Technology Viewer

It’s the crazy little computer maker that could…  It seems Apple just can’t make this company go away.

Psystar, the now famous computer maker that sells non Apple systems with Apple OS X pre loaded on them filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection a while back, thus signaling the impending demise of the company, or did it.

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Chapter 11 or no they are back and not only are they still shipping computers with Apple’s OS X on them, they have added a new product to their lineup, the Open(7).

Psystar’s Open(7) system features Intel Xeon Nahalem chips, in what they are calling their fastest, quietest system configuration yet.

In addition they will start shipping their system with a new bootloader, dubbed the Darwin Universal Boot Loader (DUBL) which they will release to open source soon.

“When life gives you apples, make applesauce.”

The Open(7) starts at $1499, a steep price until you compare it to a Mac Pro starting at $2499.

I still say this little company is being backed by some bigger fishes who are trying to force Apple to sell their OS X operating system to the masses.  But whether it is or isn’t, it’s still a great opportunity to get some powerful hardware that can also run Mac OS X (or Windows or Linux) for half or less than what Apple charges.

Speaking of hardware, the happy time magic hour podcast is in need of some new equipment, so if anyone wanted to sponsor us for (for life) to the tune of $1499 we’d toss in a proper review of the equipment here on Technology Viewer as well as some publicity pics over on Photography by Wolfman-K as well.   :-)

wolfmank[at]gmail[dot]com

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Apple Mac Pro MB871LL/A Desktop

Horay!  an update to gmail that brings it inline with most other web based email interfaces can already do.

Now you can drag and drop emails onto a “label” to give it that label.

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For those of you not familiar with gmail, labels are the google version of folders, sort of.   A label essentailly puts an email in a folder, but because it’s not really a folder it’s a label, an email can have multiple lables and therfore exist in multiple folders at once.

Confused?  It makes more sense when you use it, and now you can do all of that by simply dragging an email (or group of emails) onto the “label” and voila.

It’s a very handy feature but…  it’s also very late to the party.  Come on Gmail, step it up.

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Google Apps For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

Finally, a month or so after it was announced, we are seeing the pricing options for Last.FM on the Xbox 360.

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You have to be an Xbox Live Gold member to get access.  (Silver members will have a three month trial).

Gold Member will however, have to endure video advertising with the audio stream.  This doesn’t bother me too much as it’s basically the same thing you get with the cable audio channels.  Turn the TV off if you don’t like it.

There will be an option to pay for an ad free version that includes extra features.  But no one is saying what those extra features will be.  I suspect the paid version will include the ability to stream music in games.

There is also no word on how much the paid version will be, but typical Last.FM subscription accounts are $3 a month, so I’d expect that to be the same here.  Hopefully you can convert your existing paid account to work over XBL but, I’d expect that this would be a separate subscription that you will have to buy with MS Points :(

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Xbox 360 Console

Video: Palm Pre caught playing with GSM SIM in Vietnam

Interesting, I was just talking about this last night with Rob over on the happy time magic hour podcast last night (on episode 17, due out tomorrow.)

I was saying that Palm really needs to push out it’s GSM version to get an install base that developers will be interested in, and lookey here.

We have proof of a GSM Palm Pre in the wild, well the wilds of Vietnam anyway.

Hopefully this is proof that a global launch of the Palm Pre is imminent.

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The latest update for your Palm Pre is out, and it fixes a few things but breaks one very cool “feature.”

One of the security exploits that people were using to put home made application onto the palm pre has been closed.   It’s too bad too, since Palm does not seem to be moving quickly on that public SDK (still slated for August/September release).

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Palm, it’s clear you have a winner device here, everyone (including the part time T~V science editor RebRob) loves the device.  It’s abilities clearly out weigh it’s flaws except when it comes to applications.

The Palm Pre needs an application store full of third party apps and it needs it now.  Clearly there is demand as the Home Brew application world took off for the few weeks that the exploit was available.

The Pre is the device that could save Palm, but Palm needs to not rest on their laurels here… you need to be challenging all other smart phones on every front, to win over customers.

Oh and here is an interesting nugget that I heard.  It seems that although the Pre is selling very well for Palm, Sprint is not exactly reaping the rewards.  It seems that a vast majority of new Pre owners were already Sprint customers.  Almost no one is switching to Sprint for the Pre.

I was hoping that the Pre would be the savior for both Palm and Sprint…   Well one out of two ain’t bad…   :/

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Palm Pre: The Missing Manual

It wasn’t too long ago I remmember hearing about the Wasabi printing project.   Aa Zero Ink technology that was designed to be small and portable.  Sort of like getting a Polaroid type photo from your pocket cam or cell phone.

Well Dell has brought it to market and you can pick one up for a mere $149.

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The idea is that while you are out and about you can snap pics and get a print out of them on the fly.   The Printer connects via Blue Tooth or direct USB, and prints out on special paper (yeah that’s the rub, you have to buy special paper) that is adhesive backed.   Instant Bumper Sticker!

The printer can print about 15 times before needing to be recharged, and the paper comes in packs of 12.

Note:  Dell’s version doesn’t look all that different from the Polaroid labeled version for $129.99 that seems to be the same type of thing.

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Polaroid PoGo Instant Mobile Printer - Red (CZA-10011B)

Some interesting analysis from AdMob an active advertiser in the iPhone development space claims that iPod Touch owners haven’t rushed to upgrade to firmware 3.0 due to the $9.99 upgrade cost.

I expect that’s true to a point, but…   I think that’s not the whole story.   I don’t think may people out there are using their iPod Touch as a PDA device, even though it makes an outstanding one.

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No I suspect that most people are using their devices as an iPod, a gaming platform, and maybe a little bit of an internet tablet.   And for those types things there just hasn’t been a compelling reason to upgrade yet.

Once the games, and other apps start to take advantage of the new 3.0 software features, and people start seeing a reason (like multi player gaming) to upgrade, they will.

Even in this economy $9.99 is an annoying fee to pay, but it’s not a deal breaker.

I updated mine right away and I have been very happy with it.   What about you?

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Apple iPod touch 32 GB (2nd Generation) LATEST MODEL

Japan’s Satellite Crashes Into the Moon, Sends Back Footage of Its Demise

Selene, a japanese satalite orbiting the moon and sending back HD quality video of it’s surface became one with the moon on June 11th (my birthday).

However it was nice enough to keep streaming video until the moment of impact, which does yield some pretty cool looking video.

They “claim” the satellite crashed just over the edge of the dark side of the moon, so that’s why we can’t actually see any footage of the impact.   But I think it’s a comspiracy…

I think it’ actually hit some moon man’s house, and they are trying to cover it up to avoid an inter-orbital law suite of epic proportions…   ;-)

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Rapid Repair - iPhone 3G S Repair Guide by RapidRepair

And it’s been done.  You had to know that someone (or a few someone’s would be the first to tear apart the newly released iPhone 3GS…

Rapid repair has released a full set of pics to go with instructions on how to do it yourself should you need to void your less than one day old warranty and try  this yourself.  ;-)

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“bndoarn” from the forums over at MacRumors (link in title), has put together a list of over 90 new features not publicized in the iPhone & iPod Touch firmware update.

Most of the updates are not something you’d immediately notice as new but stuff you’d probably run across accidentally and think “I didn’t know my iPod did that?”

Here are some of my favorites:

• When the is iPhone vertical, videos played through the iPod app will fit to screen. In 2.X they always played as if the iPhone was horizontal.

• when typing lol auto correct no longer makes it LOL

• Clicking an iCal link (subscription calendar link) will ask you if you want to subscribe to that calendar.

• Safari now has a phishing warning

• shake to shuffle is now on the iPhone/iPod Touch

• when listening to a podcast, you now have the options to email the link, rewing 30 seconds, or chose the playback speed (1/2x, 1x or 2x)

• smart playlist now update on the device. previously they wouldn’t update until the next time you synced it with iTunes. this means that if you have a smart playlist to include all songs with a rating of 5 stars, whenever you rat a song on the device, it automatically moves to the playlist.

There is way more on the forum post, if you really want to geek out on this.

So far I am really loving this update on my second generation iPod Touch.  It has made my little pocket Internet device way more useful.

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Apple iPod touch 16 GB (2nd Generation) LATEST MODEL