More Free Wi-Fi On The Horizon?

A few weeks ago I made a couple of hour journey for a shopping trip out of Province. During my shopping I found myself in a Costco wondering the aisles in search of Christmas gifts when I happened upon a display for the flip video minoHD priced at $99.00 Canadian. Double take ensued and I whipped out my smartphone and waited patiently as my cell provider pulled down the flip.ca website... $207.00 Canadian... sold!

I didn't really need the camera, I owned a flip Ultra and my Canon S5-IS takes wonderful video, not HD but very good non the less. My point, I would not have made this purchase had I not known that the manufacturer's site was selling this very product for more than twice the price of the camera within my very grasp.

To that end, here is an interesting article in the Globe and Mail regarding retailers and their thoughts on Wi-Fi.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/duncan-stewart/whos-afraid-of-free-wifi/article1803347/

Love the minoHD by the way. It's smaller, lighter, and has a built in rechargeable battery. I carry it with me all the time and the output is really quite good. I mean for $99.00 I just couldn't walk past!

Wearable Video Cameras The Next Consumer Must Have?

A few years back I purchased a Flip Ultra video cam, and recently upgraded to a Flip Mino HD (G.N. you and the girls can keep the Ultra :)). I'm loving the Mino even more than I did the Ultra as it is smaller, lighter, and has a rechargeable battery built in, all with the same ease of use I grew accustomed to. It seems as though the next hot item in mobile video cams might be the wearable kind, enabling us to go about our business and capture our moments with out much thought involved. I do after all have to think about reaching for my Flip cam and aim it at the objects of my interest. 

The New York Times has an interesting article called "When a Camcorder Becomes a Life Partner" by Anne Eisenberg. The article describes two intriguing products, the more intrusive but better recording quality GoPro HD Hero 960 ($179.99 US) and the Looxcie ($199 US), which loops over the ear and is reminiscent of a hands free Bluetooth phone headset.

The GoPro features:

High-Definition video at 1,280 x 960 pixels and 30 frames a second. This device is a small cube less than two inches high and can be mounted into a waterproof case which combinedweigh less than six ounces. The lens can capture photos or video at 170-degree angle, and the camera mounts to a headband or plastic plates that can attach it to flat or curved surfaces.

The Looxcie:

Loops over the ear and is built into a Bluetooth headset that streams digital images wirelessly to your Android phone using a free Looxcie app. From there, the the video clips can go directly to e-mail. This is the less obvious of the two cameras but also only captures video at 15 frames per second and 480 x 320 pixels.

In either case, expect to see these and similar devices showing up at sporting events and school plays in your neighbourhoods soon.    

Jobs Returns To The Stage At Apple

“I’m vertical, I’m back at Apple and I’m loving every day of it,” said Steve Jobs after a standing ovation by the crowd gathered at the Apple news conference held yesterday. “I feel great. I probably need to gain about 30 pounds, but I feel really good,” said Jobs in a post event interview “I’m eating like crazy. A lot of ice cream.”

During the conference Apple announced a new version of iTunes and a line of iPod Nanos that have a video camera, microphone, speaker, FM radio tuner and pedometer built in and will have a starting price of $149 US. The new features are meant to rejuvenate the slumping sales of iPods and take a bite out of the market for small video devices such as the Flip Video. The new Nano is compared in size to a package of gum while the Flip is roughly the size of a deck of playing cards.

Source: New York Times

Flip Video Of Roomba

Here is a brief video that I shot with my new Flip Ultra. It struck me that if you had told me 20 years ago that I would be here today using a filmless video camera, not much larger than the palm of my hand, to film my robotic vacuum cleaner, and then I'd transfer this video to a computer somewhere in the world so that anyone could view it... I'd have called you nuts!

I'm really enjoying the Flip Ultra. It's dead easy to use and a great size for stuffing in a pocket and taking on the road. However, I'm afraid that I'll have to buy more hard drive space, or at least be a whole lot more selective about what I save.