Tag Archives | Traveling Geeks

Parrot’s new Wi-Fi Picture Frame and Wireless Speakers

Posted by David Spark on December 9, 2009 at 9:14 am

(This post is part of the Traveling Geeks tech tour of Paris. David Spark (@dspark) is the founder of Spark Media Solutions and a tech journalist that blogs at Spark Minute and can be heard and seen regularly on ABC Radio and on John C. Dvorak’s “Cranky Geeks.”)

At a visit at phone-accessory and gadget maker Parrot in Paris, I interviewed Parrot’s CEO, Henri Seydoux, about a couple of new products: Grande Specchio, a wi-fi picture frame that just came out a few weeks ago, and some giant wireless speakers.

Grande Specchio has a few fun features such as retrieving geo-tagged photos from Picasa and the ability to send photos to the frame. In the video demo Seydoux tries to send a picture of me to the frame. He didn’t succeed at the moment. For a pricey 500 Euros ($750 US) you would hope it would be a little easier. But to give him a break, it wasn’t a prepared demo, and he wasn’t already connected to a network at the time.

As for the wireless speakers they’re only wireless in the transmission of music, not power. I haven’t seen a good solution to wireless power without lots of batteries. My feeling is if you have to drag a power cable, then the “wireless” aspect really isn’t that attractive because you’re still physically tethered. At 1200 Euros ($1800 US) it’s definitely only for audiophiles.

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Dick Tracy Watch from LG/Orange

Posted by David Spark on December 8, 2009 at 10:15 am

At the end of the first day of the Traveling Geeks tour in Paris, we went to the demonstration labs of Orange, the European telco company. They showed us what they’re offering in the areas of IPTV and 3D TV. Completely unrelated, I saw a quick demo of a very cool Internet watch by LG that can do video conferencing. Cool phone, but you now need to find the second person who has that watch just so you can have a video chat. Same problem I have with my Nokia N82. It has video conferencing and I’ve never used it. I haven’t found a second person who has the phone. Check out the video. BTW, the quality is much better, but I shot it with a Flip video camera and it doesn’t have macro focus so that’s why it’s a little blurry.

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Pearltrees: Bookmarking Program for Organization Lovers

Posted by David Spark on December 7, 2009 at 2:27 am

(This review is part of the Traveling Geeks tech tour of Paris. David Spark (@dspark) is the founder of Spark Media Solutions and a tech journalist that blogs at Spark Minute and can be heard and seen regularly on ABC Radio and on John C. Dvorak’s “Cranky Geeks.”)

For the first stop for the Traveling Geeks trip to Paris, we stopped by the offices of Pearltrees, a Web bookmarking, organizing, and organizing tool. Sitting inside their offices I could have been sitting at any Web 2.0 company in Silicon Valley. Very open work atmosphere. Brightly fluorescent lit rooms with everyone worked around big conference tables.

I had met with Patrice Lamonthe, Pearltrees’ CEO, back in San Francisco. Now I was his guest in his office. When I first received a demo, I immediately started making comparisons to Delicious, a bookmarking program that I use heavily. I use Delicious because it allows me to quickly bookmark and tag sites that I see that I know one day I’m going to need and use. What I like most about Delicious is the speed of bookmarking, tagging, and organizing. I can quickly “file” something away without going through the arduous task of filing.

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