My mom stood patiently in the back of the auditorium during many a high school play, a gigantic VHS-based camcorder mounted before her, capturing me cavorting on stage. And there the memories have remained, on brittle aging tape. Luckily there are many methods to move tape to your PC (and burn it to DVD), usually using a converter between your old VHS video recorder and the PC.

If you want to spend real money to convert tapes, buy the Ion VCR 2 PC. It is what it sounds like: a VHS-based VCR you plug into a USB port on a Windows PC. It comes with converter software to capture your tape playback to MPEG4 video for use on DVDs, iPods, over your home network, or upload to YouTube.

This is especially nice if, like me, you got rid of your last, broken VCR a couple years ago. The Ion is a pricy solution, however. I've found the VCR 2 PC as low as $199.95 (at Amazon), but a standalone VCR at Walmart is only $60. But a true geek -- with a starring role in Dracula: The Musical on crumbling 20-year-old VHS tape -- won't let price stand in their way. (Ion also sells cassette decks and turntables with USB ports, for converting your other aging memories.)

Hard drive manufacturer Seagate announced this week that it will be providing storage for NBC's 2008 Olympic Games coverage--a fairly tall order. The company will be providing around half a million gigabytes of storage for the network's coverage, set to occur between August 8 and 24.

NBC's coverage of the Beijing games will amount to around 3,600 hours--around three times the duration of their 2004 Athens coverage. Everything will be stored on Seagate's Barracuda ES hard drives, which are backing up the network's Omneon MediaDeckmedia servers and MediaGridactive storage systems.

"NBC needs to capture every second of every competition at multiple venues in China, quickly turning them into dynamic programming for television and Internet broadcasting--nothing can fall through the cracks," said Seagate's marketing director, Bill Schilling. "We welcomed the opportunity to work with Omneon to support NBC for its Olympics coverage. Omneon is the market leader for developing storage solutions for broadcast video, which is becoming more prevalent via the Web, especially for hugely popular sporting events like the Olympics."

Sure, the upcoming $79.99 EyeClops Night Vision from Jakks Pacific is technically a toy, and thus made for kids (ages 8-plus with adult supervision required). Still, that didn't stop me from opening the box with trembling hands giddy from excitement. Neither did it prevent a crowd of Gearloggers from gathering around the device as I inserted its five AA batteries.

Amateur astronomers take note: Snopes.com, who debunk such things, include keyboards with shopping carts, sponges, phone receivers and, yes, the toilet seat as "favored by germs." Gah.

That's why Cyber Clean from Switzerland may be the most important breakthrough in office cleaning ever. From the picture, it looks like this patented, biodegradable yellow ball of slime has the malleability of warm Silly Putty, but with a slimy surface that picks up all sorts of crud--like the blob moving through a 1950's movie theater full of tasty teenyboppers. It works on keyboards, TVs, phones, cameras, and more to pull off dust, hair, dead skin, crumbs, and lord knows what else is stuck in the dark crevices of your devices. We really don't want to know. (You're on your own if you spilled Pepsi Max on it.) There's even a version for your car, to keep the dashboard clean.

It's not in any US retail stores yet, but you can buy it online for a low $6.49 for a 1.1 pound pot of the stuff. There's a six pot minimum order.

[via BoingBoing]

Companies deem it essential for their advertisements to be able to reach their target customers in order to be effective. The new ad system by NEC claims to be able to distinguish people based on age and gender. Called Digital Signage Solution, the system is composed of a display with a camera and a FeliCa contactless IC card reader/writer. A participant would need to face the display in order for the camera to get a glimpse of the person, and hold a FeliCa-based mobile phone over the IC card reader/writer.

Based on the person's determined stats, the display shows advertisements most suited to the person. Of course, they'll find it hard to get people to stand in front of a display to view ads without giving them something in turn. So, participants are sent coupons to their mobile phones which they could use when purchasing from stores. Each coupon is equivalent to an entry for raffle draws where consumers can win prizes. Aside from being able to show ads based on a person's age and gender, NEC's Digital Signage Solution can also optimize advertisements based on geographical location and even time of day.

Victor Japan (more popularly known as JVC) has announced its new HP-FXC50 Earphones which can literally reach deeper inside your ear than any other earphone can. The new model is a sound-isolating earphone with a driver located in the part of the device that enters the ear. I think it's very clear from the picture how the earphone would work: the sound channel (the part which goes inside the ear) of the HP-FXC50 is longer, which means it could slide in deeper.

Based on its architecture, it would be nearer your ear drums than other earphone could reach. While JVC promises comfort, I can't help but be wary of ear-related injuries. Let's hope I'm just being paranoid. The earphone has a response of 103dB/1mW, with a 150mW max permissible input. The JVC/Victor Japan HP-FXC50 earphones will be available in Japan starting August of 2008 for $37.60.

Low slung and sleek, the Lightning reminds me of a Jaguar. It very well might be the perfect platform to snap photos of a Jaguar... out the back window as you pull away! The Lightning does 0 to 60 mph in 4 seconds, a full second faster than a Jag and 7 seconds (aka--a lifetime) faster than a Prius! But what makes the Lightning special is it's an electric automobile.

Joining the ranks of all-electrics, like Tesla Motors Roadster, the Lightning has further innovated by banking on a lithium-titanate battery, Don't feel bad, I hadn't heard of lithium-titanate either. Forget overnight charging. If you've got three-phase power available, this car can be fully charged in 10 minutes for 200 miles of driving. The batteries themselves have a life expectancy of 12+ years, versus the 3-5 year usable life of other batteries.

When I lost a phone a few years ago my biggest concern wasn't the cost of replacing the handset, but instead with losing all the personal information that was inside. Despite repeated calls to the number, my phone was gone for good and I called my carrier and had the phone disabled. But by disabling it, I was told the chances of someone returning it greatly decreased because any finder of the phone would not be able to call me.

Now the Yougetitback service might make retrieving a lost phone a little easier, while ensuring that a stolen phone doesn't give away the goods. Once a user determines that a phone is lost or stolen, it can be remotely locked by accessing an online account. No outgoing calls can be made, except to the Yougetitback service, while all other sensitive data including e-mails, contact details, text messages and photos are locked from viewing or use.

This service is also includes other electronic devices and accessories. Users can purchase adhesive security tags that can be affixed to phones, PDAs and laptops. People can also buy the software for $20 per year, while tags are $10 for three-years, and there is even a premium service that will provide a full replacement of a digital device if the software and tag are not successful. Losing a phone sucks, but getting it back is really priceless!

Post by Peter Suciu

f your new iPhone 3G has oddly weak 3G reception, you're not alone. I wrote about this problem two weeks ago, but it seems that since then, things have only gotten more puzzling.

One thing to be sure of: It's not an AT&T problem. I've now seen reports from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., the Netherlands, Australia, Japan, Sweden, France, Germany and Switzerland. Message boards are buzzing, and here are some links:

Apple's official support boards: more than 600 messages.
HowardForums: 526 messages
Engadget: 215 comments
MacTalk Australia: 131 messages
iPhone Forums Germany: 58 messages
O2 Customer Forums: 24 messages
Gearlog: 10 comments

The reception problems seem to affect some but not all iPhones. Apple hasn't gotten back to me with any possible reasons, but one thread on Engadget suggests it's a bug involving new iPhone 3Gs that have been restored from backups of older iPhone 2Gs. A post on Apple's support boards quotes an O2 employee as saying that the reception issue is caused by a bad batch of antennas in some iPhones--so, a totally different explanation.

What could be the real cause? Tell me what you think.

Online shopping addicts beware: A TiVo-Amazon partnership will soon allow TiVo customers to purchase items via Amazon.com without ever leaving the couch.

With Product Purchase, TiVo users can click over to Amazon on the TV screen using their remote controls and purchase items discussed on a certain TV show. Want a few of Oprah's favorite things? Intrigued by a book mentioned on The Colbert Report? Click over to TiVo's Universal Swivel Search function, find the items, and purchase them directly.

The service launches Tuesday and is available on broadband-connected Series 2, Series 3, and TiVo HD DVRs. It will launch in conjunction with four specific TV shows.

Long-time readers of this blog may have come to feel a bubbly camaraderie with my obsession over SideShow. Or they may simply have thrown their hands up in despair, bored with the delayed-into-irrelevance technology. Released two years ago, nothing's really been released to date at all, save the Philips remote I reviewed two months ago. Still, as long as there's progress being made, I'll keep blogging about it! And the technology did take a giant leap forward over the past month, though no one's been bold enough to release any new gear, of course. Heaven forbid! Here's the latest:

SideShow Device Drivers for Windows CE 5.0.
Using a Windows handheld? You're in luck! Earlier this month, Microsoft released the software you'll need to let your device interact with various Windows Vista gadgets to receive, send or display information on a home network. Windows CE 5 is the kernel on which the Windows Mobile 6 operating system is based, of course.

Universal SideShow driver updated to version 1.5.
Absolutely no one was using the 1.0 driver, so the existence of a new iteration seems kind of irrelevant to me. But no matter! In late May, the Windows SideShow team blog trumpeted the latest driver release, which includes documentation for developers and support for new transports. It now supports USB, Bluetooth, TCP/IP, and TCP/IP with SSL. Didn't it already support that stuff?

Read on for more news, including shots of the latest SideShow software gagets.

Sony Ericsson today announced a handful of new additions to their Walkman line of music phones.

The W302 Walkman comes with a 512MB memory card, a built-in FM tuner, a 2MP camera, and features TrackID, which lets users locate the title, artist ,and album of the song they're listening to.

The W595 offers a 2.2-inch screen, a 2GB memory card, built-in stereo speakers, and a 3.2MB camera.

The top of the line W902, meanwhile, comes packed with a 8GB memory card and features equalizers, a 2.2-inch QVGA display, and a 5MP camera built-in.

Our phone analyst Sascha Segan adds this note:

Here's what other blogs may not tell you. The W302 and W595a are both quad-band EDGE phones and likely to appear on AT&T by Christmas, as AT&T has carried their predecessor models. The W902 will not be released in the US.

That's the word from investment bankers Goldman Sachs, as quoted in this AP story (via BusinessWeek) and it continues to be bad news for American mobile consumers. As I've said before, Motorola is the only North American company making a broad range of mobile phones, and they tend to take our quirky market more seriously than the foreign players. The US rarely gets the top technologies from Nokia, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson first, if at all. Motorola's death makes the US a little bit more of a mobile tech backwater.

Another story, in Fortune, cites unnamed sources in the Asian publication DigiTimes as saying that Motorola is now fifth, but I'm more willing to trust Goldman Sachs' word on the record.

While North America has strong smart phone contenders in RIM, Palm and Apple, the vast majority of phones sold today are still the humbler models produced by Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson, among others.

Motorola's organizational disaster shows no signs of abating. Their mobile phone unit is sitting on the sales block, and I've heard no word about a buyer. The mobile phone division doesn't even have its own chief. They're trickling out handsets that aren't awful - the new ROKR E8 has gotten pretty good reviews - but they don't seem to have a leader, vision or strategy that could help them vault back into prominence. I have a vision for Motorola (to focus on voice, Linux, and under-served markets), and I can also suggest a leader, but they don't seem to be listening.

Motorola will release its latest humiliating set of quarterly sales results on July 31.

Q3 was another banner earnings period for Apple, thanks in no small part to the runaway success of the iPhone 3G and the company's leap to the number three spot amongst PC manufacturers in the US.

Still, even with the marked success, the company is keeping its earnings predictions for future quarters fairly conservative. It's not difficult to see why--Apple is, essentially, the manufacturer of luxury products amidst broader economic expectations that just seem to keep going from bad to worse.

As always, the company is staying quiet with regards to future product announcements, and, as always, said fact hasn't kept analysts from speculating all over the place. Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster gladly tossed in his two cents, saying, "We believe Apple is readying new iPods and new portables that will apply downward margin pressure in the Sept. quarter and into FY09. We believe there is an 80% chance Apple will introduce redesigned MacBooks and possibly new MacBook Pros at lower price points."

As the number three manufacturer in the US, at least a little bit of the luxury tag seems to have been stripped from Apple's PCs. In this economic climate, a few well-timed price slashes would be very welcome indeed.