Mike discovers there's a new CHEESE SHOP in Petone

Pamela the midwife has a blog post of thoughts and info on teenage pregnancy in New Zealand.

Mark Osbourne mentions Uruguay gave a laptop to every single child.

Vampire wannabies can buy bags of tasty blood fit for human consumption.

There's a Save Maranui fundraiser involving speedos.

Open office is spreading quickly all over Belgium according to The Open Source Observatory and Repository for European public administrations.

Someone invented a Robot that loads and unloads the dishwasher

Rachel Alpine talks about need for plain language and official information

Live scribe, the makers of that shiny gadget pen i use alot are opening an app store of applications that run on the pen.

Remember the 17 year old kid who sued Amazon for remotely accessing his kindle, deleting his homework, and generally not realising that once Amazon sells a kindle to a customer it doesn't belong to Amazon anymore.

Gizmodo reports "Kid Who Sued Amazon Wins"

The student was studying the George Orwell novel 1984 for a highschool assignment. When Amazon deleted the book from everyone's kindles, they also deleted all the notes users had added associated with the book, thereby deleting the student's homework.

I particulary like this quote, which sums up the bad attitude of many gadget manufacturers today:

Technology companies increasingly feel that because they have the ability to access peoples personal property, they have the right to do so. That is 100% contrary to the laws of this country, said Edelson the lead attorney for the class action

The 17year old won US$150,000. The lawfirm involved is donating their portion to charity.

More and more gadgets and gizmos are talking back to their mainfacturer over the internet.

It's not the covert dial-home killpills like apple's device - but instead a gadget you buy that needs the manufacturer's website to be up or it won't work

for example, i have a wifi sd card for my camera - it uploads the jpegs straight to flickr over wifi --- except that is doesn't, it uploads to eye.fi's webservices, which in turn uploads it onwards to flickr. If you want to configure the card then you're supposed to log into their website - even though this is unnecesary. (acutally there's opensource drivers that talk direct to the card, *nix only). Today their website if down, so most users won't be able to configure their cards.

another example, i have a logitech universal remote - it's a great remote - but only 2 weeks ago i bought a new CD player and wanted to configure the universal remote to control it. the configuration software could not contact logitech's website so it would not continue, and i could not configure my universal remote to talk to the cd player. Logitech's site was down for several days (or at least it was down everytime i tried). Eventually it was fixed and the remote could be configured.

beyond the obvious privacy problem - it's also a case of how long can you expect to use the gadget you paid for?

Will the manufacturer discontinue the service that powers their product? They must stop one day - and if you're still using that gadget then too bad, it's end of life.

More and more gadgets and gizmos are talking back to their mainfacturer over the internet.

It's not the covert dial-home killpills like apple's device - but instead a gadget you buy that needs the manufacturer's website to be up or it won't work

for example, i have a wifi sd card for my camera - it uploads the jpegs straight to flickr over wifi --- except that is doesn't, it uploads to eye.fi's webservices, which in turn uploads it onwards to flickr. If you want to configure the card then you're supposed to log into their website - even though this is unnecesary. (acutally there's opensource drivers that talk direct to the card, *nix only). Today their website if down, so most users won't be able to configure their cards.

another example, i have a logitech universal remote - it's a great remote - but only 2 weeks ago i bought a new CD player and wanted to configure the universal remote to control it. the configuration software could not contact logitech's website so it would not continue, and i could not configure my universal remote to talk to the cd player. Logitech's site was down for several days (or at least it was down everytime i tried). Eventually it was fixed and the remote could be configured.

beyond the obvious privacy problem - it's also a case of how long can you expect to use the gadget you paid for?

Will the manufacturer discontinue the service that powers their product? They must stop one day - and if you're still using that gadget then too bad, it's end of life.

today someone heckled my talk and introduced me (and the rest of the room) to Open Pandora... and also i find in my inbox an email from a friend about this gizmo:

There is an enthusiast designed open hardware platform coming out
soon, the Open Pandora. Basically a clamshell design, about the size
of a Nintendo DS, with an 800x480 touch screen, qwerty keyboard, wifi,
bluetooth, SD slots for external storage, usb, OpenGL 3D acceleration
and a built in dsp for sound and graphics processing. And 10 hours
battery life. It runs Linux, and Ubuntu is already booting on it. The

i'm a gadget coveting geek... the best kind

Here's my current tote:

Sony Ericsson w880 phone
Palm TX
Ipod Touch 16GB
Plantronics 590c Bluetooth headset
Bluetooth Virtual Keyboard
ASUS EeePc
canon IXUS 950
Nikon d50

Sony Ericsson w880 phone

See jobadvert for new shiny gadget playing job

so many things i can do on my 4 year old palm pda that i can't do on my new ipod touch

The Palm can
1. Bluetooth remote control of the audio - on palm i can press next on headphones button and have the next track play.
2. Sync with linux
3. Install free new applications without first registering a credit card number
4. Activate it outta the box without going home to a PC
5. Sownload podcasts and rss directly, without needing a PC.
6. Play ogg, flac and divx, without conversion and proprietary syncing.

My shiny new camera is ready for me to pick up tomorrow!!

I have an SLR,, but that's giant - and every trip with it is a Camera Trip. I need a smaller camera to take most everywhere, and the SLR only for special occasions.

I'm pretty much carbon bonded to my Palm TX - an aging palm pilot that has wifi and bluetooth and that's about it.

I keep all my calendar, todos, and such in Agendus. It's nifty too becuase i can attach jpegs to just about anythjing, and link meetings and tasks to each other.

I then use Agendus Mail - it pulls down my imap emails, and I can then turn an email into a Todo or a meeting or a memo.

I then keep projects in an app called BrainForest - which shows a rough tree outline with progress meters.

I have a new keyboard. I took it with me at lunch on Thursday, and a group of people gathered around our restaraunt table to stare, in silence, with their mouths open.

It’s a bluetooth + laser virtual keyboard. It projects the keyboard onto the table in full red laser glory, and then watches for changes in the image to detect key presses. It really works.

Continue reading at Gaming Generation

this gadget is nifty -- at work.. It works flawlessly. We run linux @ work, so i had to borrow a mac to program the durn card. Once done I was away uploading photos automagically every snap.

If you want to read my blog on your gadget, (of course you do!) then:

http://mobile.geek.nz <----- This blog, in teeny tiny screen version.

because - -

1. i have Pocky
2. i bought a new gadget
3. i have more Pocky
4. There's a new espresso machine at work.