Guide to Gimme
Michelle Johnson, in the Boston Globe today (link breaks tomorrow), lists the gadgets to get for your most beloved geeks. The gadgets are, in order of appearance:
iPod (and other players, including Rio Nitrus and Dell’s Digital Jukebox)
ZVUE! movie player that only plays movies in its proprietary format (D’oh!)
Mission 3D’s Photo3D kit that takes 3D photos with any digital camera. You have to wear special glasses to see the effect.
Netflix, the subscription service that sends DVDs to your house.
USB flash drives, including IBM’s, Verbatim’s and Iomega’s
Philips’ Audio Key Ring MP3 player
SanDisk 8-in-1 USB 2.0 card reader
Services that let you push-and-talk via your cellphone, from Sprint and Nextel
The Sidewinder hand crank that recharges your cell phone battery
Wireless IM’ing with Motorola’s IMFree
I have none of these devices except the boring old USB flash drive. But I can’t say that I actually want any of them, except maybe an iPod. What I actually want is the Garmin StreetPilot 2610 GPS for my car. Now we’re talking gifts for geeks!
Categories: Uncategorized dw
Maybe you can’t beat them, but you don’t have to just give in. Do your gift shopping with the little independants (e.g., http://www.bicyclesouthwindsor.com/pages/5/index.htm) and fight corporate dominance (a wee bit).
By the way, I finally got a telephone answering machine in 1985, a car-vac dust-buster in ’86, a CD player 4 years ago, and a P.C. and cheap dig. camera 2 years ago. I remember our family’s first color tv (c. 1966). Maybe soon, I will get Crime & Punishment.
ZVUE!
I placed my order BEFORE their Dec 15 deadline for Holiday shipping and have not so much as received an e-mail other than the automated response stating a message will be sent when the product is shipped.
I am also not even getting any response to my technical support requests.
Also, according to their web site you can’t even copy directly to the player with the USB cable yet. You need a seperate device to transfer info to a media card.
What’s the use?
I believe this product will be one of the dreams that DIES due to a PR engine that is revving a LOT louder than the actual product. :-(
Shame. I thought it sounded too good to be true…