Operation Gadget

Month: April 2004

  • $100 Instant Rebate Offered on Audible-Ready Portable Audio Players and PDAs

    Reading Time: < 1 minuteAmazon.com and Audible announced a $100 instant rebate on Audible-ready portable audio players and PDAs for buyers willing to join Audible’s AudibleListener program for 12 months. The AudibleListener programs are monthly subscriptions that allow customers to choose two programs from Audible’s collection of spoken word audio programming for a discounted price.…

  • Jakks Pacific To Release Namco II: Ms Pac-Man with 5 TV Games

    Reading Time: < 1 minuteJakks Pacific has announced a new low cost game controller called Namco II: Ms Pac-Man with 5 TV Games. This is an integrated joystick-game controller with five classic Namco arcade games: Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Pole Position, Xevious, and Mappy. It’s a followup to the Namco TV Games system that I talked…

  • Panera Offers Free WiFi at Some Locations

    Reading Time: < 1 minuteGearBits pointed out that Panera offers free WiFi access at a number of their bakery stores. I live in an area with a number of Panera locations, so I consulted at the Panera store locator to see if this is something I could try out. Panera’s locator indicates which stores have…

  • How to Build a Steadicam-like Attachment for Your DV Camera for $14

    Reading Time: < 1 minuteJohnny Chung Lee, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University, designed an attachment for a digital video camera which functions like a Steadicam camera stabilizing system. The most interesting aspect of Lee’s design is that he says it can be assembled from parts available at a hardware store for about $14.00.…

  • McDonald’s Chooses Wayport as Nationwide WiFi Provider

    Reading Time: < 1 minuteCNET News.com reports that McDonald’s has chosen Wayport to provide WiFi service in its U.S. restaurants. They intend to make the service available in 3,000 restaurants before the end of 2004, and will “eventually” serve the remaining 10,000 locations in the United States. McDonald’s customers will be able to use the…

  • Mobile RSS Tools Discussed by Daily Wireless

    Reading Time: < 1 minuteDaily Wireless put together an excellent article about RSS use on mobile devices. The article includes a list of RSS aggregators for platforms from the PC and Macintosh all the way down to the iPod. [ via MobileWhack ] One suggestion that the author, Phillip Torreone, makes is Syndigator, a Perl-based…

  • T-Mobile USA’s Handset Unlocking Policy

    Reading Time: 2 minutesLate last month, I decided to do some research into mobile phone carriers’ handset unlocking policies. I did this because I keep hearing from Operation Gadget readers who are frustrated by their inability to take their phones with them when they switch carriers. In many cases, it’s because their handsets have been…

  • Handset Unlocking Policy of AT&T Wireless

    Reading Time: 2 minutesLate last month, I decided to do some research into mobile phone carriers’ handset unlocking policies. I did this because I keep hearing from Operation Gadget readers who are frustrated by their inability to take their phones with them when they switch carriers. In many cases, it’s because their handsets have been…

  • April 5 – April 11, 2004 Weekly Summary

    Reading Time: < 1 minuteThis is the Operation Gadget weekly summary for the second week of April 2004. I’m experimenting with a weekly summary so that readers who want to receive a periodic email with Operation Gadget headlines can receive the links to all of the articles published each week. I will post a mechanism…