Technology Viewer

Simple.TV was my favorite new device from this years CES (Consumer electronics Show).  I was genuinely excited, I was on the pre-order mailing list and was looking forward to picking one up this spring, to use for the upcoming London Olympics.  

Assuming you don’t know what the heck a Simple TV is, let me give you the low down.  Simple.TV is a network connected DVR.  For $149 plus the cost of a USB hard drive you get an over the air TV Tuner that will record to an attached USB hard drive, and plugs into your home network.  You can then from any computer or even other attached network device, watch live tv or your recorded programming.  Specifically interesting to me, is the ability to watch live TV or recorded shows on my Roku Player.  

Now normally I am all about the Kickstarter project, its a great way for a idea to get off the ground with out a major corporation or investors backing it. But for some reason this one bothers me.  

Maybe it’s because I was under the impression that this was all but a done deal at CES.  But this feels like a downgrade to me.  Liek the founder couldn’t get the funding any other way, so now they are falling back to a kickstarter project.  

I don’t suppose there is anything wrong with that, but… this device is going to require support for a few years at least, but ideally for a good long while.  What happens if they make one run of these and decide to call it quits?  Who is going to keep the programming guide up to date?  it just feels a bit more iffy, suddenly.  

Now if you are still interested in the device, you are getting a break if you back the kickstarter project.   The $149 device is discounted to $125 for kickstarter backers.  But even better is the $299 level.  That gets you the device, lifetime unlimited programming guide with remote streaming, an digital TV antenna, a Roku box and they own designed cord cutter t-shirt.  That is a nice deal, it’s like a $400 value if it included a year of their programming guide, but lifetime (of the device) programming (to the tune of $5 a month or so) can add up.  

This is one I am going to keep my eye on, come about  mid June we’ll take a look and see how close they are to being funded, hopefully they will be well over and I will feel better about investing in this device.  Because I really want something like this for my home.  

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Nicely played, and a hearty congrats to You Tube…  

VHS Tape Illusion! (by brusspup)

The era of private space flight and exploration has begun.  

Falcon 9/Dragon Launch(Full launch) (by MCSKeelar)

Interesting…. it seems by feeding certain chemicals to plants we can trick then into growing, flowering and blooming without sunlight.   

Imagine the power savings that we could realize when all the basement pot farms no longer need grow lamps.  

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Uh oh…  another “unlimited plan” bites the dust.  Verizon will be forcing you out of your “unlimited” data plan as you are forced to move on to a 4G phone.  

I guess how they are going to get away with this is they will be forcing everyone to have a “shared” data plan moving forward.  Now the new Shared plan does have it’s own perks, primarily you can have one data plan that will work across multiple devices.  That is handy for those of us who have an iPhone and an iPad for example, or even small businesses with a few devices out in the field.  

But the downside of these new shared data plans (no pricing announced yet) is that grandfathered “unlimited” (which was really limited) is going the way of the dodo.  

For me if the shared plan pricing makes sence, then it’s fine with me.  But if these shared data plans are actually a price increase, then you can suck it VZW.  

We will see. 

Verizon CFO: Unlimited Data Plans Going Away, All Users Pushed Onto Shared Data – Droid Life

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Samsung Galaxy Nexus 4G Android Phone (Verizon Wireless)

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Apple Map App to Replace Google Mapping in iOS

It makes sence, with Maps being one of the main uses for mobile tech that Apple would want to try and use this to distinguish itself from it’s main competitor, and former maps provider. 

I’m not sure even 3D maps would “blow my head off” unless…  they were true 3D…  Is apple’s next iPhone going to have a glasses free 3D display that will make these maps pop right out of the phone?  Now that would be cool. 

Start up the rumor mills folks!  ;-)

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Incantor, a Fantasy MMO played in the real world

Ok so this is about the coolest thing I have seen in a while.

The premise is this, Magic is being fed back into earth from other realms.  And now the lucky few can take advantage of it, to explore, experiment, quest, and of course battle.  

So you buy a wand for the game, and there will be several kinds of wands all having different powers.  This wand links to your Android or iOS phone via blue tooth and allows you to actually cast spells, in the real world.  

Your smart phone acts as your heads up display keeping track of your health, damage, virtual items and so on, as well as a view finder into the magical world.

So yeah this game is played for real, in the real world, but connected online through your smart phone.  You even have to get the gestures right with your wand in order to properly cast your chosen spell.

It’s alternate reality, fantasy, Live action, massivly multiplayer, game that happens 24/7/365 in real time, in real life.  

Yeah this is cool.  

Now it’s a kick starter project which means it’s not guaranteed to happen.  In fact these guys need to raise $100,000 by June 8th to get this project off the ground, and as of this article they have less than $3000 pledged.  

Now if you arn’t familiare with kick starter, this is how it works.  You hit the link below, read up on the project, if you want to support it you pick an amount you want to pledge (based on the reward you will get) enter your credit card info and go.  

Now if the project doesn’t meet it’s pledge goal; you aren’t changed a thing, no risk to you.  

But if it does, you are changed for what you agreed to and the project moves ahead and you get the rewards you signed up for as well as the knowledge that you helped a great project get off the ground.  

Personally I recommend the $100 pledge, because that gets you early access to the site, the lore, and a wand before they go on sale to the general public.  

(via Incantor: Magic Made Real. A real world mobile-based MMOG. by MoveableCode — Kickstarter)