Today Show And Augmented Apps

 

Spoke to Cameron this morning about augmented applications for smartphones. At its most basic, an augmented application crosses virtual reality with smartphone technology by using the ‘phone’s camera as the conduit by which the application works.

First up we looked at Upsies, which is a football app whereby the ball itself is not real, but you trying to juggle it is. It is designed for kids who like football and allows you to challenge your friends at how many juggles you can use. In the near future you will be able to juggle between each other as long as you both have a smartphone with the app on it. It is retailing for $0.99 and is only available for the iPhone.

Then there was Layar, which at its most basic is one of the more practical applications available. It allows you to find the nearest ATM, pizza joint, public toilet or any type of convenience or store by adding a different layer to the application. It also gives you the distance to the desired place, as well as the phone number of the restaurant or place you wish to visit. This is free to download from the Android app store.

Finally, there was the CBA application, which will be very handy for home owners  and buyers alike. Using GPS technology, this application allows you to walk down a street, point the camera at a house and tell you how much it last sold for – it give a price range usually to the nearest $50-100,000, the year it sold and the exact address. This could be handy for home buyers, but also realtors as well. This application is not available right at this moment, but is expected to be available by July 30th via the Apple app store.

On 2UE I showcased the Kaiser Baas MusicMaker, which allows you to back up your vinyl on your PC. It will help you automatically balance out the sound.

We also talked about how a lot of CE gear like phones and even watches have built in GPS devices so you can be traced. Steve mentioned that in Korea a lot of parents have these attached to their children’s portable gear in order to trace them if they go missing.

First call this morning was from Robert who wanted to know if the iPhone be like for remote areas.  It should be a lot better, because then new handset will have both frequencies bands.

David was thinking of replacing his GPS with a new one that has all the bells and whistles. I used a Garmin Nuvi 3790T while in Melbourne yesterday, which uses voice activation technology.  It costs about $500. A good Tomtom is about $250. David has to make sure he asks about maps updates or free ones because some vendors don’t give free updates, which will eventually make the unit redundant.

Val recently bought a digital radio and found that there is a time lag between analogue and digital units. Digital is a few seconds behind because the radio  station has to encode what the announcers are saying so there is as about 1.5 seconds delay.

Rod had an enquiry about old video tapes that he wants to save and his camcorder died a few years ago. The hardest thing is to get the vision off the tape, and once you have the device that outputs you are good. One way is a capture card but to actually get the tape onto your PC, you could possibly try the DVDirect VRD-MC3 from Sony, however, this might only be for VHS tapes.

Dave is off the US and wanted to know if he bought an HTC Desire whether it would work here. Yes it would, but he needs to make sure he buys it unlocked (this means it is not hooked up to a provider). Check on the back of the box that it can sit on the 850 frequency, which is the Telstra frequency

 

 

Toshiba Portege R700 is Smokin'!

I’m writing this blog on Toshiba’s brand new Portege R700 notebook pc and it is one sweet machine.

My rules about a notebook:
– small (13.3 inch max)
– light (this is just over 1 x kilogram)
– strong (the build quality is really solid)
– long battery (currently running on full battery and registering just over 4 hours charge left)

Today Toshiba had their big annual bash at Sydney’s Wharf 8. Already postponed once, Toshiba had promised the 25th anniversary dig was to be huge! It was held on the a boat called ‘Starship’. Luckily the boat had not left the wharf by the time I arrived, as I was late due to a previous engagement. When I did get there, I was quickly ushered close to a cat walk where a model carrying a laptop pranced toward me showing a crowd of about 70 tech journos what was in store in laptops if they could take their eyes off the ‘other’ eye candy.

The main thing about this notebook is some how Toshiba have fitted in both a writeable DVD drive and an E-sata port. Um, where did they find the room for this? I am using a lower speced version of this model – it’s running 4GB of RAM, 300GB hard drive and intel i5 and the retail price is just over $1,200. Toshiba will spice up the specs for you. You can add more RAM, solid-state drive for even lower power consumption and better drive realiability.

I have only started using this notebook. In fact Windows 7 is still doing the transfer of files over from last notebook as I write this.

What is interesting is that the R700 has a short throw keyboard. The keys feel like something last experienced on a Sony Vaio and as I try and type really fast, I get the impression the transfer from my last notebook to this one may take some time to master the key strokes. That, so far is the only downside. All else is looking good, but I will update in the next couple of days on how the loan an review is going.

Photobooks With Georgie Gardner

 

 

Spoke with Georgie about photobooks, which are not only a good way to save your photos, but act as a great gift idea for many family members.

There are many different companies offering the service including Harvey Norman, SnapFish and Momento. There are a couple of ways you can make these photobooks.

With Harvey Norman and SnapFish you can do so online. You can also go instore with Harvey Norman. In the case of Momento, you download some software to your desktop .

So how easy is it? Very. You upload your pics to the site. Once there, you follow the commands, which ask you how big you want the pic, if you want to caption it, and what page you want it on. There is usually a variety of choices to make with regard to wanting a hardcover or dust jacket, too.

There are a couple of things you need to be aware of when uploading the pictures. Some data plans charge for uploads as well as downloads, so if you only have a low-yield data plan, you have to make sure you don’t eat into too much. Also, if you want to make some of your pictures big, or put them on the cover of the book, you have to make sure your camera has enough resolution so as make sure the picture doesn’t blur or loose resolution.