Tuning In To Podcasting

Someone once asked me, “What is podcasting? Does that have something to do with whales?” Um no, but it’s definitely something that’s had my attention since its recent boost. Other than the whale question, many people have been asking me about podcasting, and you also might be wondering what it is. I recently had the pleasure of spending some time with a group of Hawaii’s pioneer podcasters, the Hawaii Association of Podcasters.

In a nutshell, a podcast is a downloadable “radio show,” typically in an mp3 digital audio file that can be created and listened to by anyone with a home computer. Its name was derived from two words: iPod and broadcast. You don’t need an actual iPod to listen to or broadcast a podcast. Any digital audio player or computer with the right software will do the job.

To receive podcasts, you need a “podcatcher” application that allows you to subscribe to your favorite podcast feeds. You can do that with a variety of different programs, such as iPodder for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux (free - http://ipodder.sourceforge.net), iPodderX for Mac OSX (free 30-day trial, thereafter, $24.95 – http://ipodderx.com) or NewsGator (web-based and free – www.newsgator.com).

For you iTunes users, Apple’s next major release of iTunes (out soon) will make getting podcasts easier. With one click you’ll be able to subscribe to different podcast feeds and have them automatically delivered to your iPod. You can use the current version of iTunes to listen to podcasts, but you can’t use it yet to subscribe to the feeds.

I believe podcasting will be huge! Now you can listen to all the latest news, radio shows and the church sermon you missed last Sunday morning. There are about 5,000 different podcasts available now on just about any subject you can imagine! According to Your Computer Minute’s Peter Kay, “Podcasting has the chance to bring radio back to what it was a long time ago which was mostly locally relevant content. Podcasts, with its niche targeting, might once again issue a new era of local broadcasts.”

If you want to make your own podcast and be a “radio star,” a good book to read is Podcasting, The Do-It Yourself Guide, by Hawaii’s own Todd Cochrane. You can find it on Cochrane’s website www.geeknewscentral.com or on www.amazon.com for about $14. Here are a few other Hawaii-based websites you can check out for podcasts: www.hawaiipodcasting.com (Hawaii Association of Podcasters), www.808talk.com, www.nahenahe.net (Hawaiian music news and reviews), yourcomputerminute.com (Peter Kay’s tips), www.hawaiiup.com and www.barefeetstudios.com (BizzyCast – business podcasting).

Surfing The Net, Surf The Waves

I enjoy going to the beach often, especially with the summer heat here. and now there’s something out there that could make my beach experience a little more interesting. Surf the Internet and surf the waves with this neat board. Talk about redefining the word surfing.

Intel, the computer chip maker, developed the world’s first and one-of-a-kind (for now) wi-fi surfboard that houses a laptop, solar panels and video camera. The surfboard appeared recently at this year’s California State Fair, and made its debut at an ocean festival in England last year.

The surfboard is equipped with a tablet laptop, 1.7 gigahertz processor, an 80 gigabyte hard drive and a wireless chip. The chip talks to a high-speed wireless connection (hotspot) on the beach, and there you have your Internet access. It is powered with its built-in solar panels and everything is strategically placed on the on board to ensure the technology didn’t interfere with the ride and feel of the board.

Hopefully they’ll start mass-producing these soon, and we can all enjoy surfing the web while surfing in the water.

Note about Wikipedia from last week's column

I got quite a few replies from librarians concerned about Wikipedia’s integrity because of the fact that anybody can go in and change the information. Please take into consideration that Wikipedia is a community service, and is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate. It’s always important to cross check references for everything, especially if it’s something important. Although you can add your own information, it's based on "the honor system" with the adding and modifying. Please see this link regarding Wikipedia’s accuracy disputes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Accuracy_dispute.

A few of you also brought to my attention the fact that World Book Online is free to all Hawaii residents that have a public library card. All you need to do is go to this link: www.librarieshawaii.org, click on “other databases” (upper left side), look for the World Book link, then enter in your library barcode number. This is actually just one of the many links on the Hawaii State Public Library System’s website that offer a free service with your library card.

Wikipedia - The World At Your Fingertips

I remember many years ago in elementary school and even more recently, in college, having to spend hours and hours at the library doing research with those huge clunky encyclopedias that I could sometimes barely lift. Boy things have come a long way since technology and the Internet have progressed.

All these advancements haven’t made the infamous Encyclopedia Brittanica or World Book go out of business. They’re still around, but there’s something even better now, and it’s free. It’s called Wikipedia and it’s the best free online encyclopedia I’ve seen.

From first-hand experiences, I can tell you that Wikipedia is great! It is a free encyclopedia that is constantly in the works by collaborative efforts from people around the world. It was created in 2001 in English, but is now available in about 100 languages. Its name wiki was inspired by our Hawaiian word “wiki wiki,” meaning quick or informal. The site’s term “wiki,” means that anyone can edit articles with its custom MediaWiki software.

Editing is highly encouraged, and you can write your own article if you’re compelled to do so. Be sure to add Wikipedia to your bookmarks or favorites page on your Internet browser, or if you have Apple’s OSX Tiger, make sure Wikipedia is one of your widgets.

You can still use the online versions of Encyclopedia Brittanica or World Book, but you have to pay an average of $50 a year for each. Other free online encyclopedias include www.encyclopedia.com, www.1911encyclopedia.org or www.thefreedictionary.com, but the amount of information available on these doesn’t even add up to Wikipedia’s 600,000+ available articles. Just to give you an idea, my self-test for all these online encyclopedias was typing in my bird’s genre, “Senegal Parrot.” None of them came up with definitions for it except for the Wikipedia. That’s pretty impressive.

Go wiki wiki to the Wikipedia community at www.wikipedia.org to do your own research or add your nuggets of information.

The Advent of A Million Bucks

I now have a million dollar reason to play a video game. For the first time, a company is offering one million buckaroos for a video game contest, and it’s gotten me quite motivated to spend more quality time with my Xbox.

The Advent Rising “Race To Save Humanity” contest is offering a grand prize of $1,000,000 to those that find the hidden “A” icon within the game. A new icon is dropped into the game once a week via Xbox Live. Majesco Entertainment, maker of Advent Rising, provides a new clue each week to find the icon over the contest’s six-week period. Other prizes available are one year Xbox Live subscriptions, SoBe drinks and products, and other cash denomination prizes. Only one lucky winner will receive the million dollars.

Majesco made a smart business move doing this contest. It’s created quite a buzz in the media, and since it will run for six weeks, it’ll keep gamers involved with it for at least that long and generate more sales. Advent Rising is also the first of a trilogy, so getting players involved in this first one is important for the game’s awareness for the rest of the trilogy.

In Advent Rising, you play the game through the eyes of Giddeon Wyeth, a space pilot assigned to accompany an ambassador to an alien ship to make first contact. These aliens view humans as gods, but they actually came to warn the human race about another alien race called the Seekers. The Seekers’ mission is to eliminate all human life. You go through the game with all sorts of futuristic weapons and vehicles similar to other third-person shooter games, such as Halo/Halo 2, while you battle the Seekers. The graphics are good, and you don’t have to worry too much about targeting with its easy-to-use auto-targeting feature.

Advent Rising is available exclusively on the Xbox and you can only participate in the contest with Xbox Live. Specially-marked packages of Advent Rising come with a free two-month trial of Xbox Live, so that will cover you for the contest if you don’t want to pay full-pop for the $50 a year Xbox Live subscription. It’s rated T for Teen and available at your nearest Toys n’ Joys or Toyriffic store for about $50. For more information about Advent Rising and the contest, check out www.adventtrilogy.com.

I don’t make any claims that Advent Rising is the greatest game in the world, and it’s certainly no comparison to the quality of Halo or Halo 2, but if you want to try for the million dollars, it could pay off.

Bluetooth In Cars

Bluetooth wireless technology has made my life so convenient. I’ve had a Bluetooth headset for my phone for almost four years and I’ve been syncing my laptop to my PDA phone via Bluetooth for about three years. I don’t know what I would do without it.

When most people hear about Bluetooth, they associate it with mobile phones and headsets. In a nutshell, Bluetooth provides a way to wirelessly connect and exchange information between devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), computers, printers, mobile phones or digital cameras. It allows the voice or data transmissions to be transmitted via a short distance radio link.

The expansion of this technology in the past year has lead to the greatest growth in the automotive industry. There are now over 20 car companies that offer standard or optional Bluetooth enabled communications in their newer models. Some of the popular car brands that offer Bluetooth built-in or as an option are Acura, Audi, BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, Honda, Lexus, Toyota and Volkswagen.

The newest Bluetooth-equipped vehicles enable drivers to keep their cell phone tucked away while the on-board system provides hands-free calling, and some systems can even download the cell phone's directory into the vehicle's display. The most common Bluetooth feature in cars (in several variations) is the ability to control your mobile phone wirelessly from your steering wheel or the dashboard. For those of you who aren’t going to buy a new car soon, there are aftermarket devices available such as the ones made by Parrot. Most of the kits are easy to use. You just plug it into the cigarette lighter, and you’re ready to be hands-free. The prices range from $100 - $200 (www.cnet.com).

Other Bluetooth features in cars include keyless entry and tire pressure monitoring. The Audi A6 3.2 lets you open the car just by walking up to it, and starting the engine with the push of a button. Pirelli’s X-Pressure AcousticBlue, available this September, will allow you to check the pressure on your tires without getting out of the car.

Who knows what they will think of next. With all the advancements and more to come, I say that buying a car with a Bluetooth system will almost be like buying a computer because there’ll always be something new and exciting coming out. Note that in order for your phone to work with your Bluetooth-ready car, your phone must be Bluetooth enabled. Keep your eyes open for new Bluetooth things to come. For more information go to www.bluetooth.com.

Know Your Game Ratings

I play a lot of games, and honestly don’t usually pay much attention to the rating on the box since the games I buy are for myself. For a concerned parent, that rating icon would be important to consider. I’ve received a few questions from parents about what games are safe for their children to play. The answer is that it really depends on what you are willing to expose your child to.

The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has made it easy to make that decision with its rating system. It’s designed to provide information about computer and video game content so consumers (especially parents) can make informed purchase decisions specifically for games. You may have seen the icons on the box, in commercials or in print ads and wonder what they stand for.

There are six ESRB Rating categories (icons are shown on picture):

EC (Early Childhood): may be suitable for ages 3 and older. Titles in this category contain no material that parents would find inappropriate.

E (Everyone): may be suitable for ages 6 and older. Titles in this category may contain minimal cartoon, fantasy or mild violence and/or infrequent use of mild language.

E10+ (Everyone 10 and older): may be suitable for ages 10 and older. Titles in this category may contain more cartoon, fantasy or mild violence, mild language and/or minimal suggestive themes.

T (Teen): may be suitable for 13 and older. Titles in this category may contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood and/or infrequent use of strong language.

M (Mature): may be suitable for ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language.

AO (Adults Only): should only be played by persons 18 and older. Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity.

For your child’s sake, the next time you buy a video game, take a moment to check the rating according to the listed criteria above and make sure it’s what you want for him/her.

Say Goodbye to Messy Mops

If you work all day as I do, it’s always nice to come home to a clean house. I hate to take off my shoes and step on little crumbs or leftover cat food on the floor, that’s one of my pet peeves. It’s not like I have a floor-cleaning fairy or can afford to pay for a maid, but I definitely need help cleaning up with my busy schedule.

iRobot has solved that problem with its robots. iRobot’s products are aimed at the “hate to do it” and “have to do it often” chores. In the future iRobot will eventually launch an entire suite of housework robots. But for now, it’s best known for the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, which hit store shelves in September 2002 and sold approximately 1.2 million since. The latest edition to the iRobot family is a robotic mop called Scooba.

Scooba safely scrubs hardwood, tile, linoleum or any other bare floor. It sprays and scrubs water and cleaning fluid onto the floor as the robot’s front end passes over. The back end then sucks the excess water into the dirty water tank to be dumped using its artificial intelligence. iRobot recommends only using Clorox for the cleaning fluid to prevent the Scooba from skidding or spinning its wheels. A partnership with the Clorox Company and iRobot was formed to develop a specially engineered cleaning solution for Scooba.

Scooba has many of Roomba’s features but it’s more complicated because of the design to automatically vacuum, scrub and dry hard floors, and not just vacuum. It is 13 inches in diameter and four inches high, keeping the similar shape of the Roomba. There are two tanks attached, one for the water/cleaning fluid mixture and one for the dirty water.

No exact price has been established yet for the Scooba, but it will be a little more than a Roomba, which sells for $150 to $300. You can watch a demonstration of the Scooba at www.irobot.com and dream of your own freedom from the mop.

Finally, A Real Camera Phone

Many people have been asking me for a good camera phone recommendation. I’ve never taken cell phone cameras seriously, so I’ve always answered that question by saying, “cell phones and cameras don’t mix. Don’t buy a phone for its camera capability if you actually want decent pictures because you won’t get it.” I don’t say that anymore since Sony launched its newest camera phone.

The Sony Ericsson S710a camera phone takes its photo-taking capability seriously. The S710a has a new, unique 180-degree swivel-open design that easily converts from mobile phone to digital camera. With its 1.3 megapixel picture quality, 8X digital zoom, photo light, and 2.3-inch color screen, it is by far the best camera phone on the market today. The pictures are sharp and vibrant. Now I have the confidence to travel light and not carry my regular camera with me.

All images, pictures, music and video clips can be stored either in the phone’s 32 megabytes of internal memory or the included 32-megabyte Memory Stick Duo card. Of course you can always upgrade to a larger Memory Stick Duo to maximize the capacity of the S710a.

The S710a is a tri-band phone (GSM/GPRS/EDGE) to provide fast access to messaging, content downloads and interactive online gaming. It has Sony Ericsson’s QuickShare feature, which allows you to rapidly send and download picture messages, e-mails, music and games. It also includes an MP3 player (don’t throw away your iPod for that feature), MusicDJTM (to personalize ringtones) and has up to seven hours of talk-time and 300 hours of standby time.

Star Wars fans will appreciate the special Star Wars Edition of the S710a. It comes complete with Star Wars ring tones, graphics and interactive software from Star Wars III – Revenge of the Sith. The S710a is offered by exclusively by Cingular for $299.99 with the activation of a new plan (www.cingular.com). If you can get past its high price, you’ll be rewarded with its nice high-resolution pictures and all the multimedia extras.

Next Generation - PlayStation 3

I waited over an hour at E3 in anticipation to see Sony’s PlayStation 3 (PS3). After the long line (I felt like I was at Disneyland waiting for a ride), we were herded into a dark room to watch a video about Sony’s high definition (HD) capabilities. Then after that was done, we were herded into another dark room to watch a second video that showed clips of the PS3 and a few of its games including Kill Zone 2, a highly anticipated PS3 game. The doors to the room opened and there it was. . . the PS3, on a turntable behind a protective plexiglass case. Was it worth the wait and the long videos? Yep, it sure was.

The PS3 is about the same size as the PlayStation 2 (PS2), but it’s more rounded and sleek. The controllers are wireless Bluetooth and up to seven can be used at the same time on one PS3. (It’s rumored that these controllers can hold a charge for up to 24 hours.) I also saw that it had six USB 2.0 ports, an Ethernet port, HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface), a removable hard drive (storage size unknown), and you can use your Memory Stick or Memory Stick Duo on it.

With its backwards capability, you’ll be able to play all your favorite games from the first PlayStation and PS2. A specific line-up of PS3 games is not yet available. The quality of the Kill Zone 2 game I saw in the demonstration video was remarkable, but there’s some controversy as to whether that was actual game play or pre-rendered video. With the PS3’s new processor, I believe it’s more than capable to have that quality. The 3.2 GHz Cell Processor gives the PS3 the power of a super computer. It’s approximately 10 times faster than the current fastest desktop computer processor and 32 times faster than the PS2. It offers high performance for movie-like realism in games and HD movies. I was not able to get an answer from Sony officials as to whether or not Kill Zone 2 was true game play.

When the PS3 comes out in Spring 2006, you can buy it in black, silver or white. No word yet on what the price will be.

A lot of people ask me which console will be better. . . the PS3 or the Xbox 360. The answer is I don’t know at this point since the PS3 was not available for play at E3. Stay tuned for more information in the future. For myself, and other hardcore gamers I know of, we’ll end up getting both.

Robotic Reptiles

Even though I grew up here in Hawaii around geckos, I’ve never been a big fan of them. Those that know me well, know that I won’t even walk through a door if a gecko is hovering above waiting to pounce on me. I would rather stand outside for ten minutes and wait for it to catch a termite and go away. My psychological fear doesn’t end at geckos. . . it goes for toads, frogs, snakes and other creepy- crawlies.

When I found out about Bishop Museum’s newest reptile exhibit, I honestly wasn’t that excited to see it, but knowing that the exhibit would not consist of live creatures I went. Reptiles: Real and Robotic is impressive. Larger than life-sized robotically controlled reptiles represent the four major groups – lizards, snakes, turtles and crocodiles. One of the first things you see when walking into the exhibit is a Jackson’s Chameleon trying to catch a fly that’s sitting on a hibiscus flower. Its eyes realistically move sideways and it has a long retracting tongue just like a real Jackson’s Chameleon.

Another new innovation for Bishop Museum is the Science Learning Center. It will have over 16,000 square feet of interactive exhibits and provide opportunities to explore and learn about the volcanoes, oceans and biology of the Hawaiian Islands. It’ll even have a “deep ocean” tank where visitors can operate underwater robotic vehicles. Expect to see the Science Learning Center open this fall.

Even if you’re not a big reptile fan like me, it’s still worth it to take a trip down to the museum to see these big reptile robots. Reptiles: Real and Robotic is on display through September 11 and open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $14.95 for adults and $11.95 children 4-12. Discount rates are available for kama’aina and military. Call 847-3511 or visit www.bishopmuseum.com for more information.