Like Action? Listen to Police and Fire Scanners

I started to write about ways to glean info in a national disaster. I’ll get to that in another story, because as I dug around, I discovered live scanner feeds. You know the kind–police, fire and rescue, forest service, emergency services — and I wiped out an afternoon glued to the broadcasts.

I listened to the Newcastle, Australia police struggling with a jaywalker and then handling a robbery attempt; later heard the Thurston County, WA police nab a parole violator; and finally downloaded a clip from a recent pursuit of a guy shooting at a Snohomish County, Washington, sheriff deputy.

Fascinating stuff, indeed.

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The Joy (and Hazards) of Watching YouTube on TV

Have you ever wanted to watch YouTube on your TV?

I have, ever since Tivo started allowing YouTube streaming to their DVRs back in July 2008. And I’m here to confess: I’m a huge fan. Watching YouTube on my HDTV has radically changed how I “watch TV”.

One night I decided to do an experiment. I skipped watching regular prime time TV and only watched YouTube videos from my Tivo. I signed in to YouTube, so I could access my favorites, and playlists. Two hours later, I found that it was a very fascinating journey.

What did I watch? Anything that looked interesting, including some of my old YouTube favorites. Mostly, I let the videos lead me to the next one via suggestions and related content. It was an exercise in random discovery. I followed certain YouTube users. Then I would backtrack a bit and find myself on another trail of YouTube discovery. I spent some time watching music videos. I searched for classic Internet favorite videos. I even watched some of YouTube’s promoted videos, and found some of them were pretty good. (My current favorite is something called Thru-You, a YouTube mashup, where someone grabbed random musical clips from YouTube and created awesome songs.)

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Even More on That iPod Shuffle Remote Control

Over at PCMag.com, Mark Hachman has a good piece on the controversial new earbud-embedded remote control for Apple’s new iPod Shuffle. Folks have theorized that Apple will demand royalties on third-party headphones that incorporate remote controls, and that it might be encrypting commands send from the remote to the Shuffle to prevent unauthorized clones. And maybe even that it was planning to spread such a design to other iPods.

Hachman’s piece is based largely on an interview with a Monster Cable exec; that company plans to make lots of Shuffle-compatible headphones, and says that the commands aren’t encrypted and that it thinks that manufacturers could make compatible headphones without Apple’s blessing. On the other hand, the remote functionality apparently does fall under Apple’s “Made for iPod” logo program, which involves paying a fee to Apple if a company chooses to participate.

Bottom line: It looks like the remote may be a new revenue stream for Apple, but that it isn’t a nefarious plot to monopolize the iPod headphone market. Which doesn’t mean that the Shuffle’s design won’t continue to be controversial. I seem to be one of relatively few reviewers who was sort of won over by it–not that I decided it makes sense for everybody–and I remain very curious whether consumers will end up giving it a thumbs up. (The most obvious way to tell that will be if the design continues on to the fourth-generation Shuffle, whenever that shows up…)

What the Heck is an Aperture?

[A NOTE FROM HARRY: Digital Media Central guest posts continue with a contribution from Ree Drummond, better known as Pioneer Woman.  This digital photography post is republished from her site, and it's part one of a series on apertures. Here are parts two, three, and four over on Ree's site.]

Photography is based on light. Did you know that?

As a matter of fact, “Photos” is the Greek word for “Light.” And I happen to know that only because I’m a homeschooling freak of nature and I teach my children Greek and Latin. When I feel like it.

Anyway, light is everything in photography, and how much (or how little) light enters your camera determines what your ultimate photo will look like.

Are you with me so far?

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Apple Adds DRM to Shuffle Headphones?!?

([UPDATE:] This post was written with the information Technologizer had at the time. Since then, we’ve learned a bit more. Please reference this new post from Harry.)

The “Apple tax” has been somewhat of a tongue-in-cheek joke in the tech world for a long time: where the consumer pays a higher price for a product simply because it bears the Apple logo.

Well, that concept may be coming to Shuffle headphones as well. Amid giving the Shuffle its first-ever “no” recommendation for an iPod/iPhone product, Apple enthusiast site iLounge also dropped a bombshell: Shuffle headphones are essentially DRM protected.

iLounge claims that the headphones add some type of  ”authentication chip,” which means that standard headphones will not work with the device. Obviously they wouldn’t, since all the navigation is done via the iPhone-like pushbutton device on the right earbud wire.

But if third-party headphones add playback controls but don’t have this chip, they won’t work either. That means no volume, no voiceover, and no navigation. Nada. You’re S.O.L. To make them work, iLounge says a $20-30 to-be-manufactured adapter is needed, or approved headphones, which so far are no cheaper than $49.

Seeing on my end how easily those headphones short circuit at the pushhbutton unit causing them to malfuction on my iPhone, this should be something Apple users should be concerned with. If they bring this technology to other devices, God knows owning an iPod will become more expensive.

I’ve played with the Shuffle. And frankly, my experience was nothing like Harry’s, and more like iLounge’s. I struggled to get the thing to move from track to track–instead i was nearly blowing out my eardrums cause the volume was getting louder. Count me in as one of those who prefer their controls on the device.

I was watching others in the Apple store with me. Quite a few were having trouble with it. I really do see this Shuffle as the iPod line’s version of the Cube–kinda cool idea, but just not necessary.

Apple’s New iPod Shuffle: The First Invisible MP3 Player

It’s tempting, when writing about Apple’s new third-generation iPod Shuffle, to veer towards the whimsical, and stay there. You might compare the tiny player to various other tiny objects, or theorize that the next Shuffle will be the size of a Tylenol, or even perform stupid Shuffle tricks such as stuffing one inside a Pez Dispenser. This is not going to be that kind of review. I found this player unexpectedly interesting, and there’s a lot to talk about beyond its lack of obesity.

When Apple updates other iPod models, the change is usually about two things: better features (such as the bigger iPods’ addition of video) and slicker industrial design (such as the Nano’s evolution from a blocky plastic device to a gracefully curved metal one). The Shuffle is fundamentally different–it’s on a track of ever-decreasing size and ever-increasing minimalism. What Apple would like, I think, is for the Shuffle to be invisible. Not in the ha-ha manner of SNL’s iPod Invisa, but in the sense that the music matters and the gadget itself is sort of beside the point. The new version takes a major leap in that direction, and not just because Apple shrunk its size by almost fifty percent.

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The iPod Shuffle Gets Even Smaller

Apple usually announces new stuff on Tuesdays, but just to keep us on our toes, it’s making an, ahem, small announcement today. There’s a new iPod Shuffle that’s almost 50 percent smaller than its predecessor, and smaller than an AA battery, yet which is still the first Shuffle capable of putting the iPod’s traditional 1,000 songs in your pocket (or on your person–the new Shuffle retains the built-in clip):

The company achieved the further shrinkage by moving the controls off the player onto a tiny remote that’s embedded in the headphones (making this, I guess, the first iPod that can’t be used with third-party headphones, unless someone comes up with some sort of adapter):

[UPDATE: Apple says you'll be able to buy an adapter for third-party headphones. Better than nothing--especially if you're the type of person who associates Apple headphone with a stinging feeling in one's ears, or with them just falling out--but adding an adapter certainly eliminates some of the appeal of the Shuffle's tininess.]

The new Shuffle also introduces a new feature called VoiceOver that reads menus, song titles, and the like out loud in a robotic voice; it can also read playlist names, allowing this to be the first Shuffle that supports playlists. Apple’s demo video shows how it works. Apple’s promotion for this new player says it’s the first talking MP3 player. Not so. It may have the most sophisticated text-to-speech interface, but the current iPod Nano also has a speech option.

(Side note: The video demonstrator, who says she’s an Apple Store employee, talks about how the remote control lets you use the Shuffle while on a “ride.” If she lives in Apple’s headquarters state of California, that better not be a bicycle ride–covering both your ears with headphones while biking is illegal here.)

At this point, Apple is presumably shrinking the Shuffle because, well, it can, and because some folks will buy a new one simply because it’s smaller. But it’s hard to imagine that anyone found the previous one uncomfortably bulky.

(Second side note: I wonder whether Apple will release a software update for the old Shuffles that gives them VoiceOver?)

The new Shuffle is made of aluminum, comes in silver and black (you gotta think that Apple will restore the old Shuffle’s rainbow of colors eventually),  and is available in one storage capacity: 4GB for $79. It’s shipping today.

Just to refresh everyone’s memory, here’s what the previous-generation Shuffle (which dates from September 2006) looked like. It was, arguably, a cooler piece of industrial design, or at least a less Spartan one:

And here’s the original Juicyfruit-sized  iPod Shuffle, announced at Macworld Expo in January 2005, and strikingly small at the time:

And here’s a hasty artist’s conception of what next next-gen Shuffle could look like:

Favorite Photos From Dooce

[NOTE FROM HARRY: Digital Media Central guest posts continue with a contribution from blogging superstar Heather Armstrong, better known as Dooce. This post--republished from Heather's site--shows off a few photos she took on a 2006 trip to Amsterdam.]

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Hulu Goes Medieval on Boxee

At first, the kerfuffle involving the way startup Boxee used clever software to bring Hulu’s Internet TV service to TV sets was rather gentlemanly. Hulu asked Boxee to remove it, and explained why in a blog post that was almost apologetic–and which pretty much blamed it all on Hollywood content owners. Boxee thoughtfully replied in a post of its own–and complied. Unfortunate, yes, but civil.

And then Boxee cleverly used Hulu’s public RSS to bring back access to Hulu content. This time, there was no socratic dialog or genteel request–Hulu blocked Boxee from accessing its feeds.

I’m still sorting out my feelings here–the contrarian in me still believes in Letting People Make Their Own Damn Mistakes–but there’s no question that Hulu’s actions run contrary to the spirit of RSS feeds (which were designed to let folks access contact from whatever tool they pleased) and are a setback for Internet TV’s migration from the computer onto the TV. Which is a migration that’s inevitable, and a boon for consumers.

So I know who I’m ultimately rooting for here: Boxee and Boxee users (the latter group of which includes…me). Hulu hasn’t addressed this latest twist on its blog, but I hope it does so–it’s a company that’s built up a lot of cred for being surprisingly with-it for an enterprise formed by major media conglomerates, and it would be sad to see it backslide into a mode that’s paranoid, obtuse, and resistant to technological developments that help more people get at the cool things it’s doing.

One way or another, an awful lot of us will be watching Hulu or Hulu-like services on our TVs. Boxee is intrepid and innovative, and I hope it gets the opportunity to play a major role in getting us there…

[UPDATE: Dave Zatz right in the comments when he says this tug of war will be ongoing--Boxee is reporting in its blog that the Hulu feed is working again. For now.]

Hulu Returns To Boxee (Kind of)

Talks have so far proven unsuccessful between Hulu and Boxee after the online TV giant asked the media-center software startup to remove its service from its application for Macs, Apple TV, and Windows.  (I’m guessing Hulu’s owners’ pet project is playing a part here), but the set-top box company has come up with a temporary workaround. Boxee’s calling it “bleeding edge.” Translation: its’s not even beta, so don’t expect it to work 100% — but it at least brings back some of the content from Hulu to the service.

Essentially, developers have opened up the service to accept RSS feeds with video. Hulu offers some of these feeds, which make it possible to stream the video included in these fees. It is not limited to Hulu: services that use RSS such as Google Video, Yahoo!, and YouTube are also compatible, as well as many other Web sites.

Also new is an “App Store” of sorts, which is being released with this update, as well as an automatic updating feature. Users would now be prompted to download software updates when they are released.

The T-Grid: Kindle for iPhone vs. Kindle 2

Until early last week, there was one Kindle e-reader–the original one. Now there are two: Amazon’s Kindle 2 and the app for the iPhone and iPod Touch which the company released last night. They have one huge thing in common: 240,000 electronic books, mostly going for ten bucks apiece. And beyond that, the two Kindles have remarkably different sets of upsides and downsides. After the jump, we’ll compare and contrast.

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iPhone Gets Major League Baseball Audio. Be Afraid, Sirius XM. Be Very Afraid.

I’ve written a fair amount about the annoying post-merger state of Sirius XM satellite radio, as well as chatted about it with folks offline, and nearly every time I’ve expressed frustration, I’ve said something to the effect of “if it weren’t for baseball, I’d consider dumping XM and just plugging my iPhone into my car stereo so I can listen to streaming radio apps.” And I’m sure there are other folks who feel the same way.

Looks like that “if it weren’t for” will soon be inoperative. My friend Jason Snell of Macworld has blogged that the upcoming 2009 edition of the MLB At-Bat app for the iPhone will support Gameday Audio, allowing baseball nuts to tune in their hometown broadcasts (that would be the Red Sox for me) on the phone. As Jason writes, MLB At-Bat costs $5 and PC-based Gameday Audio costs $15 a season. But you gotta think that there’s no scenario in which Gameday Audio on the iPhone won’t cost far less than I’m shelling out for XM.

Is anything else that’s exclusive to XM so lovable that I’d keep the service to get it? I’ve grown sort of fond of the Siriusly Sinatra station, with its shows hosted by Nancy Sinatra and Jonathan Schwartz. But I think I can tune in Schwartz on an iPhone via his WNYC gig, and I suspect I can find enough standards music on the iPhone to keep myself entertained.

Oh yeah: I also have to figure out the best way to let my car stereo–which lacks an AUX port–tap into the iPhone. I have terrible luck with wireless FM transmitters, and have been using something called an FM Direct adapter that lets me connect my XM receiver directly to my car’s antenna. It works wonderfully well, but I don’t know if there’s anything comparable that’s iPhone-compatible. (if not, there should be!)

One way or another, though, I suspect there’s a good chance I’ll be an ex-XM subscriber come opening day.

Home Storage: Important. Also a Challenge.

[A note from Harry: Our Digital Media Central guest posts continue with a few thoughts about storaget from Dave Altavilla of PC enthusiast site HotHardware. It's not as simple as it used to be.]

These days, the ever-growing library of files, documents and multimedia content for the average home user, family or small office, is not just bulk media that needs to be backed up.  Beyond ensuring redundancy and resiliency for the data itself, file access, file management and file distribution need to have higher levels of sophistication.  Gone are the days where you just mount a NAS (Network Attached Storage) volume as a mapped drive on your client machines and workstations.  Oh no, dear ol’ Dad needs to play around with pics of the kid’s football team and needs to look at them “Flickr style” or he gets confused.  Little Johnny wants to stream his iTunes up to his bedroom.  And Mom, she just wants that QuickBooks data backed up nightly because if she loses it again, Dad is going to be in the dog house for a very long time.  Finally, and actually of primary importance, all of this precious family data needs to be secured and have varying levels of user access rights.

ZillionTV Shows NBC, Fox’s Hand

Now it makes all the sense in the world while suddenly Boxee is no longer good enough for these two networks. Both NBC Universal and 20th Century Fox Television are equity stakeholders in ZillionTV, yet another set top box offering.

Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, and Disney also own a stake in the company. About 40 other providers have agreed to provide content, with discussions ongoing with Viacom and CBS.

The service is provided through something called a ZBar and is free of charge. It’s not completely free though: users will have to fork over a $100 activation fee and sit through advertisements.

In an attempt to get you to actually watch the commercial, points will be awarded for each one viewed. Its not immediately clear exactly what these points would be redeemable for.

Visa is also a stakeholder in Zillion, and would run the payment processing backend. The service would allow users to purchase content to skip ads, although it would not be stored locally. Content with Zillion would be stored in a “locker,” and streamed to the user when requested.

I feel really bad for the boxee folks. They had a good product going, but apparently partners like NBCU and News Corp. were working behind the scenes to undermine their work. I doubt with ZillionTV on the horizon that boxee ever gets Hulu back now: why would these two companies cut into the business of their own product?

Kindle for iPhone: Disappointing. Yet Still Amazing.

First the bad news: In multiple ways, Amazon.com’s new Kindle reader for the iPhone and iPhone Touch falls short of being the ultimate iPhone e-book application. It fails to replicate all the major features of  a $359 Kindle device. It’s on the rudimentary side in certain areas. I found one or two instances of issues that were either quirks or outright bugs. I’d love to see a book reader for iPhone that was as polished and functional in its own way as the phone’s iPod software–and this isn’t it.

Despite everything, it’s a delight to have Kindle on the iPhone. What makes Kindle Kindle isn’t software as much as it is content–240,000 books’ worth of it, by far the largest collection of e-books ever assembled. Getting access to those books on a phone is by far the biggest deal in content for Apple devices since Apple itself added moves and TV shows to the iTunes Store. And given that there are far more iPhones and iPod Touches on the planet than Kindle devices, this could be a bigger moment for electronic books than the introduction of the Kindle in 2007 was.

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Yup, Your iPhone Can Be a Kindle, Too–Starting Now

It may not have been inevitable, but it was a darn good idea–and it’s extremely cool to learn it’s reality, not just wishful thinking. Starting tomorrow, Amazon.com will be distributing a free iPhone application that puts Kindle e-books on the phone, giving owners of Apple’s handset access to by far the most comprehensive source of commercial published works. Not only will books you’ve bought for a Kindle be available on the iPhone, too, but stuff like your location within a tome will travel between Kindle and iPhone (a feature Amazon calls Whispersync).

What a win-win-win-win situation–it’ll be a boon for people who own both a Kindle and an iPhone, for people who own just an iPhone, and for Amazon and Apple. I can’t imagine that Amazon will lose a single sale of Kindle hardware because iPhones can double as Kindle readers–if you want to read dozens or hundreds of pages at a sitting, you’ll want the large screen and marathon battery life of a Kindle device. But the iPhone makes more sense when you’re out and about, sans Kindle, and want to kill a few minutes by dipping into a book.

You gotta think that Amazon may end up selling not only more Kindle books–the number of Kindle-compatible gizmos in the world will skyrocket tomorrow–but also more Kindle readers, since some iPhone owners will be more likely to spring for a reader once they’ve bought and enjoyed books on their phone.

I imagine everyone will take the fact that Apple okayed the Kindle application for the iPhone as evidence it’s not getting into the e-book biz itself. Probably. But not definitely. For one thing, I’m not sure if even Apple would nix an application in a market it hadn’t yet entered unless it clearly violated it developer agreement. For another, is it utterly unthinkable that Apple might come out with a jumbo iPod Touch for which book-reading was one significant application…and work with Amazon, who has more knowledge and contacts relating to books than Apple could ever develop, to sell the content?

[UPDATE: It's available--if you've got iTunes, click here and you'll go to the app. More soon...]

[UPDATED UPDATE: Here's my review.]