Cleaning the Digital Device House

Baldwin Louie — Mon, 16 Jul 2001 15:00:00 -0700

POCKET POWER

My need for all things digital has become a physical problem. Whenever I leave the house, I carry a Palm Vx handheld computer, a Rim Blackberry 857 e-mail pager and an Ericsson T28 mobile phone. Juggling them is awkward, and my pockets are ridiculously stuffed. Rather than invest in a utility belt, I decided to try the Handspring Prism combined with the VisorPhone. Here was a device that not only offered the functions of all three of my gadgets but also promised real Internet access, thanks to the much-touted Blazer Web browser that now comes bundled with the Visor Prism.

The VisorPhone module plugs into Handspring Visors, giving the handheld computer a wireless phone and wireless modem, thus e-mail and Web capabilities. Besides reducing clutter, integration has other benefits. You need only one charger when you travel, not three. And the ability to work across applications is wonderful. I can highlight a phone number in an e-mail message, for example, then push a button and the number gets dialed. Or I can tap an e-mail address in the browser and an e-mail window pops up.

Even though the VisorPhone's modem speed tops out at 9,600bps, the Blazer Web browser does a remarkable job of loading HTML and wireless application protocol sites quickly. It does some software voodoo with streaming, caching and rendering, so sites pop up in just a few seconds.

Still, the VisorPhone is much bigger than a mobile phone and looks clunky, like a Lego project. And it isn't very comfortable to use. The top edge of the Visor digs into my ear. And my cheek rubs against the display. (Here's a tip: Don't wear sunscreen.) If you want to write something on the Visor or look up an appointment, you have to either take the phone away from your head, making it impossible to talk or listen, or use the supplied hands-free cable - but that means one extra thing to carry.

The e-mail program works fine, but I miss the always-on beeperlike functionality of the Blackberry, which alerts me whenever a new message arrives. With the Visor, I have to dial in to my Internet service provider each time I want to check my e-mail.

For now, the VisorPhone combo makes sense only for the gadget addict whose habit has become a physical burden. But in a few years, this thing will be sleek and thin, like a Palm V - and perhaps even smaller. It'll come with a wireless earbud. And it'll connect at 128Kbps, like Metricom Ricochet wireless modems do now. When that happens, buying one will be a no-brainer for anyone who can afford it.

VisorPhone: $99 (with purchase of Prism) or $249 separately. Requires service activation with one-year phone service contract.

Visor Prism: $399. Available directly from Handspring.com.

- Mark Frauenfelder is a frequent contributor to The Standard.

THE ELECTRIC SLIDE

Rolling blackouts and rising gas prices be damned, one company is offering a high-tech, stopgap fix to the energy crisis. Nova Cruz's sleek, 20-pound electric scooter, the EX-3, not only reaches speeds of up to 17 miles per hour, but it also (partially) recharges itself when it stops, by way of a nifty feature called regenerative braking.

At $899, or $1,098 with an extra battery, there's little danger of the EX-3 achieving the popularity of the Razor scooter. (Thank God.) So enamored of the EX-3 was reclusive inventor and "IT/ Ginger" creator Dean Kamen that he snapped up two for himself, according to the company. You can order one directly from Nova Cruz's site. - Kenneth Li

THINKING IN PICTURES

For a multimedia medium, the Web so far has been pretty text-oriented - at least as far as most search engines are concerned. Google, Yahoo and the like are great if you're looking for a research paper by some scientist. But if you want to find out what said scientist looks like, you're probably out of luck. Sure, AltaVista and Ditto.com offer image searches that mostly examine the file names of images. But if you want to find a picture of a teddy bear, you'd better hope the person who designed the site named the picture "teddybear.jpg" and not "MrFluffy.jpg." Now, with the recent launch of Google Image Search, the prospect of tracking down a specific picture just got a lot more promising. The new service searches a combination of image file names and surrounding content, giving strikingly reliable results. By way of comparison, we road tested a few image search engines with a variety of search types - from generic ideas ("standing in the rain") to specific figures to more-ambiguous terms such as "macintosh." - Ethan Smith

	Google Image Search (beta)	AltaVista Image Search	Ditto.com (formerly Arriba Vista)
Monika Henzinger (Google's Director of Research)	One head shot (found on site of former employer Compaq)	177 results, including multiples of the University of California at Berkeley's electrical engineering professor Thomas A. Henzinger and one of a Monika Waldebäck. None is the right person.	"Sorry, there are no images matching your search string."
Macintosh	A healthy assortment of Apple Macintoshes (the computers) and McIntoshes (the fruit), as well as a swatch of the Macintosh clan tartan.	Dozens of Apple company logos, plus a series of photos of a woman shooting her computer. No fruit.	A few current PowerMac models, inexplicable photos of the Backstreet Boys, plus a motorcycle and a manual typewriter.
"Standing in the Rain"	Various scenes of people in inclement weather, from Harvard student demonstrators to Colombian coca farmers.	Impressive array similar to Google results; tourists in Scotland, families in foul-weather gear and the like.	Cover of trumpeter Ron Hynes' Standing in Line in the Rain.
Malcolm X	More than 1,000 results, mostly portraits with a couple of book covers thrown in.	Hundreds of images of the leader, skewing toward video boxes, book covers and stamps.	Ten percent of 327 results show Martin Luther King's Civil Rights-era rival; the rest are less-familiar white men like Malcolm Kusher, author of Leading With Laughter.

The Industry Standard - Cleaning the Digital Device House - Comments

Cleaning the Digital Device House