Here’s a tip that you might want to keep in mind next time you’re on a road trip and you rotate drivers between cars.
If you happen to have your mobile phone paired to your car you might want to turn off Bluetooth on your phone if you are going to be driving another vehicle that may remain in close proximity. If you don’t, what will end up happening is that your phone will still pair to its known vehicle when in range.
To add more confusion, if you receive a call in this scenario the phone might ring in the cabin of the paired vehicle and if the driver answers the call they will be talking to the caller. This could be more problematic if the driver or a passenger in that vehicle is trying to call you and they end up talking to themselves!
During the call, you should be able to deselect Bluetooth as the active voice channel (most smartphones have this functionality) but to save yourself the hassle turning off Bluetooth on your phone before you start driving will prevent this problem from occurring.
A lot of electronics vendors are at IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin) for the next few days to show off their wares and latest advancements in their product lineups. Panasonic had a Q&A this evening with one of their product experts live from the floor of the IFA which worked incredibly well. Apart from a problem with the Australian feed which ended up missing the first half of the session the stream itself worked very well.
It was fairly easy to submit questions and have them answered (I was lucky enough to get two answered despite missing the first half). If you want to check out my questions you can replay them using the following links:
These days, we have all sorts of interfaces in our computers: wired Ethernet, Wi-Fi, USB, Firewire, eSATA, Bluetooth just to name a few. However, sometimes the most convenient interface won’t be the quickest.
For instance, when I was transferring all the data from the old drives to the new drives in my Windows Home Server I started using a hard drive dock. What I didn’t realise at the time was I was attempting to do some heavy duty data transfers over USB – not the brightest idea (even if I was going to leave it going overnight). Eventually, I caught on that moving several terabytes of data would probably be best done by opening up the computer and hooking the drive up inside using a much faster SATA interface.
Similarly, when the new MacBook Air arrived transferring the data over Wi-Fi from the MacBook Pro was going to be slower than hooking one or both of them up with a cable to the network. Whilst using Wi-Fi would have kept the room clear of cable clutter it would have been much slower compared to 100Mbps or 1Gbps Ethernet.
Again, there are trade offs but sometimes you just need to take a hit on convenience for the sake of speed.
These days, smartphones have so much packed into them its a wonder that their innards don’t burst open. Some of the more common components crammed into smartphones are:
Bluetooth chipset and antenna,
Cameras (front and rear),
Capacitive touchscreen,
Cellular antennae (one for each frequency),
CPU,
Flash memory,
GPS receiver,
GPU,
SIM card holder,
Wi-Fi chipset and antenna.
In the case of the Samsung Galaxy S, that’s a lot of stuff to fit inside something roughly the size of an iPod Classic. So, when it comes to listening to FM radio on the SGS you might expect it to work out of the box without the need to connect anything else, right?
Well, not quite.
A lot of mobile phones won’t actually include an antenna for the FM radio inside and instead rely upon the wires inside your earphone cable to pick up the reception. This is also why when you try and run the FM radio application on the SGS without earphones connected it will refuse to start audio playback. However, there have been mobile phones with an internal FM antenna such as the Nokia 5030 and other feature phones. Having said that feature phones are less sophisticated and space challenged compared to smartphones.
Maybe with the way that electronics keeps shrinking FM radio might become more of a staple without connecting your earphones unless digital radio or streaming over he web becomes the mainstream.
I have just gotten back from the Panasonic 2011 launch event which allowed selected members of the Panasonic Insider Crew in for the first time with the media and major retailers. We were seated and presented to separately from the commercial folks at the Hoyts cinema complex at Fox Studios in Moore Park, NSW. I had the chance to meet some fellow Insiders including Tia with whom I had several interesting conversations about technology, films and other topics throughout the course of the evening. Like myself, she has her own blog that covers technology as well as other stuff like crafts and vintage fashions. Also, check out Jared’s Thoughts on Stuff which also covers this event – it’s been good to read other perspectives on the event.
Upon arrival, the Insiders were shown up to the mezzanine level (whilst the commercial folks stayed downstairs) and we were treated to drinks and nibbles whilst we waited for the presentation.
Panasonic Insider Crew Hang Out
Media and Retailer Hang Out (and a Tesla Roadster Sport on the right)
After our chance to catch up, we were shown downstairs to one of the cinemas to view the presentation. I’ll share more of what was covered in tomorrow’s blog but there are some neat things on the way including stuff to do with Skype and sharing digital content in the home.
Panasonic Product Lineup
Afterwards, we were given the opportunity to check out the new product lineup up close and also bounce questions off the technical folk on the floor. As you can see, flat panels are very much a key product in the lineup with plasma remaining the flagship platform when it comes to large panel displays and the push into 3D whilst bringing 3D to the lineup of LCD LED IPS units.
Panasonic's Smart VIErA Platform (Content Sharing)
Digital content sharing and connectivity was also heavily pushed with DLNA becoming mainstream in devices and allowing devices to be both DLNA servers and clients on the network. For homes where access to content is limited by how far a cable can be connected this could be an interesting proposition for homes where there are numerous television but perhaps only one hard disk recorder. There has also been an expansion in playable formats across the product range to include MKV and DivX HD.
Panasonic's Smart VIErA Platform (Streaming Services)
Panasonic is also expanding its platform from to allow streaming content from services such as ABC iView, UStream and WOW TV over and beyond the existing YouTube and Yahoo!7 services. Social media connectivity also remains an integral part of Panasonic’s offering in its display panels.
Panasonic HDC-SD900 3D Ready Full High Definition Camcorder
There were other gadgets on show including:
3D capable still cameras (including a point-and-shoot camera that creates 3D photos by panning the camera slightly),
3D camcorders (a slightly revised model based upon the 2010 model – pictured above),
3D Blu-ray recorders with up to 1TB of capacity,
Micro Hi-Fi units.
One of the Panasonic technical gurus showing off the HDC-SD900 camcorder
The technical gurus on hand were well informed (as you would hope and expect) and were very keen to talk about all of the products on display as well as previous generations of products. I asked a question about whether or not the latest functionality would be back-ported to the last immediate generation of products. I was fully expecting a response along the lines of “that is uncertain” or “I’ll get back to you” but I did get a tangible response to my question (even if the answer wasn’t what I was hoping for which was selected components that would run properly and without impact to user experience would be ported backwards).
All in all, it was a good night to get my geek on and mingle with some like-minded people. As I mentioned before, I’ll share some more of the details provided during the presentation and perhaps some more photos of the evening (as well as that nice looking Tesla in the lobby).
If you’re keen to look at my prior Panasonic coverage including unboxings, previews and reviews click here.
Yesterday, hopefully you would have seen the video unboxing of the Sony PlayStation 3 Slim (320GB model). Today, I recorded the preview video to show you around the console (in particular the stuff on the front, back and also the little flap to unscrew the hard drive should you wish to remove and replace it). I also touched upon a couple of the major pieces of functionality ahead of the formal review. As with the previous video it is available in high definition for those of you who would like to watch in the best possible resolution.
Like the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 is not just a games console but also quote a capable media player (both disc-based or network-based media). It also contains a web browser and a social gaming hub courtesy of PlayStation Network. Today, I hooked it up and gave Gran Turismo 5 a bit of a go in 3D and, so far, my impressions are positive. If you are interested in the specifications of the television, knock yourself out:
As services in the cloud continue to proliferate it was only a matter of time before ground was broken with respect to gaming. OnLive has released its MicroConsole TV Adapter (a little box around the size of a thick smartphone) which provides wireless connectivity for up to four controllers as well as Bluetooth headsets, two USB ports (for keyboards, mice and other USB peripherals) in addition to HDMI, S/PDIF,component and regular analogue stereo ports. OnLive can also be used on smartphones and tablets including the iPhone and iPad.
OnLive has also signed up some big name publishers, including:
Atari,
Codemasters,
Eidos Interactive,
Electronic Arts,
Sega,
Take Two,
Ubisoft.
So how is such a tiny capable of being able to run a game such Assassin’s Creed 2?
Essentially, the bulk of the processing is done up in the cloud which consists of five data centres located in North America. This processing includes both CPU and graphics with the client device (either the MicroConsole or software on a computer or smartphone) receiving data and a video stream. It probably goes without saying at this point that a broadband connection is absolutely necessary and, unless you live in North America, games will be somewhat laggy for us down under. Some games require a dedicated GPU for graphics whilst others can be virtualised across a farm of computers.
There are plans to roll out the service to certain parts of Europe (such as the UK, Belgium and Luxembourg) but availability elsewhere in the world is yet unannounced.
From a personal perspective I think it is still very much early days for something as ambitious as cloud-based gaming. Bandwidth and quality of service will be put to the test whilst more people may find that their download quotas may be insufficient for their needs. If it ever was released in Australia I don’t think I could seriously use the service (putting aside the current range of games) apart from a passing curiosity to see how well it would work. Of course, that’s not to say it won’t be successful but it could well be ahead of its time and in need of broadband speeds to catch up to make it work its best.
You can check out OnLive here if you want to know more about the service.
Tethering with mobile phones has been around for a while although back in the early days of GPRS it was often worse than dial up (not to mention an order of magnitude more expensive). These days with USB, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity it seems odd that some smartphones have been slow to allow users the ability to tether.
For instance, Apple was highly criticised for its slow deployment of tethering functionality in its phones and Windows Phone 7 will not have the functionality in its initial release. Meanwhile, Android has not offered tethering as part of the stock firmware until Froyo (Android 2.2) leaving OEMs to make their own enhancements to fill the gap. Even then, carriers have had the ability to strip out or suppress the function in devices.
Why is tethering such an issue?
One could argue that wireless bandwidth is such a precious resource and with booming mobile broadband market around the world managing supply and demand can be tricky. Limiting open slather access to tethering may go some way to assist in network management but can also annoy customers who are expecting to be able to use the ever growing data allowances with their mobile plans (that may be otherwise impossible to use just by using the mobile phone).
Personally, I think tethering should be made available by default in smartphones. I think for the vast majority of people it will be something that is used when the fixed line broadband goes offline at home or you need to work on your work laptop via VPN whilst you are out and about. Of course, there will be those road warriors amongst us that will lap it up but I believe they are the minority. Others still will like the novelty until it wears off.
We live in a connected world so I think this is a no brainer.
Some of us are regular users of mobile broadband services and normally rely on a mobile broadband modem of some description to get an internet connection whilst we are on the move or away from home. Dialup access once reigned supreme for mobility and availability but mobile broadband has pretty much put it to rest.
What you may not realise is that you can use many mobile phones as a mobile broadband modem. iPhones, Windows Mobiles and Android devices can share their 3G access over USB, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi (bearing in mind that not all options may be available). So if you have a mobile plan that includes a big bucket of data to use every month you could save yourself some money by using your mobile as a modem instead of shelling out for a separate mobile broadband subscription.
One thing that you would need to remember is that using your mobile as a modem can drain the battery pretty quickly so you would be better of having the mobile connected to a charger of some sort (be it over USB or AC). This will help avoid putting unnecessary strain on the battery and keep your connection going until you are finished. The other thing to remember is that you should ensure that wireless connections over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi are protected with a passcode or encryption to prevent others from seeing or using your data.
If you are a casual user of mobile broadband or a heavy duty user then this tip could come in handy.
On the weekend, the missus and I were on the Gold Coast briefly and required a rental car to get us around. We ended up with a Toyota Camry (sadly not the hybrid model) which isn’t a bad car. Whilst not difficult to drive, I did find myself falling into the regular habits of driving a Prius, specifically:
going for the power button to turn the car on and off (when I needed to put the key in the ignition),
attempting to engage the handbrake in the foot well (when there was an actual handbrake),
looking for the lock button on the outside door handle (when you need to use the beeper to lock the car).
For those who don’t know, the Prius has a couple of things called “Smart Entry” and “Smart Start”. Smart Entry allows you to put your hand on one of the front door handles to unlock the car so long as you have the “key” in the immediate vicinity (such as in your pocket or in a bag). Similarly, Smart Start allows you to turn on the car by pushing the start button with the “key” inside the vehicle.
Prius Smart Key
For the security conscious, the car won’t start unless they key is inside the vehicle nor can you unintentionally lock the key inside the car. However, you can start the car with the key inside and then throw it outside and drive away. Of course, if you did that and turned the car off you would be unable to turn it back on again.
Keys are also paired with an individual vehicle so you shouldn’t find that others can open your car nor can you get into other cars. The keys that we have operate on the unlicensed 2.4GHz spectrum shared by Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices. Whilst this is convenient for Toyota, it does mean that the key may not work when in very close proximity to a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth device (i.e. in the same pocket).
Anyway, having being spoilt with smart key it makes me wonder why similar devices aren’t more widespread. I carry about ten traditional keys in my pocket everyday (of which I regularly use two) and whilst I make do with them, I’d really like to get rid of them.
People have gotten creative with the use of X10 devices and iPhones which I think is fantastic (and I might even have a go myself one day) but I think those things might be beyond the average punter that just wants to get inside their own house. Another concern is that people don’t want to be stuck outside when their phone goes flat (which does happen from time to time).
Personally, I will be putting a smart entry or equivalent feature on the “must have” list when we get a new car. Sure, it does narrow down the selection somewhat but I appreciate the convenience and simplicity such a feature provides.
