Gadget Links: A la Carte Edition

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The Internet Allows Consumers to Trim Wasteful Purchases on WSJ.com: “Photo companies made customers pay for 24 shots in a roll of film to get a handful of good pictures. Music publishers made customers buy full CDs to get a single hit song. Encyclopedia publishers made parents spend thousands of dollars on multiple volumes when all they wanted was to help their kid do one homework paper.” Of course now people can buy what they want using services like iTunes and Flickr‘s photo printing partners. [ Subscription probably required. ]
In Praise of Third Place on newyorker.com: “Sony and Microsoft’s quest to ‘control the living room’ has locked them in a classic arms race; they have invested billions of dollars in an attempt to surpass each other technologically, building ever-bigger, ever-better, and ever-more-expensive machines. Nintendo has dropped out of this race. The Wii has few bells and whistles and much less processing power than its ‘competitors’…. It’s really well suited for just one thing: playing games…. The Wii’s simplicity means that Nintendo can make money selling consoles, while Sony is reportedly losing more than two hundred and forty dollars on each PlayStation 3 it sells…” [ via 37signals SVN ]
Battle of the Boxes:
PlayStation 3 vs. Wii on ptech.wsj.com: “{We} found the more modest Wii to be the more exciting, fun and satisfying of the two new game machines. We and our four volunteer testers were impressed by the rich, realistic graphics and intricate game play in some of the half-dozen PS3 games we tried…. But the Wii won our hearts for one reason: It uses a wireless controller that can detect your arm and hand motions and transfer them to the screen, so that you can physically control the action. This opens up huge possibilities.”
With smart phones, it’s all about the OS on news.com: “Palm is not only the most favored operating system for smart phones in the U.S., it’s also the most favored device brand. About 76 percent of Palm owners said they would be ‘very likely to recommend’ their smart phone to others, compared to about 75 percent for Samsung, 69 percent for Sony Ericsson, 67 percent for RIM Blackberry, 54 percent for Motorola and 54 percent for Nokia, the study found.”
TeleNav GPS Navigator Now Available for Palm Treo 680 on Treocentral.com: “For just $9.99 per month, TeleNav GPS Navigator offers unlimited turn-by-turn voice and on-screen driving directions, pedestrian mode for use while walking, full-color moving maps, information and directions to more than 10 million business listings including frequently updated fuel prices.”