Unreal Expectations » gadgetry

Impressions of Sony Dash

mleo — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 17:29:29 +0000

For Christmas I received the Sony Dash as present from my wife. Having worked with computers, networking, and all sorts of technology in general I am both amazed and dismayed by Sony Dash at the same time.

Since this article can live for a long time and the Sony product team does seem to making monthly/bi-monthly updates, some of these comments may become outdated.

Amazed

Portal Integration
The device uses a web application to help install and configure the apps that run on the device. The portal makes it relatively easy to find apps that are available, but if the number grows, it will need to address some things to make it easier to find useful ones.

Unfortunately, a lot of the configuration is via Flash, which makes sense given the apps on the Dash itself are built in Flash. This makes it impossible to use with iPad. If the Dash lives in the bedroom, it is easier to configure it with the iPad rather than laptop that usually stays downstairs. It’ll probably work with Android tablets, but don’t currently have one of those.

Netflix
We don’t have a TV in our bedroom, and while the prospect of watching a movie on 7 inch screen isn’t going to be the bedroom home theater of choice, it is still an interesting device to have Netflix access on. It is able to access my Wireless-N WPA2 network which is good as I would like to phase out the B/G WEP. Anyway, Netflix runs fairly well on it. Netflix is probably the most ubiquitous service I have access to use.

Dismayed

Internet Radio
Given that the Dash does not provide AM/FM radio built-in, this is the best app to use to listen to your local stations. Unfortunately, this looks like one heck of a unfinished app; more to the point it appears to be more proof of concept that indeed Internet Radio can be streamed and is missing the consumer oriented features that make it easy to use. In my world of development, this is would be a manual test harness the backend developer put together to prove the playing of audio streams works.

Then Internet Radio Streamer allows for user to manually add streams that can then be played. By manually adding streams, you have to know the URL of the stream and type it in completely and the content type of stream, m3u or pls. There is no pre-screened list of stations or search functionality. You can only manually add new or edit & delete existing streams. The list of added streams can’t even be reordered or categorized.

OK, so to use the app I need to use my computer to go find stream URLs and add them to the Dash. Not too big a deal since the device does allow adding and configuration of apps on the web site. I can fire up Safari, find the streams and copy/paste to the Dash configuration site. Does this app allow for configuration on the web site? No. So now you have to have computer within eyes view of Dash to enter the stream URL.

I don’t go looking for audio streaming URLs everyday, so didn’t know where to go. My first instinct was to use put in radio stations into search box, “knx 1070 audio stream url”. This had success in getting me to pages that would play the stream online, but made getting the URL difficult. I used Safari Web Inspector to find the URL. One down, many to go.

Eventually, I decided to go a different route. I eventually found some aggregator sites that provided better access to the URL. The main site I used for most stations I eventually added was vTuner. VTuner provides an aggregation list of audio streams and an API to access the list. Their API has been added to many devices, just not the Sony Dash (yet?). It seems the Internet Radio Streamer app can be made vastly more user friendly.

Responsiveness
The thing is slow to respond to inputs. I hit a button on screen and then need to wait several seconds most of the time until I can tell whether or not it recognized the input. I understand the device is intended to be inexpensive, which probably limits what strength processor can be purchased, but wow.

Parting thoughts

While I have explored some apps, I haven’t had an opportunity to fully find the ones that fully interest me. I like the Dash and can’t wait to see what updates come in the future to make it more useful.

Blogging on the iPad

mleo — Sat, 01 May 2010 04:31:13 +0000

My new 3g iPad arrived today and I have spent the evening having a look through the app store for apps that are built for the device. One of the apps I found was WordPress for the iPad. This is my first post on the iPad and the initial impression is that it is easy to do, but it is prone to moving the cursor around a little too easily.

So far the other apps I have tried are Netflix and USAToday. As my previous post mentioned, I imagine the most use of this device will be reading in certain room. I’ll have to wait until later to see how that goes.

On a technology front, my latest project involves the use of SDL Tridion for CMS. I don’t have too much to state about the product as yet. I’ll wait until the developers get going with the implementation before I mention anything about it.

Most Popular Room for iPad

mleo — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:46:11 +0000

My prediction for the iPad is that some survey will come out 6 months after the release that finds people use their iPad more often in the bathroom than any other room in the house. The logic on this is simple. People already have laptops, desktops and fully functional computers available in the living room, office and/or bedroom. The bathroom is really one of last bastions of truly tech free peace and quiet.

Gadgets Galore – The iPad would just be a small incemental add

mleo — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 08:59:16 +0000

The Apple iPad was announced yesterday and I do believe the hype was so insane leading up to the announcement that Steve Jobs could have introduced a semi-transparent 1/4 inch laser screen that ran for a month on full charge and people would still have made fun of the name. I kind of think the first generation of the iPad should just have been called the iPod Touch XL as it more like the Touch and less like the iPhone.

The day after led to all the news and I came across an interesting AP article that stated

… the average household owns about 24 electronic gadgets …

and this got me thinking about how many we own in our household of 3 people. I came up with the following list of over 40 items that are used on regular or semi-regular basis and are likely plugged-in sucking power.

The List

I’ll list the items in the home theater and summarize the others.

Home Theater: 10 Gadgets

Sony Receiver & Bose Surround Sound Speakers (2001)
Sony Plasma TV –Living Room (2003)
Sony DVD player (2004)
TiVo HD* (2007)
Sony PS3* (2006)
Apple AppleTV* (2007)
Actiontec Cable/Moca Modem* (2007)
Linksys Simultaneous Dual Band Router* (2009)
Western Digital NAS* (2008)
Logitech Universal Remote (2008)

Arguably, the receiver and speakers are 2 items, but the one is really not useful without the other in this case.

Audio Players: 4 Gadgets
We currently have 3 working iPods (Video, Mini, Shuffle) not counting the iPhone. The Mini and Shuffle aren’t used much anymore. The Video is hooked up to the screen in the car to provide hours of Handy Manny to my daughter on long car trips. We also have a Delphi Portable XM Satellite receiver that my wife uses at work.

Cameras: 5 Gadgets
We have 5MB and 8MB point and shoot digital cameras. I received a Canon 20D DSLR for Christmas in 2005 and added an eyeFi Wireless SD card (with CF adapter) a couple years later. We added an HDD Digital Camcorder before my daughter was born.

Kitchen: 4 Gadgets
In the kitchen is set top box hooked up to TV with a Mac Mini connected to network via a Netgear MOCA bridge.

Bedrooms: 7 Gadgets
We have 2 bedrooms but have kept to keep one of them free of television, and at some point will probably remove the television from the second one as well. But currently across the two bedrooms we have Desktop computer & printer, set top box, TV, and Slingbox. To have the computer and slingbox connected to the network I use Linksys Dual Band Ethernet Wireless Bridge and Slink Ethernet over Power bridge.

Other Entertainment: 4 Gadgets
I purchased an Amazon Kindle for my wife this past Christmas. The Kindle is amazingly better in functionality than the Sony eReader purchased 2 years ago. The eReader isn’t used anymore and isn’t in this list. The other items include 2 Apple Airport Expresses purchased about 3 years apart. One was for the home theater long before the AppleTV was added and the other was for bedroom and printer. Finally, we have a Brookstone wireless speaker that is more often hooked up to one of the Airports now.

Portable Game Stations: 2 Gadgets
A Sony PSP and Nintendo DS.

Phones: 3 Gadgets
We still have regular landlines and 2 smart phones, an Apple iPhone 3G and Samsung Blackjack II.

Work Related: 4 Gadgets
My wife and I each have a laptop provided by our employers and so maybe these not count towards the list. I also have a Linksys Travel Router and the all important iGo power adapter with 8 or so different tips; something has to be able to provide power to all the devices.

Cars: 2+ Gadgets
Add to this our two cars that both have built-in GPS and one that has a DVD player with back seat screen and XM satellite radio.

So based on this number, adding an iPad to the household is only a 2% increase in the number of gadgetry we have to deal with.

Connected Devices

Going through that list of gadgets and counting the number of items that can connect to the local network or Internet via Ethernet, MOCA, or 802.11 came to 19 devices. Having so many devices is part of why I have tried to upgrade and replace network devices more than anything else. The Ethernet over Powerline worked for the Slingbox in one bedroom but not the desktop in another room. The desktop got the Dual Band Ethernet Bridge and this performs pretty well. The Mac Mini was also using wireless and wanted to see if I could do better. I have Verizon FIOS and they use MOCA for the set top boxes to connect to the network and receive programming guide data as well as Video On Demand. I started looking at MOCA bridges and added a Netgear device for the Mac Mini to connect to the router. So I have pretty much tried every major consumer based physical medium for local area networks.

Replacing Gadgets

Most of the items in this list were purchased over the course of 10 years so it’s not like we went hog wild in a short period of time. I have generally been lucky with electronics and have had them run as long as needed. The only exception seems to be wireless routers, Logitech remotes, and of course mobile phones. Over the course of the 10 years I had a wired router, 1 wireless B, 3 wireless G, and 2 wireless N routers. The switch from B to G to N to N (simultaneous dual band) was more about speed increases than failure. The Logitech remotes on the other hand… I think I had 3 that hit the wood floor and failed. The mobile phone changes consisted of 9 phones over 12 years. 4 changes were due to service provider changes. 3 were due to failure or loss. Only 2 were explicitly for something new. Switching to AT&T to get the iPhone was for something new.

Unplugged, but Serviceable

I won’t get into the unplugged devices, mostly it is older gaming systems.

Wrapping It Up

So, do I think I will get an iPad. Maybe, but not soon after it is released. I really think it is no more than extra large iPod Touch in this first generation presented. However, it has potential to open floodgates of creativity in further development of apps. Additionally, Apple has yet to release features for iPhone OS 4.0 and I imagine it will provide more interesting features for the next iPhone and updates to the iPad.