Nikon is taking over the beach this summer. If you live in the New York area, you've probably been to a show at the Jones Beach theater out on Long Island, or at least overheard a concert from the boardwalk. This summer, the venue will be sponsored by Nikon, picking up where Tommy Hilfiger left off after four years.
Kelly Clarkson, of American Idol fame will be appearing there in July. I know fellow blogger Jen Deleo is just as excited as I am!
About 6 years ago, I saw Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers at Jones Beach, and it was one of the best shows ever. The stadium is small enough that every seat is a good seat, and you can't beat that salty breeze coming off the ocean. (It's also a lot easier to toke on the downlow, as the couple in front of me did, since the breeze masks the aroma.)
Speaking of drugs, they're also teaming up with Kate Moss for some edgy new advertising. Nikon is so cool!!! We at PC Mag are very excited to see what they'll do next.
In an effort to drive sales, Sony is reaching out to the Spanish community in the United States. You can now get the Sony VAIO FJ laptop en espanol by simply purchasing Microsoft's spanish operating system, better known as Windows XP Home Edition con SP2 en espanol. Try saying that twice.
The components are pretty much the same. You get an Intel Pentium M processor, a 14.1 inch XBRITE screen, 100GB hard drive, and DVD dual layer optical drive. The FJ series provide an option for spanish speakers. Whatever that means. And you can choose from a range of colors to match Sony's soccer themed promotion. With every purchase, you receive a certificate for a personalized soccer jersey with your name stitched in the back.
I'm still verifying if Tech Support will be available in Spanish. What's the point of buying a Spanish computer if I don't understand how to troubleshoot it?
BMW was first with an automaker-developed iPod adapter for its cars, back in 2004, and it's now the first with a second-generation iPod adapter. That lets BMW lay claim to having an iPod adapter for every car model now currently sold and, in BMW's opinion, to having the widest variety of automotive entertainment options available. Recently the company gave me a rundown of its new iPod adapter, expected to ship in July.
At the New York International Auto Show (NYIAS) in mid-April, BMW had announced the development of an iPod adapter for its cars that use the MOST (Media-Oriented Systems Transport) bus, a sophisticated, typically fiber-optic network for car audio and visual equipment. In plain English, the new adapter will run on the 3 Series, 5 Series, 6 Series, and 7 Series cars. The 2004 iPod adapter continues in the 2002 and later X3, X5, Z4, and previous-generation 3 Series (which includes the currently-sold 3 Series coupe).
In a moment of weakness, PC Magazine gave the first BMW iPod adapter a score of 4. One of its limitation is that you must set up five iTunes playlists, called BMW1, BMW2, BMW3, BMW4, and BMW5 (those words, none other) which correspond to five of your BMW CD-changer buttons. The sixth button invokes random play of everything on your iPod. On your radio screen, all you can see is a track number, 1 through 99. For that, you paid $149 plus installation, so the final bill from the dealer was in the range of $350 to $500.
With the new adapter, BMW has fixed many of the gotchas of the older version. You connect your iPod to a cable in the glove box. That provides both signal and power connections, so it's always charged when you pop it out, with none of the sound-quality loss experienced with cheap FM modulators. And using the radio dials or the steering-wheel controls, you can sort and play music by playlist, artist, album, genre, podcast, and a random selection of 500 songs from your library. Artist, album, and song information show up on the radio's display. You can also shuffle any of the selections.
We were impressed by the new adapter's better integration, although it's not appreciably better or different from current iPod integration in other cars or in replacement radios (for cars that allow replacements; not BMW and not most higher-end cars). At the same time, one aspect of the interface remains unpolished, and it's not about to change between now and when the adapters first ship in July. You navigate, via the iDrive controller or the car-radio dials, to the CD changer interface. Your iPod choices are linked to and called CD1, CD2, and so on. You have to remember which virtual disc corresponds to playlists, to artist into, to album info, to genre, to podcasts, and to random play.
BMW says pricing is yet to be determined, but it hints that the greater complexity of the MOST bus interface would justify a somewhat higher price. Also, the kit may include a protective glove, padding, or nest, so your precious iPod doesn't get scratched in the glove box. (The iPod nano's faceplate is apparently made from one of the softest materials known to man, sort of the opposite of a diamond.) We're hoping BMW recognizes that the pricing trend for technology gear is downward over time.
As for BMW's claim to have the widest selection of entertainment options: Each of its car comes with at least an AM/FM radio and the ability to add a CD changer. Most play MP3s and have line-in adapters. You can get Sirius Satellite Radio, though BMW charges more (typically $595) than just about every other automaker. The X5 and X3 SAVs have backseat DVD options. Many models have an ingenious premium audio option, where the body structure under the front seats forms two subwoofers.
What BMW means is that in its higher-end models (the 5, 6, and 7 Series), it's possible to have a car with iPod adapter, Sirius Satellite Radio, and factory-installed HD radio. But competitors are offering features that BMW isn't. For instance, the Mercedes S550 has a PC Card adapter in the dash, as does the Honda Civic, and the new Infiniti G35 sedan has a CompactFlash card slot. By fall, the upcoming Audi Q7 SUV will have a USB adapter that Audi says should let you play any music on any USB-equipped device, not just iPods.
Ever known anyone that isn't satisfied with something, so they have to do it their way? That's how PC Magazine's columnist Bill Machrone feels about the Apple Hi-Fi. So, he decided to create his own version of the iPod stereo system, dubbed: the iBoom Lo-Fi. The iBoom Lo-Fi is a portable music player that Machrone built for just $46. And guess what, you can build one too!
Machrone found an old boom box and transformed its cassette player to hold an iPod instead. He designed it so that the cassette player's buttons control the iPod. Imagine that!
And unlike the Hi-Fi, Machrone says that the iBoom Lo-Fi "completely encloses and protects the iPod, so you can take it to the beach, on a picnic, or just to the kitchen while you paint the trim."
Find out how he built the iBoom Lo-Fi, from disassembling the boom box and making his own buttons to finding a controller and assembling the parts.
Nokia unleashed three state of the art, multimedia phones in Berlin today. The N72 is a two-megapixel cameraphone with a glossy, fashion-forward look; the N73 (at left) is a 3-megapixel cameraphone with a Carl Zeiss lens running the Symbian smartphone OS, and the N93 is supposedly the highest-quality camcorder-phone ever released. The new models follow up on the success of Nokia's barnstormer N70 multimedia phone, which has been tremendously popular ...
Psyche! "Tremendously popular" outside the US, of course. The N70 was never released here, because US consumers are relatively uninterested in smartphones. Neither the N72 nor N93 are slated for a US release at all, and I have pretty low hopes that we'll be seeing the N73 any time soon. After all, we were supposed to get both Nokia's 6282 and N80 smartphones, and that didn't happen. Nokia is coming by PC Labs later today, hopefully to change my mind - look for a hands-on slideshow tomorrow.
Nokia also announced that they'd be supporting Flickr photo-sharing on their N-series phones, which is also relatively small news here because in the US, Cingular usually overwrites Nokia's standard application set with Cingular's own content relationships.
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