Cool Tech Reviews

We first mentioned the Sony Reader for eBooks back in January because the E Ink paper-like display was incredibly slick and might actually make reading books on an electronic device a reality. At the time it was supposed to come out in April, but April came and went and then we heard that the launch had been pushed off until fall.

Well, fall is here and so finally is the Sony Portable Reader System PRS-500 which is available at a rather pricey $349.99 (although there is currently a $50 promotional credit towards eBook purchases). Nothing seems to have changed - it has a 6 inch diagonal screen and is only 0.5 inches thick and weighs 9 ounces. The rechargeable internal battery is good for 7500 page turns (turns are all that count for E Ink displays) and you have to load content from a PC via USB. It has 64MB of internal memory plus it can take Sony Memory Sticks or SD memory cards to hold more.

As far as content goes, the eBook Connect store is also open and the titles all seem to be 1-2MB in size while the prices seem fairly reasonable given the outrageous prices of new hardcovers and paperbacks these days. Clicking on a title (e.g. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown) conveniently shows you the discount off the print retail price which was 20% on all titles I checked. Of course, as I mentioned in my original review, most printed best sellers get discounts of that order at the big chain stores so the discount isn’t overly compelling. Besides the premium content, you can also use the Reader for files in BBeB Book, Adobe PDF, TXT, RTF, and Microsoft Word formats although the latter requires Word installed on your PC to do a conversion. The Reader also has a feature for downloading RSS content so you can read news, blogs, or whatever at your leisure.

I still think there’s a place for something like the Sony Reader, but I’m afraid that the price (Reader plus eBooks) is going to scare off a lot of folks. What may save it is the ability to read free content - think of it like an iPod, only for text.

When I last mentioned CinemaNow back in April, it got a Thumbs Down as a typical Internet movie download service hobbled by digital rights management:

… as usual when Hollywood gets involved with the Internet there’s some wackiness involved: the movies are expensive and can only be played on Windows PCs. Moreover, that’s only one specific PC for CinemaNow …

It looks like they’ve noticed the problem (probably because very few customers were showing up) and now CinemaNow is offering some DVD downloads on the same day the movie is released to retail stores:

Universal Studios became the first movie studio to provide movie fans with a way to burn their downloaded movies to DVD on the day they are released in stores through an agreement with CinemaNow. Up until now, users could only burn select older movies from the service’s catalog.

The first movie to participate in this offering is “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.” On the same day the movie is released in stores, CinemaNow users will be able to download the movie, including the menus and bonus features, for $9.99 USD.

CinemaNow has been offering the “Burn to DVD” option since July, with movies from Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Lionsgate, MGM Worldwide Digital Media, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, EagleVision and Sundance Channel.

Currently CinemaNow has only about a hundred movies available in the Burn to DVD format, but it’s a start. Also, before you get too enthusiastic, read this article by John Quain in the NY Times dealing with his downloading experiences at CinemaNow and other sites. I think CinemaNow has progressed beyond the Thumbs Down stage, but it still has a long ways to go.

If you’re like me, and I suspect most folks in the USA are in this regard, you are constantly besieged by offers for satellite TV service. DirecTV and Dish Network plus a host of local affiliated installers are always after you to install their latest super duper offering. A large part of any decision is the discount offered plus what channels you are interested in or how many rooms you need to connect, but these days there’s one more consideration: which of the provided digital video recorders would you prefer. DVR Playground has a head to head review:

The first decision you need to make is whether or not you need a High Definition (HD) programming package and in turn an HD dish and receiver/DVR or if you will view your satellite TV via standard definition (SD). At this point, both Dish Network and DirecTV offer one standard definition and one HD DVR each. Of course, you could go out and buy a used receiver from another user, eBay, etc. However, you should be careful doing this as there are several perilous usage and licensing issues that you should explore completely before giving up any of your hard earned dollars.

So, what are your choices? For SD programming, DirecTV offers the R15 (or as they refer to it, the DIRECTV Plus Receiver) and Dish offers the 625. For HD, DirecTV and Dish offer the HR20 (DIRECTV Plus HD DVR) and the ViP-622 respectively.

Hit the link for the full review, but pricing aside (since it depends on what kind of local deal you are offered), it’s pretty much a wash except that the Dish Network DVRs can support two separate TVs displaying different shows even in different rooms. If you need that capability, keep it in mind while evaluating all the deals you are offered.

Matthew Broersma at ZDNet UK:

Hacktivismo, a well-known group of human-rights advocates and computer security experts, this week officially released a Firefox-based browser designed to allow anonymous Web surfing.

The browser, called Torpark, is a modified version of Portable Firefox, and can be run directly from a USB drive, meaning it can be used on public terminals in cybercafés. The browser creates an encrypted connection to the TOR (The Onion Router) network, which supplies a succession of different IP addresses. The browser is available here.

“Torpark causes the IP address seen by the Web site to change every few minutes, to frustrate eavesdropping and mask the requesting source,” said Hacktivismo in a statement. For example, a user could be in London and Web sites would see an IP address from a university in Germany, or other addresses belonging to the TOR network.

The browser is the work of Hacktivismo, which operates under the aegis of the influential hacking group the Cult of the Dead Cow. Developers said the browser is different from other anonymous browsers, such as Anonymizer or SecretSurfer, in that it doesn’t cost anything and is small and portable.

There’s more on The Onion Router Network here and as always, you need to have some idea of what is really going on:

The Torpark browser uses encryption to send data over The Onion Router, a worldwide network of servers nicknamed “Tor” set up to transfer data to one another in a random, obscure fashion.

Internet traffic, such as Web site requests, carries information on where it came from and where it’s going. But that’s muddled using Tor, which has been endorsed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and is hard to trace back to a source.

One minor downside is that surfing with Torpark is slower than with a typical browser over the same connection.

Torpark cautions that data sent from the last Tor server to the Web site is unencrypted. Since only the user’s connection is anonymous, Torpark advises that sensitive data such as username and passwords should only be used when the browser displays a golden padlock, a sign that a Web site is using encryption.

Not everyone needs anonymous browsing but for those that do, Torpark is an excellent option.

Last week Amazon launched a video download service called Unbox:

Amazon.com unveiled the Unbox Video Store on Thursday, a direct rival to Apple’s iTunes 24-7 video store, which allows U.S. users to buy or rent TV shows, movies and other video content from the Internet.

Amazon Unbox is offering thousands of DVD-quality videos from over 30 movie and TV studios, which can be stored on up to two PCs and two portable video players at once, the company said. When a user downloads a movie or show, Unbox automatically sends a second download file optimized for Windows Media-compatible portable devices. It also keeps track of media purchases on a personal page at Amazon’s Your Media Library, and acts as a backup, allowing users to download video purchases onto an additional PC.
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Users interested in trying Unbox can go to http://www.amazon.com/unbox. Amazon Unbox is offering a $1.99 rebate on a user’s first purchase, enough for one free TV show. But new users will have to enter their credit card information into the system first as part of the registration process, and then download the Amazon Unbox Video Player software.

Unbox is charging between $7.99 and $14.99 for most movies, and rentals of the latest movies for $3.99.

Since it’s for Windows Media devices only, Mac and iPod users need not apply, and some of the PC requirements are fairly hefty, but before you get out your credit card, you should be aware that widespread problems have been reported with Unbox. Here’s a sample:

Tim Thorpe at DailyTech:

DailyTech tried the service with less than pleasant results. First we tried to rent a video from the store, but the software insisted that our hard drive was full even though it also indicated that we had over 40GB free. The client refused to download the content while still charging us for the rental - twice. We then tried purchasing a movie through the service, but the media refused to play in the Unbox client or through Windows Media Player, again charging our credit card. We then contacted Amazon.com about our issues via e-mail and requested the company call us using the call back feature. It has been 36 hours and we have yet to hear from the company or receive a refund.

Tom Merritt at CNET:

So, in summary, to be allowed the privilege of purchasing a video that I can’t burn to DVD and can’t watch on my iPod, I have to allow a program to hijack my start-up and force me to login to uninstall it? No way. Sorry, Amazon. I love a lot of what you do, but I will absolutely not recommend this service. Try again.

Michael Gartenberg:

I figured I’d try to download a video or two for my flight to SF next week. First step, finding some content. Excellent, an old Star Trek episode. Click, purchase, download and install player (which first installed some new version of .NET without asking). Load player, it connects and then nothing. No download. No nothing. It shows but nothing happens. Fifteen minutes of nothing. I click troubleshoot. It tells me it’s checking stuff like DRM. Everything checks out. Message pops up. You have used all licenses for this file. If you want to watch it on this PC, you need to purchase it again. OK. We’re done.

Time to un-install this thing and hope it didn’t screw up my PC in the process.

Gartenberg also notes that not all PlaysForSure Windows Media devices will necessarily work.

Not everyone is reporting problems, but everybody seems to be saying that it has a glitchy feel and it’s clear that you have a nonzero probability of complete failure. Amazon can do better than that and should have. For now, it gets a Thumbs Down.

Update 9/19: Two thumbs down for Unbox:

Amazon.com’s Unbox is a horror show. The Unbox service appears not so much to have been introduced as to have escaped from the laboratory.

Of all the smart and talented people at Amazon, did no one dare say, “Wait, our new service bites! It’s slower than a trip to Blockbuster, more expensive than a DVD, absurdly restrictive on how the consumer uses the movie, delivers lower resolution than a DVD, and requires running a cable from the PC to the TV if you want to watch the movie on something larger than a PC monitor”?

And that’s when it works.

Last week when we mentioned the upcoming “free” music service, SpiralFrog, they had just inked a deal with Vivendi Universal to offer downloads of the music from their list. Now SpiralFrog has added EMI to their catalog:

SpiralFrog has reached an agreement with EMI Music Publishing, one of the largest music publishers in the world, to use its songs and lyrics for a music download service scheduled to roll out in a beta version by November.

SpiralFrog, which announced its first deal with Universal Music Group last week, plans to offer free song downloads, with the service funded through advertising.

“This is just the start of signing major labels and music publishers to offer their catalogs to the users of SpiralFrog,” said Neville Hobson, SpiralFrog spokesman.
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It’s planned that songs will be playable on a user’s computer and transferable to two portable devices.

But the songs can’t be burned to a CD, and they can’t be shared with other people, he said. The songs will remain playable only as long as a person regularly logs into their SpiralFrog account.
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SpiralFrog’s deal with EMI will also allow users to search and display the lyrics from EMI’s catalog, the companies said.

EMI holds more than one million copyrights, it said, and publishes artists including James Blunt, Eminem, Jay-Z and the Arctic Monkeys.

As I mentioned last week, I’m suspending judgement until I see how onerous the ads are. I guess I’m finding it hard to believe that the record labels are leaving any money on the table. Whatever the SpiralFrog plan, though, it seems to be music to the record labels’ ears.