Gear
May 05, 2006
Bose Service Rocks
Last month by Bose Quiet Comfort Headphones broke. A little piece of plastic on the right side of the head band broke, allowing the right earpiece to flop out. I was bummed; these aren’t cheap headphones.
I called Bose expecting a run around of one sort or another. Instead, I got a flat-out “send them back and we’ll replace them free.” No receipt proving purchase date, nothing. Just “send them back.” The new ones arrived today, about a week after they received my old pair in the mail. Very impressive.
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December 16, 2005
Don't Click It
This is an interesting Web site.
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December 13, 2005
Intel QX3 Microscope and OS X
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I’ve had an old Intel Play QX3 microscope hanging around the house for a while. My oldest daughter got it for Christmas years ago, but lately it’s been gathering dust. It caught my eye tonight and I decided to see if there’s an OS X driver for it. I was pleasantly surprised to see there is.
I couldn’t get it to work at first. I had to change the resolution in the software to 320x240 before I got a picture. That’s not documented anywhere. Still the Maccam software is pretty good—even controls the top and bottom lights correctly and responds to the shutter control on the top of the microscope.
My third grader is pretty curious, so he went around the house finding things to look at. We took some pictures and printed them off to take to science class tomorrow. I would have died to have something like this when I was a kid. Guess that’s why I buy it all now.
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October 31, 2005
How LCD Screens Work
The other day someone asked my how an LCD projector worked compared to an LCD screen on your laptop. Their general impression was that the laptop screen was like a bunch of LEDs, so how could you “project” that? I didn’t really know. I knew that it was backlit and that’s why you could project it, but had no idea how it worked. I asked Kelly Flanagan and he didn’t really know either, but he sent me this really good tutorial showing how it works—interactive and everything. Apparently this is just one in a whole collection called Einstien’s Legacy.
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October 20, 2005
Wanted: MITS Altair 8800
I’m looking to buy a MITS Altair 8800 computer if you know anyone who’s got one. I’m mostly interested for sentimental reasons. I built one in 1976 and would love to have one. The price, of course, would depend on condition and acccessories. I want something that works. My fingers ache to toggle in 8080 machine code on the front panel switches and see the blinking lights.
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October 04, 2005
Gadget Board
Jason Holt’s put together a gadget board, a prototyping board based on the Atmel microcontroller (see photo). His design has a built-in monitor program for controlling the board. The I/O features eight analog inputs, seven 0-5v inputs and one input with adjustable max voltage, eight high current MOSFET outputs, and 4 high current relays. Jason’s offering the schematics, code, and instructions for free or will also sell you a completed board.
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September 22, 2005
Rhymes with Ditty
Daring Fireball has a review of the new Dell DJ Ditty, Dell’s entry into the flash-based music player market. The review is titled Rhymes with Ditty which says it all. I love Dell, but something like this makes me wonder if they even tried. Just a little too utilitarian for a market that thrives on the cool-factor.
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July 29, 2005
BlackDog Linux Server
These USB-powered, deck-of-card-sized Linux servers from BlackDog look pretty cool. I’m not sure what I’d do with one, but I want it anyway. The Web site’s down until Aug 8th, but they had an ad in Make magazine.
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March 25, 2005
New Uses for Motion Sensors
At the CTO breakfast yesterday, we were talking about the innovative uses people are making of the PowerBook’s motion sensor. For example, you could imagine motion sensors in a GPS unit or cell phone that allowed you to navigate menus (and more) by moving the device. The Gillmor Gang session with Dan Bricklin gets into some similar user interface issues.
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March 16, 2005
Bits and Atoms
Neil Gershenfeld speaks on Bits and Atoms (click to enlarge)
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Neil Gershenfeld is the Director of the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT. He calls for a a digitization of fabrication. He teaches a class called “How to Make (almost) Anything.” He brings up the ribosome as an example of state-of-the-art fabrication machine. His lab is working on fab processes that work in the same way: no central control and no feedback mechanism. The final structure is encoded in the order of the tiles that are strung together.
His goal is not to build computers that control tools, but rather to build computers that are the tools—that is, computers that put things together.
He envisions a world of cheap personal fabricators. He’s put together a prototype for $20,000 that includes a laser cutter, a sign cutter, and a milling machine that are all controlled through an extension to Python. They’ve put these in rural areas around the world. There is not just a digital divide, there’s a fabrication divide. He shows a video of kids in Ghana using one of these prototypes to make things they want. He shows how rural Indians fabricated a part for about $1.00 to test the quality of milk—something that’s very important to them. Local computers and technology for local needs.
His final comment is that everyone gets the idea behind this, but there are no organizations set up to fund it. There are some interesting parallels to what the Rollins eBusiness Center at BYU is doing in the Philippines, albeit not with fab.
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June 09, 2004
Did You Know? DVD-R vs. DVD+R
I recently bought a LaCie DVD recorder. I hadn’t realized until I did that there was a difference between DVD-R and DVD+R. The drive will support either, but you have to make the choice when you buy the media. And, of course, make sure you choose media that maches your drive’s speed.
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March 08, 2004
Bluetooth in Your Clothing
The Hub snowboarding jacket from O’Neill with intergrated Bluetooth and a fabric keyboard on the arm.
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O’Neill and German’s Infineon Technologies collaborated on a wired interactive Jacket. Functions such as ãmobile telephony by Bluetoothä and ãMP3 playerä are integrated into the sportswear. Woven into THE HUB snowboard jacket are electrically conductive fabric tracks which connect the chip module to a fabric keyboard and built-in speakers in the helmet. The chip module contains a full-featured MP3 player and a Bluetooth module via which the snowboarder can control a mobile phone. If the snowboarder wants to make a phone call, the stereo system acts as the headset. The microphone is integrated in the collar of the jacket.From I4U News - Infineon Bluetooth Snowboard Jacket
Referenced Mon Mar 08 2004 10:04:56 GMT-0700
Truth be told, I’m not a snowboarder, but this scenario isn’t limited to snowboarding. This jacket is just a hands-free setup for the mobile crowd. Pretty cool.
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November 15, 2003
Motorola MPx200 and SmartPhone 2002 Review
My beloved T68i was broken and I ended up sending it in for a replacement (which was very smooth, by the way). I wasn’t sure how I’d manage without a phone for a week, but then a friend offered a solution—borrow a spare phone he had laying around. Since GSM network-based phones use a SIM chip (really a punch out from a smart card), I could insert my SIM into his AT&T WS phone and it should work. It did.
The phone he had “laying around” happened to be a brand-spanking new Motorola MPx200 phone running the new Microsoft SmartPhone 2002 OS. If you haven’t seen it, the phone is gorgeous and SmartPhone, at least in theory, is pretty neat too.
Motorola’s MPx200 running SmartPhone 2002
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Motorola has always made great equipment. I used a StarTac for years and loved it. The MPx200 follows in that tradition.
- The phone is a flip phone with a big, bright color screen.
- The phone is solid, if a little heavy, and feels like it would take years of abuse.
- The case is shiny black so it looks nice when its clean.
- The buttons are pretty standard except for the addition of a “home” button and a “back” button which make working with SmartPhone 2002 easier.
- The unit has polyphonic sound and can play MP3s.
- The side has a slot for a SD/MMC card for expanding the memory.
- There’s a side thumb-wheel which wasn’t used to great advantage by SmartPhone 2002. I had one of these on a Sony phone a few years back and it was very handy for selecting menu items one-handed.
- In a major deal breaker for me, the MPx200 doesn’t have Bluetooth. So, you’ve got to haul out wire whenever you want to connect up the phone to sync or use its as an Internet gateway.
SmartPhone 2002 is familiar right off the bat with standard Windows icons for the browser, email client, calendar program and so on. The overall feel of SmartPhone 2002 was good and I didn’t have too many troubles just using it without reading the manual. I’m not an Outlook user, but I suspect that if you were, this phone would be a great tool and would serve the functions many people want from a PDA on the road. Of course, you could get a PDA with a phone built-in, but then you’d have to be willing to hold a brick to your head whenever you want to talk on the phone. If you don’t need to enter a lot of data, this phone is a fantastic PDA replacement.
In theory, I liked SmartPhone 2002. I like the idea of not having to learn a new GUI every time I get a new phone. Most cell phone GUIs are extremely primitive because each company starts from scratch each time. The state of cell phone GUI’s today reminds me of operating systems before Windows. Every computer had their own and most of them were primitive. There’s no reason that cell phone shouldn’t run a third party OS.
SmartPhone 2002 is among the most capable cell phone GUI’s I’ve used. My beef with it is that its from Microsoft. This is not just a knee-jerk anti-Microsoft rant. I’m seriously concerned about cell phones becoming semi-useless lumps unless I agree to use Microsoft Outlook on Microsoft Windows with a Microsoft PDA and Microsoft Exchange, and so on. What’s next? I can’t use the gas pump unless I have a Microsoft built OS running on my Car? Don’t laugh—-its not that far-fetched.
Apple and Linux have shown us how having a choice fosters innovation. I’m genuinely afraid we’re headed to a world where there isn’t any choice. The problem isn’t that SmartPhone 2002 is bad. The problem is that its good and that I can see how useful the MPx200 would be in an Outlook/Exchange environment. I see little chance that an OS X or Linux user to get similar functionality from any phone, anytime soon.
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June 16, 2003
Active Noise Reduction (ANR) Headphones: You Get What You Pay For
In May, I wrote briefly about active noise reduction, ANR headphones. I’ve used an expensive ($500) aircraft quality ANR headset in my private plane for many years and love them. I’ve owned a pair of inexpensive Aiwa headphones for several years but found them to be uncomfortable on long commercial flights. So, over the past few weeks, I’ve conducted a “good, better, best” test of noise reduction headphones to find a pair that I can use on commercial flights in comfort.
Active noise reduction is a technology that employes small microphones and digital signal processing (DSP) technology to cancel out ambient noise. The microphone samples the ambient noise and the DSP chip creates a a sound wave 180 degrees out of phase from the outside sounds. When this sound is played through the headphones it cancels out sounds in low frequency ranges. Noise reduction doesn’t cancel out all noises, just low droning ones. So don’t buy these thinking you’ll be able to work while the kids run around outside your office screaming. You’ll still hear them just fine.
Nevertheless, these headsets are perfect for flying. I find that I can play my music or the airpline movie dialogue at a level sufficiently low that I can’t hear it when I turn off the active noise reduction. Flying with noise reduction headphones creates a quieter environment that makes flying less stressful.
A short disclaimer: The only time I use headphones is on airplanes. Consequently, noise reduction and comfort are my two big criteria. If you want great sound quality and use your headphones in environments where noise reduction won’t make much difference, you can probably find great sounding, even better sounding, headphones for a cheaper price. What you’re paying for with these headphones is the noise reduction.
The three headphones I reviewed are shown in the following table:
| Manufacturer | Model No. | Street Price | Style | Rating |
| Aiwa | HP-CN6 | $59 | open air | Good |
| Sony | MDR-NC20 | $179 | closed air | Better |
| Bose | QuietComfort 2 | $279 | closed air | Best |
I used each of these headphones in real-life conditions: each was used exclusively on the outbound and inbound legs of flights between Salt Lake City and cities on the East Coast (about 4.5 hours each way).
Aiwa HP-CN6
As I mentioned, I’ve owned the Aiwa headphones for several years and
have used them on many flights, short and long. The active noise
reduction feature of the Aiwa headphones works very well. Turning
them on brings an amazing cessation of the low drone of the plane.
These headphones are “open air” style, meaning that the headphone
piece sits on the ear rather than surrounding it. They come with a
carrying bag and an adapter for two-prong airline headphone jacks.
These headphones fold for stowing. I have found that the Aiwa
headphones are uncomfortable on trips longer than about an hour (which
is almost every trip out of Salt Lake). The headphones press against
your ears and the headband is unpadded and uncomfortable on the top of
the head after a time.
Sony MDR-NC20
I used the Sony headphones on a trip from Salt Lake City to Savannah,
GA and back. The Sony headphones are closed air construction (over
the ear). The noise reduction feature worked as well as the Aiwa and
the sound response was better due to larger, more expensive speakers.
Even so, I found the Sony headphones to be uncomfortable after just a few
hours. The ear pockets are not deep enough to let your ears remain in
their natural position and the headband is not padded. Consequently after a few hours, my ears felt pinched and the top of my head hurt. The Sony
headphones fold for stowing and come with a carrying bag and
two-pronged airline headphone adapter.
Bose QuietComfort 2
The Bose headphones were the most expensive of the lot, but also the
most comfortable and the best sounding headphones. The headphones are
constructed to repress noise even when the active noise reduction
circuitry is not turned on. They have deep ear pockets and a padded
headband. I used them on a 4.5 hour flight to and from Boston and was
able to wear them in comfort the entire trip. The sound response from
the speakers was excellent. Even though these headphones have the
largest earpieces of any in the test, they folded to be the most
compact for stowing. The Bose headphones, unlike the other two, do not
work as headphones in passive mode (i.e. with the noise reduction
turned off), so they’re worthless without a battery. They come with
a nice zippered carrying case, a two-pronged airline adapter, and a
quarter inch headphone adapter for use with a home stereo.
Conclusions
The results of this review aren’t too surprising. The Bose headphones cost $220 more than the Aiwa and $100 more than the Sony but have clearly superior performance in comfort and sound quality. All of these headphones deliver good noise reduction, so I think the real loser here are Sony headphones. Their comfort and performance are not sufficiently superior to the Aiwa’s to justify a cost differential of $110. My suggestion: buy the Aiwa’s and try them. If they aren’t too uncomfortable for you, they’re an excellent value and you’ll get noise reduction at a bargain price. If you can afford it, treat yourself to the Bose headphones. Bose has a reputation for delivering high quality and these headphones are no exception. I plan on keeping my pair.
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May 01, 2003
Noise Reduction Headsets
About a year ago, I took a trip to San Jose with the Governor and Chris Johnson from the University of Utah. The Governor flies in a KingAir B200 and it can be a little noisy. Chris pulled out a set of Aiwa noise reduction headphones and popped them on. Pilots have enjoyed noise reduction headsets for some time. I use an expensive model in my own plane, but this was the first time I’d seen a consumer version (without a boom mic). We passed them around and it was amazing how much more clearly you could hear conversation on the plane when you had them on. I bought a pair after I got home and use them whenever I fly commercial. Here’s the rundown on the AIWA headset:
- They’re inexpensive. I saw a pair at Radio Shack the other day for about $40.
- The really great news is you can listen to music or the movie at a reduced volume. For example, when I’m using them and turn noise cancellation off, I can’t hear the music anymore because the cabin noise drowns it out. I think you arrive more relaxed because you haven’t been in a noisy environment for 2-5 hours.
- The bad news is that they are not really very comfortable after about an hour.
Now Bose has come out with a set that look like a real step-up. Bose always makes good gear and the engineering is excellent, so I’m anxious to try a pair. The biggest down side is that like anything from Bose, they’re expensive: $249. Ouch! Even so, I think they’ll make the perfect companion to the new iPod I plan to buy.
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April 30, 2003
Sprint Announces Bluetooth Phone
Until January, I’d been a long-time (over 5 years) Sprint customer. I switched to ATT because I wanted the Sony T68i phone, primarily because of its bluetooth capabilities. Overall, I’ve been pretty happy with it, but I liked the 1xRTT network better than I like the GPRS network. The speed was better and coverage seemed better. Yesterday, Sprint announced that they’ll support the new T608 phone. I really like the T68i phone and ATT has been a reliable carrier, so I don’t think I’ll switch, but if Sprint had had this phone four months ago, I’d still be with Sprint.