iRecord Pro -The VCR for Digital Media Plug & Play Recording

The Digital Media Recorder Defined

As those of you who follow this Blog know,  I'm constantly seeking out new technology that I believe enhances the user experience by simplifying an otherwise time consuming process.

I recently acquired an iRecord Pro digital media recorder a.k.a. the "Digital VCR." The iRecord Pro truly simplifies the task of recording high quality video and audio to digital media. The iRecord Pro is a versatile and easy to use product.

Up to now, in order to get high quality video or audio from your DVD, cable box, or camcorder onto digital media like a flashdrive or iPhone/iPod  you were limited to either paying for an iTunes download or using PC video capture software to process the video into a universal video format like H.264 and MP4 that can then be stored on media like flashdrives.  iRecord Pro gives you an easy plug and play alternative that the average VCR user can relate to.  Simply stated, if you liken the iReord Pro to the old VCR, then the FlashDrive, iPod/iPhone, or Laptop drive is just like the VHS tape. Recording video/audio and playing it back, doesn't get any simpler than that!

iRecord Pro - Digital VCR- hook it up to any source, cable box, DVD player, camcorder using the red,white, and yellow analog cables (like the old VCR), plug in a USB flashdrive or attach an iPhone/iPod cable into the iRecord, hit record on the iRecord and you have a high quality MP4 video/MP3 audio you can play on any PC, Mac, or iPhone.  

 

A quick view of iRecord features

Small in size, easy to carry around.







Plug the flashdrive directly into the iRecord USB port, record from any analog source, plug flashdrive into PC or Mac and play.

Attach iPod/iPhone cable directly to the iRecord USB port, record from any analog source, play AAC, MP3, audio or MP4 video.

DVD content recorded to PC now playing.







Is It Legal?
In a word -yes. Devices like the iRecord Pro use an analog  source similar to a  VCR  to record content to digital media.The "Fair Use" provision of the landmark Supreme Court Betamax case that makes home recording of copyrighted content legal applies to the iRecord Pro.
Hollywood vs. Innovation
Content owners, however,  want to restrict what consumers can now do with their content by imposing copyright restriction on the Fair Use provision.  According to Gary Shapiro CEO of Consumer Electronics Association: "We have long referred to the 1984 Betamax decision as the Magna Carta for our industry. The principle that copyright proprietors should not be able to impede the design, development, and sale of staple articles of commerce capable of significant non-infringing uses gave technology companies the incentive and the confidence to invest in research and new technology."

Read Gary Shapiro's recent articles on the subject of  Hollywood vs. Innovation:

Copyright Needs Limits, As It Restricts Innovation

Dear FCC, Please Don't Let Hollywood Break My TV


The iRecord Pro saves you time and money. It's the simplest way I've found to make high quality digital media recordings truly portable.

Copyright: F.A. Daniels, December 28, 2009, all rights reserved.

iPhone’s Virtualization of Electronic Gadgets-What’s Next?

Sea Change in CE
Last week I attended the Consumer Electronics Association forum in Phoenix Arizona. This is a three day annual event that I mention in my Blog profile. During the event I have an opportunity to network with consumer-electronics industry executives, review research data and see some new-to-the-world products in the annual "iStage" competition. The conference also features guest speakers covering diverse topics like the economy, lessons in smart marketing, and in how to find one's passion. In addition CEA researchers present their analysis of consumer buying habits and yearend sales forecast for various gadgets including cell phones, game consoles, MP3 players, and big screen televisions.
In reviewing some of the research data, I kept seeing the word "Smartphone" used to describe multifunction cell phones like the Samsung Edge, the Palm Treo, and the Blackberry. Included in this group was Apple's iPhone. But I question lumping the iPhone into this category. I asked one of the CEA researchers whether the use of the term Smartphone was really appropriate for Apple's iPhone. As the cellular telephone industry has discovered (much to their chagrin), the iPhone is far more than a cell phone with computer smarts. It Is nothing short of a powerful handheld computer (Mac) which can morph into virtually any other portable electronic device.

Anything You Can Do iPhone Can Do Better
These days the iPhone's virtuosity extends into replacing familiar products like, a wristwatch, XM portable radio, alarm clock, digital camera, camcorder, and GPS portable navigation. The equivalent functionality is either built into the iPhone or can be added via a software app. What this may mean is that entire portable electronics product categories eventually disappear or get reduced to only a few high-end devices. It makes me wonder whether the CE industry really knows where this trend may be going especially now with the entrance of Microsoft as a major CE player.

Quick History of CEA

To better understand where we're headed with the virtualization of electronic gadgets it helps to look back at how the CEA has evolved over the years as an organization. The CEA's name changes show the evolution of the electronic industry over the years. The CEA originally started as the Radio manufacturers group in 1924 then changed to Radio-Television Manufacturers Association in 1950. Next it was known as the Radio-Electronics-Television Manufacturers Association in 1953 eventually becoming today's Consumer Electronics Association. These changes were done to keep pace with new technology and broaden the product categories CEA represents. CEA members no longer need to be partially electronics manufacturers like Microsoft, Apple, and Sony. Now the likes of Google and Yahoo are also CEA member companies. Looking ahead this is a good trend for the continued health of the CE industry.
Apple vs. Microsoft –The Rematch
Will we see a big-screen TV with a Microsoft or Apple Logo on it? As one who lived through the battle between Apple and Microsoft for PC supremacy in the 1980s, it appears that Apple and Microsoft will once again battle for mind share and market share in the handheld computer business and soon other CE market segments like big screen TVs. After all, a great Apple retail store is a terrible thing to waste on just iPhones, iPods, and Macs.

{If viewing this page with Internet Explorer and widescreen format is not showing, click on the title in the upper left to view in widescreen format in a separate window}

 

Déjà vu All Over Again
As Dr. An Wang, founder of Wang Labs who played a personal role in setting business strategy for the now defunct company could tell you, don't bet your company on a product that can easily be virtualized by a PC. The Wang word processors were technological breakthroughs. They were easy to use, easy to maintain, and did only one function: word processing. The huge market for standalone word processing systems collapsed with the introduction of the personal computer. Early word processing programs like Wordstar and VisiWord gained a foothold in the market against Wang. Finally with MultiMate on the IBM PC replicating the interface and functions of the Wang word processor, the PC had completely virtualized the Wang word processor.
Traditional CE manufacturers had better beware of the PC in all its manifestations, desktop, laptop, and handheld. Even cable TV service providers are not immune to the virtualization of their content into something like iTunes which can stream to users' TV's over an Internet connection by-passing the cable service provider's revenue model.
What's the old saying," forewarned is forearmed?"
References:

http://www.ce.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Laboratories

Copyright: F.A. Daniels, October 29, 2009, all rights reserved.

Taking in The World With a SixthSense

Beyond Star Trek's Tricorder Technology is MIT's Prototype SixthSense Device

Science fiction buffs that Wikipedia “tricorder” get the definition: “in a fictional Star-Trek universe , a general-purpose device used primarily to scout unfamiliar areas, make detailed examination of living things, and record and review technical data.” Now it’s no longer science fiction. Tricorder capabilities are envisioned for today’s GPS equipped smartphones with image recognition camera technology and anywhere access to the Internet.

Although the Star Trek tricorder idea may have been visionary then, the talk of the recent TED (Technology -- Entertainment -- Design) convention is the amazing research being done at the MIT media Lab known as "SixthSense"–a fluid interface device that will advance the technology to a higher level.

How SixthSense Works

As described by the MIT developers: "SixthSense is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.The SixthSense prototype is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The hardware components are coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device. Both the projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user's pocket. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around us to be used as interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks user's hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques."

This allows the wearer to project information onto surfaces. You might use it to enhance your shopping experience, projecting a rating from Amazon onto books in a bookstore. You might enhance the printed copy of The Wall Street Journal with a projected video clip, or project a word cloud associated with someone onto their clothing as you talked to them.

What SixthSense Can Do Today

The MIT team describes its capabilities as follows: "The SixthSense prototype implements several applications that demonstrate the usefulness, viability and flexibility of the system. The map application lets the user navigate a map displayed on a nearby surface using hand gestures, similar to gestures supported by Multi-Touch based systems, letting the user zoom in, zoom out or pan using intuitive hand movements. For example, drawing a magnifying glass symbol takes the user to the map application or drawing an '@' symbol lets the user check his mail. The gesture of drawing a circle on the user's wrist projects an analog watch. The current prototype system costs approximately $350 to build."

SixthSense Information Displayed Privately

One can envision SixthSense technology deployed in a variety of display devices which will make it easier and less obtrusive to visualize information on the go. One method would be to use specially equipped eyeglasses where the SixthSense image can be displayed privately on the user's glasses.

Another technology under development is the LCD contact lens. Engineers at the University of Washington have for the first time used manufacturing techniques at microscopic scales to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights.

Implications of the Technology

The SixthSense technology may have far-reaching privacy implications that need to be explored. The technology however in its purest form can give us the ability to know and better control our immediate environment. When the technology is available in a cell phone size device that can instantly display information about the person place or thing we are observing at the time, we will have crossed a new threshold in the information age. A threshold that even Mr. Spock would envy.

References

http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/

http://uwnews.washington.edu/ni/article.asp?articleID=39094

http://www.ted.com/

http://www.innovation-movement.com/

Technology That Reads Your Emotional Response

Bio-Sensory Metrics

I am reminded of the first Superman movie with Christopher Reeve which featured a song with the lyrics: "Can you read my mind? Can you picture the things I'm thinking of?" Today the answer to those questions when it comes to a new frontier of marketing research is most likely, yes. Two Bay Area-based companies are now commercializing university research in neuroscience, or brain studies, to help companies develop better advertising, products, games, and web content. The two companies are NeuroFocus in Berkeley and EmSense in San Francisco.

Leveraging a rapidly growing body of research and insights into how the human brain processes stimuli like ads, messages, and products both companies use bio-sensory measurement to advise large clients like, Procter & Gamble, Disney, and Pepsi-Cola, on how to shape consumer messaging to drive results.

Companies Describe The Technology

EmSense describes its technology in this way:

"Zeroing in on the most critical aspects of advertising response – Cognitive Engagement and Emotion - EmSense provides quantitative guidance for evaluating and optimizing the impact of advertising on your audience. The Emband™ is one of the most advanced neuromeasurement devices in the world, and the only one specifically designed for market research. It records more types of measures than any other individual physiological measurement device, capturing not only brainwaves, but also breathing, eye-blinks, head movement, temperature and changes in heart rate. "

"Emband" device that is placed on user's head wirelessly transmits bio-sensory measurements to a computer.

NeuroFocus describes its technology similarly:

"We are able to track millisecond-by-millisecond brain responses to messaging. Our breakthrough techniques utilize advances in measuring attention challenges, emotional engagement, and memory/retention to measure the effectiveness of advertising. Our measurements are precise, unambiguous, and repeatable. The measurement method is established EEG technology, which is simple, non-invasive, non-influential, and comfortable for and familiar to consumers."

In the video below Dr. A. K. Pradeep, CEO of NeuroFocus describes how to measure what is a "superior experience" or the critical components in the total consumer experience. What he calls the 5-sensory experience.

Neuromarketing
Today with companies looking to fine tune their advertising spending to get the maximum effectiveness in building brand loyalty they are turning increasingly to companies like NeuroFocus and EmSense to lead the way in providing a new research paradigm centered on Neuromarketing.

Who Benefits from Neuromarketing? Just about anyone who sells products designed to build brand loyalty. This includes the companies that develop creative messaging for the brand. Neuromarketing is also increasingly being used in political campaigns including its use in the last election. Whether it's product "hot buttons" or "hot button issues" neuroscience is leading the way to use emotional response to uncover the elements in a message that produce the desired behavior.

Reference URL's:

http://www.emsense.com/

http://www.neurofocus.com/

Copyright: F.A. Daniels, August 3, 2009, all rights reserved.

Digital Media Ports – Connecting iPods and iPhones To a New Experience

Old iPhones Never Die They Just Morph Into iPod Touches
It's June 2007, and Apple is on the verge of selling its very first cell phone. The industry is buzzing about the cool features that include a revolutionary non-pen touch screen that recognizes finger gestures. Fortunately my 2 year contact obligation with Verizon for my trusty Palm Treo 700P is ending July 1st.

But wait, the expected retail price for the iPhone model including tax is over $600. That is almost the price of a stripped down lap-top. Not to mention that the cell phone carriers are listing Samsung, Motorola, Palm, and Sony Ericsson phones as "free" or selling them for $49 with a two-year contract. Even Microsoft's Steve Ballmer is railing against the upcoming iPhone for its astronomical price tag and proclaiming that for his money a smartphone running Windows Mobile is a much better value.

I begin to reconsider my decision to purchase a new iPhone on the first sale day at the $599 price tag. Then I start analyzing my decision process; let's see I need a new Internet capable smartphone with a large screen like the Blackberry and that costs $200. I am also in the market for a new video iPod at $299. So now I'm within $100 of the new iPhone. I decide that I'm going to go for it because $100 is a small price to pay for integrating a video iPod, cell phone and mobile web surfing terminal into just one device.

Three months later Apple drops the price to $399. Even with Steve Jobs' subsequent merchandise rebate for original iPhone purchasers of $100 had I really made the right decision?

Two years later just as I place my pre-order for a new iPhone 3GS at the AT&T store the answer to that question is still a resounding yes!

If you're like me and have saved some of your old cell phones in a box you probably have models from manufacturers like Motorola, Palm, Nokia, and Nextel just to name a few. One thing they all have in common is that they are pretty much useless after they are deactivated. Although you could stash one of these older phones in your trunk in case of emergency since 911 will still work even if the phone is not activated. But other than that there's not much more you can do with any of these older phones except donate them.

That's where the iPhone, even the oldest model, is different. With its built-in iPod functions, Wi-Fi, and cool design an old iPhone can live on long after it doesn't take or make cell phone calls.

How to Integrate iPods/iPhones Into Your Home Stereo System

If you are ready to breath new life into your old iPod or iPhone then you'll probably first need to upgrade your home audio receiver.

You will need a new Hi-Fi receiver like the Sony STR-DH700 that supports an add-on digital media port. The model DH700 also supports wireless speakers. There are a competing models available from Denon, Yamaha, Onkyo, and other manufactures with similar capabilities. If you decide on the Sony receiver and digital media port it will set you back about $450.

Digital Media Port next to my big screen TV is plugged into my Sony receiver down below. I can play the music on any of the iPods or watch video from my iPhone through my big screen TV and home stereo. The Sony receiver’s remote can be used to skip tracks and pause/play the iPods.

Sony STR-DH700 Receiver

The latest and greatest: Sirius XM Radio streaming via home Wi-Fi to my iPhone and into my stereo by docking with the digital media port.

Why Stop There-Go For Wireless Sound in Every Room

S-AIR™ Speaker System
This plug-and-play S-AIR™ speaker system, when wirelessly connected to the Sony STR-DH700 or a compatible home theater system, easily allows for multi-room listening. The Sony wireless S-Air speaker system shown above is $149 and can wirelessy control the Sony Receiver's source selection and iPod pause/play and track skipping from top mounted buttons.

Your Music is Reborn

If you've invested many hours importing music into your iPod or iPhone why leave it lying around collecting dust? Now they can sound better than ever connected to your home stereo through a digital media port.


Copyright: F.A. Daniels, June 21, 2009, all rights reserved.

RFID - Increasing The Velocity of Transactions, Personalizing Social Networking

"The Internet of Things"

Well before the Internet became a fixture of modern-day life, a new technology called the Universal Product Code (UPC) revolutionized daily commerce. The UPC bar code was first printed on industrial packaging and then onto just about everything that needed to be identified and tracked. The UPC led to many innovations. Large superstores like Wal-Mart and Home Depot wouldn't exist without UPC technology. Other innovative uses of the UPC include Medicine where bar codes are used to track patients and medications in a hospital avoiding mistakes that could be a matter of life or death.

For all the remarkable improvements in identification and tracking that the UPC has brought forth to date, a new Automatic Identification(Auto ID) technology call RFID, when coupled with the wireless Internet will far surpass it. The implications of RFID technology replacing or augmenting UPC will usher in a sea change in the way we market, sell, and consume products and services. Assuming that privacy and cost issues can be resolved, RFID we will be our entrée to the age of what one person called the "Internet of Things." In other words real world objects from coffee cups to greetings cards will be seamlessly interconnected to our social networks just as personal computers and smartphones are today.

RFID Briefly Defined

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a general term that is used to describe a system that transmits the identity (in the form of a unique serial number) of an object wirelessly, using radio waves. RFID are broadly classified as active and passive. The active ones contain a battery on the tag while the passive tags do not and instead use the electromagnetic wave from the RFID reader to wirelessly "reflect" their ID number. An example of the passive type is the subcutaneous "chip" under my dog's skin that displays his serial number when the vet passes an RFID reader over his back. There is a laundry list of other RFID uses including:

• Passports
  
• Product tracking
  
• Transportation and logistics
  
• Lap scoring
  
• Animal identification
  
• Inventory systems
  
• Human implants

Picture of an RFID tag used by Wal-Mart for supply chain tracking.

An example of how RFID can be used at the grocery store was first presented in a clever IBM commercial.

Consumer Applications

A far more intriguing application of RFID technology in the consumer space is a product now marketed by a French company Violet.net. The company's motto is "Let All Things Be Connected". Briefly stated, in their words, "Violet was inspired by a simple fact: the rift between the virtual world - everything happening on the other side of your computer screen - and the physical world we live in is growing, and growing fast. Violet thus envisions a space in which most of the objects surrounding us would be: endowed with intelligence; able to react or interact with us; and, most importantly, be connected to the network." Thus was born the Violet Mirror -- a device that can be connected to any personal computer over USB and can read RFID tagged items and trigger pre-assigned actions on your PC or social network.

Violet Video

Game Changing RFID

RFID in short is the game changing technology with a not-so-difficult implementation that when connected to the wireless Internet promises revolutionary results in how people will interact with each other and between the real and virtual world.

References and links:

1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rfid

2.http://www.tutorial-reports.com/wireless/rfid/standards.php

3. http://www.violet.net/

Copyright: F.A. Daniels, May 25, 2009, all rights reserved.

Authenticate or Innovate? The Perceived Fairness Doctrine

In marketing parlance, value is defined as the perception that creates a customer and helps build brand loyalty for a company. Academics reduce the concept of value to an equation: Value = Benefit - Price. An important component of value, often overlooked by businesses, is the perceived fairness of the purchase transaction. Simply put, if customers sense that the price of an item has been manipulated, they are either less likely to buy it or will not be repeat customers.

In the technology sector, some electronics manufacturers are starting to use digital authentication in a way that can cause customers to question the value of their products. Think of digital authentication as a process similar to the one performed every time you insert a card "key" at the hotel to unlock the door to your room.

Consumer electronics manufacturers like Apple, Sony, and Microsoft can use authentication technology to "authenticate" virtually anything that is attached to their mainstay products. Ostensibly, this is done to protect customers by requiring OEM products to meet the major players' engineering specifications or to safeguard intellectual property. But it seems that the technology can also be used to "tax" complementary product manufacturers thereby creating perceived price manipulation in the minds of customers.

Getting "Zuned"

A case in point is the MP3 player and the growing use of authentication software. A couple of years ago, I contacted the Microsoft manager in charge of third-party licensing for the soon-to-be announced Zune music player. I was calling Microsoft to obtain OEM hardware specifications for the Zune player so that our company could make accessories to attach to the Zune. The Microsoft manager was excited at the prospect of taking on Apple's iPod with the new Zune.

Beyond the Zune's new music features, it was going to be different from the iPod in another important way. The Zune would not repeat Apple's mistake of not requiring third-party device manufacturers to authenticate accessories that could be attached to the iPod. The Zune, by contrast, had built-in authentication capability that would render certain accessory devices, like chargers or cables, unusable unless the OEM first obtained a license from Microsoft.

Fast forward to today and it appears that now Apple, starting with its new diminutive iPod shuffle, has adopted the same approach with regard to accessory manufacturers. Only time will tell, but Apple may soon discover that it is creating the perception of price manipulation for its iPod Shuffle player.You can read more about the growing discussion on this subject in a Cnet story
http://news.cnet.com/report-ipod-shuffle-accessories-to-get-apple-tax/.

That Soft Drink Will Cost More on a Hot Day

Another somewhat more egregious example of how technology may be used to negatively affect the customer's perception of value was an "instrumented" soft drink vending machine that I viewed at a development lab a few years back. The vending machine looked like any other you've seen with one additional capability; it was equipped with an outdoor temperature sensor. This allowed the machine to be programmed to increase the price of the can of Coke or Pepsi based on the outside temperature. In other words you'd pay a higher price for the same can of soda on a hot day.

Looking at it from a strictly business standpoint, the technology made it possible to apply the law of supply and demand to an automated vending machine. But you can't help wondering how customers would react had they known of the vending machine's variable pricing capability.

Keeping Customer Loyalty

Manufacturers need to be mindful that today they operate in a "smart market" environment. Consumers know much more about products and their associated value than ever before. Isn't it is far better for companies to innovate and differentiate market making products than to use technology like authentication and instrumentation in a way that can leave customers feeling they are being manipulated into paying more?

Ultimately, it's about gaining and keeping loyal customers and establishing a personal relationship between the customer and the brand. In the Internet age, avoiding the perception of price manipulation is more important than ever.

Copyright: F.A. Daniels, April 30, 2009, all rights reserved.

You Talk, It Types?

Mondegreen

Last year a new word was added to the English lexicon mondegreen. Wikipedia defines it as: "the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase, typically a standardized phrase such as a line in a poem or a lyric in a song, due to near homophony, in a way that yields a new meaning to the phrase."

Here are some examples in song lyrics:

"There's a bathroom on the right" (the line at the end of each verse of "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival: "There's a bad moon on the rise")

"The ants are my friends " (from a lyric in the song "Blow' n in the Wind" , by Bob Dylan: "'The answer my friends").

Voice Dictation Finally Gets It Right

When you consider how easy it is for the average person to misinterpret what they hear and inadvertently give it a whole new meaning, just think of how extremely challenging it is for a machine to capture what you say and accurately convert it into a written word or phrase.

IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center began developing computer speech technology as early as the 1960's. I have long been a fan of voice dictation. I used the early version of IBM's product, ViaVoice, back in the 1990s when it was still being perfected. As personal computers became more powerful, voice dictation started to migrate from room-sized mainframes to desktop computers and eventually to laptops. Early PC-based voice dictation systems were commonly referred to as processor "hogs" due to the fact that they would burden any Intel 386/486-class processor to the point of slowing the computer to a crawl. They also contributed to many appearances of Microsoft Window's "blue screen of death" computer crash.

We've Come a Long Way

Modern voice dictation systems like Dragon Software's NaturallySpeaking 10.0 are finally delivering on the promise of accurate and responsive voice dictation.
If you're like me and dread typing multi-page documents or you can't even type the word "nirvana" wrong so that Microsoft Word will give you a choice to correct it with the right spelling, just saying "nirvana" into NaturallySpeaking 10.0 and having it magically appear in your sentence with its correct spelling is like, well, nirvana!

So here I am writing this blog posting with my voice. How accurate is it? Based on personal experience, it's at least 95% accurate. It all depends on your processor speed, the amount of memory you have available, and how much training of the system you've done. Training the system is accomplished by reading sample stories aloud during the software setup process and later as needed to increase accuracy.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10.0 and IBM ViaVoice are published by Nuance, a company located in the Boston area. Their products are currently available only on the PC platform, but there are other companies making versions for the Mac. A new laptop notebook or netbook is more than capable of giving you responsive and accurate voice typing capability.

What I Love About It

My current choice is Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10.0 Preferred Edition which includes a Plantronics Bluetooth wireless headset and adapter for use with a laptop computer. The wireless headset frees you from the uncomfortable and weighty wired versions that can often get in your way especially when using a laptop. You can also use this Bluetooth headset your with cell phone when you're not using it for voice dictation.

One major additional benefit with voice dictation software is the capability of most voice dictation software to read back aloud, albeit in a computer voice, what you have typed or dictated. This is extremely useful when writing anything that may contain words that look closely alike but have completely different meanings. For example, thanks to voice dictation software that proofread aloud some advertising copy, I was able to catch what could have been an embarrassing mistake interchanging soup "bowels" for soup bowls.

Cut Me Some Slack, and I'll Give You Some Time Back

We know that mishearing and misinterpreting spoken words is common among humans and is now even defined by a new word. Given that, isn't it time to have realistic expectations of the capabilities of a computer listening to your voice and typing words? Keeping that in mind, you can use voice dictation very effectively to "type," that is, if you don't mind a little real typing and editing to go along with the speaking. When all is said and done, using your voice to type translates into productivity that can help you get some of your precious time back.

Early Stage Tech Products Coming To You Soon

As a long time member of Consumer Electronis Association (CEA) I had the rare opportunity to attend the i-Stage or early stage new product competition last October in Las Vegas.

Below is a brief description of three of the most interesting new product ideas presented at the CEA Forum. These are as follows:

Amulet Devices- voice command media remote

The voice controlled Amulet remote was interesting however wasn't without its glitches including its inability to recognize certain of the user's voice commands. We were told that this was due to the noise level in the room. The most interesting feature was the ability of the remote to automatically skip all commercials simply by saying “skip commercials.”

Promotion Display & Technology (PDT)- 3-D Webcam

The 3-D Webcam demonstration at first seemed more about a novelty device than a serious consumer product. The company, PDT, said that it is bringing the product to market at a $69 price point and is working with Disney and other companies to joint market the camera. Their entire pitch centered on how their 3D webcam experience compares favorably with seeing Viewmaster images. They also showed 3-D video that had been uploaded to YouTube.

The 3-D webcam spokesperson pointed out that the 3-D wave is hot again with some Blu-Ray DVDs now packaged with 3-D glasses. Judging by the audience response to the PDT presentation, 3-D Webcams may have a sustainable market niche.. The technology still requires the red and green 3-D glasses. Nonetheless, the demo was fun to watch and PDT was voted as the audience favorite at the conference even though the $50,000 judges prize went to a another contestant, social networking start-up Boxee.

Lightglove-wrist mounted gesture pointing device

The final product demonstration that piqued my interest was the Lightglove wrist mounted pointing device. Demonstrations of playing an "Air-Piano" using only fingertip gestures looked quite amazing. Product images were not available. I believe this product is very promising with no lesser company than Monster Cable sponsoring the presentation.

More information about these products is available at the following URLs:

http://www.amuletdevices.com/

http://www.ptuk.com/

http://www.lightglove.com/