The Brunch Table

The iPhone is the most sci-fi artifact I’ve ever owned, even if Safari is Crashy McCrasherson. (For those of you with my old number, subtract 202-424-0331 to get my new one.)

Uh-oh, the in-laws finally have my number—they’ve stumbled upon my fondness for odd timepieces. There are plenty of appealing clock faces out there, but I’m not so interested in anything that could be built using a standard movement. No, since timekeeping is so efficient these days that you can literally get watches in cereal boxes, it’s much more interesting to see devices whose creators have made a deliberate effort to be impractical: flip clocks, nixie clocks, binary clocks, and the like. Not only did Justina’s parents get us a marble clock, which I’ve been wanting since I first saw one as a kid, but they also gave us a nifty pin clock:

The pin clock is uses a typical 7-segment number display, except that instead of using LEDs, the segments are made up of little pins with solenoids behind them to push them forward when they’re on. The digits change with a satisfying “chunk”.

The marble clock is also interesting from an aural perspective—the nature of the mechanism means that it makes different types of clattering sounds at every minute, 5 minute, and hour increment. I think I’m going to try living with it in my office, to see whether the sounds of time passing will be helpful, distracting, or simply drowned under my music.

Sony’s LIBRIé ebook reader appears to be the first consumer device on the market with an honest-to-goodness e-ink display. The device retails for about ¥41,790 ($380), has a 170dpi high-contrast black-and-white display from E Ink/Philips, and can display 10,000 pages on 4 AAA batteries. I’m hoping that this means that widespread availability of e-ink for device displays (and my company’s signage work) is right around the corner. More coverage here.

Update: Some first impressions are up. Screen is impressively readable (though very slow to refresh), UI is mediocre, DRM sucks. Interestingly, it’s built on embedded Linux, and therefore some of the source code is downloadable.

Radio Shack is closing out some of its DigiTraveler GPS core devices for a ridiculously low price of $30. They’re serial peripherals for computers and PDAs, not stand-alone devices, but if you have any interest in geo-hacking, you can’t beat the price. They’re hockey-puck-sized devices that are powered by 3xAAA or a 6V adaptor, and they spit out standard NMEA serial GPS messages at 4800 bps. There are two models: the 20-1601, which comes with software and cabling for iPAQ 3670/3685 & Palm m125/m130/m500/m505/m515/i705, and the 20-1602, which has a standard DB-9 serial cable and Windows software (the GPS unit is the same for both models). Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a single 1602 unit in the Boston area, but the 1601s were easier to track down (I know for a fact that there are still a couple at the Meadow Glen Mall Radio Shack.) Given how freakin’ many Radio Shack stores there are, you’re bound to find a few units in your area if you act quickly. If you can only find the PDA version, you can get a PC cable shipped to you for $18, or you can roll your own using standard serial and phone connectors.

More technical details on the device here, here, and here.

I have a fair amount of respect for Walter Mossberg, the Wall Street Journal’s personal technology reviewer. He tends to pay close attention to the basic sensibility and usability of a device, rather than being blinded by the bullet points. Yesterday’s review of the new Fossil Palm watch is a great example–he confirms that the PDA aspect of it is dorky and impractical, but is intrigued by its incidental ability to dynamically change the virtual “watch face”.

Swatch really pioneered the concept of the wristwatch as a downmarket fashion accessory that you could swap to fit your mood and outfit. (I’ve heard that in the interests of keeping their designs interesting and fashionable, they have a voracious appetite for fresh young designers, which they dismiss after bleeding them dry for 6 months or so.) As Mossberg points out, this is the true mass-market appeal of the high-res digital watch–in theory, you could choose from a near-infinite number of interesting face designs, and switch to a different one in a moment’s change of heart. Personally, I’d love to use it to simulate some older, baroque timekeeping designs, like Chinese water clocks, the lion fountain from the Alhambra, or some of the experimental 24-hour designs that people tried before they standardized on the modern 12-hour face.

My trusty old AudioRequest is decent for playing MP3s on my stereo, but I’ve been using it less these days. For one, its fan and drive are very loud, particularly in contrast with my iBook, which whispers pleasantly in my peaceful home office. I’m also loath to leave it on because of the amount of power that it consumes. Finally, while the TV-based interface is pretty good, it’s less straightforward to control when you’re not in front of it (and I’m speaking as someone who wrote what became the core of their Java-based remote control app).

On the other hand, if one were to combine the silent, low-power, hackable SLIMP3 network MP3 player with the silent, low-power, geekto-fabulous 120GB Martian NetDrive server, it would make a compelling MP3 solution indeed. And the NetDrive supports the SLIMP3 out of the box. Yum.

This image, from a Wired News story about what Palm’s supposedly doing right these days, captures one of the biggest problems that I have with PalmOS–its abysmal networking support. A wi-fi “dialup” process? Criminey.

My dream camera is finally about to go on sale. I had heard about the SMaL Ultra-Pocket reference design a while back, and I’ve been waiting impatiently for it turn into an actual product ever since. It should be available this month for $130; there’s a review here. Other contenders for the tiny camera crown are the Aiptek Mini Pencam 1.3 and the Casio EXILIM. Anyone want to give me a late birthday present? ;]

Here are some other options: Che-ez SPYZ! (great name), Axia Eyeplate (same OEM as the Logitech), and the SiPix StyleCam Blink. Hmm, I’m tempted by the cheez spy.