News, reviews and cool stuff for Apple iPod and iPod Mini
Going off the iPod topic briefly, I wanted to mention an easy way to get 10 Free Ringtones for your mobile phone. DaDa Mobile is offering 10 "No Charge" ringtones for Verizon, t-mobile, Cingular, Verizon and other other Mobile Phone plans. Visit this page for links to the offer.
iTunes and PayPal: Giving Beautiful Music for the Holidays
Introduced in 2001, iPods have quickly taken over the portable music arena. Designed and marketed by Apple, the digital portable music player is an ideal accessory for everyone. IPods have been popular since introduced and today many can't be without one.
US President Bush got in a muddle when he tried to show of his new iPod.
The Essential iPod received a press release from MagneticTime, a UK-based company, that they've released software for listening to emails and Word documents on mp3 players and cell phones. Presently the software is only available for Windows users, but a Macintosh version is planned.
MT1 from MagneticTime lets you listen to email and Word documents on the move - on iPod, Pocket PC, or Mobile Phone!
An integral desktop player lets laptops and PCs in on the act.
MagneticTime has announced the MT1 series of downloadable software that converts emails and Word documents into speech via MP3s for use with iPods, mobile phones, PDAs, or any PC. Available at www.magnetictime.com priced £22.99 (Euro33.99, US$39.99), MT1 is currently available in English - with additional languages like French, Spanish and German to follow - and will be available for the Apple Mac in 2006.
Three versions of MT1 are currently available for download: MT-iPodTM, MT-PhoneTM and MT-PdaTM. Each comes with a desktop player that allows emails and Word documents to be played on a PC or laptop.
In addition to producing email and Word documents as MP3s, MT1 acts "intelligently" - in the role of personal assistant - to organise information and make decisions. Its user definable Rules Engine provides a powerful tool to select and filter data - much like "anti-spam" software does.
MT1 works with Windows 2000 and XP, and all versions of MS Word, Outlook and Outlook Express. Documents and emails are stored on the mobile device and PC in libraries, the same way as songs. "Anything you can do with an MP3 'song' you can now do with your personal information - play it, copy it, archive it etc," says MagneticTime CEO Richard O'Donnell.
MT1's MP3 files typically use four-five times less "space" than the average MP3 song and MT1 can be set to automatically select and load emails on a regular (e.g. daily) basis. It works by being downloaded and installed on to a PC and is designed to work "out of the box". Apart from being able to synchronise with a mobile device such as an iPod, other novel features include natural voices and export to multiple devices.
Users can set MT1 to send emails and Word documents - all or selected ones - to the receiving devices. iPod users can use the auto load function of iTunes to download emails and Word documents and to listen to their work in iTunes itself.
MT1 is a true next step in information handling and management," says O'Donnell, who emerged from the high tech and dotcom boom of 2000 with $26m from his portion of the $60m sale to Clarus Corporation, Atlanta (NASDAQ clrs) of Software Architects International (SAI) and Redeo.com.
SAI's financial and electronic banking products are still used today in major corporates such as Yamaha, Ciba, Diageo, Bridgestone and Northern Telecom.
From his native Ireland and his base in the USA he plotted a return to business and established MagneticTime in 2005. For MT1, the company uses a combination of new and existing technologies, including algorythm-based technologies that are unique to MagneticTime. The output "voice" is a quality "new millennium natural voice" that "speaks" clearly and not too hurriedly.
O'Donnell sees MT1 being used as a day-to-day personal and business tool, allowing users to catch up with key work while commuting to or from work, for example, or listening to messages from friends or relatives. In addition, he sees applications in training, corporate communications and education.
"Several universities in North America are looking at the iPod as a means of communicating course information and limited course content - such as recordings of lectures - to students," says O'Donnell. "The MT1 series takes that approach a step further by allowing any complementary course content in Word to also be converted to voice.
"The implications for corporate communications, training, and education are profound," he adds.
There are three products in the range. Users get a huge discount on the second product they buy; the third they get for free. Details on the website.
MT1 Features:
- New millennium ‘natural’ voices, NO bad sci-fi movie voices!
- Uses 4 times less space than a typical MP3.
- Listen on your PC too (‘Desktop Player’ is included).
- Listen while commuting (car, train, subway, plane) or at the gym.
- Automatically selects and downloads your daily emails to your MP3 player of choice.
- Select Word documents to audioize and take with you.
- Stores your emails and Word documents like music.
- Builds your portable email & document ‘audio’ library.
- Play them now, or anytime (or place) in the future.
- No need to delete. Algorithms ensure minimum space requirements (storage capacities on many devices are also now so large that it would take a lifetime to fill them up).
- MT1 is currently in English only. MT2 will be available soon in many other languages.
- Costs less than a couple of iPod cables!
Looks like iPod is a *HOT* choice this Christmas and Holiday season. InformationWeek is reporting:
According to comScore Networks Inc., a company that tracks consumer activity on the Web, consumers conducted some 6.6 million searches on the term iPod last month. Coming in second in what comScore labels "toy" searches: Xbox 360, the Microsoft gaming console, with 5 million searches. A close third: Harry Potter, with 4.8 million hits. Rounding out the top six toy searches are Star Wars [2.5 million], Barbie [2.1 million], and PlayStation [1.9 million].
MacMall is running a Christmas special on the (Was $379.99 Now $359.99). I had a chance over Thanksgiving to get into an Apple Store while visiting Chicago and played with one of these (as well as those gorgeous 30" Apple monitors.... wow!!). These new color photo iPods have incredible LCD screens, and are larger than the previous generation of iPods. Sadly, I ordered my pod two weeks before these came out...
When your mp3 player is almost as small as a Zippo lighter, it's easy to forget where you left it. From Jeffrey Kelly at the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
I have a knack for accidentally losing, maiming, drowning or destroying wallets, debit cards, cell phones and other small objects.
The fifth debit card I've replaced in the past year arrived last weekend, and I had just taken it from the envelope as I opened the washing machine door to notice a thin white cord streaming out of a front jeans pocket.
"Where's my iPod?"
The three-week-old, six-credit-cards-thin, sleek, black and $208.95 iPod nano was at the bottom of the washing bin.
The nano had been through a 30-minute rinse/spin cycle and a cold wash, as I obliviously relaxed on the sofa, watching and laughing at the newly released "Seinfeld" DVDs.
There was no drying out this iPod, as I have heard happen with others. The dip was too long, and as "Seinfeld's" George Costanza might say, the water was too cold.
In the days that followed, friends urged me to try to return it to the experts at the Apple store's "Genius Bar" and play dumb: "It just stopped, like, working all the sudden. Seriously."
Click Here!
But they're geniuses. They'd know.
As expected, mom and dad e-mailed on Monday afternoon with a few lines on personal responsibility. I opine that it's not an issue of responsibility -- it's a matter of the technologies we use daily being so small and pocket-sized.
I wrote Jeremy Seftor, general manager at Capitol Mac on Main Street, for some tips on what to do should your iPod go for a spin.
"You might let it dry out for a while and see if it works," he wrote.
Thanks, Jeremy.
He continued: "I have an iPod Shuffle which has gone through two full washing machine cycles and one dryer cycle, and it still works. The first time, I was pretty depressed when my wife told me what had happened, but when I got home the thing just worked, so all was forgiven. In fact, the iPod was nice and white, especially the lanyard," which strings the player around the neck.
A few weeks later, Seftor said, his wife nonchalantly asked him if he'd been using the iPod lately. He told her yes, and "she was greatly relieved, because she had washed it for the second time."
