Category: Technology

Just read an article on The Register about how the latest Bluetooth scare is that if you go to the United Arab Emirates, someone might hack your phone, implant porn on it, and you’d end up in jail. There are many people out there with bluetooth phones who could easily fall victim to this. I know this because I have witnessed 2 fellow employees at work, both with new phones and both the first time owning a bluetooth phone. Someone in the office had a nokia phone infected with a virus and it sent it to the 2 new phones, the employees thought someone was trying to chat with them and accepted to install the virus. These were young men in their 20s so imagine the problems older less technology understanding people would face. It would really suck to get thrown in jail for mobile porn.

After I left the office yesterday I went home and picked up Nat. I told her we are going to Aramex to pick up the PSP. She was like didn’t they say 8AM tomorrow? I was like whatever, they get the packages tonight, we camp at Aramex till they get them. I was like worse case we have a bunch of magazines that arrived at Aramex last week, we pick those up and read them while we wait. So we get to Aramex at 7PM and right as I am about to open the door of the car, Aramex call me. They tell me my package arrived and I can pick it up. I was like thanks, I am right outside! We pick up the PSP, park on the side of the road and we start tearing up the boxes. Luckily our PSP came with a starter kit which included a car power adapter.

We switch on the PSP, and first thing I start looking for are dead pixels (dots on the screen which don’t change color). There was a speckle of dust on the screen I tried to remove with my finger when I realized that the tiny speckle was a dead pixel. I was like this is it? For some reason I expected it to be bigger, but because the PSP screens pixels are very fine, a dead pixel is barely noticeable even when the whole screen is black. I ended up finding 2 dead pixels, one on the first row and one in the middle right of the screen. Both not noticeable even when looking for them.

We got the Spider Man 2 movie with the PSP so that was the first thing we played. I was totally blown away, the image was extremely clear, sharp and the colors very accurate. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I am no stranger to technology but the screen was like nothing I had seen before. I then put the game WipeOut Pure and let Nataly play till we got home. Once home we were able to try out the other games and get a better feel of the PSP.

My only disappointment is in the sound department. The built in PSP speakers are not good enough. I don’t know what I was expecting but I know I wasnt expecting speakers you would find on a gameboy. With the earphones on though you get totally immersed in the game.

The good things about the PSP? The screen definetly is the coolest thing, when lying in bed at night watching SpiderMan 2, for a brief moment with all the lights off you would think you lived in the future. Its like having a plasma screen that fit into your hand. The load times of the games were unnoticeable. On paper 10 seconds feels a lot but in reality its hardly noticeable, except for the game Tony Hawk were load times were longer then 10 seconds. The battery life was high, I spent 2 hours atleast playing with the PSP and then put the system on standby and today morning I checked and it was still at 90% charge. Also incase you have a spare battery swapping them is very easy.

In conclusion, as I mentioned on Miskan, there is no PSP vs DS war. The war is over. There really wasn’t a war to begin with. While the Nintendo DS is catering for under 18s the PSP is catering for people aged over 18. They are two different machines for two different groups. I will probably definitely get a DS but like my gamecube it will probably gather dust in the cupboard. Click here for a picture of my PSP with my PDA and phone.

I was walking in Salmiya yesterday when I noticed that there seems to be a lot more DVD and VCD hawkers on the street. A few minutes later while passing some more hawkers I noticed something really cool. One of the street hawkers had a portable DVD player with a built in LCD screen. That guy has to be the smartest hawker on that street. He can use the player to attract people to his stand and then allow them to try the movies before they buy it. This way he creates better customer satisfaction and people will come back to him remembering him as the hawker with the portable movie player.

Since my new phone does not have bluetooth or GPRS anymore, I am going selling my Sony Clie PDA. The model version is UX-40. It has a 480×320 resolution screen, a keyboard with backlight, bluetooth with an option of upgrading to wifi, a built in VGA camera to capture pictures of videos, an excellent web browser, you chat on msn, use ftp, telnet, vnc whatever you want, it takes memorysticks, you can watch movies on it, its basically like a tiny PC. Out of 10 I would give my PDA a condition of 7. I am considering selling it for KD70 which is fairly similar to how much they are selling for on ebay, actually I think mine is even cheaper. I still have the box and manuals all in excellent condition. If you are interested contact me. Here are some pictures.

This is a repost

Zoom in.

Yesterday I purchased a Nokia 2600 as a gift to this guy who got us wasta for nats driving license papers. The phone cost KD29 (NEW) and it has a colored screen, polyphonic ringtones and even speakerphone. The guy rejected the gift! Not because he was nice but because he believed he deserved a better phone, he was hoping for a KD100+ kind of phone. Of-course I wasn’t going to get him one because the favor he did wasn’t that big. So now I am stuck with the phone, then while talking to nibaq we were discussing its features and I decided to turn the phone on. To my surprise the phone wasn’t half bad. It was quick, responsive and looks good. No bluetooth, no camera, no wap even. Still something about it just clicks with me. I keep telling people my favorite phone was the Siemens C55 which I purchased a few years ago for KD30. I guess this is like that phone except with a colored screen. So now I am keeping this phone. Nataly will be taking my Sony Ericsson T630 and we will be selling her T610. I will also be selling my Sony Clie UX40 PDA and using my Palm Tungsten instead. I will only store the numbers I use on the phone, like nats, nibaqs, tivo guy, parents etc.. All the other numbers I will still carry with me but they will be on my PDA. I am excited!

Someone in the office is selling a brand new, still in the box wrapped in plastic 60GB iPod photo for KD180. Interested? Then leave a comment.

Tivo Guy is back!! [Link]

I don’t know why I hadn’t heard of this until today but I just found out about the coolest fucking thing ever, the Sinclair C5. It was released back in 1985 and it was supposed to be the Segway of that era. The C5 worked on rechargeable battery that would last up to 30KM, if the battery finished you could pedal your way back home. Best of all it cost only 150KD. But, the Sinclair C5 was a commercial disaster. It got very negative media coverage and in the end only 12,000 C5s were produced and the project was killed off.

I really want one now, I checked eBay and they are selling for like 100KD only. Imagine me driving one down to Sultan Center or something. Its amazing!! Now I just need to find someone who would be willing to ship one from England to Kuwait.

Here are some links:
Sinclair C5 Enthusiasts
Sinclair C5 on eBay

PodBrix has launched a new site called PodShirt.com to sell shuffle integrated apparel. The first product is the iShirt. Similar to the PodBrix Brixwear 1000 shirt, the iShirt features an integrated patent-pending magnetic clasp system to secure your iPod shuffle to the front of the shirt.

No modification is needed to your iPod shuffle. Simply place it over the clasp area of the shirt and it locks into place. The shuffle stays firmly attached even with vigorous activity. A quick pull easily removes it from the shirt.

PodShirt is the extension of the Brixwear 1000 concept into other styles. We wanted to be able to create a variety of designs using the shuffle clasp system and not be bound only by the style concepts of PodBrix.

The iShirt is NOT a limited edition. It is available for purchase now at PodShirt.com for $28.99.

A robber posing as a customer took a dozen not-yet available for sale video game systems from a GameStop store near Matthews.

PlayStation Portable – the current rage for gamers – goes on sale nationwide after midnight tonight. Some Charlotte-area stores are opening at that hour to sell the $249 handheld devices, known as PSPs.

The GameStop on Galleria Boulevard had 12 taken Tuesday night, when a man went into the back storage room just after 7 p.m. and helped himself, according to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police report.

When a clerk confronted him, he tried to knock her glasses off her face. She was not seriously hurt.

I think my Sony Ericsson T630 is dying. This past week while talking to people on my phone I was hearing crackling sounds. Yesterday while talking to Nibaq he told me he was also hearing the crackling sounds on his side. So yesterday night I went into the “Service Tests” menu (From main screen press > * < < * < *) and I did the mic test and as I had expected all I was hearing was the crackling sound. Seems the mic on the phone is fucked. Now I don't know what to do. I am soo bored of all the phones in the market. I don't like Nokia, I hate the samsung brand, siemens are interesting but the phones they have which I like don't have bluetooth. Motorolla also have interesting phones but even the ones with bluetooth don't work with my mac and pda the way they should. So that leaves Sony Ericsson. My past 4 or 5 phones were all Sony Ericssons. They work best with my Mac (isync) which is the most important thing I look for in a phone. But there is no SE phone that interests me now. The S700 is cool but big and expensive. The P series I dislike because of their Symbian Os. That leaves me with the K700, which is probably what I will go with. I think I should be able to find it for a decent price now. If it turns out to be more then what I want to pay I will definitely find a second hand like new condition one for a lot cheaper. I am so bored with phones...

I was just checking some Sony PSP game reviews on IGN and Gamespot and was happy to see that most of the launch games scored pretty decent and high scores. When the Nintendo DS and Ngage released the first batch of games, most of the games scored terribly low. Actually, if you take the average score of the PSP launch games which is 7.7 on IGN (7.8 on Gamespot) and compare it to the DS which has an average score of 6.4 on IGN, you will see Nintendo isn’t doing that well at all. The DS has even been out for awhile now and very little games have been released. Even the upcoming games for the DS aren’t that exciting at all. With the PSP on the other hand they have a pretty decent launch lineup with RidgeRacer, Wipeout, Tony Hawk, Need for Speed Underground: Rivals and Lumines. Plus there are some cool upcoming games coming up like Metal Gear Acid, Colin McRae Rally 2005, Grand Theft Auto and Grand Turismo. I am glad Sony decided to release a handheld system. I hate monopolies and Nintendo hasn’t been very innovative recently. It took them what, more then 10 years to come up with a backlit screen for the gameboy? Come on..

I just did a search for Podbrix on ebay and I got 13 results. Current bidding on a Keynote podbrix is $60 with 2 days to go. Original price was $17. tshirts which went on sale and finished today are currently at $76 for a medium with 5 days left for bidding. Original price, $29.

Click here for the ebay podbrix search

The first PodBrix apparel item goes on sale tonight (3/21/05). The Brixwear 1000 is a signed limited edition of 300 units. It features an integrated patent-pending magnetic clasp system to secure your iPod shuffle to the front of the shirt.

No modification is needed to your iPod shuffle. Simply place it over the clasp area of the shirt and it locks into place. The shuffle stays firmly attached even with vigorous activity. A quick pull easily removes it from the shirt.

The Brixwear 1000 is available in medium, large or x-large sizes. There are 300 units in total; 60 medium, 120 large and 120 x-large.

Each Brixwear 1000 shirt will sell for $28.99. It does NOT include the iPod shuffle. More details and product photos will be available on the PodBrix.com site at 9:00pm.

Click here for a large picture of BrixWear

Update: As expected it got sold out the same time they went on sale