The WOWs at CES 2007-My final 5, plus some Vista comments
OnGuard!
An excellent “peace of mind” item for parents and grandparents by Concord Camera Corp, the OnGuard Kids wrist watch, is the only personal safety alert system designed to empower and educate kids about staying safe (according to the maker).
The system combines an attractive digital watch with a 110 decibel emergency alarm and SOS signal that can be activated by children in the event of an emergency or an uncomfortable situation. Packaged with the watch is an educational DVD hosted by family safety expert, Bob Stuber who offers specific advice and actions kids can take when in unsafe situations. The OnGuard Kids wrist watch also features parental programming functions, which enables parents to set emergency alarm deactivation codes and reminder alerts, and comes with three interchangeable decorative faceplates, as well as a small clip-on flashlight so kids can personalize the watch and make it more fun to wear.
For parents and grandparents,” states Bob Stuber, “this provides greater peace of mind knowing they have empowered children with a means to immediately signal that they need help in the event they are lost, hurt, scared or approached by a stranger.”
OnGuard is available in two styles – a youth watch for boys and girls ages 5-8 and a pre-teen version for boys and girls ages 9-12.
For more information about the OnGuard Kids Safety System, please visit www.onguardkids.com.
Media to the Max
Yes, you read it right, you can get 25GBs free, so you don’t have to worry about losing all your favorite music, pictures, and oh yes, important data too! Check it out.
Mediamax, powered by Streamload, is the world’s largest online media center. It helps consumers conveniently manage their entire media collection in one central location. Within a private and secure environment, consumers easily store, organize, access, and share their entire collection of media files – without any file size limitations. MediaMax is designed for trouble-free uploading and downloading of large files.
Subscribers have access to their file collection anytime, anywhere with the highest service reliability. MediaMax currently hosts more than 550 terabytes of unique user data and more than 8 billion files.
MediaMax Services feature:
VIDEOSHARE:
Build video albums, create on-the-fly video thumbnails, send full-quality video files as easily as email, create video albums and save video frames to print or share as photos. It also has more features and benefits like:
25 GB of free online storage space for all your favorite home videos.
Moving video files to any Internet connected device, on-demand.
Send and receive full-quality video – as easily as sending email.
MUSICLOCKER:
With unlimited music locker storage, users can move their music files and all of their other digital content to one centralized, account, where all their other files are stored. Once uploaded, music files can get one-click music format conversion and one-click music quality conversion. Users can then move them to wherever they need them; like MP3 players, portable media centers or secondary computers.
Users also get permanent music storage, music tagging, full-quality streaming, the ability to create and publish playlists, integration with their devices, and ondemand downloading to their devices/computers.
PHOTOSHARE:
Users can easily share their high-resolution photos – without clogging up their recipients’ email accounts.
It features one-click photo resizing and one-click file format conversion. Then access and view them wherever you want – work, friends’ places or even grandparents.
Create photo albums, photo tags, download print-quality photos and publish webpages and blogs that can easily be shared with family and friends.
TV & VIDEO LOCKER:
With unlimited TV and movie locker storage, users can move any or all of their TV and movie recordings from their DVRs or Media Center PCs to one centralized account for permanent archiving and on-demand, remote access.
Users also get TV & movie tagging, full-quality streaming, integration with their devices, and the ability to download their TV shows and movies to their device/computer on-demand.
MAIL:
Send and share collections of full-quality videos and photos without email limits. Paid members can send any size file and any number of files to friends and family up to 25 GB per month.
Additional Features include:
- Video and Photo Blogging
- Remote access streaming
- Tagging
- Server-side transcoding – one-click file format and quality conversions
- Free upload/download software manager
- Beam files and receive beamed files
- Host files publicly with optional password and IP restrictions
With MediaMax members receive:
- Unlimited online storage
- If you own it, we can store it: MediaMax grows as your file collection grows
- Streamload MediaMax currently holds more 425 terabytes of data or about
- 30 times the data as the US Library of Congress
- Trouble-free uploading and downloading of large files
- No error messages that disrupt the transfer of all of your files
- MediaMax is up to 20 times faster than serving files from you own home server and significantly faster (and more private) that using bit-torrent technologies to share.
- Headache-free service reliability
- 24/7 access from anywhere, anytime
- 7 day-a-week customer support
- Private and secure environment
- Users’ private accounts stay that way unless they decide to share files which reside in their private account with specified friends, colleagues, and family. Of course, users can also un-share files at any time.
- Streamload is certified by Truste for our top-tier privacy policy. Users’ personal information stays that way, period.
- Pricing-Free - Store 25 GB in your personal media files. Access 1 GB per month.
- Send/download/host individual files no larger than 25 MB.
- Premium - $4.95 a month – Store 100 GB of personal media files. Access 10 GB per month. No file size limits for hosting/sharing/downloading files.
- Elite - $9.95 a month - Store 250 GB of personal media files. Access 25 GB per month. No file size limits for hosting/sharing/downloading files.
- Elite+ - $29.95 a month - Store 1,000 GB of personal media files. Access 100 GB per month. No file size limits for hosting/sharing/downloading files.
I still intend to do my regular backups on my external hard drive, but also use this one for an additional “insurance” program.
Visit: http://www.streamload.com for more info, and to signup.
Maximize your defense against Internet fraud!
Identity theft and Phishing scams are getting worse. This program addresses those threats and more. Definitely worth a look!
Anonymizer Anonymous Surfing Platinum protects you and your family from online identity theft by keeping your IP address private. Thieves can’t steal what they can’t see! Anonymizer also warns you before you unknowingly visit malicious phishing and pharming sites and secures data sent over wireless networks, whether at home or on the road. Rest easy knowing Anonymizer Anonymous Surfing Platinum protects you around the clock!
Key Features: - Encrypts your Internet connection
- High-speed IP masking
- Routes through proprietary anonymous hubs
- Blocks personal information
- Encrypted wireless security
- Removes spyware to military-level standards
- Full-time staff dedicated to the research of spyware
- Anonymous, disposable email
- Six spam-blocking engines
- Stores all of your passwords in one encrypted location
- Encrypts and password-protects applications
- Cleans automatically or manually to military standards
|  |
For additional info please visit:
www.allume.comReady to Go
Bored sitting in traffic every day on your way to work? Playaway audiobooks are now available across the USA. The new ‘Ready-to-Go’ audiobook format simplifies your listening experience.
Findaway World, a leading manufacturer of innovative digital audio formats, announced that following a year long limited trial release, an expanded collection of best-selling titles and classics are now available on the company’s Playaway digital audiobook format at leading retailers and major libraries around the country.
The first device of its kind to merge digital audio content and player technology in a single format, Playaway is designed to fit into the lifestyles of audiobook listeners in ways that CDs, tapes and downloads simply can’t. Half the size of a deck of cards and weighing only two ounces, all Playaway listeners need to do is plug in the earbuds that come with every unit and press ‘play.’ No downloading and no other device is needed.
In the past year Playaway has already:
- Secured over 300 titles by internationally acclaimed authors - from John Grisham and Stephen King to William Shakespeare and Mark Twain - adding approximately 50 new titles every month
- Partnered with over 25 major publishing houses, including Hachette, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster and Random House
- Established presence in over 1,300 retail locations and libraries nationwide, including Barnes & Noble, Borders, Hudson Books and Brookstone and the New York, Chicago and Cleveland Public Libraries
The company also announced the launch of RePlay Rewards, a program that allows customers to return titles once they’ve finished listening to them for 50 percent off their next title. Additional RePlay Rewards information and the entire Playaway collection are available at www.playawaydigital.com.
The WildCharger
This is one I am anxious to get when they start selling them this summer.
The WildCharger pad is a charging pad that is less than 0.1” thin and can be produced using a variety of materials, rigid or flexible. It sits on any flat surface, such as a desk or airplane seat tray. The WildCharger adapter is readily attached or integrated into mobile consumer devices. Once enabled, a device can be placed anywhere and at any orientation on the WildCharger pad and it will receive instantaneous and uninterrupted full power as if plugged directly into the wall. And you can simultaneously charge multiple devices with varying power needs. So far, the company is the only one to provide a solution that works even for high-power devices. It does all this at a cost competitive with standard chargers.
WildCharge initially targets mobile professionals for whom cell phones, smart phones, laptops and PDA’s are mission critical devices that must work and be charged at all times. The company further targets young individuals (age 15-35) who use cell phones and mobile music players extensively. As new cell phones are feature-packed with high-resolution color screens, still and video cameras and music or video players, their batteries are prone to rapid drain. The cell phone market is large and growing (over 800M units sold annually). Later on, the company plans to provide solutions for other mobile consumer electronics, cordless power tools and other portable devices. WildCharge plans to price its power/charging products at the $40-$100 range. The company expects to start selling these on it’s webpage www.wildcharge.com this summer.
More on Vista
So much has been written on this new OS that it’s hard for the average user to keep up or even make an informed decision about whether to upgrade or not. Since I was a beta tester, I had the advantage of knowing what Vista did and didn’t do by the time it was released to the public. One of the things that everyone seems to agree on is that not all your programs will work on Vista. Also, not every company has been willing to provide free upgrades to their software so it will work with Vista. The prevailing reasoning seems to be that since Vista is a totally different OS and requires major changes in various software programs to make them run right, you are being charged for a totally new program, not just an upgrade to a new version. I’ll leave the discussion on that to the many pundits who write extensively on this sort of topic! For me, the decision was easy…I wanted to put Vista on my primary PC, but still being somewhat reluctant to totally change, here’s how I “hedged my bet.”
First, I did a complete image backup of my PC, using Acronis True Image. Next, I formatted my 250GB hard drive and setup 2 partitions. I copied the XP backup to partition 1 and then installed Vista on partition 2. I now have both my complete XP OS and my new Vista OS on my primary PC so any programs that don’t work with Vista can still be used by booting to my XP partition. I did buy a new graphics card (under $100) so I can ooh and aah at the 3D and aero features of Vista…not a requirement for all the rest of improvements it has to offer, but lots of fun…for me anyway. If you are interested in doing something like this; let me know and I’ll be glad to tell you more. And, don’t forget, if you are contemplating a move to Vista, use the upgrade advisor on the Microsoft Vista homepage to see what if any changes you need to make.
And, that's it for now, until next time, have fun with all those computer and electronic gadgets, but remember to be careful out there on the 'net!
Aloha, Lou
