Charge your ipod…with your shirt?

Scientists have generated a microfiber fabric that can generate electricity and be stitched into clothing.  Soon you’ll be able to to put your cellphone/ipod in your pocket and it will charge simultaneously….

Pretty cool….

$.02…

-SD

The next step in the iPod product line

With all of the hoopla with the changes in the iPod line, I figured we could begin to go one step further to predict the next line…..

Behold:

Quick $.02…

-SD

Say hello to the new iPod

UPDATED: I wrote this while Steve Jobs was still announcing his product line.  Latest news: iPhone Price cut – $399 for an 8GB.  I think they’ll be getting rid of the 4GB model now.  $200 price cut within 2 months of the release….is someone a little tense about selling a million units by the end of Q3?

UPDATED: I’m going to update this post but I wanted to quickly put down what came out @ Apple today. For those of you that didn’t want to shell out $500 for a cool iPhone, you can now get essentially the same hardware without the phone for $200 less. This by the way, is absolutely genius. Jobs makes sure to rope people in with the unveiling of the iPhone and gains consumer interest. He sets a price point high enough so that pioneers will buy it but normal folks will be intrigued. Finally – he unveils a similar hardware product that gives people the choice to choose between phone and mp3 player. Not to mention, he makes sure that the price is consistent what it always has been.

I think the reason why the iPod is so successful is because there has been no change in pricing since its unveiling. As a result, when new updates come about, users get very excited because of the new technology it integrates. The iPod went from black and white, to color, to enabling photos, to enabling videos, and now, to enable YouTube.

The other thing that was announced today was the Apple ITunes WiFi. Essentially with this product, you’ll be able to download/purchase songs from the music store straight onto your iPod (look out Zune). They’ve also partnered with Starbucks so that you can go into a Starbucks store and use their wireless for free to download songs. This allows starbucks to get incremental users to their homepage to drive traffic, and allows iTunes to create effective partnerships.

The new iPod is called the iPod Touch

Here are the price points for the new items:

 

 

Gizmodo.com photos

As the rumors were true, the iPod Nano came out today as well….the fat nano.

Not too shabby….too bad the stock is taking a beating…I guess everyone expected it…

Just my $.02..

-SD

The new iPod Nano leaked…

Apparently some visual designers were playing around with some possible nano mockups and posted a couple on the internet. Essentially, they got one of them right because Apple told them to take it down.

So if you’re currently thinking about purchasing an ipod and don’t want to shell out $500 for an iPhone, the nano will begin to have video capability and is looking like it will be much wider than usual. Personally, I’m not a fan at all. If they patented multi-touch technology, they should begin to properly utilize them in all of their core products.

Here it is:

Just my $.02…

-SD

The start of a revolution

Before I begin this post, I apologize for being unable to blog as frequently as I should. I know I’ve said it before, but I was really waiting for some sort of ground breaking technology to shake up the industry to come out of hibernation. The tech guns have made some noteworthy news during the holiday season (especially in the realm of video game consoles) but nothing like the announcement made by Apple today. So without further adieu, let me break down simply why today will be remembered for years to come.

The iPhone

The idea of an all in one device has been tossed around by companies for years. RIM’s Blackberry, Palm’s Treo, Motorola’s Q, and Samsung’s blackjack all have taken steps to create a device that can replace multiple gadgets in your pocket. Most analysts discounted the thought of being able to create a single device for the consumer because no company does each facet of the technology properly.

That being said, Apple has come to blow away the competition with the all in one device that can truly do it all. Why is it superior to every other brand that I had mentioned above? Apple succeeds because:

• It has the brand recognition with the iPod to associate media music with phone capabilities
• It developed relationships with cingular early on (with the Motorola Rokr/SLVR) because they knew it was in the future. Jobs looks like a genius right now because of the 100 song cap placed on all motorola phones.
• It has the software set up to easily sync up with the computer and manage all of your contacts and music into a single transfer

Let me show you some pictures so that you can get a better idea of why this phone is different than any other:

 More to come later….

 

Just my $.02

 

–SD

Zune out in the open…

Apparently Gizmodo just found the Microsoft “Zune” player – aka IPod Killer – out in the open and took photos to prove it, shown below:

Apparently, every photo you’ll be seeing is going to be in black and white because the Zune will come with 150 color combinations.  That at least beats your standard black v. white iPod choice and the occasional red with the U2 collectors edition.

They also have magnetic earphones to make it easier to manage.

Looks pretty good msft….now launch it.

Short $.02

–SD

Motorola’s new lineup – move over razr

I’m sure all of you remember the time when having a motorola razr phone was quite possibly the coolest thing on earth. These puppies sold for around $500 and you’d maybe see one or two on the street if you were lucky. Cingular was the first provider of this phone and made a statement to all consumers…if you know technology, you should get the razr. I jumped on the bandwagon around 6 months later. This was the time when the razr price fell to 300 bucks and I wisely purchased an unlocked version on eBay. Don’t get me wrong…I loved my razr phone for the first 2-3 months I got. I synced my outlook with it, proudly made conversations and loved to quickly flip it open as soon as I received a call. After that, however, I realized that I wasn’t the only one on the street enjoying this luxury. Rather I noticed that these things began to pop up everywhere. Cingular started to give these things out for virtually free and the next thing you know, you have a normal, standard cell phone which the rest of the world has.

Don’t get me wrong, this is just technology in general in today’s society. Motorola, in essence knew that it was going to be a hot phone, and ended up producing significantly more than the demand needed. People were not going to line up out the door for a $500 premium phone. They would, however, add it on as contractual free phone though. Hey, it’s definitely the best of the free phones.

Well Motorola has semi-learned from it’s razr entry to the market and have already announced one of the phones on the market. This is called the motorola Q – and it happens to be E’s new phone on Entourage (my new fav. show)

I love this PDA/phone. It can do virtually everything and acts as your blackberry/palm/phone/mp3 player and is extremely thin. The only thing that is a bit problematic is that it may be too large to be an actual phone. If you’re thinking about that – you should look at one of Motorola’s newest phones…the Canary.

This is your razr which has slimmed down and become a bit longer. The cover looks pretty nice but in terms of specs, it’s the exact same as the razr. They’re still going to ride those razr coattails until they can do no more…and until then…America will still keep buying…

Also heard about a rumor on an iPod Watch…that would be pretty amazing…

Apple…be my best friend and make this…

Just my $.02 – I’m keepin it…

–SD

The iPod – why you should wait…

I used to be a huge fan of my iPod. The key word is “used to.” I’m not going to lie to you but the whole concept of having an iPod sort of lost its lustor when you started seeing everyone sporting one around. Whether it was the standard rich kid who gets all the gadgets before anyone, or the young 5 year old who got it for his birthday, regardless of where you go, you’ll see one. The coolest thing about the iPod was when it first came out, you would tell people that you got one and they would ask “oh, what is that.” Once you would show them a demonstration of the click wheel, they would get completely blown away. Quite frankly, it’s become such a part of our pockets these days (I qualify “part of our pockets” as essentials we don’t leave our homes with e.g. keys, wallet, phone…etc) that not having one is an issue. I’ve spent that last three months not having an iPod because my video somehow got stolen and let me tell you, it’s terrible…I never realized how much music actually plays a part in my life but just the simple fact of having the option to listen to music wherever you are makes it so great. I do agree that socially, the iPod kills all conversation….you know if someone likes you based on whether they take off their headphones when your talking to them versus simply lowering the volume…

This post was not meant to be a critique on the iPod but I figured I would throw that out there. The reason why you should wait if you haven’t bought an iPod is because as you know in the technology world, something new is always coming. The key is to buy that new item early enough so you can maximize it’s time at the top. Additionally, you should definitely sell the iPod you currently own within a week of the release date of the new iPod so you maximize the profit. Simple economics…but it works wonders.

Apple announced that it was supposed to release the new model by holiday season this year or even earlier…however it seems that it got delayed which means that in order for Apple to save face, when they announce their new products next year, it’s going to be a completely new line. Rumors are to upgrade the video to a full screen featuring touch screen menu options and even something called the iPhone…the new cell phone offered by Apple. Mock-ups of these have been floating around on the internet seen below:

This is probably a bit of a stretch as the video full screen takes on a nano thickness which I doubt would happen. This picture is much more likely :

Either way – any of these alternatives are currently better than the video right now. Or…if you’re smart, the current video’s price will start to go down once they accumulate inventory after this releases. They usually give them to wholesale merchants on the internet and sometimes you can get a steal.

That’s my $.02

SD

Microsoft says “Tag me in”

**UPDATE**

A small little update to this player that I just found out – apparently you are actually able to connect to other players on an ad-hoc level and see what other people are listening too….kind of like the itunes sharing mechanism that currently exists on networks – however, what’s even more cool is that you will be able to get prompted when a wireless network is in the area – I.e it will come in the form of a quick advertisement or something which makes it easy to connect to unknown networks.

As you can tell I’m fascinated – the ipod is getting a bit old and outdated…let’s all try something new.