Google recently announced that they will be experimenting by building a super fast fiber network. I wrote a post “Why Google Needs to Become an ISP” a few months ago stating that Google needs to become an ISP because their search can be simply defaulted to another search engine. It is a war between tech companies to see who can control the platform and end-to-end services. Apple has devices, software, and stores. Microsoft has operating systems, office products, and mobile OS. Google’s strategy is simply to diversify and unify as much as possible.

Never thought my words would actually be heard from Google. They must have found it through Search

Why is Google building a high speed network? It is because the faster the network, the more people will be online which means the more ads they can display. Furthermore, Google can charge a subscription for access that is competitive to other ISPs. Google can also lease its fast fiber network to other ISPs as well for further revenue.

I have a problem.  I am totally addicted to Bluetooth headphones.  I have no idea how I developed this addiction or what deepseated child neuroses my constant updating of my BT headphones collection is satisfying, but I can’t get enough of the silly things.  My wife is very patient with my obsession, despite how much money I spend on it.  The Jaybird SB1 is the latest addition to my collection.

My previous experiences with Jaybird left me a bit leery of ordering these.  I had purchased a set of their Freedom headphones when those had first come out only to realize when I got them that they were not compatible with glasses.  Which basically meant they were useless to me, even when I was wearing contacts (cause, you know, I have to look cool by wearing shades).  I can’t believe that no one on the Jaybird testing team had this problem.  I don’t know about you, but I use wireless headphones as much as possible.  Years of listening to Air Supply and Barry Manilow at glass-shattering volumes have left my ears unable to discern much of anything, so I don’t miss the ultra-high fidelity that wired headphones bring.  And I’m willing to give up that fidelity anyways because I hate being tangled up in cords, especially at the gym.

I ordered the SB1’s through Amazon, where they were marked as pre-order status (and cheaper than on the Jaybird site itself).  They actually arrived within their customary 2 day window, much to my surprise.  So here are my first set of unboxing pics.

(Man, that guy could be my twin.  Well, at least in terms of the chrome dome anyways).

Nice plastic wrapping.  Could the electronics industry use any MORE plastic?  I mean, I know we have infinite oil supplies, but still.  Sheesh.

Nice and new out of the box.  The manual, by the way, is a marvel of simplicity.  I think there are only fifteen sentences in the manual.  Everything is done through colored pictographs.  My wife was unable to figure out what said pictographs meant, which goes to show you who the target audience might be.

This is the power/control portion of the headphones.  Five buttons.  That’s it.

Pairing was very straightforward.  The phones arrived with sufficient power to turn on and connect to my iPhone without any issues.  Charging took about three or four hours.  It has a nice touch in that the power indicator only glows red until it’s charged up.  When the SB1’s are fully charged, the red charging light goes off.

There is about an inch of extension to the drivers, and the foam is fairly thick.  The controls are covered in a matte rubber, and are easily manipulated even in gloves once you’re used to them.  The big silver power button serves as a play/pause button and the iPhone only allows volume control through BT anyways, so it’s not like I had a lot of choices to make.

The Jaybird people make a big deal out of the fact that the headphone pads swivel in two dimensions.  The amount of play in that swivel is not huge, so I don’t know that I got a lot of additional comfort because of this.  The foam covering the headphone drivers is a thicker version of the foam that come with earbuds.  Jaybird must be expecting that these things will last, because they didn’t provide a spare set of foam covers.  I can see them being torn over time and Jaybird would be well advised to make sure they have replacements available.

Sound quality was good.  Like I said, I’m no audiophile, but I had no issues with the sound level reaching my ears, even compared to my previous Sony BT headphones, which plug directly into my ears.  Phone quality was also good.  Folks on the other end had a bit of trouble hearing me but I chalk that up to the fact that I’m not a yeller – I speak at a normal volume no matter the environment and expect the headphone mic to pick me up.  The SB1’s did that just fine.

In terms of downsides, I had three main issues with the SB1’s.  First (and this will vary based on user), the headphones are TIGHT against your ears.  My ears were sore after an hour or two of use and I don’t think I have a very big head (small brain, you know).  For the more cranially endowed, the SB1’s might be way tight.  I’m sure the plastic headband will expand and loosen over time, but it’s something to keep in mind.  Second, I experienced weird volume issues as the power on the headphones drained down.  It was very difficult to reproduce, so I couldn’t tell if it really was a problem, but for some reason, the volume refused to drop down below a certain (very loud) level.  It was bizarre.  Finally, I noticed that the rubber underside of the plastic headband had started pulling away from the headband at the edges.  It wasn’t horrible, but it was enough that I was concerned.  I ordered a replacement pair from Amazon and this time I’m going to check the edges right upon opening the packaging.  I wasn’t sure if the edges had always been this way or if it had developed over the two weeks I’ve had the headphones.

Overall, the SB1’s are a good set of BT headphones.  They did slide around a bit on my head, which I really kind of chalk up to the fact that I have no hair.  The sound quality is good and the microphone seems to work just fine.  Controls are easy to use, charging seems quick, and overall I’m pretty happy with these.  The specs indicate that these are pairable with up to two devices but when I tried to pair them with my PC, I got all kinds of errors.  Contacting Jaybird support indicated that this was a Windows limitation rather than an SB1 issue.  I will ding them on support though – I asked them another question and I have yet to hear back from them.

I’ll update the post when I get a replacement pair from Amazon.  I’m hoping that these will be my primary BT headphones for the foreseeable future, but I’m sure I’ll fall in lust with another pair.

UPDATE: I received my replacement pair of SB1’s in the aftermath of the East Coast Snowpocalypse.  This time I took a careful look at the edges of the headband where the rubber and plastic meet.  They seem to be just fine, so it makes me think that either I got a defective set or it might be a problem that develops over time.  I’m hoping not because I do like these headphones.  I’ll post another update if I notice that they are starting to pull apart again.  Jaybird does offer a year warranty so you do have some level of recourse.

I used to be an ardent Dell fan.  Over the years, I’ve bought four Dell laptops, at least one Dell desktop, and two printers from that company.  But over the past two years, Dell’s gone on a marked downturn, and their products have gotten progressively worse.  More importantly the customer service that made them famous has gone by the wayside in their desire to outsource everything possible.  So when my Dell AIO went on the fritz and refused to work under Windows 7 (and this is a printer I’d bought less than a year ago, mind you), I swore I’d never buy another Dell product again.  (More specifically, I raged at that stupid Dell printer with the fury of a thousand brilliant suns and almost went Office Space on that POS before deciding to donate it to a local AIDS thrift store.)  So I found myself in the market for a new printer/copier/scanner.  After extensive reading at Amazon, I picked out this HP unit.

The C309 is a relatively svelte machine, especially compared to the behemoth that was my Dell (hatred and denigration of Dell products will be a theme throughout this post, so if you’re a Dell fanboy, just leave now).  It came in a ginormous Amazon box.  I tried to take some unboxing pictures but my iPhone apparently was operated by an epileptic on crack so I’ll be sticking to stock photos.

The C309 is a wireless/wired photoprinting AIO unit with a duplexer.  I was dreading the setup for this printer because my experience trying to set up the wireless printing on the Dell was a Chtulian nightmare.  And after all the pain of setup, the wireless printing never worked right, leaving my fiancee and I passing USB cables back and forth to print.  So you can imagine my complete surprise and amazement when the manual gave me a completely wireless setup option.  And not only was it an option, the option actually worked!

Coincidentally, I’d bought a new router about a year or so ago.  One of the features it had was something called a WPS button, which supposedly would pass all necessary wireless settings to any WPS-equipped device.  The C309 is one such device, so when the printer booted up and asked for a WPS signal, I was able to have it connected to my network in about three minutes.  It was amazing.  The touchscreen confirmed my SSID, asked for my network password, and went through a few more confirmation questions.  The software installation took longer than the connection to my home network.  If I have to ding HP on something, it’s the fact that they have ALWAYS released bloated software.  This thing was fatter than a pregnant cow with triplets.  It also had a very annoying feature that forced an immediate reboot.  I lost several web pages that I hadn’t had a chance to bookmark because the install program shut down my laptop.  Make sure you’ve saved everything important before you install the HP monitoring software.

That one bit of nastiness aside, I was connected to the printer and testing within probably 15-20 minutes.  But the biggest test was connecting my fiancee’s laptop to the printer.  Again, HP pulled through.  The second installation was as smooth as the first.  Within 30 minutes, both of us were printing to the C309 sans wires.  The duplexer works just fine, but it’s a bit slow because the printer automatically waits for the ink to dry before flipping the page.

Speaking of ink, the C309 uses individual ink cartridges.  There are five altogether – four for photos (including a photo black) and one for text.  I haven’t priced the ink out in great detail, but I do recall seeing sets of photo ink for this printer in the $25 range, which isn’t terrible.  The POS Dell’s ink was so expensive I actually considered buying a new printer rather than replace the ink.  Instead I just didn’t print anything (which was good, since I couldn’t print anyways).

The other awesome thing is that HP provides an iPhone printing app.  The HP iPrint will let you print pictures directly from your iPhone to any compatible HP printer.  Launching the iPrint app, I was able to detect my printer and send a test print to it with zero setup.  Tres cool.

I’d never really been a fan of HP products before, but if the C309 is any indication of the typical quality and ease-of-use that HP is putting into their designs now, they’ve just become my favorite PC hardware manufacturer.

Everyone’s been screaming about Apple’s new iTouch Maxi, AKA the iPad.  Some people think it’s a netbook killer, others think it’s a neat trinket that doesn’t offer nearly the same features as a decent netbook and costs more to boot.  I think the tech pundits are totally off base.  The iPad isn’t a netbook competitor.  The iPad’s true competition are devices like the Lenovo Skylight.

The Skylight is, like the iPad, an Internet-centric device powered by a 3G connection (courtesy of AT&T as well).  The specs are fairly similar in terms of processor speed, screen size, etc.  Most importantly, the Skylight is a Linux-based lightweight OS designed around applets.  Lenovo provides a bunch off the bat (Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo, YouTube, etc).  But they are planning to release development specs to the platform so that others can build additional widgets for the device.  Hmm…this model sounds familiar.

So the interesting comparison is whether or not you should get a Skylight or an iPad.  The Skylight, being Linux-based, is potentially much more easily cracked and made into a true mini-computer, but let’s assume that we stick to stock configurations of both devices – no jailbreaking and the like for these puppies.  How do they stack up?

Processor

Both the iPad and the Skylight are powered by 1GHz ARM-based processors.  Both utilize, at their hearts, the SnapDragon SOC.  Thus, they should run functionally at about the same rate.  The key issues will be around graphics processing and onboard RAM, both of which will have an impact on the ability of the processor to keep up with the user.  I wouldn’t expect Apple to be stingy with the RAM, but I could be on crack too.  Since Apple doesn’t really like multitasking, they aren’t necessarily as concerned with beefy RAM.  The Skylight’s custom widgets might be less memory intensive than their iPad counterparts, but I’ll also wager that the platform allows more than one to run at a time.

Display

The iPad has a 4:3 formatted screen at 1024 x 768.  The Skylight uses a more widescreen formatted screen at 1280 x 720, which is (if I’m not mistaken) HD-compatible 720p.  (I could be wrong about that – I’m horrible with remembering anything less than 1080p HD resolution).  So the Skylight probably offers a more traditional movie format display, whereas the iPad is geared towards TV.  Movies on the iPad will have tons of black around them.

Physical Size

The Skylight provides sizing as 253mm x 201mm x 17mm while the iPad is listed as 242.8mm x 189.7mm x 13.4mm.  So the iPad is a tad slimmer.  Weightwise, the iPad comes in at 1.5lbs while the Skylight is listed as being less than 2lbs.  However, keep in mind that the Skylight includes a full keyboard.  If you add the weight of even an Apple BT keyboard to the iPad, I’ll be that they will come in roughly the same (actually, the iPad might lose but it would be close).  And the iPad is probably a bit bulkier when you consider the addition of the keyboard.

Storage

The iPad comes in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB flavors.  The Skylight comes with 8GB integrated storage plus an 8GB microSD card, which can be expanded by the user.  The biggest external microSD card I’ve seen on Amazon is for 32GB, so you get an effective 40GB of storage on the Skylight, max.  However, the Skylight can be expanded easily once 64GB microSDs come out, while you’re stuck on Apple’s refresh cycle to bump up your iPad’s specs.  If you’re looking for long-term use, the Skylight’s expandability is the better way to go.

Wireless and Battery

The iPad’s top config includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, and 3G.  The Skylight is similarly configured.  What I’m not sure about (cause Lenovo be mighty stingy on the specs) is whether or not the Skylight has GPS.  I would assume yes, but you never know.

Both devices boast 10 hours of battery life under “normal” conditions.

Summary

So there you have it – the iPad is basically a Skylight without the keyboard.  From a capabilities perspective, the two are very comparable.  However, the Skylight provides all the features discussed above at a top price of $499, whereas you’ll pay $829 for a similarly equipped iPad.  Then you add in the accessories necessary to make the iPad match the Skylight’s feature set and you could get almost two Skylights for the price of a top of the line tricked out iPad.  Heck you might even be able to get Lenovo’s removable-screen IdeaPad for that price.  That would give you a netbook AND a tablet.  From the press release, it seems that Lenovo has the same deal with AT&T that Apple does – that is, no contract data access plans.  I’m guessing they’ll be similarly priced too.

The key thing that will differentiate these two products then is the apps that run on them.  In that area, the iPad has a significant advantage over the Lenovo, but I’m sure Lenovo isn’t going to be an app gatekeeper like Apple is.  This is both good and bad, but it does put the Skylight at a very distant starting point.

Never thought I’d say this, but, Hitler got it right this time. The iPad is somewhat a disappointment. No camera. No multitasking. No Flash. No Thanks.

So there seems to be some minor event happening today out in California where Apple is planning to talk about a small upgrade to their product line.  We here at GadgetMeter wouldn’t know anything about this because such minor product announcements are beneath us.  When Apple releases something worthy of mention, we will deign to notice.  Until then, we sit contemplating weighty thoughts on life, the universe, and how to make a perfect Korean burrito.  (Add us to your damn invite list, Apple!!!!  You hear me?!?!?!)

In all seriousness, the hype over the upcoming tablet announcement (thank you Mr. Terry “Loose Lips Sink Future Apple Relationships” McGraw) is reaching levels that no product could possibly satisfy.  Unless this thing raises the dead and cures cancer, it will be deemed a failure.  I mean, c’mon – it’s just a gadget.  And it will stay a gadget until people start doing stuff with it.  The iPhone was just a clever gadget until people started developing apps for it.  Ever hear of AppleTV?  No?  It too was a clever gadget but no one ever did anything for it (and the few times people tried, Apple squashed them like a bug) so it’s disappeared.

Most likely, the tablet will be a very interesting take on the whole space.  Companies have been trying to get critical mass in the tablet space for a while but the devices have all suffered from two major flaws – heft and Microsoft.

Have you seen the typical tablet?  Until CES this year, they were all massive, weighing in excess of 3lbs.  Try carrying a 3lb weight like a microphone for 10-15 minutes.  It gets darn uncomfortable.  Now try that with a 5lb weight.  Even harder.  Get the picture?  No one wants to lug something like that around.  Sure, you can sit down at a local cafe or prop it up on a flat surface, but the point of it is to be able to walk around, interact with it, then put it away without thinking about it.  If the heft makes you hesitate to pull it out, the tablet has failed.  The great thing about the iPhone is that it made itself seamless in your life.  Need to look something up?  Whip out the iPhone.  My fiancee and I have settled arguments at dinner by grabbing my iPhone to Google something.  Now think about doing that with a PC.  Not even remotely possible.

The other major issue with tablets to date is Microsoft.  Let’s face it – hardware manufacturers are not very good at software (”cough cough” Dell especially sucks “cough cough”).  In fact, Apple is probably the only hardware manufacturer that does good software.  Because hardware makers suck at software, they rely on Microsoft Windows to provide functionality and as we all know, Windows is not optimized for anything.  It has huge bloat, the interface was never designed for mobile use, and its tablet functions were always an afterthought.  Even Windows 7, which has tablet functionality baked in, is an example of this bloat.  Why do I need a full Windows 7 install for a tablet?  It only adds disk, memory, and processing requirements onto a device that should be light and fast.  This carries down to the mobile space, where Windows Mobile 6.x is the latest example of bloated interface requirements being implemented on a device that has no desire to be a PC.  Unless Microsoft drops this “one universe one way” approach to their segments, they will rapidly become irrelevant.

What Apple excels at is minimalistic design of both hardware and software.  You can admire their hardware aesthetic, but their software minimalism is just as important to their success.  The iPhone OS does very specific things and it does them very well.  Furthermore, it provides a framework that allows developers to do 80%-90% of what they want to do, which for most people is JUST FINE.  If Apple doesn’t think something is absolutely needed, they don’t include it.  You don’t see a Mac interface in all its complexity squashed into the iPhone – they took the important stuff and put it in, but they weren’t wedded to absolute reproduction across their product lines.  They also aren’t afraid to break backwards compatibility (as they showed when they shifted to Intel chips).  I’m guessing that Apple is going to be very unconcerned about iPhone OS4 being a slow-as-molasses experience on an iPhone or iPhone 3G.  The future of Apple relies on regular hardware replacement.  They won’t care that you can’t run Quake 4 on your original iPhone if it forces you to buy iPhone v5 or v6.

I think the tablet will be similar.  Apple will provide an expanded framework based on iPhone OS.  It will do some things similar to the iPhone, it will do other things differently.  But because Apple’s already invested in a method by which developers can reach end users in an efficient, relatively cheap way, they already have a bunch of folks who will build new ways to interact and use the tech that Apple has given them.  I’m looking forward to this event not because of what Apple will release, but because I’m eager to see the creative potential of their new product.  It’s no accident that their invite uses a creativity theme.

With everything being about touch screens lately it only makes sense that eventually the problem of using gloves would come up. It’s cold outside, you’re wearing gloves, your iPhone rings, and you have to take the gloves off to answer it because otherwise the screen won’t register the change in capacitance between the screen and your finger in order to execute the command you are trying to give it.
See, that’s how touch screens work. The human body is a conductor of electric current, and when you touch the screen of a capacitive touch screen device it detects the distortion of the electrostatic field (apologies to those of you who know this already, but I’ve found myself explaining it to several of my friends recently who have iPhones but know nothing about how they work).
I’ve heard there are special gloves on the market that you can use to solve this problem. But why purchase a whole new set of gloves (expensive ones probably) when yours are just dandy?
There is a solution. A really really CHEAP solution, that takes just the tiniest bit of DIY spirit.
There is a whole how-to article on Instructables.com, so I won’t go through the steps here. But the gist of it is that you sew a little conductive thread (yes, there is such a thing) into the tips of the fingers of your gloves. It completes a circuit with your flesh and blood finger, and viola! You can now use your touch screens without taking off your gloves.

Now go and check out all the other fun stuff you can do with conductive threads, you crafty DIY nerds you!

Also, if you don’t want to order a whole spool of thread, you can order just a few feet of it from here

Via Coolest Gadgets