How do you feel about thank you cards?  We’ve certainly started to use technology in a lot of new ways, but thank you cards are still the same old tradition that our grandmother’s did when they were our age.  Is that a good thing?

Neverwet.  This ain’t your momma’s waterproof stuff.  It’s super hydrophobic.  You can spray this on clothes, and they won’t get wet or dirty.  Spray it on steel, and it won’t rust.  THIS is the future.  Such a reduction in waste and maintenance!  Thing about how much less bridges would need to be repaired.  Think about how much less water we’d go through with washing our clothes.  So many applications.

Never blindly trust the Best Buy guy.

I’m sorry BestBuy employees who are reading this.  I have personally encountered some of the worst educated “computer guys” at BestBuy, and I’ve heard personal accounts from the likes of my mother and many other friends that are horrific.  I mean, misinformation, poor recommendations, and being just downright wrong.

No one ever goes to their high school career counselor and says, “I want to grow up to be a BestBuy salesman.”  Probably not even, “I want to work at BestBuy.”  Think about that before you start taking their OPINIONS or anything they have to say as having any value or even validity.

So this device was announced back in September of 2010 when Apple announced their Airplay technology. I was stoked for this technology. Kallie wanted a way to play her music in the kitchen, and throughout the house for that matter, and her laptop speakers…well, they’re laptop speakers. I didn’t want to go buy a new stereo system and I didn’t just want to figure out a way to play music through the TV because that wasn’t portable. Then I stumbled upon iHome’s iW1. It was exactly what I wanted. There are a bunch of other airplay solutions out there, but none offer a rechargeable portable solution.

So I waited. for months. Finally in August 2011 I got an email that said they would start taking orders for special people like me.  I must have placed my order within 20 minutes of the 2pm EST Aug 31st.  It was reported they sold out within 45 minutes.  I must not have been quick enough though, because I was sent an email that the item I bought was out of stock and that I would receive an email when they are able to send it.  I received that email last Thursday, and got the package yesterday, Sept 29th.

In appreciation for being so patient for them to release the iw1, they also sent a free IP37, which is a nice little portable speaker for an iphone or ipod.  Great for camping or needing music on the go.  Heck, a $99 product for free?  Thanks ihome!!!

So, on to the review.  It’s not as large as I expected, but it’s still pretty sturdy and lightweight.  One thing I learned in my reading is that it does not support WEP wireless encryption.  The reason being that WEP is easily cracked and is an outdated technology.  I get that, honestly, but not to support it really seems like their enforcing network security standards.  If you have WEP like me, you are forced to decide between opening your wireless network or to change it to another form of encryption, like WPA2.  In a house with multiple devices set up on WEP, it’s a pain in the butt to do.  I’m the type of person that sees it as iHome just giving me the kick in the butt to change my wireless security, but really, I don’t appreciate that coming from them.  Really, if they’re going to force what kind of encryption is good enough, why not force people to use encryption and not support open networks?  Whatever, I’ll get over it.

Set up was pretty easy.  you can either connect an iphone/ipad/ipod with iOS 4.1 or later by the supplied(!) usb charger cable and download the free set up app.  All you have to do is give your speaker a nifty nickname and configure the wireless.  The other option is to push a button on the back of the speaker that essentially turns it into a wifi access point, get your laptop or other wifi device to connect to it’s signal, and then open up a browser configuration page to give it a nickname and configure it for your wireless network.  That it’s.  You should be all set to go.

Open up your itunes 10.1 or later, down at the bottom right corner click the speakers option and either send sound only to your new wireless speaker or send it to your PC and the wireless speaker at the same time.  Independent volume controls too.  Once it’s playing, you can leave your itunes station alone.

Back to the iw1, you have a nice remote to control next track, volume, and bass/treble.  You can also use the illuminated touch sensors for the controls on the speaker itself.  response time seemed great when using the remote.   One quirk I noticed though, I stood back about 12 feet from the speaker and tried to use the remote, and the indicator light on the speaker flashed, acknowledged I pressed a button, but it didn’t do anything.  No next track, no mute, no volume change.  As I got closer, it worked reliably though.  Weird, right?  I seemed to be within proximity for it to know I pressed a button, but not close enough for it to carry out the action?  I was bummed for like 5 seconds, until I realized — IT’S PORTABLE.  Just take it off it’s charging base and move it closer and you’re all set.

Other nice things about the unit is that you can just plug your iphone, ipod, or ipad into it and play from the usb, or you can can stream over wifi with them as well.  You can switch between wifi or cable on the remote.  The remote also allows you to turn off the device, but it will still be active on the network, which allows you to “turn it on” through itunes.  This saves a lot of time in having to set things up or configure it when you want to use it.  It’s just ready for you to play music.  So far so good.

It seems like it doesn’t have any special requirements to use and is user friendly.  We’ll see how well Kallie warms up to using it instead of relying on her laptop speakers.  Next time we have a house party, we’ll be able to play music throughout the house and control it with our remote app on our iphones, which lets you control itunes over wifi.  CONNECTED.  I’m already thinking about applications with having a baby.  Turn some music on in their room and be able to turn the volume up or off without having to go into the room and risk disturbing them.

The folks at Festo have created a mechanical bird that is as graceful as the real thing. Our technology is not just getting smaller and cheaper, but it’s getting smoother.
Soon, we won’t be able to tell the robots from living creatures.

Someone needs to invent the technology to record dreams. I have so many ideas and write so many songs in my dreams that I can’t remember when I wake up. This is one of the ideas that I do remember.

I was involved in the creation and marketing of a device that added realism to movies. It was a simple box that could hang on the back of a movie theater seat or get placed on a stand in front of the movie watcher. The box (2 feet wide, 4 inches tall, 4 inches deep) had things like a water sprayer or mist creator, a fan, and even digital “voting” panel. It all sounds cheap, but it was put together well. Anyway, me and a few other people were marketing this thing to movie theaters as a cheap way to “upgrade” their movie theaters.

The idea is that when someone splashes some water in the movie, the audience would get a little spray from the box. The movie could also have “alternate stories” or something where the audience could vote what happens next and the movie would show that story line. This technology already exists when you go to theme parks like disney world and the “4d” shows that interact with the audience, but that’s the only place for it. My group was trying to break that into the real world theaters and even in homes by putting it in one simple box that was inexpensive. It would require some pre-production work to get signals sent to the device to sync up with the movie, but for theaters, you could even just have a man in a booth doing all the work for all the devices.

Anyway, I think it was catching on in the movie.

Nothing is universal. What works for you may not work for others. What’s also important here is to remember to think objectively and inversely. ie: What does not work for you, may work for others. An example of this would be the modern social networking tools out there. Just because you don’t use RSS feeds, twitter, or even facebook, doesn’t mean that other people find them extremely efficient and useful. People’s values are different.

Do you know what TED Talks are?  TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, but the topics that are covered in these talks are much broader and deeper than that.  Some of the most respected minds in the world take time to give a lecture on their expertise.  I know, I said the “L” word.  Honestly though, these are some of the most poignant monologues and engaging lectures I’ve ever listened to.  The topics span from world peace, to the social impacts of selling vs giving bug nets for people in Africa, from sound waves to what we perceive (or perceive incorrectly) with our eyes.  When you have people like Mike Rowe (of Dirty Jobs fame) giving lectures, it’s bound to be entertaining.  There are TED conferences happening all the time, and I’d love to go to one, but for now, these videos are awesome.

Although technology can help you simplify your life, it can make it a whole lot more complicated and open the gates to wasting a lot more time.  The key is to get technology working for you, not you working with technology.