iPhones aren’t known for their excellent battery life. In fact, they pretty much need recharged every night just to make it through the next day. If you’re a heavy user, then sometimes you’re lucky to make it through the day at all. This has lead to all sorts of interesting battery packs being created for Apple’s phones. One of these is the Mophie Juice Pack Air, which I’ve been testing out for the last week or so.
The Juice Pack Air is one of the latest battery packs from Mophie, who makes a host of iPhone products. It is essentially a hard case for your iPhone (3G and 3GS), which adds a small amount of bulk to your phone in exchange for roughly double the battery life. So is it worth it? Read on to find out.
I’ve been enjoying being able to stream Netflix to my 360 for a while now. What I don’t enjoy is paying for a Gold subscription in order to use it. One could argue that most 360 gamers already keep themselves at Gold status so they can play games online. That’s great for them, but I rarely play anything on my 360 with people online (I do most of my online gaming with my PC). I have both a PS3 and a Wii as well, and I’ve been hoping to hear something about getting Netflix on one of those, since neither charge for their online experience. Well finally we’ve heard something.
It seems that Microsoft has managed to sign an exclusive deal with Netflix, making them the only ones with a console that streams movies from the service. There’s no word on just how long the exclusive deal is, but I’m guessing it’s no less than a year or two. I’ll give Microsoft one thing, it does add more value to a Gold subscription. It’s one more thing for them to cite when people complain about Sony offering online play for free.
On a related note, PlayOn seems to be an interesting alternative that lets you stream Netflix (along with Hulu, YouTube and several others) to your TV with a PS3, Xbox 360 (without paying for a Gold Membership) and soon a Wii. I haven’t had a chance to test it out myself, but I’ll let you guys know when I do.
How many of you still use a kettle for heating up water? I’m not big on doing it myself, since the microwave does things plenty fast enough. However, I know a few people who are big tea drinkers, and use a kettle most of the time. Of course, this means they have to deal with that annoying whistle every time they want some tea. Well since you’ve got all of that air moving, why not have your kettle make some music?
Apparently one designer has given a lot of thought into that very matter. It looks like hey has inserted a tube, likely with several holes strategically placed, into the spout. Small pistons (which seem to be controlled by a small circuit board, though not much info is given) move up and down to cover the holes in accordance with the music. It’s a bit over-the-top for a cup of tea, but that’s the life of a designer for you.
Ouch! So Akihabara News had a chance to try out Fujifilm’s new 3D capable digital camera, and saying they walked away disappointed is a bit of an understatement. Now the actual design of the camera and build quality were OK, but after that things just go downhill. The terrible UI apparently hearkens back to the good old days of 1999, and just changing something like the ISO settings required a trip through the user manual.
But the worst part was actually using the camera in 3D mode, which according to them will require a bottle of aspirin in your camera bag since the 3D viewfinder induces a terrible migraine headache after just a few minutes use. And viewing your 3D photos? Well the camera captures 3D images in a .MPO file which as far as they know is only supported by Fujifilm’s 3D digital photo frame. It does however capture JPEGs at the same time allowing you to view them on your PC, but image quality is another aspect where the camera is severely lacking. So the moral of this story? Avoid this camera at all costs.
They might not be the first kid on the block with a 128GB flash drive, I believe Kingston took that honor a few months ago, but Corsair is claiming their new 128GB Voyager GT is the world’s fastest. Thanks to a “unique dual-controller architecture” the flash drive has a read speed of up to 32MB/sec and a write speed of up to 25.6MB/sec. The drive also features a durable and water-resistant rubber housing, so while it probably won’t survive a plunge under water, getting caught in the occasional spill shouldn’t be a problem. Available now, though pricing info wasn’t included in the PR.
I live in the US and I love my country, but I’ll be damned if we don’t have some stupid laws. We live in a country where you can get fined millions of dollars by a record industry for sharing a few songs and you can serve in the military for two years and still not have a drink when you get back home. Also, according to a ruling against Real yesterday, we still can’t buy software to make backups of DVDs that we own.
In case you hadn’t heard, last year Real released one of the only half-decent pieces of software ever (yes, I still hate you RealPlayer) called RealDVD. This allowed you to make a copy of your DVDs that could be played only on the computer which it was created. Not particularly useful in my eyes, since you couldn’t play the discs in a regular DVD player, but apparently it’s still plenty illegal under the DMCA.
The irony here is that the judge specified that it is perfectly legal for individuals to store backup copies of a DVD on their computer. It just isn’t legal for anyone to manufacture software that allows you to do that. This ruling isn’t really going to change the game much. Everyone that really wants to copy their DVDs knows exactly how to do it, and there’s really nothing that’s going to stop them.
For a long time now, Apple has only offered glossy screens on their notebooks, which has frustrated some people to no end. Apple ended up offering an anti-glare option on their 17-inch MacBook Pros, but not for any of their others. Well today Apple has caved into demands and allowed buyers of 15-inch MacBook Pros to pay an extra $50 for this option.
Personally, I love the glossy screen on my 15-inch unibody MBP. I have three other monitors sitting on my desk (because I’m an over-achiever) and my MBP looks better than any of them. Still, people love to have a choice, and it’s good to see that Apple is listening. If you read through the description, you can see that they aren’t exactly trying to sell you on this option. They describe the glossy display as one that “lets you view graphics, photos and videos with richer colors and deeper blacks.” They don’t bother saying anything about the antiglare screen other than the fact that it is optional.
We’re pretty sure that when we feel our skin start to sizzle and our heads become lighter from the humidity and ambient heat, that would be a pretty clear indication to get out of the sun. Still, if your very own biological sensors have disconnected from your brain, perhaps this item can give you a little guidance. Straight from (where else?) Japan, the Portable Heat Stroke meter keeps track of heat and humidity and will start beeping and blinking with varying degrees of alarm, as dictated by the Japan Weather Association. When not alerting you to imminent organic systems failure, it will also display both variables for you to entertain yourself with the information.
It’s ¥1,050, or about $11 and the site can take pre-orders until August 25 with shipping soon thereafter. We think. The page is in Japanese, so you can try to figure that out for yourselves.
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By David Ponce
