Argh, geekdom denied.
I’d planned on upgrading my 2004 20GB iPod to a shiny new widescreen iPod touch and just synching playlists to it instead of dumping all my audio files on it (which would stay backed up on the 20 GB model anyway), but while I preordered weeks ago from Amazon, it turns out that Apple again didn’t put enough product in the pipeline. (The 16 GB model is sold out EVERYWHERE.) So instead of having a new iPod today (the original intended delivery date), I may be waiting as long as mid-November.
Presumably the company will get the pipeline full of them before the Christmas shopping season, but it would have been nice if they’d managed to get things rolling faster.
Well, it finally happened: a bill requiring hands-free devices for cell phone use in vehicles goes into effect next year:
Smoak said he hopes the new laws will stop people from talking and driving.
“We would prefer you to pull off at the next exit to make a call,� Smoak said, “but if you just have to make the call, pull to the right shoulder and make the call safely.�
Smoak said he has seen many collisions where a distraction was the cause.
Besides cell phones, people often lose sight of the road while turning radios, changing CDs, putting on makeup or reading a book.
“You name it, we’ve see it,� he said.
I’ve had a hands-free earpiece sitting in a box here at home ever since I got my Treo 650. I guess it’s time to bust it out, power it up and tell my phone how to find it via Bluetooth.
You know, some time before July 1, 2008.
Well, they’ve done it. Apple now has a touchscreen iPod, and it’s got some neat bells and whistles — it connects to the Internet via wifi and has the Safari browser built-in — but even the largest (16 GB for $399) is smaller than my current 20 GB third generation iPod. Given that I have less than 200 MB free on my current iPod, even before I add music videos, TV shows and maybe even movies to it, that’s cause for serious thought for me. Either the price needs to drop a good bit (which I think tends to happen after Christmas, or as we call it at the Hesperia Star, “bonus time”) or they need to announce an even bigger model tout de suite.
There’s also a new, bigger, video iPod Nano for $50 less than they were selling for a day ago. I’d expect every high schooler in America to want one.
And iPod Classic now is fully covered in metal and goes up to a whopping 160 GB. That may be bigger than my home computer’s hard drive, come to think of it.
Of course, while they talk about World of Warcraft, the much-hyped (if little-played) Second Life gets most of the airtime on Science Friday, presumably because the whole game thing invalidates the fact that millions of people play the one, while tens of thousands play the other regularly. (Don’t be impressed by account numbers — they’re free and mostly unused.)
Still, it’s good to have the issues discussed on a good show like Science Friday. Maybe next time, Ira will set up shop in Shattrath City or the Darkmoon Faire instead.
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