Ged Carroll

Category: gadget | 小工具 | 가제트 | ガジェット

What constitutes a gadget? The dictionary definition would be a small mechanical or electronic device or tool, especially an ingenious or novel one.

When I started writing this blog the gadget section focused on personal digital assistants such as the Palm PDA and Sony’s Clie devices. Or the Anoto digital pen that allowed you to record digitally what had been written on a specially marked out paper page, giving the best of both experiences.

Some of the ideas I shared weren’t so small like a Panasonic sleeping room for sleep starved, but well heeled Japanese.

When cutting edge technology failed me, I periodically went back to older technology such as the Nokia 8850 cellphone or my love of the Nokia E90 Communicator.

I also started looking back to discontinued products like the Sony Walkman WM-D6C Pro, one of the best cassette decks ever made of any size. I knew people who used it in their hi-fi systems as well as for portable audio.

Some of the technology that I looked at were products that marked a particular point in my life such as my college days with the Apple StyleWriter II. While my college peers were worried about getting on laser printers to submit assignments, I had a stack of cartridges cotton buds and isopropyl alcohol to deal with any non catastrophic printer issues and so could print during the evening in the comfort of my lodgings.

Alongside the demise in prominence of the gadget, there has been a rise in the trend of everyday carry or EDC.

  • PSP + more news

    PSP

    The PSP has fired the imagination of grass roots developers already, which bodes well for its competition from Gizmondo – the Tiger and Microsoft-backed alternative. Nintendo’s DS doesn’t make claims to be any form of ‘convergence device’, but an honest mobile games console which focuses on playability rather than speeds and feeds. iPSP allows you to synch music with iTunes, carry your iPhoto library around with you and back up game data on to your Macintosh. Whilst Sony would probably not approve of this close linkage between the PSP and Apple’s iLife suite, it will not harm sales of the device amongst generation iPod.

    Expect sales of PSP movies and Sony Connect sales to be on the low side as PSP early adopters rip from their DVD and MP3 collections instead. Sony’s best option as with games is to go for exclusive movie and music content for the PSP.

    Folksonomy

    Folksonomy seems to have caught the imagination of both News.com and Charles Arthur’s contribution of netimperative. Yahoo’s purchase of Flickr is seen not only as a way of getting hold of a great info-imaging service, but also of harnessing a grassroots approach to creating true contextual searching.

    Mobile TV

    According to the Global Telecoms Business top five stories newsletter that NTL and O2 have announced which TV channels will be available to the 350 test subjects during their six month-long trial in Oxford. The 16 channels involved come from BSkyB, Chart Show TV, Discovery Networks Europe, Shorts International and Turner Broadcasting.

    Customised Nike sneakers

    In New York, Nike has extended their design your own trainer programme to billboard signs that you can manipulate via phoning a free phone number. Your specification can be shared via an SMS message. There is still no option to allow people like Jonah Peretti have Sweat Shop sewn on his set of trainers.

    8vo: On The Outside

    Finally ‘8vo: On the Outside’ is going to be launched. Written and designed by Mark Holt and Hamish Muir, based on their work designing for the likes of the famous Hacienda nightclub and changing and its influence in the emergent typographically-led design movement in the UK during the late 80s and through the 90s.

  • Duracell toy trends

    Battery supremos Duracell have conducted a Europe-wide survey on the most popular toys this Christmas. Full details can be found here. The report is available as a PDF, the most interesting part of the report is the survey insights section which highlighted some cultural trends amongst children and the differences across Europe. I have summarised Duracell toy trends below:

    • Action is the strongest draw for boys with radio controlled cars and race tracks. This goes against everything that we’re told about ‘generation playstation’ and the move to mobile and online entertainment
    • Fashion and beauty is the big draw for girls – the Smoby Star Party CD which allowed girls to become a singer a la Pop Idol or Fame Academy was a winner in this category

    Both of these findings in the Duracell toy trends research

    UK:USA

    • The UK was considered to have consumption patterns closer to the US than Europe
    • More toys were bought and more money spent in the UK than other European countries

    Northern versus Southern Europe

    • Northern European children prefer being outdoors taking part in sport
    • Southern European children prefer to play indoors with computer games and watching television. I was surprised by this given the football culture and better weather
    • Southern European children receive a higher amount of pocket money than Northern European children. But Northern European children start receiving pocket money at a younger age
    • Northern European children discover new toys through multiple channels: word of mouth, television, magazines, print advertisements, retail displays and catalogues
    • Southern European children primarily discover new toys through television
    • Southern European parents put a greater emphasis on educational value when purchasing toys

  • Swiffer

    Swiffer is a US homeware brand owned by Proctoer & Gamble. Proctor & Gamble had to do a product recall last week on a battery operated vacuum cleaner that they sold in the US market under the Swiffer name. The product could overheat in certain circumstances and they had received 14 complaints. I was impressed by the recall notice on the front of the website, it showed real class. Rather than hiding behind legalese, they put personality to it and even had it signed by ‘Kris from the Swiffer team’. This conduct is likely to help them protect their Swiffer brand and reduce panic amongst consumers whilst still ensuring an orderly recall of the product.

    I have pasted the copy below because I have no idea how long P&G will keep it on their website.

    Swiffer Sweep+VacImportant product news

    As you know, we are very sorry to announce that Swiffer will be voluntarily recalling our new product, Sweep+Vac. The Sweep+Vac is our new battery-operated vacuum cleaner brought to you in September 2004.

    We are pleased to reassure you that this product recall does not involve any of our other great Swiffer products.

    We have identified an isolated Sweep+Vac product quality issue. Click here for complete details.

    If you have this product at home, we are asking that you stop using the Sweep+Vac immediately and disconnect the Sweep+Vac by removing the top section of the handle. Click here for instructions on how to disassemble your Sweep+Vac.

    Even though this issue has been observed in just a few Sweep+Vac units, we have taken this voluntary measure to ensure the highest standards of quality, safety, and satisfaction by recalling Sweep+Vac as quickly as possible. If you have purchased a Sweep+Vac, we would like to provide you with a refund. Click here for refund instructions.

    We’d like to thank the initial consumers who alerted us to this problem. We are very committed to delivering the highest standard of product quality and take these types of issues very seriously.

    We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your continued support of Swiffer,

    Kris from the Swiffer team

    More related content here.

  • Nokia 8850

    I am reasonably tech savvy, but I am using a Nokia 8850; let me explain. I have been on email for ten years and used a mobile phone number for a decade and a half. However I have found myself sliding my mobile technology back in time. Last year I had a 3 mobile phone, on the UK’s first 3G network. It was shocking. I then had a traumatic move to Orange and got given a Nokia 6600.

    The Nokia 6600 is not a bad phone, but I don’t need a colour screen or camera, I occasionally read my home emails on the phone and get texts. However, the phone is bulky and the battery runs out after just two days. That’s better than the NEC e606 3 mobile phone I had, but way behind other phones that I’ve owned in the past.

    Finally I decided enough was enough for now, and have gone back in time from a technology perspective. I took the technology time machine back to 2000 and am using a vintage design Nokia 8850. Its small, it texts, you can speak to people, its intuitive to use and the battery lasts a week, oh yeah it has a need aluminium shell and a sliding key cover.

    The 8850 is an elegant solution to my communications needs, the point is that I have gone back in tech time because the present offerings fail to meet my needs of:

    • being intuitive to use
    • easy to call and text
    • good battery life
    • good product design
    • small / discreet
    • no unnecessary features

    3G at the present time isn’t ready for modern usage. The NEC e 606 phone used to get hot to touch in my hand during use. The reception was awful and the device was cumbersome. At the moment there is no killer app to using 3G. More related content here.

  • Anoto digital pen

    Anoto are a bunch of mad Swedes who have invented a digital pen. The magic stuff they have came up with is a special spotted paper with unique markings so the pen can tell what kind of document its writing, the colour the ‘ink’, where it is on the page, should the writing be sent as an email. Despite featuring in a major feature article written for Wired magazine the company is doing quite well and coming up with cool stuff.  (Wired built up a reputation amongst superstitious techies after a preponderance of companies profiled in the magazine hit problems. Let’s hope that this doesn’t happen to Anoto). As any bureaucrat would tell you the pen is a lifesaver for meetings. While the   TabletPC makes more sense for mobile applications such as the UPS man.

    Anoto have licenced this technology to a number of people most notably Logitech; the mouse and speaker people.

    Logitech’s io is a neat piece of kit. Unfortunately they haven’t released any Mac drivers for it and won’t be doing so for the forseeable future. What I’d like you to do is help them forsee the future by completing this form requesting Mac drivers. (Re the product and serial number, they have a very handy prompt that tells you how many digits that you need to fake up). More related posts here.