Pampelmoose, Nemo, DJ Joelskool and Lincoln MKS- Part 4 from Dave Allen on Vimeo.

Once again we road test the Lincoln MKS. This time, celebrated Portland DJ, DJ Joelskool gives the rig a once over testing the gadgets like Bluetooth and the navigation console as well as the pounding stereo system..

Previous episodes:

A Lincoln MKS and Von Von Von – Part 1

A Lincoln MKS with Von Von Von – part 2

Von Von Von Critiques the Lincoln MKS back seat – Part 3

Amazon’s Kindle 2 has more of an Apple iPod feel to it. Found on MobileRead.com

Story at Gizmodo.

Palm execs went out of their way at CES to point out that the Palm Pre is not an iPhone killer.

Check out the high-quality Palm Pre presentation video at CES here.

When Barack Obama becomes president in about two months, he will be expected to give up his trusty BlackBerry, which has been securely fastened to his belt for years. There are a multitude of reasons why he will have to surrender his portable email device including security concerns, the Presidential Records Act (all correspondence is fair game for public viewing) and the looming threat of subpoenas.

To balance out the depravation of some technologies, Obama plans to be the first U.S. president to have a laptop on his Oval Office desk.

Though some have argued that Obama might be able to break the rules and retain email access, Diana Owen disagrees. “They could come up with some bulletproof way of protecting his e-mail and digital correspondence, but anything can be hacked,” she said. “The nature of the president’s job is that others can use e-mail for him.”

While gaining many privileges, Obama will have function without a few of life’s little conveniences in return.

Almost everyone I know is hooked on the highly addictive Polaroid Image Maker. The software is free to download and replicates the classic Polaroid look, complete with color variations and optional dirt and finger prints!

All you have to do is drag and drop a digital photo onto the Polaroid icon on your desktop. The camera makes that old familiar ‘click’ sound, shoots out a ‘polaroid’ likeness of your photo and even ‘develops’ right before your eyes! As of now, the software is only available to Mac users.

Move over, iPhone. The Google phone has arrived. T-Mobile has partnered with Google to launch the G1, which is the first phone to feature Google’s Android software. As you may have guessed, Android makes the phone function very similarly to the iPhone.

Like the iPhone online store, the Android Market is full of free applications and widgets developed by programmers around the world. A big difference between Google and Apple though is that Google will allow open submissions to its store instead of turning away programs it deems inconsistent with its mission.

Critics cite the G1’s biggest improvement over the iPhone as being the Menu button that pulls up a panel of large buttons of functions that relate to what you’re doing. For PC fanatics, it’s the equivalent of a right-click button on a computer mouse.

As would be expected with version 1.0 of this phone, there are many small glitches, but these are expected to be ironed out quickly. Some bright points though are picture messaging, voice dialing and the option to turn any song into a ringtone. Additionally, as a Sidekick phone, the screen pops open with a small keyboard underneath.

Though the G1 isn’t as streamlined or beautiful as the iPhone, soon enough Androids will expand into a variety of formats and networks. Finally, adopters looking for an iPhone alternative have some viable options.

Sports, technology, iconic brands and social networking all wrapped up in one package – Nike+ there are only winners here. The Nike+ Sports Kit has allowed athletes to share their data with friends and others who then compete online. This coming together of computer and running shoe technology between Apple, who’s iPod is a way to gather and upload the runner’s data (speed, distance, steps etc) and Nike who’s shoes include the Piezoelectric accelerometer for measuring the data.

And now a campaign to register runners globally to run a 10k and have every mile tracked whether they run, walk or jog and Nike will count those miles towards a charity of its choice. Time to get away from the monitor.

Best Buy wins the third party sales slot. That gives you 970 more stores to find one in stock, or not.

I was reading a report today from ComScore Media Metrix about how American and European mobile users are accessing maps from their mobile devices. No surprise that the iPhone is the leading device in the USA with the Nokia N95 and N70 leading the way in Europe. More interesting was the data on Mode of Transport Intended to be Used when Accessing Maps. As you’ll see in the grid below USA mobile users lead the way in use whilst driving in the car, come last in using their devices whilst traveling on public transport and last again in use whilst working out. Whatever the data means it does point to the fact that we drive more and use public transport less than our European counterparts. Or perhaps it’s a demographic issue?

My good friend Brian Zisk, the man behind the always interesting SanFranMusicTech Conference, has announced the next gathering. It will be back at San Francisco’s Hotel Kabuki on October 20th. There are early bird tickets currently available through August 8th which you can grab here. I will be there as a panelist along with the following folks:

Bob Heyman – Mediasmith, Chief Search Officer
Steve Jang – imeem, CMO & Head of Business Development
Ethan Kaplan – Warner Music Technology, VP
Rachel Masters – Ning, VP of Strategic Relationships
Jack Moffit – Speeqe, CEO / Chesspark, CEO & Lead Developer / IceCast Streaming Media Server, Creator / Xiph Foundation, Co-Founder
Sean O’Connell – Music Allies, Founder & CEO
Dave Ulmer – Motorola, Sr. Director Multimedia Products and Services
Carnet William – Sprout, Co-Founder & CEO
Brian Zisk – SanFran MusicTech Summit, Executive Producer / Future of Music Coalition, Technologies Director

Once the mainstream media and the more hysterical tech blogs have got over the fact that the success of the iPhone 3G launch caused Apple’s servers to be overloaded, we can sit back and take stock.

I own the iPhone v.1 and I’m currently happy without 3G access so I remain content with my device. One reason for staying put with the original model is that the new software update from Apple brings some rather cool new applications [or Apps in the vernacular,] that improve the original phone’s productivity.

I chose a couple of productivity apps, Zenbe, a list sharing tool and Jott, a voice to text tool. I got AirMe for uploading my iPhone pictures up to my Flickr account and added MPG and Spend [no link available, tsk, tsk] so if I care I can track my miles per gallon in the Element and set budgets for my gourmand extravaganzas. These apps all perform well without G3 and most were free. One app that fell into the epic fail bucket was Reqall. Couldn’t sign up on the iPhone and couldn’t load the web site either. Fail! Turns out that Jott does the same stuff anyway.

The most interesting app of all is Loopt which enables users to broadcast their whereabouts and send a status of a broad set of services and find interesting locations and reviews nearby. This could be the next breakout social networking platform as it works best from the phone [mobiles, not just the iPhone] and is simple to update ala Twitter. In fact it has a Twitter plug-in so you can post once and hit Twitter too. Follow me on Twitter here.

One problem though – Loopt could be a predators dream. In fact Loopt’s Be Safe page spells out in no uncertain terms that you need to control who has access to your location.

Anyway, here’s my thinking behind the title of this post. David Griner wrote a post entitled Are Blogs Still Good Places for Conversation? which at first glance I took as simply a Google bait tactic. The answer would seem to be “of course they are.” He raises a good point but I still believe a good, well written blog is the place for conversation. Twitter, a micro-blog, is not. I use my Twitter account to drive traffic back to my blog where the conversation can really open up. After all Twitter only allows 140 characters so truncated updates are the norm, which is fine. If I follow Marshall Kirkpatrick on Twitter I get up-to-the-minute breaking tech news from him but I prefer to read his blog at Read Write Web for a more in-depth review. On both my blogs, the other being Pampelmoose, I enjoy reading comments that can often be longer than the original post – something that is impossible with Twitter.

Joining the conversation and being invited in are two things I have stressed when it comes to advising our clients on their forays into social media advertising. A blog is the right venue for extending conversations, not a micro-blog. By all means post links to your original content stories to Twitter so that interested followers can link to your blog. Be sure to use FriendFeed to share your blog posts with others, use Tumblr too for the same reason, but understand that many of the social networking arenas, Twitter, Loopt even Facebook, are way ahead of the general online populations’ capacity to juggle all of them, and those folks not partaking in every widget, bell and whistle are your customers too.

Run a blog, embrace radical transparency, get invited in to communities that might enjoy your products and join the conversation. But whatever you decide to do, don’t do this – OHSU Director’s Blog. If you don’t immediately see why feel free to ask me.

It’s not often I come across a major musical artists’ web site and find that I can say to myself – “these guys got it right.” Today I visited John Mayers site and although I’m not a fan of his music the site is a great example of how to get the message across simply and elegantly while giving his fans the ability to interact on many levels. The tie-in with Blackberry is genius too. The Blackberry micro-site just spreads the Meyer messaging and interactivity far and wide by offering exclusive Meyer content – audio, video, pictures and more.

John says “hi.”

John Meyer has a blog and he seems to use it, at least I hope it’s him because the most egregious offense is having someone else blog for you. I’m going to keep checking back on this one. In fact there are multiple blog links on the home page. This one is written by “Scotty” who may be in the band or may be the T-shirt vendor, it’s hard to tell. The blog focuses on the new T-shirts – “A collaboration with Loomstate – a completely organic, sustainable tee. Very limited… We only made 587 of the shirts, each hangtag is hand-numbered.”

And there’s even a place to send in your encore requests for the shows you’ll attend. Customer happy time I reckon. And client happy too, Blackberry made a wise choice sponsoring this musician.

Credit: Mayer web link found on the Mediapost blogs.

I’ll never break my Mac habit to go for a Zune but if there ever was a reason to own one this may be it. Limited edition release of 500 units engraved with the Joy Division iconic artwork created by Peter Saville. Get your finger on the trigger on June 17th.

Can’t get enough sun during your day? Try storing some for later…. From Suck.UK

“Ahh well, I wouldn’t be needing this notebook for long anyways… Stay tuned for more…”

Nemo client HP and subsidiary Voodoo PC have been working feverishly on a little project. The way these things go, we can’t say anymore than that… suffice to say, keep your eyes open. Things should be getting pretty HOT (a little forshadowing here) for Voodoo in the not too distant future. Check back on the 5th for more insight.

www.rahulsood.com

Slowly but surely Apple’s iTunes and its accompanying device, Apple TV, are narrowing the gap for me when it comes to TV viewing choices. My cable package with Comcast frustrates me – it’s like the mobile phone provider packages too, you get all locked up with stuff you don’t need, to get access to the stuff you do need. It’s just like walled gardens with the social networks and music services online, it’s a model that has to be broken. And Comcast and other ISP’s need to understand that the end user, their customers, treat Internet access as a utility like electricity so it’s about time that the “one price fits all” model is dismantled too.

With iTunes and Apple TV I can pick and choose the shows I want to watch and I can time-shift, i.e., watch them when I want. If I want to watch all the Deadwood episodes in one weekend marathon I can. And I will own them too and have the ability to watch them anywhere – iPhone, MacBook, iPod.

It’s not that I don’t trust you. Wait. I guess it is that I don’t trust you. Nothing personal—I just don’t want you thieving my card’s number and using it down at Radio Shack so I covered the last four digits with a White Cheddar Cheez-It. Call me paranoid, I guess. Meanwhile, if you’re even more of a procrastinator than I am you’ll be needing to go get one of these pronto!

My first thoughts of Digital TV all involve March Madness. Could CBS make it so that we could switch from game to game without having to buy some fancy cable package or having our TV screen split into four teeny sections? Yes. I bet they could. But given the fact that CBS seems to be programmed for people roughly the age of 79 I doubt they’ll be doing anything hasty.

Digital TV Coupon: Don’t leave 2008 without it.

post by Jon Ragel

Here’s one of those moments where modern culture and history collide very nicely. The modern part being the simple viral nature of YouTube, an email from my friend Maf who is traveling around his birthplace, Wales and the old Llanfrynach Church organ. And like anything to do with UK history it comes with a simple tale. This one is about gaining access to the church – “Here’s a little video of the old pump organ in the church next door to my Brothers house in Cowbridge, Wales, UK (yes near England). To get into the Church you must got to the pub across the road and ask at the bar for the key. It feels impolite to ask for the key without getting a drink. I think a lot of people may be drunk when they visit the Church… awesome.”

Find more at Maf and Tara’s blog.

Nate, friend of Nemo, went out to play with Microsoft’s new Surface interface. There’s more info here at the Surface blog.

Cool stuff in the mail at Nemo today – that box pictured above. What I’d call the best business card yet, an audiobox from Jason Edwards at Newcrackle. Jason offers up sound design, foley and adr plus broadcast mixing. All your sound production needs in other words.