Gadgetopia

University requires students to buy an iPhone or similar device: Apple continues to spread its evil influence.

Now the oldest U.S. journalism school is asking students to buy those or similar devices to download classroom lectures or confirm facts on the Web while reporting from the scene of a plane crash or town council meeting.

The new rule for incoming freshmen at the University of Missouri School of Journalism appears to mark the first time an American university is requiring specific portable electronic devices. The policy has spurred a debate about the limits and possibilities of technology as well as corporate influence in academia.

Thank goodness some righteous, peace-loving, upstanding citizens stood up against this atrocity:

After […] complaints, the school clarified that it is requiring any Web-enabled, audio-video player like the iPhone or the iPod Touch, which is like an iPhone without the phone. So portable devices such as a Microsoft Zune or smart phones such as BlackBerrys can be acceptable. Just not preferred.

Apple may be forced into Verizon iPhone within two years: Looks like the AT&T-only strategy isn’t going to pan out for Apple. Future growth in the mobile market will be slow, and they’re already saturating AT&T — all their customers that want an iPhone have likely bought one, which means Apple needs to expand the pool of potential customers.

The hard ceiling on expansion, in turn, means Apple can’t afford to leave money on the table by artificially limiting who can buy an iPhone in the US. Instead of selling to just a fraction of AT&T’s 78.2 million customers, Apple is predicted to have access to as many as 150 million customers across Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile if it chooses not to renew its exclusivity contract. Estimates have Apple’s likely actual customer base nearly doubling from 17 million to 30 million users. The Cupertino company would have to accept a hit to its jealously-protected high profit margins but could well generate more revenue in addition to expanding its market share.

For BlackBerry, Obama’s Devotion Is Priceless: If only Obama could make an enrosement deal with RIM.

What could the “BlackBerry president” charge for his plugs of the device if he were not a public servant? More than $25 million, marketing experts say, and maybe as much as $50 million.

“This would be almost the biggest endorsement deal in the history of endorsements,”

In a larger article about alleged price-fixing in the text messaging market, I found this:

[…] text messages are not just tiny; they are also free riders, tucked into what’s called a control channel, space reserved for operation of the wireless network.

That’s why a message is so limited in length: it must not exceed the length of the message used for internal communication between tower and handset to set up a call. The channel uses space whether or not a text message is inserted.

This is confirmed by How Stuff Works:

Even if you are not talking on your cell phone, your phone is constantly sending and receiving information. It is talking to its cell phone tower over a pathway called a control channel. The reason for this chatter is so that the cell phone system knows which cell your phone is in, and so that your phone can change cells as you move around. Every so often, your phone and the tower will exchange a packet of data that lets both of them know that everything is OK.

Gratitude Journal for the iPhone by HappyTapper: My friend Carla White has created an app for the iPhone — Gratitude.

Write down five things you are grateful for each day in your Gratitude Journal and your life will change forever.

Fans bid farewell to Polaroid film: Whatever will Andre 3000 do?

Sixty years after Polaroid introduced its first instant camera, the company’s iconic film is disappearing from stores.

Although Polaroid says the film should be available into 2009, this is the final month of its last production year.

Eclipsed by digital photography, Polaroid’s white-bordered prints — and the anticipation they created as their ghostly images gradually came into view — will soon be things of the past.

No Keyboard? And You Call This a BlackBerry?: David Pogue somewhat savages the much-vaunted Blackberry Storm.

In short, trying to navigate this thing isn’t just an exercise in frustration — it’s a marathon of frustration.

I haven’t found a soul who tried this machine who wasn’t appalled, baffled or both.

Sad. Looks like I’m back to a Samsung Instinct, just as soon as I can get an SSH client for it.

In a larger sense, why is every “iPhone killer”…not? Same with “iPod killers.”

I got this email from the woman who emailed me about her grandmother, and whose question I tossed out for help from you all:

I truly appreciate your offer to help me. In one of your posts someone mentioned a Mail Bug by Landel and that looks almost identical to the old Mail Station. I am looking into it a bit more but I am pretty sure we will purchase this product thanks to all your help! You have just helped us find the perfect Christmas present for my grandmother. Thank you so much for helping :)

Ahhh, shucks. Good job, guys.

Rovio is a “Webcam with wheels.” So, a camera that you can drive around in its space. It connects via wifi, and has a microphone so you can project your voice through it.

iRobot makes something similar (a “virtual visiting robot”), and the usage example they offer is grandparents “visiting” their grandchildrens’ home — driving the robot from room to room to visit the kids.

I think there would be a security angle too. If you were on vacation, you could drive the robot around the house once a day just to make sure everything was in order. My wife is always paranoid about some water leak wreaking havoc while we’re away, so this would let her make sure everything was dry.

But what do you do about stairs? Get one for every floor?

Rovio is $300.

The True Price of SMS Messages: Wireless companies appear to make a killing off text messaging.

So far I can make the following statements concerning the costs of bandwidth […] Cost to transfer 2560 songs:

From my ISP: $1
Via SMS messaging: $15,339,212.80

He goes through all the math and reasoning, and it’s pretty solid.

Don’t alienate developers: Apple is really screwing up this App Store thing. This is a good article with the sordid details.

Their first idiotic move was to place an NDA on a finished product like the iPhone SDK (including the final version). […]

Apple then decided that it was a good idea to charge people for the privilege to develop for the iPhone: $99 (that’s a hundred bucks, we are not idiots and this is not a grocery store). […]

Some [developers] spent months trying to create excellent, innovative applications for the iPhone, only to see their work rejected for no good reason other than that it competed with Apple’s own products (e.g. Podcaster) or was inconvenient for their business partner AT&T (e.g. NetShare).

A First Look at Googles New Phone: David Pogue has a pretty good review of the new Android phone — the G1.

Here’s a neat feature:

They’ve even added a feature to Google Maps: in Street View (photos of actual locations taken from ground level), you can hold the phone perpendicular to the ground—and as you turn your body, the photo rotates, too, like a photographic compass, so that it matches what you’re seeing with your eyes. It’s amazing and actually useful, especially when you emerge from the subway and have no idea which way you’re facing.

And Pogue nails the joy right here:

But here’s the thing: Android, and the G1, are open. Open, open, open, in ways that would make Steve Jobs cringe. You can unlock this phone after 90 days—that is, use any SIM card from any carrier in it. The operating system is free and open-source, meaning that any company can make changes without consulting or paying Google. The App store is completely open, too; T-Mobile and Google say they won’t censor programs that they don’t approve of, as Apple does with the iPhone store. Yes, even if someone writes a Skype-like program that lets people avoid using up T-Mobile cellular voice minutes.

Suck it, Steve.

Critics leave Google’s Android phone on hold: This first reviews of the first Google Andriod phone — the HTC Dream — are not good.

“It ain’t no iPhone,” said John Jackson, an analyst at Yankee Group, echoing a widely held view.

Disparagement of Android has touched on everything from an alleged lack of sophistication and stability in the software, to the fact that successful devices such as the iPhone and the BlackBerry are based on a different technology model. “The best experiences out there today are ‘vertical’ experiences, where the hardware and software come from the same company,” said Tom Conrad […]

A Dream Come True: U.S. Approves The First Google Phone: The FCC has approved the first Google-powered phone: Dream.

[…] with the smartphone’s certification behind it, it is possible for T-Mobile, the nation’s No. 4 wireless carrier, to go ahead with plans to debut the phone next month and begin selling it ahead of the Christmas shopping season.

I still have my Sanyo Katana, which badly needs to be replaced. Hopefully, unlike an iPhone, I can get service for this Android phone.

I need a new phone. I have had a Sanyo Katana for over a year, and I absolutely love it.

Sadly, however, it’s developed two characteristics which are undesirable in a phone:

1. Sometimes, it just fails to ring
2. Sometimes, it just shuts off

Additionally, the outer screen is broken. To find out who is calling, I have to answer. Given that I get a lot of sales reps who call me, this is a problem. Screening calls is not always rude.

I am holding out for a Android-powered phone. I really want one. They announced the other day that they’re still on track for Q4 2008 (though many manufacturers have pushed back their specific models back to 2009), which makes me think I should hold out, but how realistic does this seem to everyone?

Who here thinks Android phones will ship in Q4? Or should I just bite the bullet and buy the new Samsung Instinct, which I played with the other day and by which I was overwhelmed by its sheer awesomeness?

Update: Before you recommend an iPhone — we can’t get them here. Sioux Falls does not have AT&T service, thus no iPhone. There are all sorts of rumors that if you talk to “some guy” somewhere he can exploit some loophole and get you one, but, to date, I have never seen an iPhone in Sioux Falls.