So, you’ve got one of those fancy new video iPods…why not load it with your favorite radio stations, podcasts and TV shows? Here’s an easy way to record streaming audio and video from the web and convert it to play on your iPod:

Replay A/V now available with FREE BONUS software:  Replay Converter - A full fledged video and audio file converter. Convert video and audio files to 36 different formats. Just choose your files, pick the desired output format and go. Replay Converter is fast and easy to use. Quickly and easily convert video to run on your new iPod!

This software is super easy to use, I love being able to record shows I may not be able to watch while I’m working that I can load onto my iPod and watch when I have the time. It doesn’t get much easier than this, check out their site for more detailed specs and info. 

Filed under: Peripherals, Wireless

Those still not satisfied by the range of portable 3G routers currently on the market now have another option to consider from CradlePoint, which recently introduced its battery-powered CTR-350 travel router. It’ll either connect directly to a cellphone or to a USB modem (or a wired Ethernet connection if one’s available), giving you an instant WiFi hotspot compliant with 802.11 b/g standards, along with all the usual security measures you’d expect from a router of any sort. What’s more, if you’re in a pinch, the router can also be used to charge any cellphone that supports charging via USB, although you’ll of course need to find a more conventional way to charge the router itself. If that sounds like the peripheral that you’re mobile office has been missing, you can order the router now directly from CradlePoint for $150.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Originally by Donald Melanson from Engadget on September 7, 2007, 3:04pm

Filed under: Features, Wireless

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment:

Last week’s Switched On discussed some of the promise of WiMAX as delivered through Sprint’s Xohm service. There are at least three larger open questions about the prospects for WiMAX, particularly as an embedded technology. First, we now know more about how the service will be offered, but we don’t know at what prices it will be offered, at least for the blanket subscription. Web surfing on an EV-DO connection may not quite rival a home broadband experience, but it’s often more than adequate for most Web tasks. WiMAX will certainly have to be priced significantly below the $60 per month that today’s operators charge as an add-on to a wireless subscription or whatever they may lower prices to by 2008 and 2009.

Second, while the idea of not charging a subscription for embedded access is a step toward ubiquitous wireless access for devices, it is far from a guarantee of adoption, particularly in a competitive consumer electronics category. Embedding such products exacts a premium both at the cash register and in terms of battery life. Both the PSP and Nintendo DS include WiFi, but digital camera manufacturers have struggled with it outside of the professional market and it isn’t in any mainstream camcorder.

While the Zune and especially the Sansa Connect have some interesting features built on WiFi (as should the Slacker portable player due later this year), neither has come close to rivaling the iPod, which (at least up until this point) has lacked an FM radio, much less a a data radio. However, there’s a strong argument that WiFi’s limited coverage makes it far less useful than WiMAX (imagine if you could only use your cell phone at home or at a coffee shop).

Last week’s column discussed some of the niche devices that are slated to appear early in the Xohm rollout. However, while there are certainly strong pockets of growth among digital cameras and MP3 players, their overall growth is slowing in the U.S. (and camcorder units are declining) as average prices drop, making it more difficult to cram in new features such as WiFi and WiMAX. Saturation is driving this more than cannibalization from the cell phone.

Xohm can help its own cause. If it can breathe new life into existing devices or help spur new popular ones (say, a wireless, portable DVR / video viewer), it will drive demand and differentiation from the cell phone. However, as Sprint embraces retail consumer electronics, it will see that — on some level — the enemy is itself, a familiar position for a company that has juggled hosting the wireless networks of Helio, Disney Mobile, its cable joint venture Pivot and its own Boost.

Continue reading Switched On: The WiMAX Window (Part 2)

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Originally by Ross Rubin from Engadget on September 7, 2007, 2:56pm

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Now that all the RDF has worn off, a few of the hard facts about Apple’s latest are coming to light, and one of the nasties has to do with video output. Apparently the new iPod classic and iPod nano don’t get along too well with currently video docks and cables on the market — that is to say, pretty much not at all. A select few products with the ’spensive Apple authentication chips built-in do allow you to turn on TV out, like Apple’s Universal Dock, iPod Hi-Fi (which doesn’t have video output anyways) and the $600 Zeppelin from Bowers and Wilkins, but if you’ve sprung for products such as the Memorex iFlip and Sonic Impact Video-55 in the past, you’re out of luck for the time being. It seems logical to us that Apple has the ability to unlock this function for existing docks if it so chooses, but for now you can always drop a fifty on those new component cables from Apple — and pray for a repeat in the “contrite open letter” department.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Originally by Paul Miller from Engadget on September 7, 2007, 2:51pm

One of the most common questions I am asked from new iPod owners is "how can I transfer music from another iPod to mine?".  Well, Apple made sure that wasn’t possible a long time ago, so if you happened to lose the music you have on your computer you’d better hope that your iPod doesn’t die because you won’t be able to back those up anywhere.

I just heard that there is a new software program that is supposed to allow you to transfer your songs from your iPod to your computer….I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, but please leave comments if any of you readers do try it out. I assume this is on the up and up since major retailers will soon be carrying it.

Here is more info and I believe they are offering a free trial on their web site:

Share Music iPod to iPod!!! No Restrictions!!

Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio

Oh yes it is. That’s the Sony Ericsson W880 "Ai" Walkman up there comin’ atcha straight out of Sweden. We still don’t know if the tri-band GSM / UMTS and QVGA specs are the real deal or not. But that’s definitely a 2 megapixel camera on the back. Now, according to Swedish site NYA!mobil.se (via a bit of janky machine translation), the Walkman W880 will apparently join the living on Tuesday, 6 February — in Sweden anyway, home country of the Ericsson half of that SE equation. At this point, that date seems fair enough. Besides, they’ve managed to get their hands on the device so they must know a little something, eh? More pics including a peep at the user interface after the break.

[Thanks, David]

Continue reading Sony Ericsson’s W880 "Ai" launching next week?

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Originally by Thomas Ricker from Engadget on February 1, 2007, 4:05am

Filed under: Cellphones

If you had a hankering for HTC previews to finish off your January in style, today’s your lucky day. While you’re probably still gawking at the HTC Athena peek from earlier, the same lucky soul managed to get his palms around an HTC Vox, and being so kindhearted, we’ve got the results from another sweet photo shoot. It’s about time we saw a few live snaps of this bugger too, as we’ve been waiting ever since it got official and was captured in the wild, and now you can get closer than ever without actually owning one yourself. Notably, a few more details were spilled out concerning the features (and lack thereof) of this smartphone, as we learned that it does indeed lack 3G as well as a touchscreen LCD. What you will reportedly get, however, includes Windows Mobile 6.0, 128MB of Flash ROM, a 2.4-inch QVGA screen, voice command recognition, QWERTY keypad and a numeric pad, 802.11b/g, two-megapixel camera, microSD slot, and a TI OMAP 850 processor clicking along at 200MHz. Of course, exact specs and inclusions could change on retail models, but if you’re interested in seeing all sorts of angles, not to mention shots of OS, be sure to hit the read link after clicking through and scroll on down.

Continue reading HTC Vox gets previewed, lacks 3G / touchscreen

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Originally by Darren Murph from Engadget on January 31, 2007, 8:17pm

Filed under: Gaming

According to Senior VP Takao Yuhara at Sony, that pre-launch price cut in Japan might not be the only one the console will be seeing in its early life. "We may look at the price as part of our strategy to expand the market when the timing is right," said Yuhara. Sony wants to break even in its game division by March 2008, and "Such factors, including price cuts to some extent, are factored in," according to Yuhara. Sony is also still holding fast to its target shipment of 6 million PS3s by March 31st 2007, and with the Wii and 360 breathing down its neck, it might very well have to drop prices to compete. Of course, the semi-promise of some sort of price cuts, possibly Japan-only, before March 2008 is isn’t really much to go by, but we’ll take whatever threads of hope we can get.

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Originally by Paul Miller from Engadget on January 31, 2007, 9:57pm

Filed under: Portable Audio

If you’re browsing the wares at your local iPod-peddlin’ location, but don’t want to look like a fool when you get home and discover you just bought a silver shuffle with the old school headphones — or perhaps the inverse is true — then you might be pleased to hear that it’s easy to spot the difference: the brand new silver shuffle has silver accents on the cardboard backing, while the old version was dressed up with green. Happy hunting!

[Via Cult of Mac]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Originally by Paul Miller from Engadget on January 31, 2007, 10:59pm

It seems that every month, if not every week, different manufacturers are coming up with the latest digital cameras to entice potential clients. And it’s just not working for us!

After spending sizable amount of time at the mall figuring out which is the best digital camera for us, we finally have enough money to buy for that eye-popping, 7 mega pixel, 10x digital zoom, potable, candy colored, up to 512MB expandable memory of super hi-speed SD memory card and not to mention very portable, (that will be the envy of almost everyone we know). We march to the mall armed with our life savings and lots of pride in ourselves, when we pass by a new display - an eight mega pixel, up to 1G expandable memory, with built it microphone and stereo surround, video playback capable, with 22 scenic modes kind-of-camera. And we sigh because the producer of this amazing gadget claims that this is the best digital camera yet out in the market. And so as we always want to have the best, armed with our life savings and a few credit cards, we buy the "best digital camera." But then again, that doesn’t last too long, after two months or so, there’s another "best digital camera."

And so it confuses us. What makes a digital camera, the best digital camera?

Well, there are certain factors to consider when looking for the "best digital camera" for us.

MEGAPIXELS: One of the most important features of digital camera to make it into the best digital camera category is its mega pixel property. The higher the mega pixels the better the actual photograph will come out. A mega pixel is equivalent to one million pixels. The resolution of your image is based upon the mega pixel property of your camera. This means that as you enlarge the picture, you would get more detail and less blurry colors.

LCD SIZE: The best digital camera will always have a large LCD to help you frame your subject without having to squint to the viewfinder. This is also helpful when reviewing your images, some cameras enable touch up and editing features with its LCD. A 1.5-inch display is average, a 2-inch LCD display is good, but the best LCD size would be 2.5 inches or higher.

ZOOM:  Most digital cameras have both digital and optical zoom. A higher optical zoom is always better than a higher digital zoom. Digital cameras are usually furnished with optical of between 3x to 10x. The better the optical zoom, the higher it climbs up to the best digital camera category.

MEMORY CARD: Always make sure that your memory card is the right one for your digital camera. There are different types of memory card like the xD, SD, Flash card and the likes. And these types of memory cards go with certain types of digital cameras. of course memory storage is also up there in choosing the best digital cameras. Choose the size of memory that you need, if you’re a photo junkie, you might need more than 32MB. Memory cards can go up to 1G.

The key point to find the best digital camera is to find one that will best fit you and your lifestyle. Don’t just buy the latest or the one that claims they are the best digital cameras out in the market. You wouldn’t want to buy a DSLR and use it with your home activities or family outing and have to lug it around?! Or you don’t want to buy the latest point and shoot camera when you’re serious about being a professional photographer. (Of course, you can use this for starters, but if you’re not a novice photographer anymore, you wouldn’t want to get this kind of camera.)

Actually, the best digital camera is the one that you will enjoy and use. Not the type that you’ll just leave rotting in its box or after a few weeks of usage or so, up there in the attic.