Full Transcript:

Benjamin Higginbotham: Technology Evangelist, New Tech Tuesday Podcast, Episode – 2. Plasma monitors, digital cameras, Sony type L, Vones and the Zune all coming up. [Song] All right.

Ed Kohler: Very nice Ben.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Thank you.

Ed Kohler: I think you are correct in your statement there.

Jeremy Elfering: Yes you need to buy some intro-music because that sucked.

Ed Kohler: If anyone is interested in helping us in intro-music, don’t look to Ben’s work for inspiration.

Jeremy Elfering: Please do not look to Ben’s work.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Everyone was just glancing at me like you are the biggest idiot ever.

Jeremy Elfering: No, I am sure there are much bigger idiots, but you are the biggest idiot who has ever been in this room.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Oh, man. So, I really want intro-music and I just can’t stand the fact that we have nothing, we just go straight into it and it is, I don’t need it to be long, but I want some sort of themes we can brand this show. So, we do our daily tech show of sorts, everyday of the week and I want something that ties them all together, but is clearly independent, if that make sense.

Ed Kohler: Mood setting?

Benjamin Higginbotham: Mood, yeah exactly.

Jeremy Elfering: You need mood music?

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, exactly little underscore thing going on there, but I got nothing. So, anyhow…

Jeremy Elfering: Just don’t go at the [Voice Music].

Ed Kohler: That’s been used enough in other industries.

Jeremy Elfering: Yes.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, we used to call this day for one whole week, Gadget Tuesday, but Jeremy came up, by the way I am Benjamin Higginbotham with me to my right is Jeremy Elfering and sitting right front of me is Ed Kohler, because where they are perspective to me actually make sense.

Ed Kohler: I can hear the difference.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Can you tell who is sitting where on the audio podcast?

Ed Kohler: Absolutely.

Benjamin Higginbotham: That’s good, so we used to call Gadget Tuesdays, but Jeremy came up with the idea of New Tech Tuesdays and I like this because now check this out, we got Media Mondays, Tech Tuesdays, Web Wednesdays, we have got Thursdays something and Friday – Freestyle. So, I just got to fix up Thursday and…

Jeremy Elfering: You got a real theme going.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, I know I am all excited.

Ed Kohler: Illiteration is a good thing.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, so lets start this show off. We were just at Cosco last night, I think yesterday and we are looking at High Definition Monitors and I am always curious to see where the High Definition industry is and is going and there are two things I wanted to point out. First, you can now get a 60 inch plasma, which is huge 200 pounds for a smidging over two grand, as about $2,500 for 60 inch plasma.

Jeremy Elfering: And what’s the rub?

Benjamin Higginbotham: 720p.

Jeremy Elfering: That’s the rub.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, not 1080p, but still go back even a year, those things were like 5-10 grand, …and now you can get a 60 incher for 2,500 bucks. Now, I don’t think we are going to see the 60 inches slide. Everything has it is target price point where just ends up being in just where it ends, it doesn’t keep going down for ever until they pay you to take it.

Jeremy Elfering: Right.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I think somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 is where 60 inches in going to end up.

Jeremy Elfering:  Probably.

Benjamin Higginbotham: But I think it is going to be 1080p at that price.

Jeremy Elfering: That will be nice.

Ed Kohler: So, for someone who is in that $2,500 price range today, is that what they should buy? Or should they instead buy something than 1080p as smaller screen size, I guess what, how do you break that down?

Jeremy Elfering: Well, you are not finding 1080p and pretty much, it is 50 inch or above is where you are finding 1080p. So, you are not looking at much smaller screen anyway.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Right, so there are two ways look at this, first – you can always wait until the next technology comes out and if you do that, you will always be waiting, right? Because there is always something new and bigger and better on the horizon always, always, always, so the question is, when you take the dive? Do you? If you got $2,500 and there is a 60 inch screen you are looking at 60 inches then yeah, this is a heck of deal. The 1080p part is kind of disappointing, but that is not a whole lot of content that’s 1080p today, although we are starting see a lot more HD DVD and Blue Ray titles, but understand that broadcast television goes up to 1080i, actually goes up to 720p, 1080i is a step below 720p, so it goes up to 720p, most stations only broadcast in 1080i, so you are not going to get the full impact to those stations on that monitor.

Ed Kohler: So, if you have a 1080p monitor, but you are not getting 1080p content, you are just over buying in a sense today?

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah absolutely, that’s exactly what you are doing, because there is just whole lot of stuff out there now having said that how long you are going to keep this monitor for, probably longer than two years, if you are going to drop $2,500 on a monitor, I hope that you are going to keep it more now.

Jeremy Elfering: Mostly if I am going to have more than two years, yes.

Benjamin Higginbotham: May be three to five years and then if that point something new and bigger and badder it is going be out and you are going to want that.

Ed Kohler: And do you know how long people keep monitors these days…

Benjamin Higginbotham: Probably 90 days.

Ed Kohler: 90? So, the return policy these days, but they are not buying TV’s like they used to buy RCA Victrola, Signature.

Jeremy Elfering: You are not going to be TV to be, it is not a piece of furniture anymore, it is two to five years of…

Benjamin Higginbotham: Well hang on, it depends on the audience, my mom and dad buy it as piece of furniture, they still have there , that television has to be 15-years-old, that sitting upstairs and it is still working and it is working great, it will work till about 2009 or so…

Ed Kohler: Why would you rid of it?

Benjamin Higginbotham: They thought exactly, “why would, it works just fine” and I think, are you purposely sipping on the microphone just to taut me. So, he is drinking, I have this dragon thing and he is drinking, what is it? Dragon tea.

Ed Kohler: Green Dragon.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Green Dragon, just to taut me.

Ed Kohler: It is quite good.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, thank you for that Ed by the way, back to the point, I don’t know how long, how these people are going to deal with this, because these monitors half life in a three/four years.

Jeremy Elfering: About that.

Benjamin Higginbotham: The manufacture say, oh they have life than 10 year. No-no, they really half life in three – four years, half life is when you have lost have the brightness on the monitors, essentially I would call that to the point where it is unusable and so you have to dump it, you have to get new tech every three to four years. The point is where do you want to be? Today there is not a whole lot of 1080p content, there will be 1080p content coming out there, here is 1080p content on sites like Technology Evangelist, Mac break, there is lot of stuff this is where everything is going, there is no question about that. Blue-Ray, HD DVD all 1080p, right? I don’t think it is all 1080p a good chunk of 1080p. so, that’s where you want to be, right now today 720p will do just fine, because then you can take your 1080i stuff, it is basically 540p and just add the extra lines back in and go from there. So, if you are looking for really big set and really care about the resolution too much, this is a fantastic deal. However, if you are looking for 1080p set, you are not going to be able to quite get the 60 inches, but Cosco also have 1080p LCD monitors, for around $1,600 that’s awesome. I mean that’s scary – cool.

Jeremy Elfering: Well, how big were those 1080p LCD monitors?

Benjamin Higginbotham: Those were 42 inches, so we sized down substantially and remember that’s done diagonally, so 42 verses 60 is actually pretty big difference.

Jeremy Elfering: Yes, it is.

Benjamin Higginbotham: But, still it shows where things are going and I think we are going to see 42 inch LCD monitors break around $1,000.

Jeremy Elfering: It is probably going to be, as 42 is going to where the, when you start going passed 42, that’s one of the big jump in price is going to be, I think for right now.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Right, at least for a while, because there is a fabrication problem in that way and I just don’t see that price going down too much further. Those who argue the prices will continue to decrease, but there is a point, if you look your Standard Definition television, there is a point where they just all became about $200 to $300 and they all offered the same features and they stayed there for how many years?

Jeremy Elfering:  For ever, I mean they have ship them though.

Ed Kohler:Yeah, they have to ship them still, they stopped to buy materials, they still have to do everything else.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Right, absolutely and so there is that target price and I think, again I am gazing into my crystal ball here, who knows where it is really going to be, but I really think 42 inch LCD’s and plasma’s at 1080p are going to end up around $1,000. The 60 inches will end-up somewhere around 2,000 or 2,500 and then anything above that going to be considered premier and elite and then price can range however the heck they want it to be, so but those two items today, if you are looking for a new set, the 1080p stuff awesome, very cool.

Ed Kohler: Yes I guess, another way look at that would be, if you are looking to buying a TV say every three years it would be, if you break that down over time, it would be about $30 a month or $60 a month if you want a good TV or really awesome TV, so if you budget for that, it would be good to go and you have something new every three years.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Absolutely or every 90 days, depends on how you want to do? Of course the only problem with that is the 60 inch television take a wild guess how much that thing weighs?

Jeremy Elfering: I believe you already said that, I believe it is 200 pounds.

Benjamin Higginbotham: 200 pounds.

Ed Kohler: Find a wall for that Ben?

Jeremy Elfering: Well here is the question, how many people are actually mounting flat screens on walls? Or just putting that on stand like they will always have?

Benjamin Higginbotham: Well I have been touring a lot of open houses lately just because, I am looking for a house and the open houses have them all on walls, but then again…

Ed Kohler: Like above the fire place things like that.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I hate that so much!

Jeremy Elfering: It is the worst spot ever, it is like, let’s see how much I can crane my neck, just to watch TV.

Benjamin Higginbotham: No kidding, that is the least to get…

Ed Kohler: You need to get the reclining couch to go at that.

Benjamin Higginbotham: You are not kidding, at least a optimal place to put a television, but what most people do when they get home, yeah let’s put it way up high.

Ed Kohler: So, what’s the most optimal place then?

Benjamin Higginbotham: Straight a head, you want to backlight it slightly, you want to put a little bit of light behind it to reduce eye strain, that’s why those Phillips Ambient, whatever the heck they call it, actually really cool, because they take care of the backlight for you and you want it straight ahead and I forgot that, there is a distance thing you are supposed to do.

Jeremy Elfering: Usually around 10 to 15 feet.

Benjamin Higginbotham: There you go, I don’t know what? I thought it was actually…

Ed Kohler: Imagined that varies size a bit.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I was going to say there is a formula you were supposed to do and I don’t remember what that formula is, I have look that up.

Jeremy Elfering: It kind of 10 to 15 feet usually, your optimum.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, all right moving on, there is the plasma, there is the latest in High Definition technology out there today, Cosco bring that, brought to us by Cosco.

Jeremy Elfering:  This is been sponsored by Cosco.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, one purchase will pay for your executive membership right there. I am looking for a digital camera, Ed.

Ed Kohler: What kind of digital camera?

Benjamin Higginbotham: That’s a great question? See…

Ed Kohler: Like a point shooter or SLR?

Benjamin Higginbotham: Well, both.

Jeremy Elfering: Ben always wants everything.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I do, I want the impossible, I want the point shoot SLR, can I have that, that fits in my pocket?

Ed Kohler: No, you are very wishful. With the big lens, it fits in your pocket.

Benjamin Higginbotham: OK, so half the time I just want something that I am going to carry with me, because the big problem is that I look around and “wooh! that picture would be awesome and then I can add to my Flickr stream, but if it is a big huge camera, I am just not going to bring it with me, but then the other half of the time, I am like, “oh I need a real lens, I need a manly lens, I need real ground glass” I don’t want to take that really great looking shot that you only have one chance in your life to get, I am stuck with a stupid point shoot camera, where I can “nooooo”, so I want them both.

Jeremy Elfering: Of course you do, it is a hard balance to make is that there are people like us who looks specifically at pictures and want that high quality, but you also have that other part where you want that put it in your pocket, what is the best?

Benjamin Higginbotham: Ed, what you think I should do? Should I just suck it up and get the point shoot that way at least I have the camera and I can get the shot or do I spend the extra $400 billion and get the SLR?

Ed Kohler: Well, first I would say that, if you have any camera with you at all, you are going to take a picture with it. So, I take tons of pictures with my Treo.

Benjamin Higginbotham: But, that’s not, I don’t, because I hate the quality so much and like what’s the point?

Ed Kohler: I still get a good enough picture that I can show it to someone and I can use it to help tell story about something I saw and…

Benjamin Higginbotham: Well, you have to tell a story to describe what the seen in the picture, so just forget it.

Jeremy Elfering: A picture is worth a 1,000 words, I think a picture on a Treo is worth negative a 1,000 words, because you have to use that many words to explain it.

Ed Kohler: You may be on something there, personally I use it a lot and I actually probably take the most pictures I take with my Treo, second with my point shoot camera, so I don’t have an SLR at this point, but if I did, it would probably would I took the third most amount of pictures with, just because of convenience. I always have my phone with me, most of the time have a point shoot with me and I would rarely have my SLR with me. So, I guess it depends on what sort of things you are taking a pictures to of course.

Jeremy Elfering: What you are saying is cost per picture would go up with the SLR, because you are taking less pictures with them and…

Ed Kohler: Significantly.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Because the SLR costs so much more money too. I mean it is like scary expensive, when compared to a point and shoot.

Jeremy Elfering:  But, the pictures on them are gorgeous.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Well yeah, it also depends on the person taking the pictures.

Jeremy Elfering:  Yeah, absolutely.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I guess it comes down to a lot of this is when we are out shooting some sort of High Definition episode somewhere, it is kind of cool to get behind the scene shots of what we are doing, just to show people what happens in a full documentary style of shoot and I just think it is cool to take these pictures or at least give my camera to someone else, because I am usually busy setting up and I don’t have time to take pictures, but to get these pictures and I would love to get some of them in a really high quality, so that’s where the SLR camera and I would know exactly when I am going to need to take this pictures, because I know what I am setting up, but there are also those times when I was like at my parents place the other day and we were, they had their brand new cute little puppy and I wanted to take some pictures of the puppy and I got a little bit video of the puppy and I didn’t have video camera with me, I had a little Samsung point and shoot jabber unit and it did an OK job, then I got the thinking I probably should just carry a point and shoot with me all the time. So, if I do that Ed, what should I get?

Ed Kohler: Well I am personally a big fan of the camera all the Canon cameras, I have had the S70, then I had SD600 and now I have an SD800 and they just continue to get better, the quality is pretty good, the lenses seem to be pretty good, I like that they use SD cards in them in sort of because it is such an easy to find format and easy to use, especially now you get the SD cards that have the USB slots built in to them, which makes it simple to transfer photos to the computer and get them on a Flickr, or whatever you are going to do with them.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I like what you do, where you take a picture on a point and shoot, you will take a series of pictures you pull the SD cards slam it into your Treo and then email them to Flickr and create a body for your blog post and so you are right there, you're moblogging with an actual decent picture as opposed to one of those crummy little camera phone pictures and it is available instantly on your personal site or even on the Technology Evangelist site, depending up on where you are sending it to.

Ed Kohler: Yeah, that works really well, because when a photo even in a high resolution of the SD800 might be around 3 megabits and I think I can email up to about a 10 megabit photo from a Treo.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Slowly.

Ed Kohler: It takes time, but it will get there and once it get to Flickr, they'll store that original, but then provide lets say whatever size you like to publish to the blog and so, I generally use like 500 pixel with photo, well the body of the email will become the body of the blog post, the subject will become the title and you can also add tags to the photo as well, so it ends up on the blog, it looks good and someone could click through from their over to Flickr to see the high-res version of, if they like. So, very flexible.

Benjamin Higginbotham: When I could not do that with an SLR camera, because that’s all going to record on to, I don’t know any that record…

Jeremy Elfering: Most of are in compact flash.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Or any of them not?

Jeremy Elfering: I can’t think of one.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, can you? May be there is Sony one might record on to memory stick, but even that I don’t have any easy way to get that into my phone.

Ed Kohler: Unless it has Bluetooth or something.

Jeremy Elfering: Have for a bit Sony using, anything with memory stick.

Benjamin Higginbotham: What about the iPhone? Why don’t if we don’t like the quality of the iPhone, it doesn’t have an SD cards, does it?

Jeremy Elfering: No, it does not.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, how do I get it from my camera to my iPhone, not that it matters because it is on EDGE networks, so your 3 megabit file will take 4.7 days to upload, so…

Ed Kohler: One problem with the emailing the bigger photos from the Treo is sometimes they take a few minutes to come in and next thing I am having Twitters coming and SMS messages and stuff and sometimes they can affect your upload.

Benjamin Higginbotham: We should have a Twitter episode where we all leave our SMS, turn SMS on Twitter on and leave our phones on during the show.

Jeremy Elfering: My God.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Well keep in mind, I subscribe to Scoble and to Winer.

Jeremy Elfering: Yeah, I know use subscribe to Scoble and Winer, because I have an office near you and I hear every single one of those updates.

Ed Kohler: I don’t think either of those guys have them coming to their own phones…

Benjamin Higginbotham: I know it is hilarious.

Ed Kohler: On the point and shoot between the SD600 or 800, I end up buying 800 just because I forgot my 600 on a recent trip, so feel impulse buy at Frys when I was in San Jose and but it is a little bit nicer, because the number is bigger for one.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, will bigger number has to be better.

Ed Kohler: Right exactly, but one of the really annoying things about this 600 model was the little toggle switch that changes your mode from shooting to video to playback, it was just way too close to the corner of the camera. So, it was constantly bumping it into the wrong mode. So, I would go to take a, the most common thing is, it would bump it out of still photos into video. So, I would go to take a picture and next thing, I just record a two seconds of video, so it was really annoying.

Jeremy Elfering: Awesome, which is actually one of the key points that I just recommend for people for cameras is go and touch the camera and pretend like you are going to shoot a picture with it, see it if it feels good.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, that’s a valid point, you absolutely should, but I don’t think what Ed just mentioned is something you would really figure out until you have the camera in your pocket and you are using it for a week or two.

Jeremy Elfering: I agree, but you will find out some things about it.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, you will.

Ed Kohler: That one is particularly annoying, if you are in Minnesota and you are trying to use the camera while you are wearing gloves, it is just not designed for that. So, that camera is like broomball game, I try to take few photos.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So, you mentioned that, I am also looking at that, Sony has a digital camera that has touch screen on it and I am not sure why I want a touch screen and Jeremy shaking his head violently saying no, but it seems so cool.

Jeremy Elfering: It seem so cool until you take 500 pictures of the inside of your pocket.

Benjamin Higginbotham: No-no, it is still, it is not a touch screen snaps or still a push button, but all the menu options and stuff like that are touch screen.

Ed Kohler: Still stylist?

Jeremy Elfering: I can still see that going off and it going beep-beep-beep as your pocket bumps into it.

Benjamin Higginbotham: How is that, go again?

Jeremy Elfering: Beep-beep-beep-beep.

Benjamin Higginbotham: We make our own music and sound effects here.

Ed Kohler: I don’t know, I think there is actual tactile buttons you can find, you can program yourself to know where those buttons are and you can just blast through the modes so fast.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yes, but if I am in Minnesota and I wearing gloves in the winter and I can just go and press the screen…

Jeremy Elfering: Well if you are wearing gloves, you are going to have a hard time with touch screen anyway.

Ed Kohler: Yes.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I don’t want to hear your logic boy.

Ed Kohler: Try that with a Treo.

Jeremy Elfering: Yeah.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Stop it. All right fine, you sold me on not doing that, fine.

Ed Kohler: Especially in Minnesota…

Benjamin Higginbotham: Ed, how much was your SD 800 list price?

Ed Kohler: I think it was about $400.

Benjamin Higginbotham: That’s not too bad, you can probably get it for about $300 on Amazon or…

Ed Kohler: Look it up quick, it is between $200 and $250 for the SD600 now which is fine camera, it is actually a little bit smaller too.

Benjamin Higginbotham: That’s nice.

Ed Kohler: So, I am really hard on my equipment, I have it in my pockets, while I am playing broomball, I drop it all the time and it takes a beating, I have been really happy with that, so…

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yes, you are very-very hard on your digital equipment, you should see his Treo, it is amazing, I am surprised it think still works, is that yellow paints on it, by the way?

Ed Kohler: Yeah, little bit.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Ok, just checking.

Jeremy Elfering: Yeah, the yellow paint on all of your items is pretty good.

Ed Kohler: The 800 is now at $349 on Amazon, so it’s come down 50 bucks half of it’s MSRP and it’s 7 megapixels versus I think it’s about 5 megapixels on the SD600, but neither one is really make or break type thing for if you want to have a print quality photo, you are getting a plenty of large size image on that. The SD800 does have image stabilization, which I don’t know if that makes a huge difference. It does nice facial tracking, so I think that could help little bit in some situations, so actually prolly the thing that I have used on it, that I don’t think is on the 600 or I never discovered the feature is having custom shoot modes where you can say wait 10 seconds and then take 5 pictures in a row.

Benjamin Higginbotham: That’s cool.

Ed Kohler: That’s actually a really nice feature, if you are taking like a family portrait, where put the camera in the tripod, and now you have 5 shots getting everyone to not blink. So rather having a continually run back and forth with the tripod, so I am a fan of that.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Cool. All right. Let’s move on. And, by the way those in TalkShoe, welcome to the show. And, we did have a quick question, and since we're moving on, I am going on to interject the question really quick they are asking, “what microphones we are using?”, we do have a pretty high-end set up over here. We actually use a couple of KSM44 from Sure routed in to a project mix IO, and then in to TalkShoe we use Xlite. So we are doing a pure SIP connection back in the TalkShoe to try to keep quality as high as possible. So the total podcasting set up in this room I think is about 4 grand and by the time we are done, we are looking about $6000 podcasting studio. A little bit outside of the budget of most people. But we do this professionally, so if you are looking to do a high-end Pro Hip-Hop, podcast, first I suggest not having me on in it apparently.

Jeremy Elfering: Yes.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I can’t talk worth a darn. But otherwise I am very happy with the Sure KSM44s. They sound great. At least I think so. I think they are dynamic range is incredible.

Ed Kohler: They gave some great feed back on them.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, I think there is no pun intending, great feedback audio. So, let’s move on. The Sony Vaio type L with blue ray is now shipping, and that’s just a cool looking device. I don’t think it’s available in US yet, I think that’s Japan only, but this is cool because now we have got this kind of portable, it’s a quasi laptop, quasi desktop computer. It has the keyboard that folds off and you can use it more as a desktop, but it’s still extremely portable, really thin, really light. And it now has a blue-ray built in to it, and that’s a really great thing. It’s starting to see more and more HD DVD drives and blue ray players. It’s built in to these computers, and other devices can only be good for the industry and market, although, I personally believe HD DVD and blue ray  not going to be here very long.

Jeremy Elfering: I have to agree with you. There's not really a point,  well there is an intermediary point. It’s like high-8 was for consumer video camera.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, like that. Like two year gap before DV came.

Jeremy Elfering: Exactly.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, that’s exactly what I think this is going to be, and it will be just like high-8, it’s still around today. It will still go to target and buy high-8 tape. Same thing, you will still be able to get HD DVDs and blue rays, a new media just doesn’t go away, but, heck, you can still get VHS tapes.

Jeremy Elfering: Well, if right now, sales for it’s pretty pitiful, what it takes to get in to the top 10, and blue ray sales. It’s like a 1000 units.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Really.

Jeremy Elfering: It’s something pitiful like that.

Benjamin Higginbotham: But it’s also a brand new.

Jeremy Elfering: It is a brand new.

Benjamin Higginbotham: It is confusing to most consumers.

Jeremy Elfering: Oh yeah.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So I can see where it would be harder to get sales out there because it’s just new. It’s just hard.

Jeremy Elfering: If you are not a tech geek , you are not going to tell the difference between the two.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I am a little surprised by that, being at the PlayStation 3 sold so many units.

Jeremy Elfering: Yeah, but how many DVDs have been gone with it.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I have no idea, but they took all the spare play station 3 blue rayed drafts, and slapped them in to the Sony Vaio type L from all the PS 3s got returned, and that the consumers ended up not buying, and instead buying that Wii. So I thought that’s cool.

Ed Kohler: I am more excited about the detachable display because I think people these days, who are doing the majority of their work on a laptop before longer all are going to be hunch backs, so we have ostioperodic geeks, who are spines that are going to adjust to their head always being curved lower.

Benjamin Higginbotham: It’s a really cool looking device. I mean it looks the way folds up and the way operates is a really innovative way of looking at mobile computing, and I don’t really want to call it a laptop, but mobile computing. It is lot more like a desktop computer, that you can bring with you, which is exactly what I need with Final Cut Pro

Jeremy Elfering: Unfortunately that won’t quite work on the Sony.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I am sure there are ways to make it work.

Ed Kohler: But that actually is a good point. While, people want to be mobile, they do the majority of their work at the same desk everyday. So why not have a set up their where, it’s more similar to a desktop experience, where it’s more comfortable and use of full size keyboard perhaps instead of the laptop keyboard, a mouse instead of the touchpad, make it a better experience for yourself.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Part of it is, this goes back to also blue ray conversation, and what’s been talked about in TalkShoe a little bit, which is everything is going to move to digital distribution. We are going to get away from these discs, but what’s interesting is that, we have laptops at least, I have laptops because I need to bring my data with me very easily, and my applications and programs that I can just move from point to point. Whatever happened in the Sun Microsystems model, where it’s all dumb terminals, and you can just, it’s all about the network, it’s all on the network, and you can just go from place to place to place, and grab your same data and do it if you want to do with it. Isn’t that the ultimate end game here, where it’s all on line, I take my data, I save it to an online drive, I go home, I pick it right back up all through maybe a web browsers, and sort of interactive standard based some thing and it’s all done digitally. I don’t have to have a mobile computer. I just use whatever computer is in front of me. I go to an Apple store, use that computer, pick up where I left off.

Ed Kohler: Well, have you heard of Google docs?

Benjamin Higginbotham: You are waiting for that, I can see it in your eyes.

Ed Kohler: It can be done to a degree if you are doing video and lot of photos probably not. You can do online photo editing today, but it’s not Photoshop by any means. You could do online video editing with things like Jumpcut today, but it’s not Final Cut Pro. It just depends on what you are trying to achieve there.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So what you are saying is that the bandwidth needs to be terabit  to every home. And then we are good.

Jeremy Elfering: Yeah, may be.

Benjamin Higginbotham: May be.

Jeremy Elfering:  By that time, the file sizes will be even bigger. So that won’t even work.

Benjamin Higginbotham: No,I bet it would. Apparently, in the UK, they only have one megabit up/down in the UK. So that’s not even close to fast enough. The network, it comes down to the endpoint networks, the last mile needs to be much-much faster. That brings me to an interesting theory on Google, and why they have got all those dark fiber, but that doesn’t get to last mile. But the running some of those WiFi tests in certain cities …

Jeremy Elfering: That might be the last mile.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I think I see Technology Evangelist article forming in my head right now.

Ed Kohler: I tried to do that Sun model for a while for basically use a different computer at home or at work even though I occasionally work from home or do home stuff at work, whatever, it’s kind of a grey area that at times, but the point being that I wouldn’t have to move a computer any where.

Benjamin Higginbotham: How well did that work?

Ed Kohler: It didn’t work very well.

Jeremy Elfering: I actually have a different way. That I have been working actually lately.

Benjamin Higginbotham: He doesn’t work from home.

Jeremy Elfering: Well, I don’t work from home for lunch. But the stuff that I needed to transfer from computer to computer, I actually have on a firewire hard drive, and since I'm using Apple products, I just have programs in the firewire hard drive also.

Benjamin Higginbotham: But that doesn’t work for things like FInal Cut Pro because you need the system ID, and stuff like that. Not for everything.

Jeremy Elfering: But it works for a lot of things. So when I have to change laptops, I just moved the firewire hard-drive.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I should mention, for those who don’t know generally not all Apple programs do this, but many Apple programs specially those written in cocoa are self contained files, they don’t contain registry settings, they don’t have anything else. You can run them off of a different hard-drive. You can just copy them to any other drive like a jump drive for example move them to a computer that is not installed on, just run it right off the jump drive. Now again, not all Apple programs, but a lot of them will.

Jeremy Elfering: Which is very nice for me atleast.

Ed Kohler: I believe you can deal with firefox on a jump drive.

Benjamin Higginbotham: In randomly changing topics because we haven’t been on top to get all for this show, of course, it’s being pretty good show. There is an optimized version of Firefox for Mac OS X, they can’t call it Firefox, it’s called Bon-echo I believe it is and you download the version for your processor, so my big ripe with Firefox and Mac OS X is always been that it’s just so slow. It’s just not optimized for Mac OS X, it’s clearly a Windows program for us then, and Oh, yeah, let’s make it for other stuff or it may be a Linux program first, but it is not a Mac OS X first program. The port of it, that’s optimized for the different processors runs a lot better, and it is Firefox, all your extensions work, and everything else works, that just can’t call it Firefox. So for everyone “Bon Echo” put that in the shownotes, if you are on Mac OS X and if you use Firefox, I highly suggest checking it out. It’s a lot better than what you are using right now.

Jeremy Elfering: I\ll be curious to see that, how long you have been using it so far?

Benjamin Higginbotham: A week or two. So little while, and they keep up with the service releases of Firefox, so as soon as Firefox releases an update or we can secure the data a couple of days later you will get to fill this application as well.

Jeremy Elfering: Well. That is the beauty of the Firefox model is that you do have those updates so quickly.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Absolutely, and the extensions.

Jeremy Elfering: Exactly.

Benjamin Higginbotham: That is why ultimately I use Firefox instead of Safari because of extensions. That’s it. I have always give Ed a hard time whenever I am using Safari.

And let’s talk really quick about Nokia N95 and N93i. I believe those have just recently started shipping you can get your hands on the N95 now. It’s a very large complex device and I saw that at the Consumer Electronic Show. We actually didn’t do a video on the N95, but it didn’t wow us as much as the N93 did. Now the N93 is just as you know the difference, N95 is more of a smart phone based on Symbion OS. It does a little bit of everything, has a dual sliding keyboard on it. Although, it slides one direction and the other direction, but if I remember correctly, it did not have a qwerty keyboard.

Ed Kohler: I don't believe so.

Benjamin Higginbotham: That my big ripe with all Nokia phones. I want my freaking qwerty keyboard.

Ed Kohler: Now backing up from there for a second what was the deal with the N series in general like it’s not like their mobile computer.

Benjamin Higginbotham: They have slogan for it but they don’t call them phones, just like your mobile communications or mobile whatever platform and so that’s what that is.

Ed Kohler: So the N93 versus N95, the N93i seems like the phone of choice for people who wanted to do mobile video blogging because they can be pretty much anywhere, it has a pretty good camera in it basically it has a good lens.

Benjamin Higginbotham: And it is shiny.

Ed Kohler: It is shiny. You know why it’s shiny. It didn’t .. it just finally figures out there a day. The reason they have that mirror is to use as a mirror, you know when you are doing a self photo. I was wondering why do they make this thing so freaky and shiny because it is constantly thumbprinted.

Benjamin Higginbotham: But that is totally wrong. I mean the screen does flip around you can see it yourself on the actual screen so there is no need for the mirror. The problem is when you flip the screen around like that it goes into a low quality record mode and you can’t shoot it back in the high quality record mode and low quality is really-really low quality

Ed Kohler: High quality record mode you have to use the mirror

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah. Exactly and high quality really-really high quality. It is like 4AP great looking stuff. It’s amazing how good the stuff looks and I just yeah exactly the TalkShoe saying the camera on that phone is amazing and is absolutely amazing as long as you are not using it in self-portrait mode and there are some really cool things you can do with that device in self-portrait mode and is one of those like you got the killer features is that camera and a crippler like that and I don’t understand the logic behind that. In the UK because the US cellular networks really suck when compared to the UK but in the UK you have got voice and video over IP on that device so between two Nokia phones you can actually do a voice and video call and stream yourself to the other users. You can even stream to other SIP clients that support video as well. So really cool stuff. Can’t do that in the US. I believe Cingular is working on that network to make that happen and I heard like June, July they are going to start testing, but you know that was all kind of they didn’t really want to talk to me and they won’t really give me any real dates. So, who knows what that’s really going to do.

Jeremy Elfering:  Can they get so they doesn’t drop calls now too?

Benjamin Higginbotham: No. That’s the US network again. US network just sucks.

Ed Kohler: No, why don’t they have a tripod mount on that phone. I don’t believe they do.

Benjamin Higginbotham: I thought they did on the bottom.

Ed Kohler: Oh, Yeah.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah.

Ed Kohler: I thought they looked on a day and it didn’t.

Benjamin Higginbotham: You mean the one sitting on my desk.

Ed Kohler: No, it is out in San Jose.

Benjamin Higginbotham: So wait. You went to San Jose to see one, and I have got one sitting on my desk.

Ed Kohler: Yeah, just talking to a guy out there, it didn’t have a like a screw spot on the bottom, you could have for a tripod, would seem od because the quality of the video goes up a lot if it has someone have an answer for that.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah I don’t know. Does anyone actually in the TalkShoe forum know if the Nokia N93i has a mount on the bottom of the camera? That’s what you can just walk out of here and go to my desk and get it, but that would be somewhat disruptive to the podcast.. So anyhow those two devices are really cool they serve different purposes. The N95 because there is no qwerty keyboard, it just doesn’t excite me, didn’t excite me then, it doesn’t excite me now. The N93i to make that device the perfect mobile video platform you need to do two things. First uncriple the camera make it so you can make self-portrait mode in high quality and second add a qwerty keyboard. Now imagine this for a moment, the N93i with a full-qwerty keyboard, so I can right there from the phone e-mail my full high quality self portrait video directly to Youtube or to my blog and do instant citizen journalism from anywhere in the world. How cool will that be.

Jeremy Elfering: Very cool.

Ed Kohler: That would be pretty cool.

Benjamin Higginbotham: There is no device. I think I was overly dramatic.

[laughs]

Ed Kohler: You really tried to sell that one, aren’t you?

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, I was. Did it work did anyone buy that one, but no I believe once we have that device, it doesn’t have to be done through Nokia or Apple or anyone else, whoever comes out with that device I believe will change the world. I really think that will truly be the first time citizen journalism has fully be enabled and it would just be a remarkable thing that will happen. It won’t be an overnight type thing, but it’s going to really truly start a revolution the likes of which we haven’t been seen for many many years. I mean we are talking about like the first time radio wasn’t really truly broadcasted television I think.

Ed Kohler: I think I have an answer to this tripod thing, I don’t believe there is a mount.

Benjamin Higginbotham: We are just funny because the TalkShoe room said yup, it works with tripods. Nokia has a strange tripod like DT-22.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Oh yeah like it clamps on to it. Oh well thats not very cool .

Ed Kohler: Yeah I mean, it would work, but nice if it work on any tripod.

Benjamin Higginbotham: You won’t like the little screwy thing on the bottom. So you can screw it and then.

Ed Kohler: But I don’t have to lie on the ground if I want to talk on the phone or find something to set it on.

[laughs]

Benjamin Higginbotham: Oh, no. You can just hold it on. No you can do self portraits on it. Yeah. I guess you are right.

Ed Kohler: I don’t like to put on a tripod, that’s a eye level rather than 6” tall.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Oh that’s there is Ed listening to me again.

Jeremy Elfering: Wow.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Camera lens should always be eye level.

Jeremy Elfering: It is only taking him what a year?

Benjamin Higginbotham: A year-and-a-half so all right. We will wrap up the show really quickly with the Zune Microsoft. Zune is kind of made up of lackluster splash there apparently rumors that is going to be doing the red product for the product. What is that called? Not product red, but,

Ed Kohler: Project red I think.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah there you go.

Ed Kohler: Like with Bono...

Benjamin Higginbotham: Yeah, exactly. I believe that’s what going on and that will be in a red case and what not, it will probably cost a little bit more, that’s really cool. I am actually looking to pick up a Zune. Mostly tosee what technology evangelist videos look like on it, or if they even work on it.

Jeremy Elfering: Yeah, that is the question

Benjamin Higginbotham: And if they don’t, then we should probably make a Zune profile, so we can get some videos under this Zune.

Jeremy Elfering: For those five users?

Benjamin Higginbotham: No. I think that a lot of users and here is what I have heard is that everyone beats up the Zune upfront right, and then some people like technology guys will go get it and I heard this on diggnation, and I love my ipod and it was great, and then I started watching videos on my Zune and I was actively watching them. I just got used to it and I thought this is really cool. Then I had to go back to my video ipod, couldn’t do it, hated it, hated the video ipod when compared to this Zune and so I think about that. I am like you know, it does have much larger screen and it does do the automatic now would be iphone replace it. Probably. But still I mean there are a lot of really cool things that Zune can do that the ipods simply can’t, like squirting files back and forth.

Jeremy Elfering: If you are willing to wait for that.

Ed Kohler: I think the Zune at this point has a platform still relatively immature, but I wouldn’t count them out at all by any means. I think they could make something that’s pretty interesting there.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Mark from TalkShoe, bought one, hated it sent it back.

Ed Kohler: Oh

Benjamin Higginbotham: I hear a lot of that too. But I think it depends on what you are using the device for. If we are using it for a lot of video like as a portable media player.

Then it has some good possibilities, if you are using it as a music player, it is giant brick. I don’t know that I will carry that with me carry that my cell phone, my camera, my point and shoot camera. I need some sort of special coat to carry on my electronics with me.

Jeremy Elfering: I do have to ask this. Who at Microsoft thought poop brown was a good idea?

Benjamin Higginbotham: I don’t know. I apparently thats a popular color.

Jeremy Elfering: Apparently, but I don’t get it. Brown the new black or white or pink. I have apparently pink as the new black, so brown is the new pink.

Ed Kohler: All I know is any color other than black is what I am looking for when it comes to wires for my computer and things because I look into my black laptop, and I try to find a black cable and it’s impossible, so but then you know now I have you know my white ipod cord.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Your orange ear buds.

Ed Kohler: Yeah, that’s what I like about, those ear buds is because they are orange anything other than white or black is it is you have to look too hard, color code the stuff for me.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Well, that’s going to wrap up our broadcast today. We are changing the format and at every week. We are trying something little bit new and different just to see what sticks and try to have a little bit of fun, you notice this week we have increased the time of the Podcast by what is that that would be a 100%. We are going about 30 minutes podcast, we are also trying to be more casual, set topics. Let me know what you think. Did you like the new format, did you like the old format a little bit better what suggestions do you have. Go to technologyevangelist.com/ben.html for my contact information. Feel free to call me or shoot me in the evening or even Skpe me at anytime and let me know exactly what you thought. If you love the show great if you hate the show great. I just want to hear your feedback. We are having fun try to figure out our format, and go from there. Ed, any closing comments.

Ed Kohler: Nothing from me.

Benjamin Higginbotham: Jeremy?

Jeremy Elfering: Nothing from me.

Benjamin Higginbotham: All right. Well, then on that note, I will let our beautiful theme music take us out, and you guys have a great day.

[Theme music]

Benjamin Higginbotham: Thanks everyone on TalkShoe. See you tomorrow at 11.