• Retro Futurism: In the 1970s, You May Wear Your Phone - Thanks to Radiation! (1960)

It didn’t come as early as the 1970’s, but we NOW have wearable phones, if you count bluetooth headsets like the Jawbone pictured here. I personally don’t “wear” my phone, but there are plenty of people who do now. I used to look at the views of the future and be so excited about what my future would bring, but it never turns out like it did in the newsreels. Now that the future is here, I find myself looking at it and saying, “Meh…”

When did I get so jaded?

• Eric’s Archived Thoughts: The Really Perfect Ringtone

This headline might make you think that this is the perfect ringtone, but it isn’t. Here you’ll find step-by-step instructions on how to make your own perfect ringtone for the iPhone.

• Helder Luis I The perfect iPhone Ringtone

I am still using the installed ringtones for the iPhone, but Eric’s is the one that makes me want to install my own.

Via: figby.com » The Really Perfect Ringtone

We were able to try out the new MarioKart Wii. It turned out to be a fun game, even for people who had never played before and a challenging change for those old pros who had never played with the Wii Wheel.

A special thank you to Rocky Mountain Pizza for allowing us to invade their banquet room for four hours and play video games and eat lots of pizza!

NakedJen was so nice to come to the party. She’s a recent transplant to Utah from Santa Cruz. Kevin Fitzgerald just came to Utah from a small town near San Luis Obispo, so I sat him next to Jen so she could give him pointers on getting adjusted to Utah.

Here’s a self portrait of me with Jen.

Toward the end, we received a visit from our favorite tech recruiter, Robert Merrill!

Scott Lemon was streaming some of CodeAway live using his Nokia 75. It’s a great demonstration of Qik and the Nokia. The audio is kind of scratchy, but it gives you a good idea of the fun we were having:

Sheri took some photos as well. You can see them here:

• Flickr: designsimply’s CodeAway photos

This one is my favorite:

Left, go left! by designsimply from Flickr

In the end, I would like to thank all that attended (and spread around the Link Love):

• Lamont Peterson
• Sheri Bigelow
• Jason Alderman
• Scott Lemon (with Andrea and Sam)
• Jake and Melissa Spurlock
• Kevin Fitzgerald (He’s a digital radiology guy, so he doesn’t have a blog yet. Give us time!)
• NakedJen
• Robert Merrill
• Michael Moncur
• and me, Laura Moncur

If you live in the Utah area, you can find out about fun geeky events like this at CodeAway. It looks like the Gadgets Page is going to be sponsoring CodeAway for a while, so you can find out about all the fun after the party here!

The MacBook Air is pretty, it’s sexy, but it ISN’T a computer for me. I’ll stick with my plain ole’ MacBook until they can figure out how to make a MacBook Air with a DVD (or Blu-Ray) drive and maybe even a Express Card slot.

It looks like someone made this commercial for the Lenovo ThinkPad X300. With the same 64GB SSD drive, the Lenovo beats the price of the MacBook Air by about $400, but it’s processor is only 1.2 GHz instead of the 1.8 GHz that comes with the MacBook Air. It has 3 USB ports, but no optical drive, so it’s in the same category as the MacBook Air.

The commercial is a little misleading because they have so many things connected to the MacBook Air. Even the Lenovo ThinkPad would need a USB hub for all of those things. This commercial is funny, but the Lenovo isn’t much use in this case. Either way, you’re carting around a stupid USB hub and a bunch of wires.

MarioKart for the Wii by Nicole Lee from Flickr

A blurry picture of Mario Kart for the Wii tells me what I should have already known. Mario Kart was released THREE days ago. How I missed the news, I don’t know, but I’m heading to the video store right now to go pick it up.

Here’s a video to whet your appetite:

So much of what we see at CES is just vaporware. It doesn’t exist and it may never exist. In fact, after a healthy dose of CES, everything that IS available starts to look incredibly lame in comparison. The Optimus Maximus keyboard is a good example. Imagine a computer keyboard in which the keys can be WHATEVER you want. Instead of stickers on your keyboard (that would be MY solution), the Optimus Maximus keyboard has a tiny LED screen on each and every screen. You can change the keys based on your language or whatever other scheme you prefer.

When we saw Optimus Maximus at CES this year, we thought it looked cool, but both Mike and I assumed that it would never see the light of day. We had seen this keyboard before and nothing had come of it. We logged it as cool and didn’t report it back then because it just wasn’t available for purchase.

Well, now it is:

• ThinkGeek :: Optimus Maximus Keyboard

Here is a video produced by ThinkGeek showing the abilities of the Optimus Maximus keyboard:

If you’re willing to plunk down over $1.5K, you can have a Optimus Maximus keyboard. Of course, the concept of “available” is a fuzzy one when even ThinkGeek doesn’t have them in stock.

Considering that sticker sheets are sold in packs of 25 for ten bucks, I think I’ll go for the sticker idea.

Via: Optimus keyboard now shipping, bring on the hacks - Boing Boing Gadgets

But the one feature that is always missing is the ability to sync from your mobile phone to your other machines. SugarSync gives you all that and more.

The companies latest offering is a 45 day 10GB trial account. Once the trial is over the cost to keep your 10GB of storage is about $25 a year. Compare that to Apple’s 10GB .Mac service at $100, with single machine sync and no mobile access, it seems a good price.

How SugarSync Works SugarSync monitors files in specified folders on your computer and keeps an up-to-date copy of them on a secure, remote central server. It then automatically synchronizes these files to all the devices you specify. The downloadable SugarSync Manager software is required on each device that you want to sync

While having to install the client software on all the machines and devices I want to sync can be a hassle, it’s a small price to pay for the ability to connect everything.

Several months ago I was talking with a senior executive of an online storage company, and I told him one thing I would love to have is the ability to get to media files I store online so I don’t have to cary them with me. His comment to me was the amount of bandwidth needed to download the files was not cost effective. While I agree trying to download large music or video files doesn’t seem an effective use of bandwidth, my unlimited use account with T-Mobile allows me to download as much as I want.

I really like SugarSync. I think it has a lot of potential. I have accounts with Amazon S3, Mozy, Apple’s .Mac and several web hosts. But none of these services have the immediate sync capabilities nor the mobile access.

I’m going to sepnd the next several weeks using the sevice and I’ll write a follow up post. But for now, I recommend you try SugarSync.

Thom Allen is also the writer of Digital Thom.

I’ve seen clothing like this in the past, most notably is the ScottEVest which came out sometime in early 2001, and has morphed into several different styles. The difference between the two is the Solar JKT uses the sun to power and charge your devices. The Scott Vest doesn’t provide any charging capabilities.

The jacket isn’t really designed to be worn year round. If you live in a warm climate the thought of wearing a jacket all the time is just not feasible. Not too mention the collar is bulky and looks uncomfortable.

However, a really cool feature of the jacket is the ability to remove the solar panel from the collar and use it separately to power devices. The ability to use the solar panels without the jacket makes this “gadget” something to look at.

Some of the features:

• Cell phones, mp3 and other devices powered at 5 or 6 volts
• Withstands limited exposure to water - advises not to clean by submersion
• Solar cells should be used “perpendicular” to the sun
• Detachable collar from jacket
• Recommended device power be at least 50% or greater
• Takes up 4 hours to fully recharge a device
• Has USB adapter
• Adapters for most cell phone charging ports
• Adapter for charging iPods

There are plenty of alternatives to an electric article of clothing. The price is high enough to exclude the average Joe. The wow factor is high because it support a large number of devices.

I’m pretty sure the Zenga won’t bank it’s future on the sales of the Solar JKT.

Thom Allen is also the writer of Digital Thom.

Sheldon: The Amazon Kindle

It reads:

Book-Lovers! Are you tired of printed books? Tired of using a battery-free data storage-and-retrieval system that works perfectly every time you pick it up?

No.

Wouldn’t you prefer to read books on a device that looks and feels like your first graphing calculator?

No.

And what if that same device could also surf the web? Wouldn’t that be awesome?

Wouldn’t I just use a laptop and surf faster and easier?

The “Amazon Kindle” …the answer to the question you weren’t asking!

And of course, there was a response strip from Jeff Bezos:

• Sheldon: Jeff Bezos Kindle Response Strip

Matt Strebe reviewed the Amazon Kindle and the Sony eReader here:

• Gadgets Page » Amazon Kindle vs. Sony Reader SMACKDOWN

The ONLY advantage I can see for these gadgets is for university or high school students. Being able to carry ALL of your text books in one, slim gadget is really appealing when you’re your books for each one class weigh eight pounds apiece. Other than that, paper is really a better option.

Jen Cody was able to get past the crowds and interview a Sony employee about the Rolly. Here is her interview:

It was released in Japan last September, but hasn’t come here yet. Here are the features:

• 2 GB MP3 player
• Two speakers
• Ability to move to the beat of the music
• Ability to be programmed to “dance” to specific songs
• Ability to upload and download programmed “dances” to the Sony social networking site

I really don’t think Sony knows what they are doing in the portable music player world. Look at their ad for the Sony Rolly.

It just makes me tilt my head and squint my eyes. Do they really think this is cool?

This is another video showing the features of the Rolly:

The fact that Sony’s booth is ALWAYS super crowded with people didn’t indicate that the Rolly was anything that might appeal to people. Most of the people around the booth were too confused to even tell us what it was.

In the end, Sony loses another round in the battle of the MP3s.