal while the rings they lock into are plastic. This is important because it minimizes the potential for squeaking that metal-on-metal sometimes produces, while ensures the longevity of the clips. I told you it was subtle.

But, I found an extra surprise feature once I started using the bag. It is covered by Swiss Army's Global Track ID service. Each bag covered has a unique ID permanently attached to the inside of the bag. If the bag is lost and then found by someone (someone honest, that is), all they have to do is call the toll-free number inside and cite the bag's ID code. Then, and this is where my amazement begins, Swiss Army "will notify you, arrange pickup, and then arrange for delivery of your bag-at no cost to you." If it really works like that, I'll be amazed. Of course, I'm not planning on intentionally losing this bag just to test it. ;-)

All in all, after using the bag for a while, it gets an unqualified thumbs-up. Build quality seems excellent, the strap is sturdy yet comfortable, and the bag holds just what I need with no extra bulk to get in the way. Plus, the vertical storage position (which I think will accommodate most 14" laptops as well, and maybe some 15" models) makes it much easier to carry than a regular briefcase. All in all, a very decent bag. Considering the Global Track ID service, it seems like a pretty good deal, too.

On this day 894 years ago, do you think people found it curiously interesting that the date was 11/11/1111, or do you think they were too busy fighting off bears and dying from plague to notice?

I came across a series of quotations by Henry J. Tillman, some of which are fantastic:

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

Life is something that everyone should try at least once.

Oregano is the spice of life.

The saying "Getting there is half the fun" became obsolete with the advent of commercial airlines.

The world is my lobster.

But exactly who is Henry J. Tillman? Is he an author? A comedian? A sports personality? The quotation sites don't reveal his claim to fame, and Google didn't help either.

So does anyone know who this guy is?

Recent findings suggest that many dinosaurs usually depicted as having scaly or rough skin actually were feathered. As The Times (UK) is reporting, this could have major significance for how dinosaurs are portrayed and visualized in the future.

I, for one, am expecting a huge uptick in feathered everything, from cute little feathered dinosaur toys to feathered cartoon mascots on cereal boxes and advertising campaigns. If it turns out to be true, remember that it was predicted here first.

I just hope that feathered hair doesn't come back.

My fill-up this morning.

I don't use a wallet, at least not in the traditional sense. You know, that bi-fold or tri-fold piece of leather in which you keep your cash, credit cards, insurance cards, pictures of the wife and kids, etc.

About 10 years ago, I got increasingly annoyed at the fact that I spent so much of my day sitting on a wad of leather, plastic and paper. Not only was it uncomfortable, it seemed so...well...unnecessary. I didn't carry a lot in my wallet, and the wallet itself made up the majority of the mass of what went in my hip pocket. "What a waste," I thought, and I started looking for an alternative.

I tried various solutions, but the one that I've used now for nearly 9 years is a variation on the money clip concept. However, instead of just keeping my bills in the clip, I keep the entire contents of what would otherwise constitute my wallet.

The above picture is the actual device I use -- a Clippie from Levenger (size Large). If you haven't before seen a Clippie, it's meant to be used as a high-tech paper-clip. It's basically two U-shaped pieces of metal. The inner pieces grasps the paper and the outer sleeve slides over the inner piece and produces the clamping power.

These two photos above show my implementation of this Clippie-based alternative wallet. As you can see, it's quite compact -- it measures just 3.5" long (the length of a credit card), 2.7" wide (the width of a US bill), and a mere 1/4" thick. The whole assembly weighs just about 1 ounce. I challenge anyone to demonstrate that their traditional wallet alone comes in under these measurements.

To be honest, the use of the Clippie is really only half the story. I've had people ask me about this practice over the years and most of them are convinced that their wallets contain just too much necessary stuff to fit in a Clippie or similar device. Here's what my "wallet" contains:
 •  Typically, 3-5 paper bills (4 shown)
 •  2 credit cards
 •  Car insurance card
 •  Health insurance card
 •  Driver's license
 •  Work photo ID card
 •  ATM card

Usually, when I ask skeptics what they have in their wallets, they start producing handfuls of traveller cards (frequent flier cards, car rental cards, etc.), various pieces of paper with scribbled notes, dry cleaning receipts, photos, and the list goes on.

Here's the secret to getting rid of all that stuff: get yourself a PDA or smartphone and USE IT. Enter all your frequent flier data into it so you have it when the agent asks you for it (I've never had to have my actual cards with me). Put the photos in your PDA as JPGs and show them off in a handheld slideshow (bonus points with your tech-head friends). Put all those "notes to self" in the PDA and, becaue you can set alarms for them, you actually might remember them! And, finally, do you really need more than two or three credit cards on you at all times?

Anyway, the moral of the story is that I think a lot of people could put their wallets on a serious diet just by cleaning them out and thinking critically about each item they contain. Add an appropriately used handheld to the mix and all those slips of paper and other odds-and-ends really start disappearing quickly.

I'm not trying to convince anyone that this is the solution for everyone -- this is just a description of what works for me. If you try it out and you like it, great! Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Alternately, leave a comment why this absolutely couldn't work for you -- that might be even more interesting. :-)

Update: The Levenger site now shows Clippies as no longer available. How distressing! Since I get about 2 years out of each clippie, and I still have about 6 left in my original tin, I guess I'll need to start looking around for a new solution in about a decade.

Update #2: Levenger says they have a few sets of Clippies left, but the product is indeed being discontinued. So, if you want to try out this wallet alternative, might want to order soon (1-800-544-0880).

So on our way back from Chicago today, Lori and I stopped at McDonald's to try their new Fruit & Walnut Salad, which actually looks pretty good on the billboards. The ad copy on their website sounds pretty tasty too:

McDonald's Fruit & Walnut Salad Wow, McDonald's has really done it with their new Fruit & Walnut Salad. it's just what a girl wants. a heavenly combination of fresh, crisp apples...juicy, seedless grapes...creamy, low-fat yogurt and sweet candied walnuts. and the best part? it's perfect for breakfast, lunch or snacktime, so i can get a "fruit buzz"...whenever. finally, fresh fruit is at McDonald's! i don't think it gets any better than that.

So it was with no small amount of gusto that Lori dove into the bag to revel in the fruity goodness. She came up a little disappointed.

Here's a close-up of what the bag promises:

Here's what actually was in the bag (besides a miniscule cup of yogurt about the size of those little paper cups you put ketchup in):

A few of the apple slices were pretty mangy looking, so we tossed those. Also, there was none of the candied walnuts featured so prominently in the name of this dish. Are they supposed to be in the bowl, or do they come in a separate little baggie, or what? Oh, and where's the darn green fork we're supposed to get?

For $2.99, my expectations weren't exactly high, but it looks like McDonald's, at least the store in East Nowhere, Indiana we visited, needs a little work on its fruit execution. At least they trademarked yet another insipid catchphrase.

From the Associated Press via MyWay:

Officials Probe Source of Severed Finger

WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) - State officials are trying to determine how a worker cut off part of his finger and how the severed piece wound up in a customer's ice cream at a shop that was cleared by the state after a similar accident last summer.

Clarence Stowers said he bought a pint of frozen custard at the Kohl's Frozen Custard shop on Sunday and opened it at home. He saw an object in the custard and put it in his mouth, thinking it was a piece of candy, a Wilmington television station reported Monday.

"I thought it was candy because they put candy in your ice cream ... to make it a treat," Stowers told WWAY. Stowers said he spit the object out, but still couldn't identify it. He went to his kitchen, rinsed it off with water - and "just started screaming."

Read the entire story here.

I was clued into this phenomenon by a colleague at work, but Googling for it turned up a rather fascinating piece of research by Mike Adams of ECSU:

The Dead Grandmother/Exam Syndrome and the Potential Downfall Of American Society

It has long been theorized that the week prior to an exam is an extremely dangerous time for the relatives of college students. Ever since I began my teaching career, I heard vague comments, incomplete references and unfinished remarks, all alluding to the "Dead Grandmother Problem." Few colleagues would ever be explicit in their description of what they knew, but I quickly discovered that anyone who was involved in teaching at the college level would react to any mention of the concept.

The basic problem can be stated very simply: A student's grandmother is far more likely to die suddenly just before the student takes an exam, than at any other time of year.

Check out the entire report here.

Warning: Not even close to being politically correct, but really, really funny.

Watch "Ding Fries Are Done"

ABC News has an entertaining report on the annual Toy Fair in NYC. Some of the hot toys coming for the holidays this year include:
• A 12-inch Lindsay Lohan doll
• A Barbie doll that comes with its own reality TV show-esque movie (good grief)
• Bleeding Edge Goth Dolls (must be seen to be believed)
• The Sidewalk Stamper makes perfectly straight chalk lines for hopscotch (wtf?!)
• A version of Trivial Pursuit focusing on food/snack trivia (lame)
• Very Bunny Potty Training mascots (one fits over the toilet tank and stares at you while you try to pee)

Man, my best toys growing up were the ones that were mostly unscripted and totally flexible in that I had to use my imagination. Legos. Tinker Toys. Hot Wheels. Army men. You know what I'm talking about.

Sorry (again) for the downtime, folks. The new UPS, an APC ES 650, has been installed and seems to be working fine.

This is the first UPS I've had with a USB connection to my PC (to let it know to shut down gracefully when power fails). I'm almost hoping we have a (short) blackout so I can see it in action.

Of course, I could just pull the UPS' plug, but that's not as exciting.

If you notice GearBits going bye-bye intermittently, it's due to a faulty UPS that I need to replace. Sorry for the hassle...it should be fixed this weekend at the latest. :-/

See anything you like? Go bid...please. :-)

Star Trek Enterprise Phone and Phaser Universal Remote!

Unlocked GSM Handspring Palm Treo 270 Smartphone+Extras

Brookstone Smart Find™ Wireless Remote & Key Locator

Replacement Lamp BP96-00224A for Samsung DLP Television

I think things are mostly usable, if not completely available, now after combining the records from my new blog with GearBits' archived contents. There are still a few little niggles associated with my virtual server setup, but I'll work those out.

And thanks for the "welcome backs"...hopefully this interruption will be a one-time thing.

After letting GearBits languish since June '04, and after working on my new personal blog since last November, it really makes sense to combine the two. That should help (a) preserve all that great content that my GearBits co-authors produced, (b) provide new content to the thousands who still visit GearBits each week, and (c) simplify my life by reducing the number of blog installations I have to worry about down to just one.

So, over the next week or so, I'll be trying to fix all the little things that were broken when I migrated GearBits from its original server to mine -and- upgraded it to Movable Type 3.1x. Some things, like archive links, may never work 100% -- I'll just have to let the search engines figure that out (sorry). If you notice something else that's wonky, please leave me a comment -- I do read those and will try my dangedest to work everything out.

Thanks for your patience, and I hope you enjoy the "new" GearBits...
- Craig

Every time I sit down at a PC and every time I walk into my office at work, I'm struck with a fundamental decision: consume or produce.

I'm talking about information. Any minute can be reasonably and justifiably spent either consuming information, such as reading research papers, news sites, emails, blogs, etc., or producing new information, such as writing my own papers, putting up blog entries, leaving comments on blogs (hint, hint), composing an email, and so on.

Some people are very content to be primarily, if not entirely, consumers. They feel little or no need to share their knowledege, opinions, and thoughts with others. Some are more biased in the opposite direction, churning out an unending stream of content. I personally try to maintain a balance, but I have no idea where that balance should be, or even if there is an ideal point. I know I'm somewhere in the middle between these extremes, but I can easily spend a day consuming and not producing at all if I don't watch myself. This blog is one example of how I try to shift back towards the middle.

A related question is this: do we actually need so many people producing content? A decade ago, the number of "voices" in the world was a fraction of what it is today, and the majority of those voices had a local audience rather than the global audience the Internet affords now. Are we better off for this shift?

Well, on the plus side, the more opportunity there is for people to express themselves, the less likely we'll be that injustice and general badness (where's my thesaurus?!) will go unnoticed. Giving a voice to the repressed, the depressed, or the angry fosters assistance and coping. In addition, the more we know about each other, the better able we should be to understand and appreciate each other, and that should hopefully move us towards a calmer, more peaceful world.

On the negative side, and going back to my original point, a minute spent producing content is a minute spent not consuming someone else's content. So the time I spend writing this blog entry is time I'm not reading about someone else's scientific discovery, social plight, or philosophical outlook. While some education comes from writing, consuming generally offers a better opportunity for gaining knowledge and improving oneself.

But, if nobody produced, there'd be nothing to consume. And, if one consumes nothing, one is unlikely to be able to produce much content of value. So there has to be a balance, which leaves me back at my original question: consume or produce, read or write? Every minute is precious...how will you spend the next one?

Call me lonely, but unregistered comments are enabled again. They still require moderation, so if you want your comments to show up without a delay, register with TypeKey (it's FREE!).

Sorry, folks, but I've restricted the comment function such that you'll need to have a TypeKey account to post comments (which I hope you'll do). One benefit to registration is that your comments won't be moderated -- they'll show up immediately. Registering with TypeKey takes less than 30 seconds, so please consider doing so.

Why did I makes this change? I've been getting 10-40 comment spams a day and, even though they don't show up because I delete them during moderation, deleting them still takes time out of my life I'd rather spend on better things (like learning origami or contemplating why Brad and Jen are splitting up).

Anyway, sorry again that I had to do this -- comment spammers should join the ranks of people who should be ejected into space, like those who bash baby sea lions and those who urinate on the seats of public restrooms.

The following is an open letter to anyone trying to submit comment spam to this blog:

Dear Assmunch,

Do not try to submit comment spam for it will not ever appear -- I moderate all comments before they are posted.

So, instead of subverting civilization and generally turning the net into a steaming cesspool of unwanted ads for v1agra and online poker, why don't you go do something constructive with your time. Or, failing that, jump off a bridge. I mean a tall one. One with rocks or broken glass or alligators underneath it.

To reiterate, do not post comment spam. It only wastes your time and nobody (except me, and I'm smart enough not to click on your links) will ever see your insipid ads. Go away, you pinhead.

Now back to your regular programming...

So I'm out walking our dog this morning. Bailey, our dog, in case you don't know, is the most non-aggressive, peace-loving canine you can imagine -- never would she ever even consider violence towards another dog or a person. Despite that, she's been attacked by other dogs on four separate occasions. Now, make that five.

So, I'm out walking our dog past this retired couple's house when out of the door comes the woman and their dog. The dog is wearing a leash, but the end that is supposed to be in the hand of the owner is trailing on the ground (I guess the small purse and tiny plastic bag she was carrying were too much for her feeble hands to also hold onto a leash).

So her dog, which looks like a mix between a giant poodle and Cujo, comes racing down her driveway (we were on the sidewalk), takes one sniff at my dog, growls and lunges for her head. At this, I start trying to play interceptor -- holding onto Bailey's leash while pushing the other dog away or getting between the two dogs -- while also trying to grab Cujo Jr.'s leash (a nice, pretty, red leash flopping uselessly around on the ground).

So I'm there, doing the Little Sambo with Two Dogs Meets the Whirling Dervishes act, and the woman is standing there just staring at the scene. Her dog is getting closer and closer to clamping down on Bailey's head with every lunge, so I say, rather exasperatedly, "Get your damned dog!" which seems to spur her into at least a mimicry of motion.

Somehow, I manage to step on her dog's leash and hold him away from Bailey, who, at this point, is wide-eyed, shaking and seems to be limping, for a few seconds so that she can grab the leash.

Then, as I turned to look at her for an apology (yes, I fully expected one), she says, completely calmly, "I'm sorry, but you don't have to use that kind of language."

What?!? My choice of words while under duress, fearing for the safety and well-being of a member of my family, is her primary concern in this situation??? Her devil-beast of a dog nearly ripped my pet's head off because she broke the law and was negligent in not holding the leash when she went outside -- none of that bothered her as much as my use of the word "damned?" I was incredulous; I didn't even say anything as she turned and led her still-lunging dog away up the sidewalk.

Sorry, mates -- looks like I messed up a setting on the comments config. There were about 20 pending comments waiting for me to approve (I thought I had it configged to email me when a message needed tending to, but I guess I actually didn't).

Of course, of those 20-some pending comments, over a dozen were comment spam touting the greatness of online poker. *sigh* Nice to know that MovableType 3.x finally has at least some protection against that stuff (and it's a heck of a lot easier to delete now).

In the future, I promise to be more attentive to pending comments. Now I'll go flog myself with a USB cable as penance.

My pal Andy sent me a link to this poem.

Washington Crossing the Delaware

A hard, howling, tossing water scene:
Strong tide was washing hero clean.
"How cold!" Weather stings as in anger.
O Silent night shows war ace danger!

The cold waters swashing on in rage.
Redcoats warn slow his hint engage.
When star general's action wish'd "Go!"
He saw his ragged continentals row.

Ah, he stands - sailor crew went going,
And so this general watches rowing.
He hastens - winter again grows cold;
A wet crew gain Hessian stronghold.

George can't lose war with's hands in;
He's astern - so, go alight, crew, and win!

by David Schulman (1936)

Yes, every line in this sonnet is an anagram of the title of the poem. Hats off to ya, David!

I've determined I need a regular outlet for the crap in my brain that passes for thought. This is it.

What will be here? As the subtitle promises, everything. Lots of links to other people's creativity, some photos (especially of the kid that will be arriving shortly), and my own rather tepid contributions to the boiling pot that is the net consciousness.

Enjoy, or whatever.

As the recent frequency of postings here at GearBits might have hinted at, we're taking a break. Until further notice, there will be no new content on this site.

The combination of various technical issues (comment spam, most specifically) and an increasing sense that the web just doesn't need another tech-oriented blog has convinced us that our time is better spent with our families, at our jobs, and just consuming other people's content for a while.

GearBits will likely come back at some point, as I'm a serial hobbyist (if I made money at every endeavor, I could claim being a serial entrepreneur). When it does reappear, however, it will be something a bit different.

I thank my co-authors for their time and creativity. These past 15 months with the site have been enjoyable (mostly) and interesting (always), and I expect we'll all be keeping our eyes peeled for the next new opportunity.

In the meantime, if you hear of anything nifty or have questions about us or this site, feel free to drop me a line at craig at memoware dot com.

Best wishes, and thanks for stopping by.

Update: Jerome asked me to offer up some other tech news sources I'd recommend. The following can individually more than make up for GearBits, so enjoy:
• Brighthand -- pure handheld news
• Engadget -- Peter's land of gadgety goodness
• The Gadgeteer -- great tech reviews
• ExtremeTech -- lots of great personal computing info
• TeleRead -- ebook news
• Lost Remote -- TV and media news
• Lockergnome Tech News -- all-purpose tech news site
• Wired -- but of course!
• Slashdot -- all that and karma, too
• Boing Boing -- general society & strangeness
• Gizmodo -- great gadgets & gear blog
• PalmInfocenter -- happenings in the Palm OS community
• Phonescoop -- THE place for phone news
• infoSync World -- my source for a European perspective on tech
• Watchster -- great tech blog aggregator

There are many, many other great sites, of course, but these are the larger ones I visit regularly.

Update #2 (11/8/04): I've started a personal blog where I can wax philosophic on a variety of topics likely to be of interest to no one but myself. If you want to check it out, it's at http://craigfroehle.com/blog

Sorry for the lapse...I was out of the country and I guess my co-authors have not much to say at the moment. Here are a few tidbits of recent note:

Treo 270 in for Repair
My wife's Treo 270 died while she was in Ireland this past week. Actually, just the screen and backlight died; the rest of it seems OK. Apparently, palmOne is charging me $179 for an advance exchange for this beast. Not a great deal, but not terribly bad, IMO.

Treo 600 Battery Life Redux
Like the idiot I am, I left my Treo 600 in my car when I left for my trip Thursday afternoon. I got back to my car around midnight last night -- that's about 4.5 days or 108 hours later -- fully expecting the unit to be deader than a doornail. Much to my surprise, it still had 36% charge left. I finally dropped the unit in the charger today at noon just out of habit; it still had 28% battery left. So, over the course of 5 full days (120 hours), the phone (a) remained in standby (phone on), (b) supported nighly back-ups of its RAM to SD card, and (c) was used for about 20 minutes worth of phone calls and about 15 minutes of PDA activity. Given that it probably could have gone 6 full days had I pushed it, I'm still very, very impressed by the Treo 600's battery life.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves
While on the flight from Dublin to O'Hare, I read Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. Fabulous read. I'm quite sure I still have solidly entrenched mispunctuation habits, but I'm trying hard to overcome them. The attractiveness of joining a militant punctuation society is such that if you see someone with a Sharpie correcting a sign offering "Half Price Drink's", that's quite possibly me.

Sony Puts Handhelds on Hiatus in US
Sony has suspended selling its Clie line of Palm OS-powered PDAs in the US until further notice. It seems likely that the rapid rise in popularity of palmOne's recent Zire and Tungsten models and the forthcoming release of the PlayStation Portable (PSP) both made Sony reconsider whether trying to sell PDAs in North America made much sense. Brighthand has a short article on the announcement -- feel free to engage in wild speculation at your leisure.

China has issued a travel ban to the US for its citizens and is blocking visitation from US citizens to China and its territories. Chinese officials stated that a recent World Health Organization statement condemning the US for "an epidemic of obesity" is primary motivation for the ban.

Chinese government health officials hope to reduce the risk of obesity infecting its population as prevalently as it has in the US. "During the SARS outbreak, we learned the value of being proactive and taking preventative steps," said Wu Xinhua, a government health official. "Restricting our population's exposure to this new, widespread obesity epidemic from the West is very important."

When asked why a travel ban was necessary when obesity isn't communicable, an unidentified government health official scoffed. "Of course obesity is communicable. One need only look at certain families to recognize that fat mother and fat father have infected their fat children with the disease. Why do you think obesity is a "growing epidemic" if it cannot be passed on from one person to another?"

"We think this misunderstanding is most unfortunate," said Greg Carlin, a representative from the US Dept. of Commerce. "We hope to clarify the situation with the Chinese government and get the travel restrictions lifted." When asked what the DoC was doing to address the problem long-term, Carlin replied, "We've instituted a ban on chili fries in our cafeteria."

Other countries reported to be considering joining the ban on US travel and travellers are North Korea, Malaysia, Cuba, and Indonesia. The WHO has not yet made a statement about the travel restrictions.

Since we are running "pain" entries this week, I will add a few of my own:

1. The hard drive in my Scientific Atlanta DVR just conked out. I have had the unit for less than 2 months! Time Warner is sending the service personnel tomorrow to fix it (my guess is that they will have to replace the unit). I'm not sure how reliabile this DVR is going to be--we will have to wait and see, but my confidence is low right now. In the meantime, I lost several recordings that I didn't get a chance to view (that's pain).

2. Pain is grading hundreds of papers with poor writing styles. I'm not talking about grammar or spelling mistakes. I'm talking about poorly organized or incoherent papers I have to read. Those papers take about 3 times longer to read as compared to well-organized and coherent papers. I'm just glad that I'm done with grading.

3. Pain is getting old. I tried to play ping-pong, tennis, and golf all in one day. I could hardly walk afterward. My knees, shoulders, elbows, and hips all hurt. I've learned my lesson here.

BTW, I'm playing with the new Zire 72 and the Sena T3 case right now, and my PalmCorner Weekly will return with those reviews next Monday (now that I'm done with my end-of-the-semester grading rush).

Archaeologists have announced that they have discovered the site of the Library of Alexandria.

A Polish-Egyptian team has uncovered what look like lecture halls in the Bruchion region of the city. The 13 lecture halls uncovered could potentially house 5,000 scholars. A conspicuous feature of each of the rooms is an elevated podium, where it is presumed the lecturers stood.

Two thousand years ago, the Library of Alexandria housed works by the some of the greatest philosophers of that era, including works by Plato and Socrates. Also reputed to be the world's oldest university, the Library of Alexamdria was destroyed by fire, possibly by Julius Caesar as part of a campaign of conquest.

At the Library, Archimedes invented the screw-shaped water pump still in use today; Eratosthenes measured the diameter of the Earth; Euclid expounded on the rules of geometry; and Ptolemy wrote the Almagest, the most influential treatise on the nature of the Universe for the next millennium.

Alexandria started life as tiny fishing village when Alexander the Great chose it to be the site of his empire's capital. As its influence grew, the city built two of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, including the Lighthouse at Pharos, and the Library of Alexandria.

..for not posting for several days. I have been caught up in the waning life of 97X, the best alternative rock station ever, which went off the air forever last night about midnight. My stomach knots up even now just thinking about it.

Now that this drama has ended, I should be back on the horse. More or less...

Jordan Ellenberg, an assistant math professor, penned a column in Slate where he outlines some numerical arguments against being concerned about grade inflation:

One of the most powerful and popular arguments against grade inflation is that it makes it difficult to tell one student from another. Harvey Mansfield, a professor of government at Harvard and a vocal grade-inflation foe, puts it this way: "Grade inflation compresses all grades at the top, making it difficult to discriminate the best from the very good, the very good from the good, the good from the mediocre."

That sounds reasonable. But it's wrong.

An interesting discussion is attached to the article. Myself, I'm still not convinced that grade inflation should go unchecked. But then, I don't use a +/- grade system, so if you don't get an A in my class, you wind up with a B, C, D, or F. Does anyone really think that everyone should be "excellent" (the evaluative interpretation my institution associates with an A)? Hardly.

Optware Corporation, a Japanese firm specializing in holographic storage media, has demonstrated a practical holographic recording and playback device.

Its system is based on polarized collinear holography, as opposed to conventional holographic recording and playing devices. This system multiplexes the signal and reference beams used for recording and playing of holographic media with just one objective lens.

Conventional technology requires a two-beam axis, a more complex system with precision issues, including positioning the media with each optical axis.

Prototypes shown used a blue-violet semiconductor laser for the signal beam and reference beam, a red semiconductor laser for the servo, and a CMOS image sensor for detection of the playback signals.

Optware says it is on track to introduce a commercial product storing up to 300-GB on a 12 centimeter holographic disc by 2005.

In 1987, Cincinnati was ground-zero for an enormous eruption of 17-year cicadas (pictured). Well, it's now 17 years later and we're preparing for another onslaught of millions of these large, chirping, whirring, flying insects.

One thing that 1987's event produced was an awesome radio jingle from Snappy Tomato Pizza, a regional pizza chain. Instead, the spot advertised "Snap...Snap...Snappy Cicada Pizza..." It was a scream, despite the fact that they didn't really offer cicadas as a topping. Thankfully, our local newspaper website provides a copy of the original jingle in its (ahem) cicada feature section.

If you just want to hear the jingle, click here (MP3). And yes, 17 years later, I still hear people sing or hum this every once in a while.

Amidst the questionable sales of souls and Stinger missiles, sometimes someone on eBay, comes up with a straightforward classic, like this sale of a Ryobi Router Table that is a triumph of modern marketing.

And since we all know that eBay listings are ephemeral, I've reproduced the listing here for posterity.

RYOBI ROUTER TABLE - WORTHLESS JUNK NR!

Item number: 2389286139
Winning bid: US $26.22
Ended: Mar-28-04 10:45:22 PST
Start time: Mar-21-04 10:45:22 PST
Winning bidder: burglarproof(110)
Seller information: davesan455(48)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Description (revised)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For any prospective bidders - I have 100% positive feedback so you know my descriptions are good. I'm trying to describe this item the best I can.

This Ryobi router table is the worst thing I've ever spent money on. Period. I've wasted money on a lot of things in my life: women, cars, other things I didn't need, you name it, but I've never felt like I totally 100% wasted my money on something until I bought this router table. I've wasted money, but I normally got some sort of satisfaction out of it, no matter how small, I got something out of it This is the most worthless piece of crap item I have ever had the displeasure of working with in my life. I have much more colorful ways of describing this but I realize that there may be some kids that will read this so I will try to keep it PG.

As you can tell from my posts here at GearBits, I spend a fair amount of time thinking about mobile devices. Well, I've also been thinking about the other end of the spectrum.

Most of my day, and much of a lot of people's day, is spent sitting at a desk doing work that is very appropriate to be doing at a desk. Composing longish documents, reviewing and synthesizing multiple sources of information concurrently, etc. Granted, I could do these things with a laptop or even a wireless PDA, but I see their lack of screen real estate as a major hindrance. So, what I've been dreaming about is what I'm calling SynthetiDesk (not because I think that's a particularly jazzy name, but for the simple fact that nobody has yet used this term on the web before).

Pictured is an incredibly crude mock-up of what I'm thinking (please ignore the sad joke that is my Photoshopping). What you see is basically an interactive, touch-sensitive LCD panel with massively high resolution. Roughly 250 dpi would be needed to approximate the legibility of paper. So, a 5 foot by 2.5 foot SynthetiDesk would require a touch-screen LCD with a resolution of [gulp] 15,000 x 7,500 pixels. Sorta makes that 1920x1080 monitor you've been dreaming of seem like dogmeat, eh?

None of the five documents shown in the mock-up are hardcopies -- they are all interactive images, such as you'd see on a PC desktop today. One big difference between this model and, say, a Windows model is that a document doesn't need to be in a program. The documents are viewable just like photographs or print-outs or other hardcopies are. We don't need a viewer program to look at the daily hardcopy newspaper, so SynthetiDesk would ideally not require one either for most everything.

However, if I want to alter a document, then some form of application may be required, but not necessarily. Editing the contents of a text document should be as simple as highlighting (with a finger or stylus or something) and then touching up with the keyboard or voice dictation (assuming that ever actually works).

Documents can be easily manipulated by touching them, such as dragging some papers together to create a pile. With a gesture or voice command, the pile would become iconized or transformed in some other way into something more manageable. The icons in the upper left could be piles of documents, individual documents, shortcuts to web pages (as shown in the browser/web documents).

Another feature of the SynthetiDesk is the ease with which hardcopy documents and objects can be transformed into images. The user would simply place the document (or photo or receipt, etc.) face down, utter a command (or somehow execute an action) to scan the document. The document is then represented in high resolution on the desktop, and the hardcopy can now be recycled (or folded into a paper airplane or whatever). Stacks of documents would still require a sheet-feeder, but that's a trivial extension of the concept.

Of course, using dynamic information (streaming A/V, constantly updated tickers, etc.) on the SynthetiDesk is really easy to do given the active nature of the medium. This would bring new realms to "dragging and dropping" simply because you could now have more documents and objects "open" at any one time than ever before. Instead of squinting to read even just two side-by-side pages on your current monitor, imagine being able to simultaneously compare a few document pages, a handful of photographs, a movie clip, some information tickers, and a couple of webpages. I think a lot of peoples' jobs would be greatly enhanced by something like this -- I know mine would.

One of the advantages of the SynthetiDesk is to let someone work with representations of materials they're familiar with, yet eliminate as much paper as possible. Paper is analog...when it comes to information, analog is much more difficult to deal with. Also, paper is physical...when it comes to storing information, I'd much rather store bits than pages any day of the week.

So, I realize this is unlikely to happen sometime soon, but I do think something like it will happen at some point. One of the goals of a lot of visionaries is to make the PC "disappear" into other things we use and interact with. As one researcher said, "We want people to use computers without even realising they're using them." I think the SynthetiDesk is one such example of how the very furniture we use becomes imbued with computer-like capabilities to create an entirely new, and much more useful, concept.

I found a really useful website that explains common fallacies. Useful for deconstructing poorly formed arguments and for convincing your frat buddy that ad hominem is not a distant ancestor.

About two years ago, the National Research Council's board on physics and astronomy held a seminar highlighting the converging worlds of particle physics and astronomy - a convergence that brings the scientific world tantalizingly close to a unification of all four forces of nature (electromagnetism, weak force, strong force, and gravity) - what scientists like to call the unified field theory.

The result of the seminar was a special report on the convergent fields, detailing 11 profound questions - including a few that scientists think may be answered within the decade... leading to a revolution in science with inevitable implications to our daily lives.

Here then, are the 11 greatest unanswered questions in physics...

Reuters story (via Engadget).

Next month, Bordernet becomes self-aware.

European display manufacturer Ingineo SAS has announced a new product in their line of wearable multimedia display devices in the form of stylish eyewear.

The Eyetop Centra sunglasses come with a small 64-bit colour LCD screen embedded in a sidepiece. The display is able to plug into any video-output device, including digital cameras, videocams, laptops, portable TVs, and DVD players.

Users can focus on the screen without an onstructed field of view. In addition, the Eyetop Centra includes a set of integrated earphones, for full audio-video mobility.

Checking the race status of the DARPA Grand Challenge (you know, that autonomous robotic vehicle race across 142 miles of Nevada desert), it didn't turn out so well. 13 of the 15 participants were shown as "Disabled" and the other two withdrew from competition.

I'm still wondering why nobody thought of breaking out KITT for this.

Swiss flash memory company Swissbit has teamed with the famed pocket-knife company Victorinox to offer a Swiss Army Knife featuring a flip-out USB flash memory stick.

To be launched at CeBIT, the Swissmemory USB will be available in 64-MB or 128-MB versions, plus knife, scissors, file, screwdriver, ballpoint pen and LED light.

Swissbit's SecureLOCK software is used for optional encryption of the data, and the memory module may be snapped off the knife for airplane travel.

May all your gadgets be Leap Year compliant.

Want a girlfriend? Hate the hassle? Check out eBay.

A few enterprising individuals are offering "imaginary girlfriend" services to bidders.

Listings are similar: "Sexy college student seeking money for books will, for one month, write you frequent e-mails and send pictures and perfumed letters you can show to family, friends and ex-girlfriends."

However, in most cases personal contact is strictly prohibited. One listing points out: "This in NO WAY makes me your real girlfriend."

Hundreds of listings were previously available. Unfortunately for lonely geeks all over the world, some listings began to cross the line into more overtly sexual. eBay now deems all such auctions as inappropriate, and has started closing them down, so you have to act fast to get the girl of your dreams.

A researcher at the University of British Columbia in Canada has reported a new mode of unconscious visual perception, which enables, for example, awareness of a change in the visual environment even without being able to identify what that change is.

Ronald Rensink showed 40 people a series of alternating images on a computer screen, each for a fraction of a second, followed by a blank screen. Sometimes the same image would remain throughout the trial; in others, the first image would alternate with a subtly different image.

Around a third of those tested reported feeling the image had changed before they could identify the change. That indicated that our visual system has the capacity to produce a strong gut feeling about a change in the environment - what might be termed a sixth sense, a belief in perceiving something when the perception has not actually occurred yet.

What the researchers are now calling mindsight may also behind that feeling of going into a room and sensing something is different but not being able to put your finger on it. "It could well be an alerting system," says Rensick. Sensing someone is following you may be the auditory equivalent of mindsight.

"I think this effect explains a lot of the belief in a sixth sense," says Rensink. Researchers still have no idea what physical processes are behind this phenomenon.

On January 31, 2004, NASA closes their passenger list for a one-way trip to a comet.

On July 4, 2005, the Deep Impact spacecraft will launch a 370-kg copper projectile into the surface of comet Tempel 1, forming a football-stadium-sized crater. In that projectile - which will be obliterated by the impact - will be a CD containing the names of spaceflight enthusiasts who signed on for this one-way trip to a comet.

As the projectile hits Tempel 1 at 37,000 kph, Deep Impact will collect pictures and data on the material ejected from the comet's new crater, the first-ever glimpse into the interior of a celestial snowball.

"This is an opportunity to become part of an extraordinary space mission," said Dr. Don Yeomans, member of the Deep Impact team. "When the craft is launched in December 2004, yours and the names of your loved-ones can hitch along for the ride and be part of what may be the best space fireworks show in history."

People can submit their names for the mission by visiting NASA's Deep Impact website.

A man who won $57,000 in an Indiana lottery game died just hours later when he was hit by a pickup truck.Link

Sometimes something works so well and feels so good to use that it becomes extraordinary and remarkable beyond its limited role in life. The most recent example of this that I've come across is my Swingline Comfort Grip stapler (shown).

I admit that it is a bit strange, at least here on GearBits, to be talking about something that has no electronics in it, much less something that requires no power source other than one's hand. This stapler feels good in use and is as reliable an office tool as I've found, having yet to jam (it replaced a cheap Boston brand hand stapler).

The Swingline can be used comfortably as a hand stapler (thanks to its ergonomic design and comfy spongy sure-grip covering) and effectively as a desktop stapler -- there is no compromise. When not in use, the stapler can even be stood on end to save desk space.

Sorry to go overboard on something as banal as a stapler. After living with various pieces of crap in this function for years, I'm pretty happy to have found such a nicely designed and robust tool.

I spent an hour on the highway today and spent a good part of that time wondering what the world would be like in a hundred years. One century -- not that much time at all, but if we look at the technological changes that have happened since 1904, predicting what the next 100 years would yield a huge range of forecasts.

Obviously, wireless will continue to evolve quickly. I'd fully expect to see wireless handheld videocoms as the norm. However, I don't expect the data landline to go away. Gigabit Internet is probably going to look like child's play to the casual user in 2104, and there will likely always be a need for fixed-location, high-speed Internet/data access, such as into the home.

The "intelligent house" probably won't really be all that intelligent, but home automation will certainly have reached new plateaus. New display technologies will, in all likelihood, have replaced windows (e.g. those clear LCD panels that can shade or display images) in upper-end homes and will be finding its way into everyday building practice. Good-bye to CRTs and anything that looks like a dedicated display unit (thank goodness).

My guess is that telecommuting will be much more widespread. The advances in high-richness communication media and easier-to-use information management technology will allow much better distributed collaboration. Besides, at $30 per gallon of gas, the car has changed quite a bit too since 2004. Granted, we won't all be running "Mr. Fusion" units on our hovercraft, but gasoline-powered engines will have generally disappeared from the highways. What will replace it? You got me...if I knew that, I'd be filthy rich in about 40 years. Maybe fuel cell, maybe all-electric, but probably something the mainstream hasn't even heard of yet.

So what do you guys think the technology of 2104 would be like? Will we have time travel? Will we have that base on Mars established yet, and will man have ventured to any other planets? Will Microsoft have assembled enough cash that it was able to purchase its own country, relocating from the US to avoid further anti-monopolistic regulation? Will PCs still exist? Will I be able to purchase my very own working Holodeck?

Astronomers at the University of British Columbia in Canada have reported discovery of a large planet 90 light-years away, which is heating the star it orbits around.

Studies by the team show that the planet's magnetic field is producing hot spots on its sun.

The planet is 270 times larger than the Earth, nearly the size of Jupiter, and orbits the star HD179949, which is very similar to our Sun. Circling closely to its sun, the planet completes an orbit every 3 days.

The scientific team said that hot spots on the sun are caused by the planet's magnetic field transferring energy to the sun's photosphere, resulting in bright ultraviolet patches. Scientists estimate that the effect raises the temperature of the sun's gaseous layer by 750 degrees.

In comparison, the star's gaseous layer is normally at 14,000 degrees, and the planet itself has a surface temperature of 2,700 degrees.

I Googled the web and the USENET, but did not find these two words written adjacent to one another. I guess I will claim the term as uniquely mine and get the trademarking work underway. More later...

Seriously though, this has happened to me recently. You will recall that I recently purchased a new home. One of its many features is an impressive 250 gallon saltwater reef aquarium built into the wall behind the basement's wet bar. In a purpose-built aquarium "control room" is a dizzying array of equipment: wet-dry filtration, UV sterilizer, reverse osmosis water filter, protein skimmer, cartridge filter, mixing tanks, pumps, valves, timers, lighting ballasts, fans, drains, etc, etc. The former homeowner was seriously into his craft and bequeathed the whole shooting match to me when I signed on the dotted line. He left no instruction manuals and I never met him face to face. It was time to learn something about aquaria.

I read books, scoured the web, talked to friends and got my feet wet (literally). I feel I now know enough to keep my ragtag bunch of fishes and corals alive. They're actually kind of fun to watch and we have named them all: Jumper (Spanish Hogfish), Nemo (Clarkii Clownfish), Zippy (Damsel), 3Fish (Coral Beauty Angelfish), Mociute Fish (Koran Angelfish), Bubbles (Yellow Tang) and Dory (Vlamingi Tang).

In my web travels I found a REALLY cool aquarium designed and built by Robert Michelson. He built most of the sub-systems himself from scraps in his workshop. The entire aquarium is automated. The page has numerous links and supporting info. Some will be interesting and some just mystifying. Whichever way you find it, the destination is a worthy one.

It seems that the US Army is developing a robotic dog (pictured below on the left) that will carry up to 100 lbs of supplies into combat.

Except for the hip-mounted rocket launcher (which the Army should consider), this is obviously a blatant rip-off of Ravage, the Decepticon Transformer invented by Hasbro (shown below on the right). I expect Hasbro to announce a lawsuit for copyright infringement any day now.

Thanks to Gizmodo for the lead.

In my predictions for 2004, my number 8 headline was "China Announces Manned Moon Landing Program."

I made this prediction because over 2002-2003, China has been revving up their space program, culminating in the launch of the Shenzhou V spacecraft in October 2003, making them only the third nation to launch a man in space.

Well, my headline hasn't quite come to pass yet, but it's well on its way (and not bad for only 3 days into the New Year).

The China National Space Administration has just announced an ambitious three-stage Moon landing program. The target is to put a satellite into lunar orbit by 2007, followed by an unmanned landing by 2010, and finally to collect lunar soil samples by 2020.

Also known as the Chang'e Program (after a mythical goddess who travelled to the Moon), China's lunar program will depend on the Long March III-A launch vehicle and the Dongfanghong satellite platform.

Experts noted that the program does not mean that China now possesses manned landing capability. However, manned landings may be possible after completion of the three-stage program.

What do you do when everyone in your neighborhood's got their own personal catapult?

Break out your rubber band machine gun, that's what!

Based on the classic Gatling Gun mechanism, this contraption allows you to load twelve rubber bands on each of twelve rotating barrels for a total of 144 pieces - that fire off as fast as you can crank the control handle. Imagine the pummeling that you can inflict on your friends and officemates with this machine!

The machine gun is available in kit or plan form from BackyardArtillery, one of a group of companies also famous for providing kits for ancient siege machines.

Also available: slingshots, potato guns, catapult watches, cap guns, burp-ball pistols, soap-bubble guns, smoke-ring bazookas, archery equipment, boomerangs, and all manner of interesting weaponry that make the arms race, well, child's play. It's enough to make anyone a twelve-year-old again.

As 2003 comes to a close, we all start to wonder what will happen in 2004. Below are some predictions from each of the GearBits authors as to what they think we'll see in the coming year. Enjoy!

In 2004, Mitch predicts the following will happen:

1. Apple's AAC music encoding format will gain wide acceptance in the coming year due to the insane popularity of the iPod. With the combination of the excellent iTunes Music Store and the high fidelity and small size of the AAC-encoded files, I think this is a winner.

2. Home electronics that are net-enabled will become commonplace. With home theater receivers such as Onkyo's ethernet-enabled TX-NR801 on one side and media center PCs on the other, the line between audio gear and PC gear is about to get really fuzzy.

3. GPS technology will invade every facet of our lives. GPS is just too cool. There are so many industries that are just beginning to tap its potential. I think we will see GPS-enabled gear start to pop up everywhere and most likely all automobiles sold in the future will have one.

In 2004, Ken predicts the following will happen:

1) PalmOne will release a dream Palm OS6 device that is multi-tasking, multi-input, multi-media, and multi-purpose. It will also have a long battery life and easy portability. (OS6 will definitely happen in 2004, but it's the ideal device that will be a surprise).

2) PalmOne will release the Treo 800, a 320x480 resolution smartphone.

3) Virtual keyboard and screen PDA makes a debut, but it's too expensive for anyone to afford.

4) Windows Laptop with ultra high-speed nonvolatile ROM/RAM memory makes a debut (We will finally have the instant on-off Windows XP laptops).

5) A 12 Mega-pixel digital camera with a full 35mm sensor will debut in the $3000 price range.

In 2004, Sam predicts the following will happen:

1. First Electronic Paper-based PDA Released.

2. Recordable DVD Players Hit Mainstream.

3. Apple Debuts Video iPod.

4. Camphones Take Market Share from Low-End Digicams.

5. Push-to-Talk Phones Follow Camphones as New Consumer Darlings.

6. Nikon Discontinues 35mm Photography Line, Concentrates on Digital.

7. Digital Video Recorders Outsell VHS VCRs.

8. China Announces Manned Moon Landing Program.

9. Sales for J.K. Rowling's New 'Potter' Book Disappoint.

... And, just to make sure at least one predicted headline comes true...

10. Release of Microsoft's Longhorn OS Delayed.

In 2004, Craig predicts the following will happen:

1. PalmSource will release Palm OS 6 to much fanfare. It will be a marked improvment for the operating system, and devices running on OS6 will be available before July. They will rock.

2. Samsung will continue to encroach on Sony's market share in nearly every consumer electronics product area except for gaming.

3. LCD televisions will continue to expand as prices drop, brands multiply, and sizes increase. Plasma TV sales in 2004 will plateau, leading to a year-on-year decline (the first ever) in 2005.

4. Wi-Fi mania will continue to build and someone will announce a low-power, low-range Wi-Fi variant that effectively obviates the need for Bluetooth. The "death of Bluetooth" will be once again announced by the press...and this time they may be right.

5. Bad news will continue to pour forth from the US Congress and White House in terms of poorly conceived, technology-ignorant legislation and cow-towing to powerful media lobbyists (e.g., RIAA and MPAA). Environmental devastation and deregulation will increase at the hands of the Bush administration.

6. Convergence in home entertainment (audio/video) electronics will be hampered by an industry that is unable and/or unwilling to agree on and follow technical standards.

7. Despite technical and legislative solutions, spam will continue to increase as a percentage of total email, but more slowly (due to the convergence towards 100%).

8. There will be peace on Earth (hey, I can dream, can't I?)

So you think your 400 MHz wireless GPS-enabled PDA is pretty cutting-edge kit, eh? Well, it's not even close. NASA is working on the PSA, or Personal Satellite Assistant (shown), the next great thing in mobile electronics...at least for astronauts.

NASA's Ames Research Center is collaborating with other institutions and companies to develop a semi-autonomous astronaut's assistant. The PSA would float (due to micro-gravity) and propel itself around inside the space station using small air fans.

About the size of a cantelope, the PSA would record the astronaut's activities by streaming A/V to the space station's central computer via wireless LAN. It would also facilitate communication and perform routine minor tasks for the astronaut. The PSA would also have an array of sensors, so the astronaut could verbally instruct it to "go check the temperature in B module," and, after venturing there on its own, it would report back with the requested information.

This overview at Ames provides some still drawings and some concept movies. This page provides a lot more detail into how the specifics of the research effort are progressing. Finally, this link is to a quasi-academic research paper outlining the conceptual and theoretic foundation of the PSA.

Based on the photos and movies, it kind of reminds me of the training droids in the original Star Wars (the small hovering orbs Luke is using to practice using The Force). This just makes me want to be an astronaut just that much more -- they have all the best toys!

GearBits needs a logo...something better than our plain old font-astic name in the upper left corner.

So, if you have an artistic edge, craft up something that you think might look good and post a comment with a URL to it. Also include your name and email address since if we decide to use someone's logo idea, there will be a sweet prize (something good...haven't decided yet). Besides the prize, the winner will receive unparalleled fame via recognition here at GearBits.

Some guidelines. First, we'll go as long as we have to on this one...no set end date (at least a month). Second, try to make the logo work with the current color scheme of the site. Third, flaming or spinning logos do not get bonus points (although those that flame and spin just might).

So, all you creative types out there, show us what you got.

I was reminded of the classic Saturday Night Live fake TV advertisement Happy Fun Ball by the "use and care" instructions that accompanied a set of 6 small glass prep bowls that we got for Christmas. Beyond the fact that Duralex appears 25 times in the instructions, some of the more bizarre statements from the 5-page instruction manual include:

• "Duralex...is made of tempered glass. This is actually not the same as ordinary glass." Hence the word "tempered."

• "Duralex, even though particularly resistant by its inherent qualities, is still glass." Wait a minute...you just said...

• "...if subjected to severe impact, can break either immediately or later, without apparent cause." Fun for amateur mentalists wanting to impress their friends.

• "The breaking of the glass may be accompanied by a loud noise. It will break in small fragments, contrary to ordinary glass." I'm still confused...is this glass or not?

• "Use only plastic or nylon sponges." What about sponge sponges?

• "Never stack one glass inside another unless the glass is specifically called "Stackable." :-\

Methinks the manufacturer may be taking his glass bowls a bit too seriously.

ExtremeTech has an interesting article about how marketers often try to claim that a new device is "easy to operate as a TV." Well, that doesn't really mean much any more, and as home A/V electronics resemble PCs more and more, we may be in for a backslide in terms of usability.

"In the past year, I've added two different home theater setups in my house and played around with a lot of home theater equipment of various types -- ranging to entry-level Home Theater In a Box kits to high-end receivers and media recorders. What I'm struck by is just how painful most of these are to install – and how much more of a pain they are to use."

In the late 1980's, an academic researcher named Fred Davis, along with some colleagues, published a simple theory, the "Technology Acceptance Model". That model posits that two factors will greatly influence the propensity of someone to adopt, or begin using regularly, a particular technology.

Those two factors are A) perceived usefulness (i.e., how much benefit does the technology offer to the user), and B) perceived ease of use (i.e., how simple and/or intuitive is the technology). Usability experts like Jakob Nielsen have long decried the ever-complexifying of web and user interfaces in software. The same complaints can obviously be made about hardware, as the ExtremeTech article plainly points out.

So, what can we do? Well, maybe it's time for industry to start listening to researchers a bit more. While it seems perfectly obvious now that usefulness and ease of use should influence someone's decision to adopt a technology, judging from the store shelves and marketing messages, that insight hasn't found its way thoroughly into the world's top consumer electronics makers.

From Slashdot comes a story about Sony's new "humanoid" QRIO robot. At about 18" tall, they're amazingly compact, yet they are still able to literally run (i.e., both feet off the ground at once). That link contains movie clips and photos.

Particularly stunning is this movie of four QRIO robots doing traditional Japanese dance. While they're not interacting with each other or their environment, Sony's QRIO seems to definitely set a new standard for self-contained bipedal robot mobility and agility.

The last 100 years of flight, ushered in by Orville and Wilbur Wright on December 17, 1903, saw man break the sound barrier, visit the moon, and even leave the solar system.

The next 100 years of flight, as envisaged by an article in the Economist, promise to be just as astounding.

If things come to pass as the reviewer expects, the skies of the future will be teeming with unmanned aerial verhicles, planes that morph into optimal flight shapes using memory materials, economically viable supersonic transport, planes powered by new sources of power, and - yes, people have been predicting this since forever - the personal air car.

December 17, 1903 -- Kitty Hawk, NC. Orville and Wilbur Wright, two brothers from Dayton, Ohio, gave a gift to mankind that has taken us beyond our wildest dreams. Thanks, guys.

Reports say that Saddam Hussein has been arrested in Iraq, hiding in a farmhouse cellar near Tikrit. Stories are available at CNN and MSNBC, among other places.

Not typical GearBits fare, I know, but it seemed important.

TeleRead has an interesting story about how there may be new life in the oh-so-quiet e-book industry. A collection of large publishing and related companies, lead by Sony, plans on using OpenMG, Sony's proprietary digital rights management (DRM) technology.

"Remember, Sony isn't just a hardware company. It's into music and other content. Time for trust-busters throughout the world to look very closely at connections between hardware and content--and make sure that companies don't abuse consumers?"

The initiative also involves E Ink, the main source of innovation in electronic ink and "smart paper" technologies. This could be a huge coup for Sony, which might just wind up having a major say in how this foundling market develops over the next decade.

Give it a read and tell me what you think.

I had a strange thought the other night. What will happen when virtual actors and actresses become more common and the studios that develop them start seeking copyright protection for their creations?

This thought was partly motivated by the 2001 movie Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which was completely CGI. It was heralded as a breakthrough in computer-generated people. Admittedly, breakthrough or not, the people were still pretty obviously computer-animated.

A more recent movie that I thought about when pondering this question is S1m0ne, which I didn't see. IMDB explains the plot as "A producer's film is endangered when his star walks off, so he decides to digitally create an actress to substitute for the star, becoming an overnight sensation that everyone thinks is a real person." Unlike Final Fantasy, the digital actress in S1m0ne was actually a live actress.

So what happens if a studio creates a recognizable character that looks convincingly like a human. Does it, or can it, hold a copyright on the look of that actor or actress? Would that copyright prevent another studio from using an actor, either digital or fleshy, that looks similar to the copyrighted one?

Looking into this, it seems there are several precedents for this copyright to be possible. A terrific example is what happened to the comic book character Howard the Duck (HTD), shown above, in the 1970's. Basically, HTD looked somewhat like Donald Duck, a prized possession in Disney's vast collection of intellectual property. According to this story, "How the Duck Got His Pants", Disney forced Marvel Comics to alter HTD's look significantly, forcing not only his body to change, but to also garb him differently (pants were added to his character to differentiate him from Donald, who never wears pants [perv!]). Disney's claims were backed up by a long-standing copyright on the look of Donald Duck.

So, let's say I create Dan Magnum, a digitally rendered actor who appears in a movie. I expect him to be a big hit, so I copyright him. His movie is huge and he's suddenly very popular. Could I restrict other movies or TV shows that have characters that look like Dan Magnum? What if the other characters are real people?

Let's say that Dan Magnum always wears a signature piece of clothing. Could I restrict other characters in movies and TV shows from using that same piece of clothing if there's a chance that those characters could be confused with Dan Magnum? From the Howard the Duck precedent, it seems that I could. But, this type of protection could never be realistically achieved if a real (human) actor was the star.

All this is very troubling. If an animated duck can be copyrighted, what's keeping a human from being copyrighted? Cartoon ducks have only so many degrees of freedom that we can manipulate to differentiate one from another, but lifelike humans have many, many factors. How many of those can a copyright cover?

I am not a lawyer, but this issue seems ripe for both abuse and proactive consideration. And I hope it gets addressed before it gets abused. Given the history of US copyright legislation, however, my guess is that it will be abused both before and after serious attention gets paid to it.

Why are violins from the 17th-18th centuries generally considered superior in sound quality to modern instruments?

Theories range from the craftsman's skill, to special varnishes, to the storage or drying of the wood, or the use of wood from old structures.

Now, researchers from Columbia University have a new theory - climate.

The study, published in the journal Dendrochronologia, proposes that the superior tonality of instruments from this era can be explained by the climate in Europe in the 70 years from 1645-1715 AD.

This period - known as the Maunder Minimum - was characterized by less intense solar radiation and a sharp decline in temperature. The long winters and cool summers produced wood with a slow, even growth - properties ideal for producing high-quality boards. Additionally, narrow tree rings from slow growth tend to increase wood density and thus the strength of instruments.

Antonio Stradivari, the famous violinmaker, was born one year before the Maunder Minimum. The only wood available to Stradivari and other violinmakers of the era were from trees that grew during the Maunder Minimum...providing one more critical difference to the tone and brilliance of the famous violins.

New Scientist is reporting that the largest prime number yet was just found using a distributed computing system consisting of over 200,000 computers.

The new prime is 6,320,430 digits long (yes, so I won't be publishing it here). The result is a victory for the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) project.

Math news is usually pretty rare, but late 2003 has had a couple neat stories. Beyond the new prime story above, we also were tantalized by the partial solving of Hilbert's 16th problem by Swedish PhD student Elin Oxenhielm.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ruled early this month that milk and meat products from cloned animals were safe for human consumption.

So when will we see cloned turkeys for Thanksgiving?

John Kirby, a professor of poultry science at the University of Arkansas, notes that the FDA referred to clones from embryonic cells. The process makes use of blastodermic cells capable of dividing, multiplying and developing into identical embryos capable of producing genetically identical animals. The structure of birds’ eggs makes this process much more difficult for poultry.

"On top of that," says Kirby, "It would be prohibitively expensive to produce cloned birds for mass consumption."

Larger, tastier birds have been successfully produced simply through selective breeding, so there isn't much call to explore costly and controversial techniques like cloning.

His conclusion: "We’ll be eating good old fashioned turkey for decades to come."

Researchers from the University of Minnesota, in collaboration with Nicholas Turkey Breeding Farms, have collaborated to produce the first genome map of the domestic turkey (Meleagris gallopavo).

Previous research has succeeded at mapping the chicken genome, but the turkey equivalent remained a tantalizing challenge - until now.

The report, "A first-generation map of the turkey genome" is being published in Genome, a journal of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) Research Press.

Dr. David Harry, a key researcher, noted, "Finding a way to breed a turkey with naturally occurring beneficial traits is clearly of interest to the poultry-producing industry. Using naturally occurring variations, it is possible build a better turkey..."

Six years ago, researchers from Cornell University built the world's smallest guitar to demonstrate the possibilities of using silicon fab techniques to manufacture micron-sized systems.

Now, Cornell has demonstrated a playable version of the red-blood-cell-sized guitar to show how such devices could be used as cheaper, more energy-efficient electronic circuit components.... by using a laser to strum the strings.

The new nanoguitar is 5 times larger than the original, but still only viewable with a microscope. Its strings are silicon bars, from 6-12 microns in length, and cross sections of 150 x 200 nanometers. The strings vibrate at 17 octaves higher than a real guitar.

You play the nanoguitar by focussing a laser beam on the strings. As the strings vibrate, they create interference patterns, which are detected and electronically converted to audible sound. The device plays simple tones and chords, with pitches determined by string length.

Practical applications? Of course.

Nanoscale objects vibrating at radio frequencies can substitute for quartz oscillators in electronic circuits, using less space and power. Since these vibrations can be tuned to a narrow range of frequencies, they are also usable in filter circuits. The unique light modulation system is also usable in fiber-optic communications systems to replace more expensive light sources.

All this, and the ability to play a wicked Santana...now that's my kind of science!

Fifty years ago today, the Piltdown Man fossils were revealed as a fraud.

First discovered in 1911, the skull remains found in Piltdown, in East Sussex, England, were held up as the missing link between man and apes. This view held for over forty years until, in 1953, it was shown that chemical treatments - and not time - were behind the apparent age of the specimens.

Amateur fossil hunter Charles Dawson claimed to have obtained the original bone fragments by workmen digging in Piltdown. More fossils were then revealed at the site by Dawson and his friend Arthur Smith Woodward, then keeper of geology at the British Museum.

Doubts of the authenticity of the fossils began to surface when anthropologists began understanding more about the evolution of the human skull, consistent with the fossil record - except for Piltdown Man.

Finally, on 21 November 1953, new tests on the fossils showed that they had been stained and treated to make them look 500,000 years old.

In one sense, though, the fragments were indeed a mix of man and ape - pieces had come from a medieval man, and the jawbone from an orangutan.

Carnegie Mellon University's Robot Hall of Fame recognizes excellence in robotics technology, honoring real-world robots and fictional robots that have inspired scientific accomplishments.

Recently, CMU announced the first inductees into the Hall of Fame, chosen by a jury from 32 nominees.

The honorees: Sojourner, NASA's Mars Pathfinder Microrover Flight Experiment (MFEX) robot; Unimate, the first industrial robot; R2-D2, the droid from the Star Wars movie trilogy; and HAL, the ship-board computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Jacob R. Matijevic of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory accepted for the Sojourner rover. Joseph F. Engelberger, whose company Unimation installed the first robots on a General Motors assembly line in 1961, accepted for Unimate. Kathleen Holliday of Lucasfilm, accepted for R2-D2. Arthur C. Clarke sent a special message from Sri Lanka, on behalf of HAL.

Also on hand for the celebration were David Prowse (Darth Vader) and Kenny Baker (R2-D2) from the first Star Wars episode.

The public is invited to nominate robots for the next induction ceremony, to be held in October 2004, celebrating the 25th anniversary of Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute.

A scientific team at the KEK laboratory in Japan has discovered a new sub-atomic particle which it is calling the X(3872).

The particle has a mass of 3872 MeV - higher than theoretical predictions - and its decay into more stable particles also does not follow current theory. Scientists are speculating that X(3872) is a type of meson that contains four quarks.

Particle physicists have until recently only detected particles containing two or three quarks. Recently, however, evidence has emerged for another four-quark particle known as the Ds(2317) and a five-quark particle known as the pentaquark.

The KEK discovery has been confirmed by Fermilab in the US, where the new particle is being called the "mystery meson."

From the James Bond department, the Aquada is a convertible that transforms into a speedboat.

The high-speed amphibian (HSA) vehicle reaches speeds of up to 100 mph (160 kph) on land and 30 mph (48 kph) over water, taking seconds to make the change from sportscar to jet-powered speedboat.

The Aquada is powered by a 175-hp, V6 engine with a 4-speed auto tranny linked to a sealed jet propulsion system for marine operation. The car needs a slope or boat ramp to drive into the water, so unfortunately mid-air takeoffs and splashdowns are out.

However, the vehicle does meet all European road and marine safety standards and is fully-legal for both water and land use. Owners do need insurance for both uses.

Price tag? About £150,000... only about a week's wage if your agent code has a double-O prefix. Gibbs Technologies, makers of the Aquada, are not commenting on a rumored submarine version.

You betcha! My sister is a middle school technology teacher. As part of one of her lessons, she decided to introduce her students to an ancient war machine, the trebuchet (pronounced treb' ya shay"). The photo to the right is the relatively tiny model that her students built -- it's 14 inches front-to-back and about 8 inches high at the main axle. As small as it is, it can still hurl 1" diameter wooden balls 25-30 feet with decent accuracy.

I can hear your questions now: So where'd she get this? How much does it cost? More importantly, are there bigger ones we can build??

She found the Desktop Trebuchet at trebuchet.com (of course!) and the unassembled kit costs $59.00. But wait, there's more.

Trebuchet.com is just a small part of, you guessed it, catapultkits.com! At their website, they offer assemble-yourself kits of everything from Greek Ballista (shown below) to Roman Mangonels to a 1/10th scale model of the mighty Scottish trebuchet called Warwolf (even at 1/10th scale, the model can send a 1-lb. projectile over 100 feet). Nice.

So, if you're feeling simultaneously scholarly and violent, and you'd like to build scale replicas of ancient war weapons in your own back yard, then this is the place. They seem to have just about everything one might need to tick off one's neighbors and/or get arrested.

Update: My sis just corrected me on the price of her mini-trebuchet kits -- they're $10.95 and available from pitsco.com. Now you can use all that money you saved on ammo and band-aids.

While Sam pointed out some studies that suggest that gaming at work makes for happier, more productive workers, a new book suggests that web browsing while on-the-job may have similar benefits.

"According to research, doing personal Web surfing while on the job can lead to better time management, stress reduction, improvement of skill sets and helping to achieve a balance between work and personal life."

The book by Claire Simmers and Murugan Anandarajan was based on an analysis of employees who had Internet access at work. While it's doubtful that one study can resolve this, this and Sam's story point towards an interesting question: are we happier when our work and social lives interact or are we happier when we keep them separate? Common wisdom suggests the latter, but these studies might indicate that co-mingling of these different aspects of our lives makes us better workers.

Companies usually frown on their employees playing games on their computers. However, the BBC is reporting on a study that suggests that gaming at the office improves job satisfaction and even productivity.

In one of the first serious studies of the effects of game playing in the office, researchers from the University of Utrecht focussed on 60 employees from a Dutch insurance firm.

The employees were split into groups, some allowed to play games like Solitaire and Minesweeper for up to an hour a day, and others denied the chance.

The results, documented via logbooks and other performance metrics, showed that the gamers had higher job satisfaction and productivity ratings than the non-gamers. Researchers noted that the effect was similar to that of a "coffee break," which provides the opportunity for workers to recharge.

The findings were presented at the first ever Digital Games Research Association conference. The research team is carrying out further studies with a larger number of participants, and using more complex games.

The CIA is holding an exhibit at its Langley headquarters to mark the 40th anniversary of its Directorate of Science and Technology. It is not open to the public. Figures.

Luckily, Reuters got an inside look, and the view is amazing.

Along with the usual microdot cameras and specialized directional antennae, the CIA built mechanical flying bumblebees and dragonflies - with varying degrees of success - to carry listening devices, as well as a robot catfish capable of swimming in a school of fish and whose mission still remains classified.

The CIA's 'Q' is Donald Kerr, CIA Deputy Director for Science and Technology, who says the rate of spy operations has increased since his directorate was established in August 1963. Its fascinating history is covered in the book 'The Wizards of Langley'.

Currently one new area of interest is in tagging and tracking individuals... Experts in RFIDs, satellite tracking, and other such areas can apply directly - they're hiring.

Another urban legend debunked.

Pedro Duque, a European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut on board the Soyuz on a mission to the International Space Station, has been keeping a diary written using a cheap, ordinary ballpint pen.

Duque writes, "Why is that important? As it happens, I've been working in space programmes for seventeen years, eleven of these as an astronaut, and I've always believed, because that is what I've always been told, that normal ballpoint pens don't work in space."

"The ink doesn't fall," they said. "Just try for a moment writing face down with a ballpoint pen and you will see I'm right," they said.

In 1998, on a mission on the U.S. space shuttle Discovery, Duque took one of those expensive space pens with a pressurized ink cartridge, as did all the other shuttle astronauts. However, during Soyuz simulator training for this 2003 mission, he noticed that his instructor was preparing flightbooks by attaching to them regular ballpoint pens. The instructor, seeing Duque's shock, told him the Russians have always used ballpoint pens in space.

Duque writes: "So I also took one of our ballpoint pens... And here I am, it doesn't stop working and it doesn't 'spit' or anything. Sometimes being too cautious keeps you from trying, and therefore things are built more complex than necessary."

Here's something Ben Franklin missed, while he was flying his kite in the rain.

At the University of Alberta in Canada, engineers have discovered a new way to generate electricity.

Researchers Larry Kostiuk, Daniel Kwok and their team pumped water through tiny microchannels in a glass disk, and found that they could directly generate an electrical current. The research, published recently in the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, is revolutionary.

A liquid in contact with a non-conducting solid surface creates a thin layer of charge. If the liquid is forced through a microchannel of about the same dimension, ions charged similarly to the surface are collected, while ions oppositely charged pass through the channel. The result: the channel becomes positive at one end and negative at the other - a battery.

The Canadian researchers used a 2-cm glass disk with 450,000 microchannels, each 10-16 microns across. Hydrostatic pressure was used to provide water flow, and generated a current of 1.5 microamps. The researchers used this electrokinetic effect to power blinking LED lights.

"This is the first new way to produce sustainable electricity in 160 years," says Kostiuk. "It allows for the direct conversion of energy of moving liquid to electricity with no moving parts and no pollution."

The microchannel work is the first new electricity-generation method since William Robert Grove - the father of the fuel cell - developed two electrochemical batteries in 1839.

Work continues to characterize the electrokinetic batteries, but already researchers are talking about applications including power sources for cellphones, calculators and other electronic devices.

In addition, Kostiuk notes: "This discovery could be a new alternative energy source to rival wind and solar power, although this would need huge bodies of water to work on a commercial scale."

China launched its first manned spacecraft today at 9 am, Beijing time. The Shenzhou-5 blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu province atop a Long March II F rocket.

Yang Liwei, 38, a lieutenant colonel of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), becomes the first taikonaut - Chinese astronaut - in space.

The Soviet Union launched the first man into space on April 12, 1961, with cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Shortly after, on May 5, Alan Shepard became the first American in space.

Today's mission makes China the third nation to send a man into space.

Are your ZipZaps too boring? Check out Micro Combat Vehicles from TableTop Racers.

ExtremeTech has a nice review of these toys. The upsides appear to be low cost ($22 per set), good vehicle speed, and reasonable longevity on a set of batteries. The downsides appear to be limited combat functionality (infrared only) and only three models are available (27MHz, 40MHz, and 49MHz radio frequencies), so no 2-on-2 play is possible.

"All in all, the Micro Combat Vehicles are good, inexpensive fun and have only a couple flaws. We'd like to see updated versions that use actual tank treads, move a bit slower for more tactical control and that have target IR receivers on the back. Most importantly, we'd love to have some sort of audio feedback."

Sounds like a great stocking-stuffer or random guy gift at that holiday office party in a couple of months. And maybe version 2 will have something a bit more violent.

I used to build and fly model rockets and planes. So it caught my eye when NASA recently demonstrated a remote-controlled plane powered from the ground by a laser beam.

The 11-oz, single-propeller plane has a 5-ft wingspan which is covered with photovoltaic cells. The controller tracks the plane with a laser, hitting the solar cells and serving as the plane's power source.

The plane flew lap after lap during recent indoor flight tests at the Marshall Space Flight Center. When operators turned the laser beam off, the plane glided to a smooth landing.

Researchers expect using similar aircraft on long-duration flights to monitor the environment, or for surveillance missions, or to provide communications links. Precious space and weight taken up by fuel could instead be used for sensors and communications equipment.

This is the just latest development in light-powered aircraft.

Last year, NASA powered a similar solar propeller-driven plane with a theatrical spotlight.

Also last year, a Japanese team flew a paper airplane by using a laser to heat water droplets on the plane's wings, vaporizing them with a puff and pushing the plane forward.

So, GearBits has been up and running for a few months now and the response has been pretty terrific. Hundreds of comments have been left and thousands of readers every week stop by.

So, how can we make this site better? Are there any layout improvements we can make? Are there any editorial or content changes that you'd like to see? Other suggestions?

One small change I just made was to add the number of entries in each category to the list of categories (to the left). Is that useful, or was it better before?

Help us improve this site and make it better -- leave us a comment (below) and tell us what you'd like to see. Thanks.
- Craig

I've subscribed to A.Word.A.Day, a free email vocabulary service, for about a year now and I really like it. Every day, some interesting or bizarre word, complete with definition and etymology, pops into my Inbox. Today's word was just...well...words escape me:

octothorpe (OK-tuh-thorp) noun

The symbol #.

[The symbol # is derived from a shorthand way of writing lb, the abbreviation for the Latin libra (balance), just as $ is a shorthand way of writing US. Octothorpe is an alteration, influenced by octo-, of earlier octalthorpe, probably a humorous blend of octal (an eight-point pin used in electronic connections) and someone whose last name was or ended in "thorpe", and whose identity is subject to speculation. It may be James Edward Oglethorpe, an eighteenth century English philanthropist, but more likely it is an Olympic athlete, Jim Thorpe. In the early 1960s, Bell Labs introduced two special keys in its innovative touch-tone telephone keypads, "#" and "*", for which it needed fresh names. Having eight points, "octo-" was an obvious first element. Since the engineer involved in introducing this innovation was active in a group seeking the return of Jim Thorpe's medals from Sweden, he whimsically added "-thorpe", creating octothorpe. (Jim Thorpe was disqualified because of his professional status, but his medals were restored posthumously.) The "#" is also known as a pound sign, crosshatch, number sign, sharp, hash, crunch, mesh, hex, flash, grid, pig-pen, gate, hak, oof, rake, fence, gate, grid, gridlet, square, and widget mark.]

To subscribe to A.Word.A.Day, visit wordsmith.com.

A fixture on the business 500 lists since 1935, ACME Corporation still stands today as the premier diversified products conglomerate.

The Complete Illustrated Catalog of ACME Products showcases the breadth of products available from this industrial powerhouse.

Its celebrated founder Charles "Chuck" Jones took the company from humble beginnings to its acme as a major supplier of devices pushing the boundaries of physics.

The one blemish in ACME's record is a lawsuit brought against it by one of its clients. Despite a spirited defense, the matter remains before the courts.

On my way into work this morning, I saw on the car in front of me a bumper sticker promoting one of my favorite websites of all time -- homestarrunner.com.

What? You've never heard of Homestar Runner? The whole website is a bizarre (and I mean bizarre) set of cartoons and other Flash animations featuring the central character, the Homestar Runner (pictured), and his various associates doing strange things and generally being hilariously odd.

One of my favorite features (thanks, Greg) is Strong Bad Email. The character named Strong Bad (yes, that's his name) reads and responds to email. It's much funnier than it sounds. Seriously. My favorite episodes (there's a new one each week) are Sugarbob and Sisters. Hilarious!

Speaking of which, I now recall seeing a dude wearing a Strong Bad t-shirt. Wow...if Strong Bad t-shirts have already found their way here to Cincinnati, maybe Homestar Runner is more mainstream than I thought.

Over at ExtremePumpkins.com, Tom Nardone takes his jack-o-lantern carving seriously.

"At what point did the carving of pumpkins turn into a "cute" event? When did boys stop carving pumpkins and moms start? Where did we lose touch with one of the years coolest events?

Today is the day we seize back this ritual. Today. We will remove from our wives, mothers, and sisters' hands those safe, harmless, cute carving tools and throw them away. Today. We will buy a big, ugly, pumpkin so large a woman cannot lift or move it. Today. We will carve that sumbitch into something ugly and plop it on the front porch.

Today. We are reborn as men."

Tom employs such subtle gadgets as Sawzalls, jigsaws, and routers (the power tool variety, not the LAN gizmo) to carve up interesting and/or disturbing creations. His "Gunshot Wound Pumpkin" is shown to the right.

Cool stuff...makes me want to grab a 20-lb. punkin and a 7" chef's knife and have at it.

(Thanks to Lockergnome for the heads up.)

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPC) and Segway LLC have announced the recall of the Segway human transporter (HT), after three people were injured in falls from the scooters. One person sustained a head injury, requiring stitches.

Resembling a souped-up reel lawn mower, the Segway HT can hit top speeds of 17 mph.

However, under certain conditions, primarily when the batteries are low, some Segways may not deliver enough power. In that instance, if the rider speeds up abruptly, encounters an obstacle, or continues to ride after receiving a low-battery alert - the Segway forgets its auto-balancing tricks, and the rider can fall.

The recall affects some 6,000 vehicles. Segway customers can receive a free software upgrade that will correct the problem.

Either that, or customers can turn to an alternate mode of transport, the Megway.

Everybody seems to remind somebody of someone else, usually someone famous, at some point in his or her life. I find this pretty curious as the comparisons can run from the obvious to the bizarre.

One of the funniest look-alike instances I've encountered recently was as shown in the above pics -- my fraternity brother Dan was drinking a beer and it suddenly struck me how much he looked like Teddy Roosevelt. Why I thought that, I have no idea.

As for myself, I've been told I look like several folks -- these are the comparisons I actually remember:

	Roddy McDowall -- my father-in-law told me that I reminded him of this actor who starred in Planet of the Apes
	Andy Roddick -- yesterday, the lady who works at the tennis desk of the health club I play at told me that someone mentioned to her that I looked liked Andy Roddick. Um, yeah, whatever. I doubt anybody who has abs like that spends nearly as much time as I do on his blog. ;-)
	Calvin -- Perhaps the most frequent comparison I get is that I remind people of this loveable, but mischevious, comic tot. I take it as a compliment, regardless of intent.

Bizarrely enough, more than one person has told my wife she reminds them of Connie Sellecca (yes, from Greatest American Hero fame), and my high school buddy Dave was mistaken for Tom Cruise on a couple of occasions.

So, who do people think you look like?

It's amazing how Ebay has transformed the way I think about buying things. Most of the time, when I need something fairly common and can wait a couple weeks to get it, I turn to Ebay just to see what's available.

For example, I needed a sync/charger cable for my Palm Tungsten C. Best Buy sells the cable alone (pictured) for about $30. I could also order it online from a variety of companies for $18-$25. Then I check Ebay.

My choices for this rather standard electonic accessory are nearly unlimited. I settle on a USB sync/charge cable and a car-charger adapter and a wall AC adapter kit, all for $17. With 3-day delivery, my total expense was $22.50. Man, ya gotta love Ebay!

Interesting sidenote: What's funny is that the cable turned out to be an Innopocket branded cable. That cable alone costs $18.90 if you buy it directly from Innopocket.

...but I think I can see it from here.

Possibly the most irksome aspect of mobile technologies is their voracious appetite for power. To feed this hunger, I've developed a system for maintaining a stable of various rechargeable batteries.

The case shown is one of 5 containers I use to maintain the various NiMH and Ni-Cad cells that we use in our mobile electronics. One case holds 12 'AA' NiMH cells that I use for various things (mostly my digital camera). Another identical case holds 12 'AA' NiMH cells for my wife to use for various things (mostly her CD player). A third container holds 12 'AAA' NiMH cells that I use for my MP3 player and various older PDAs. A fourth, much larger container holds all the cells that are depleted and needing to be recharged. A fifth container holds about 40 non-rechargeable cells of every type and size -- from 'D' cells for flashlights to some coin cells for my graphing calculator.

How do we keep all these recharged? Well, we have a system that relies on one 8-bank multi-charger (can recharge 'AAA', 'AA', and 9V cells) and two portable chargers that handle only 'AA' cells. At any one time, there are about 75-80 batteries of various type either waiting to be used or being recharged in my closet.

Man, there has to be a better way. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any real breakthroughs in battery technology coming down the pike. What about fuel cells? Nah, too big and bulky and we're still 10 years away from those being even close to ready for mass consumption. So, for the forseeable future, our little battery system will likely get bigger and bigger as more things require batteries.

Of course, there's all those things with internal (non-replaceable) rechargeable batteries. To handle all those, I, like you, have a small mountain of wall wart adapters and not nearly enough outlets. To help me use our power strip outlets more efficiently, I've had good success with a product called "The Liberator" (shown above) from Cyberguys! (who put out one of the few snail-mail catalogs I enjoy getting). It's a cheap, 1-foot mini-extension cord that basically lets you use 6 wall warts on a 6-outlet power strip. Pretty cool, eh?

So, in a nutshell, this setup keeps me sane, but it doesn't make me happy. Where are all those cool mini-nuke power supplies we were supposed to have? Shouldn't there be a Mr. Fusion for sale at my local hardware store by now?

I love watches and I hate watches. They can be so beautiful and so useful, yet I detest the discomfort and inconvenience I experience when wearing a watch.

I really like the look of a fine watch. The combination of form and function is alluring -- aesthetic and pragmatic appeal in a single package. Brilliant. However, I found out long ago that wearing a watch bothers me when I type, which I seem to do at an increasing frequency with each passing year. Also, while I generally am able to keep watches in good working order, I'm constantly afraid that a stray smack on a desk corner or an accidental dousing in water will turn my timepiece into so much chronojunk.

I know I'm not alone in this love-hate relationship. I know many other computer users have no similar problem with watch discomfort, but running into someone with the same complaint is fairly frequent as well.

So, for the time being, I will continue to hold out for those retinal projections I keep reading about in William Gibson novels -- you know, the ones where you can pop up the time or temperature or some other bits of information directly on your optical nerve. Definitely better than a watch...definitely...

Weather information is one of the many great uses of the Internet. As the weather is constantly changing, getting up-to-date and rich (i.e., graphical) information best happens via your browser.

When it comes to weather websites, a long time ago, I used to rely on weather.com. Of course, that was when it was run more like a hobby for somebody at the Weather Channel (i.e., a long time ago). Now, it's a disgusting morass of advertising and product placement as subtle as a sledgehammer.

Instead, I rely on the Weather Underground website. Granted, the name is a bit strange, as there is, by definition, no weather under the ground. But, the strengths of this website are a layout that crams as much information on your screen as possible while simultaneously allowing you to get your weather fix with absolutely no ads.

That's right, no banners, no pop-ups, no flashing "hit the mole" graphics or anything. For a mere $5 per year, you can become a sponsor and enjoy an ad-free experience.

The Weather Underground is a small group of weather and computer nerds that closely resembles those famed start-ups of yore. Think Romero and the Carmacks back at Id Computing circa 1994. Anywho, this is a great website and one that resembles what I think more of the WWW should look like.

We've just added an "Authors" page so you can read a bit about those few hardy souls who bring you all the posts here at GearBits. The authors page also lists each author's last few blog entries.

To get to the Authors page from any blog entry, just click on the author's name at the bottom of the post. For example, at the bottom of this post, you should see "Posted by Craig" -- just click on "Craig" to get to the Authors page.

This totally amazing video shows a Caledonian crow taking a piece of wire and bending it into a hook in order to retrieve some food from a tube. It did the same thing in 8 out of 9 subsequent tests. There's also a research paper about this phenomenon available at the same link. Really makes you wonder whether humans are "special" or just another animal. Thanks to boingboing.net for the link.

Tiger Woods wants the PGA Tour and the USGA to check players' drivers before they tee off in the PGA tournaments.

It's true that thanks to the technological advancement in drivers and balls, today's professional golfers are often hitting their drivers 300 yards plus. However, Tiger thinks that the increase in the driving distance performance does not come from improved players' skills and physical conditioning, but technology that is supposed to be illegal.

The core of the matter is the coefficient of restitution (COR for short). The coefficient of restitution measures the spring-like effect of the face of a driver at impact. In other words, when a golf ball hits the driver, the metal face (usually a thin Titanium sheet these days) flexes and then releases. The flex and release of the driver face can create a "trampoline effect." In other words, imagine yourself jumping from a trampoline versus from a concrete surface. It's obvious given the same force you exert on yourself, you would be jumping higher from the trampoline than the concrete surface. Well, the same principle applies. As a result, the USGA has set .83 as the limit for COR.

Well, the problem is that you can't know for sure if the player is using one of those hot (i.e., illegal) drivers. As is, any driver that is used in tournament play needs to be sent to the USGA for approval, but that doesn't guarantee that players will be using the drivers with the same specs during the tournament. Worse yet, those players might even be ignorant of their drivers being too hot. I mean you can't tell by looking at the driver whether the specs are within the limit or not. So, I could be hitting an illegal driver, and not know for sure . . .(If I'm hitting my driver 20 yards or more, I should suspect something though).

Does Tiger's claim have any merit, or is he simply crying foul? Let's look at some numbers to see . . .

Year Driving distance (Rank) Driving accuracy (Rank) Wins
2003 292.2 (T-29) 64.3 (T-114) 3
2002 293.3 (6) 67.5 (T-107) 5
2001 297.6 (T-3) 65.5 (T-145) 5
2000 298.0 (2) 71.2 (54) 9
1999 293.1 (3) 71.3 (T-49) 8
1998 196.3 (2) 67.9 (T-114) 1
*Results through the Buick Classic (Courtesey of PGA Tour)

So, Tiger's driving distance and accuracy are down since the year 2000. Let's look at how others have done in 2003 compared to 1988.

1988
Rank Player Driving distance
1 Tiger Woods 296.3
2 John Jacobs 284.9
3 Ray Arinno 281.9
4 Bob Duval 280.1
5 Hank Cooper 279.4

2003
Rank Player Driving distance
1 Tom Purtzer 299.1
2 Andy Bean 294.8
3 Tiger Woods 292.2
4 Jim Ahern 288.8
5 John Harris 287.1
(PGA Tour Statistics)

Well, it doesn't look too bad until you notice Tom, Andy, Jim, and John play in the Champions Tour (for players over 50 years old). In 1988, Tiger was far ahead of any "senior" players, but in 2003, he ranks #3 in that tour. In the PGA Tour, he ranks only 29th in driving distance.

Oh, to make the equation even more confusing, Tiger Woods switched his driver and ball during this period. You see Tiger used to play with a Titleist driver and a Titleist ball. Now he plays Nike. To make things worse, there was a comments by Phil Mickelson about Tiger playing with inferior equipment beginning of this year.

So, what's the conclusion? You be the judge. . .

Ed Dutkiewicz is a patent attorney who apparently has spent a bit too much time poring over the patent records at the US Patent and Trademark Office. Mr. Dutkiewicz has set up a website where he offers up a new wacky patent each month, and has been doing this since September, 1995. Some clear winners include the Device for Producing Dimples (1896), the Tapeworm Trap (1854), and the Apparatus for Facilitating the Birth of a Child by Centrifugal Force (1965). Definitely makes it easier to understand how Amazon got that "one-click" patent.

8:55 PM -- I just ordered a Hawaiian pizza from Donato's online. My confirmation email said it would be delivered 45 minutes from now...let's see if this works (I'm skeptical).

9:16 PM -- Holy crap! My pizza just got here. 21 minutes?!? That's darn fast service. And they even got the toppings right...amazing. OK, so this works, and works pretty well. Now if I can just get the delivery guy to slip the pizza through the mail slot, I wouldn't have to talk to anybody throughout this whole process.

Note to self: request less cinnamon on the Hawaiian.

Welcome to my blog. I'm not sure exactly what this will become, but it's pretty likely that most of my posts will be about something related to technology -- that wonderful combination of science, engineering, art, and business that brings interesting devices and innovative concepts to our everyday lives. At times, I'll likely wander into other areas of discussion, such as travel, world events, food, business (in general), and a host of yet-to-be-determined topics, but you'll notice that a lot of those topics somehow relate back to technology, with which I'm hopelessly and eternally intrigued.

Should you want to learn more about me (not sure why you would), feel free to check out either my brief self-written bio or my professional profile. Both of those are physician-recommended cures for insomnia.

More later...