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Gadgets
Gadgets Friday
26Sep
Update: Parrot vs. BlueAnt Supertooth III
Friday, September 26, 2008 at 11:17AM Just a quick update on our dual trial of the Parrot MINIKIT and BlueAnt Supertooth III: The BlueAnt device is superior in operation and battery life. After the Parrot “checked out” on my wife we now own TWO BlueAnt ST3’s. We have a third car where the Parrot can live, but for our daily drivers it’s BlueAnt.
Monday
22Sep
Ultimate Home Vociemail
Monday, September 22, 2008 at 10:37PM 
Back when I traveled a lot I tried out this new service called SimulScribe because it represented a much better way to triage and return voicemail after landing at the airport, where it is difficult to write down voicemails you have received in-flight and return the calls as you catch a cab. Now called PhoneTag (sorry guys, your new brand just doesn’t resonate with me so I’m going to refer to it as SimulScribe hereforward) the service takes voicemail and transcribes it as text which is sent to you as an email, along with the original attachment should you need to hear it yourself. It is very accurate and as much a “life changer” as TiVo is for TV viewing.
I was so enthusiastic that I got my wife an account of her own for her birthday and we are now happy users. We wanted to apply the same functionality to our home phone to deal with the endless stream of soccer practice updates, voicemails from the kids’ school, playdate proposals from BFFs (best-friends-forever), etc. but without paying for a third account. We found a way to do so by capitalizing on one of SimulScribe’s most useful features. Read on…
Thursday
18Sep
Questions For the LHC
Thursday, September 18, 2008 at 12:37AM 
In the spirit of firing up the Large Hardron Collider, I recently read (well, listened to on audio) A Briefer History of Time by Hawking and Mlodinow. Even though I had more than my share of phyisics and math in college I prefer this, ah, more accessible version. It’s a nice short read that gives some context to the questions we’re trying to answer with the LHC.
Monday
18Aug
This Won't Hurt a Bit - Hold Still Please...
Monday, August 18, 2008 at 11:46PM 
(c) CERN, Image courtesy of Boston.comJust wanted to point out some great photos (and humorous user comments) on Boston.com of the Large Hadron Collider, which at 27km long is the largest particle accelerator and one of the most important scientific experiments of our time. My favorite user-generated one-liner: “I hope it’s not running Windows Vista.” Its amazing to see such beautiful photos of technology that could change our understanding of the very fabric of our universe. Thanks to Brad Feld for posting about this; otherwise I wouldn’t have seen it.
Saturday
16Aug
Super Bluetooth
Saturday, August 16, 2008 at 05:25PM 
BlueAnt Supertooth IIIHere in California as the much publicized cellphone laws have gone into effect I’ve had to start wearing my earbud. All the time. Now while my earbud - a Plantronics 910 - is a great earbud, when I used it in the car previously it was more for when I had a big call to do. Short “yes I’m on my way home” calls didn’t warrant the earbud in my mind.
For the past few weeks I’ve been wearing it religiously and it’s kind of a pain to do that: I don’t like having to carry an earbud and then either be faced with the job of keeping track of the darn thing - they’re small - or wearing it all the time and looking like “one of the earbud people.” Some people still aren’t sure if it’s good to have a transmitter on the side of your head either. So, we bought a portable battery powered bluetooth speakerphone for our two non-speakerphone commuter cars. Our first was a Parrot Minikit, and the other was the BlueAnt Supertooth III.