BIT - BYTES
Email for Dummies
We've seen a bunch of email appliances over the past few months. These stand-alone boxes typically integrate a small LCD screen, full-sized keyboard, and from one to five mailboxes in a small and easy-to-use device. Vtech, Landel, and Cidco have all released these products, at prices ranging from $80 to $170 for the hardware and about $10 a month for the unlimited messaging.
Now startup eNote has jumped into the game with its new TVemail product. This small box is similar to the others except for one feature. It doesn't include a tiny LCD screen. Instead it uses the TV to display email. Installation is more difficult than the competition, because you have to connect it up to your phone line as well as to a TV. And because many homes don't have phone lines by the TV, this may require running wires.
The tiny box comes with an infrared keyboard, which is reasonably easy to use. Colored keys map to system function keys to make it easy to navigate. Sending and receiving messages is pretty easy. The software is clean and uncluttered. It even makes it easy to add new addresses to the address book by prompting to add a sender's email address if it's not already in the list.
You can have up to five password-protected addresses in one box, which helps when shared by a family. In addition, the TVemail box calls out once a day to poll for mail, and receive customized news, sports, and weather. ENote also plans on adding shopping services to TVemail, making it easy to buy things like Vermont Teddy Bears without leaving the couch.
The Nokia 8850 at a Glance
*Availability: Europe & Africa, Asia Pacific
*Weight: 91 g (Lithium Battery) Dimensions: 100 x 44 x 17 mm,70 cc
*Talktime / standby time: 2 h - 3 h 20 min / 50 - 150 h
*Key features: slim & light, voice dialling, picture messaging, smart messaging, predictive text input, matte aluminium covers
*Display: illuminated high-contrast, full-graphics display, 5 lines for text and graphics
* Data capability: built-in infrared link and modem; supports data transmission 9.6 kbps
*Dual-band GSM 900/GSM 1800, supports Extended GSM 900 band (EGSM)
HP CapShare 920
Students, attorneys, and road warriors, listen up: With HP's CapShare 920 scanner, you'll never have to tear articles out of books again. This portable device packs a scanner, memory, and an LCD screen into a package roughly the size of the original Walkman, allowing you to capture passages from printed articles for later use. But unless you're constantly mobile, this scanner's high price and performance quirks make the machine more trouble than it's worth.
Toy or Tool?
The $499 CapShare 920 fits easily in a jacket pocket or a briefcase, and its curved, rubberized top feels comfortable in your hand. The front of the CapShare features a small black and white LCD for viewing captured pages, as well as a handful of convenient buttons for scanning, navigating, and transferring pages to your PC. You can easily send pages to your system via the IrDA or serial port, and the unit even includes a serial cable. The CapShare also ships with rechargeable batteries and transfer utility software.To scan a document, press and hold the scan button, then slide the small scanning surface around the edge of the page in a rough square. The CapShare takes care of stitching the scanned image together and automatically runs its OCR software on text. You'll need a little practice moving the scanner at a consistent speed and following the recommended scanning paths for different document types, but once you have the hang of it, the process should take only seconds.
Scans à la Mode
The HP offers three capture modes for storing different types of pages: Normal for text pages, Graphics for pages with graphics or pictures, and Flip Chart for storing oversized pages. Unfortunately, normal-sized text becomes illegible when scanned in Flip Chart mode. The device stores nearly 50 text-page scans or about 10 to 15 image-page scans.
We found transferring documents via both the infrared and serial connections to be a generally straightforward process. The CapShare will even send captured articles to a Windows CE handheld, a palm-size portable, a Psion handheld, or the Nokia Communicator.
The CapShare's main hang-up lies in the inconsistent way it handles scanned pages. In our evaluation, we had to scan certain paper types, particularly newsprint with bends or wrinkles or glossy magazine print, several times before we obtained legible results. Pristine corporate documents and reports scanned without a hitch, as did books, which is good news for the users most likely to benefit from the CapShare: corporate road warriors and students who do lots of book-based research.
The rest of us are likely to see the high-priced CapShare as an intriguing curiosity that fails to offer enough bang for the buck. But if you have the need and the means, the CapShare may be just the portable scanner you're looking for.
Sony Aibo Robotic Dog
When Sony unveiled its first robotic dog, the Sony Aibo ERS-110, 5,000 units of the diminutive electronic companion were snapped up almost immediately, despite its $2,500 price tag. Now Sony is making another 10,000 units available, slightly different than the first set. Not only will this digital pet play ball with you, roll over, and learn commands, it is also the harbinger of entertainment devices of the future.
A Mind of Its Own
Walking, talking toys have been around for years; what is so different about the Aibo? The dog is not just a remote-controlled device, but an advanced, autonomous robot with its own synthetic motivations and behavior patterns that continue to develop over time. Using a 64-bit RISC processor, 18 specialized motors, and removable memory storage, the Aibo is an electronic creature that responds to its environment.
It gathers information from the world in a number of ways: there are microphones in its ears, infrared sensors in its eyes, touch sensors in its paws, an internal gyroscope for balance, and a temperature sensor that prevents it from overheating in hot weather. Once the information is collected, the Aibo dog can dance to musical tones emitted by an included handheld device and chase around its pink ball. It also performs other doglike motions, such as rolling over onto its side, scratching itself against the floor, and getting back up, after which it will occasionally raise a triumphant paw. As the Aibo dog gathers more information, it becomes more advanced. If it's kept active, the dog reaches maturity in three to four months.
As if that isn't enough, for an extra $450 you can get the Aibo Performer Kit, which lets you design new movements and reactions. In other words, you can teach your Aibo dog new tricks. Since you download the new behaviors onto removable storage cards, tricks can be shared among multiple dogs via email and the Web.
The Next Mass Entertainment?
While the idea of paying $2,500 for an electronic product that doesn't perform any useful function strikes us as strange now, the fact that the Aibo dog doesn't do anything productive is central to the whole idea of entertainment robots. Sony's goal is not to create a robotic slave that will do your chores, but rather an electronic companion that will make you chuckle with an endearing turn of its head or a playful paw swipe at a ball.
We love the Aibo dog because it's an ambitious leap toward the future, and it manages to appear quite friendly despite the fact that it's made of plastic, processors, memory, and metal. Obviously, not everyone can afford a $2,500 robotic dog, but those who can will be happy with their new best friend.