Bloggasm

Today I ordered an Olympus TP-7 Telephone Recording Device to go with my digital recorder that I’ve had for about a year.

Technically it doesn’t count as an impulse buy because I’ve been thinking about getting one for awhile now. What finally closed the deal was the fact that I want to start doing more phone interviews for Bloggasm rather than relying on email and IM. But my cell phone is way too small and hurts my neck why I try to cradle it against my shoulder and type quotes at the same time.

The Amazon reviews say that it does a pretty good job with cell phone recordings. I’m really looking forward to trying it out.

This is pretty cool. Boingboing, arguably the most popular blog out there, has done a major revamp on their site. They’ve re-added their comments section, redesigned the entire blog, and also added a gadget blog.

I wonder if this will eventually increase their competition against huge gadget sites like Engadget and Gizmodo. In fact, their gadget blogger is a former Gizmodo editor.

An 86-year-old man named Les Geddes has invented a new gadget that uses a camera to scan text and project it onto a screen for people with severe eyesight problems:

A GADGET invented by a retired Edinburgh engineer to help his partially-sighted wife read is set to revolutionise the lives of thousands of people.

Created by 86-year-old Les Geddes, the reading device uses a tiny portable camera to scan small print and project it on to a television screen.

Mr Geddes came up with the invention to help his wife Anne see the buttons and display on their microwave oven.

What’s most cool about it is that he’s not trying to patent the machine, rather he’s posting instructions up on the internet so other people with similar problems can create these gadgets on their own.

There appears to be a phantom device that’s being used by car thieves in Malaysia. The unknown technology is able to detect which cars have laptops hidden in them, making their thievery much more efficient. Many people take the time to carefully hide anything expensive from sight, but this won’t keep you safe:

Malaysia’s New Straits Times reports that tech-savvy thieves in the district of Petaling Jaya have been using a “special gadget” in order to identify which parked cars have laptops hidden inside of them, with 255 laptops stolen from cars there so far this year.

The police, who have not been able to get their hands on one of these mysterious devices, are stumped and are recommending that people carry their laptops with them rather than leave them in their cars.

The fact that nobody knows how this device works or what it looks like it adds some spice to the whole mystery.

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A new inventor has created a thing called a “Bev Wizard,” which basically is a magnet you put on your wine bottle, and it will actually improve the quality of cheap wine:

He theorizes the wizard works by creating a magnetic field that changes the shape of a wine’s tannins, making them larger and softer. Tannins are astringent components from grape skin and seeds, and in some cases oak, that give structure to a wine but can make it taste bitter. Bottle aging can mellow out the tannins as can decanting hours before drinking; the Bev Wizard is a shortcut, says Farrell.

Of course, who is to know if this invention is just another form of the Emperor’s New Clothes?

This link has more on how it works:

He came up with a molded plastic device that looks like a regular non-drip pourer and has an air hole to speed up oxygenation. That intensifies the effect of the wizard and differentiates it from other magnetic devices on the market such as the Wine Clip, which clasps around the bottle neck, said Farrell.

I couldn’t find any actual quotes from people who had tasted the wine and reported any difference. We shall see.

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I never buy music online (though I do buy audio books through Itunes), but I’ve always been annoyed by the fact that Ipods wouldn’t allow songs that were downloaded from Napster and other companies. It’s silly that I can burn songs of a cd and put them in my library, but I can’t take certain songs that are stored on my computer to do the exact same thing.

Well, a new French law has put an end to all that:

A closely watched French law that allows regulators to force Apple Computer Inc. to make its iPod player and iTunes online store compatible with rival offerings went into effect Thursday.

The law passed France’s parliament June 30. Although France’s Constitutional Council threw out several measures last week, concluding that they violated constitutional property protections, French President Jacques Chirac signed it this week with the body’s changes.

The worst thing about this is that they have to be forced to do it. What happens when other Mp3 players come along which don’t discriminate against any music files? In fact, they already exist.

There’s a man from Scotland who is renovating an entire warehouse so that it’s designed for tech nerds. Though the houses will be priced in between £200,000 and £500,000, each apartment will come equipped with the latest in digital technology, and each household appliance will be connected to an online interface so that the residents can even control them from outside the apartment:

A DISUSED warehouse in Leith is set to be transformed into Scotland’s most hi-tech block of flats by a young city entrepreneur.

Shaf Rasul, who made his fortune by selling blank DVDs and computer parts and is now worth £102 million, plans to fit out the 80 flats with the latest gadgets and gizmos.

Buyers will be asked to spend between £200,000 and £500,000 for their new home, but it will come complete with some of the most advanced technology available.

The place will no-doubt be tech-geek heaven.

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