Digital pen doubles as a mouse

With all the digital pens that are coming to market these days, one might ask whether the world needs yet another smart writing instrument. But unlike some of its competitors, Wow-Pen has a bit of experience on the subject.

Almost exactly a year ago, the Korean company came out with its Traveler version, which was really a mouse with an ergonomic design that could be handled like a pen. Now it's releasing its Digi model, which also reads and stores what you write through a wireless USB receiver. It can toggle back and forth from pen to mouse function "with the click of a button", according to I4U News.

Something like this isn't for everyone but, as far as multi-functional pens are concerned, it certainly has more practical uses than most.

Via Crave CNET

33 things to complain about

From air travel to electronic spam, it seems that the more time technology is supposed to save us, the less time we actually end up having.

Wired Magazine made a list of 33 things that suck which we can all empathize with, unless you live the life of an aesthetic hermit. In which case you won't even be reading this article in the first place. We love how they broke down the annoyances and tried to explain why it happens... though our fingers are crossed for a more useful article on how to fix it.

But for the more optimistic among you, check out the list of things which do not suck as well.

Jobs vs. Gates, a grammatical analysis

Most people compare Bill Gates' keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show and Steve Jobs' Macworld Expo address by analyzing the relative strength of the products announced.

That's all fine and dandy, but what about looking at the words themselves? That's exactly what the ever-resourceful Todd Bishop at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has done. In a blog posting Tuesday, Bishop includes a tag cloud showing the most frequently used words by each, as well as an analysis of the rate of big words used by each.

In terms of which words came up the most, a tag cloud shows words such as "digital", "device", "great", "phone", and "Windows" atop Gates' list, while Jobs most frequently used "great", "iPod", "iPhone", "Mac", and "MacBook".

So both execs think their own products are great. No surprise there.

Gates' speech scored a 9.37 on the Gunning-Fog index, a measure of the number of years of education required to read a particular text. Jobs' address, meanwhile, clocked in at 6.9. Of the words used by Gates, 5.2 were classified as "hard words", while only about 3 percent of Jobs words were given that distinction.

It's up to you whether you think big words are better. I'll stay out of that one, but it's a fun read. Check it out.

Via Crave CNET

Dell, Microsoft looking for some Red ink

Microsoft and Dell are seeing Red.

The two companies planned to announce on Friday that they were teaming up to offer three (Product) Red PCs, supporting the charitable effort that benefits women and children affected by HIV and AIDS in Africa. However, their news dribbled out early, after the New York Times' John Markoff mentioned the plans on the paper's Davos blog.

Dell plans to slather its all-in-one desktop PC, the XPS One, in red. The two are also teaming up on Red versions of the XPS M1330 and XPS 1530 notebooks, which, should be noted, were already available in red paint. The difference will be a special version of the operating system.

The PC is Red on the inside, too, with a special edition of Windows Vista Ultimate edition that includes specially themed desktop wallpaper and sidebar gadgets.


Read more »

DVD media that backs up data on its own

At the recent Digital Experience event at CES in Las Vegas, storage maker Imation showed off its latest optical disc called the TDK SimpleSave DVD. What this does is automatically back up digital content (photos, music, documents, etc.) from the PC to the DVD. You heard right. No third-party DVD-burning software is required. All that's needed is a PC with a DVD burner drive, the SimpleSave DVD and, of course, the data to back up.

Here's the cool thing. The DVD backup software is embedded on the recordable disc itself.

So when the disc is inserted into the optical drive, the DVD application is activated and automatically finds, organizes and archives the desired content on the PC into the disc--all without having to install any software. Now once the disc is full, users will be prompted to insert another media to continue the backing process. According to Imation, there are also advanced options to specify the location and type of files to back up.

The manufacturer believes the discs will significantly simplify the archiving process, which should appeal to those who often find it confusing and sometimes inconvenient to do regular backups of their data.

The SimpleSave DVDs will come in three variations.

• The SimpleSave:Photo--Backs up image files such as .JPG, .RAW, .PSD
• The SimpleSave:Music media--Takes care of MP3, WAV, AAC and other audio files
• The SimpleSave:Docs--Finds and saves TXT documents, presentation and spreadsheets

It is expected to be released worldwide in the spring of 2008, with prices ranging from US$7.99 for a pack of three SimpleSave:Docs DVDs to US$12.99 for a five-pack SimpleSave:Photo discs.

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