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KPAC? KPAC’s got to be someone’s nickname, hasn’t it? It reads like a J-Lo kind of a nickname - first initial and then the start of your surname. So who’s nickname is it?
My guess is that it’s Kerry Packer’s. Kerry Packer was an Australian media tycoon, most famous in my world for being the guy who brought about World Series Cricket.
Kerry Packer wanted the exclusive rights to Australian cricket, but he couldn’t get them, so he hit upon the ingenious solution of inventing a rival form of international cricket. KPAC threw a load of money at all the top cricketers. Quite a bit of it stuck and those players came and played World Series Cricket on his TV channel.
Now KPAC’s given his name to a portable media player, which seems strangely fitting, although I’m not quite sure why.
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Put the Macally FMCup in the cup holder in your car, plug it into the cigarette lighter and there you go: A wireless FM transmitter and iPod charger.
Don’t most car radios feature FM anyway? Mine does and my car doesn’t even feature anything as exotic as a cup holder. If I had the FMCup it would be hanging by its power cord from the cigarette lighter. It could be worse, I suppose. Some people’s cup holders might necessitate the wiring passing across the driver. That can’t be safe.
If you ask me, the high water mark in in-car sound technology was the tape-on-a-wire that you used to plug modern devices into primitive car audio systems. That was ingenious. A TAPE! AS A SORT OF PLUG! I have no idea how they did it and I don’t WANT to know. I’m happy in my fawning awe.
What an invention.
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I’ll tell you what I know about M-Cody: They’re from one of those countries where they write using a different alphabet to me: France or somewhere.
M-Cody’s M20 has a rather neat trick. It looks like a black square with no buttons on, but then you switch it on and all the controls and the screen magically reveal themselves with a comforting, if slightly eery, glow.
Now I don’t know how you actually go about switching on the M20, what with all the buttons being invisible. It’s possible that you have to say ‘power on’ in your special Jean Luc Picard baritone you use for talking to technological devices. It’s more probable that you don’t do that however.
The M20’s far too small at just 8cm in length, but at least it’s just a dull, flat square shape, which is pretty much optimum - matching, as it does, that design classic: ‘the pocket’.
The battery’s life’s just 11 hours. Considering there’s no video-watching or anything else fancy with this, that’s very poor. Poorer than me even. And that’s mighty poor.
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The iRiver H20 is, apparently, ‘a pocket jukebox’. This presumably means that you have to constantly pump it with coins to have something you want to hear drowned out by everyone talking.
There’s a refreshing honesty here. At least iRiver are acknowledging the frankly extortionate prices that they charge for these things.
If it truly is a pocket jukebox, it presumably plays 15 dreadful songs before starting yours just as you’re leaving.
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MobiBLU really seem keen on adding meaningless suffixes to ordinary words when naming their products. Following on from the Cubisto, we now have ‘Boxon’.
The Boxon comes in either 1GB or 2GB size. The battery life is a laughable 12 hours for audio and a beyond laughable four hours for video. It’s less than 5cm in size, which is really, really, staggeringly stupid and pointless. Do you know how big 5cm is? Why bother?
However, in their defence, MobiBLU’s website advertises the Boxon with the following phrase: “Available in TWO colors!” - which is either the first recorded use of irony in the entire technological industry, or the most pathetic attempt to dress up a negative as a positive I’ve ever seen. Either way, it’s a slap in the face for the ’show your individuality with our product’ lobby.
The two colours are black and white, by the way.
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What is it with Creative? Why do all their products boast huge memories and NO battery life?
You get six hours of video-watching out of the ZEN Vision:M. That’s barely enough to get through Speed, Species and Bad Boys. What do you do then? How do you watch Boomerang or Golden Child? It’s crass irresponsibility on the part of Creative.
As far as I can tell, the Vision:M is virtually identical to the Vision:W only the Vision:M is higher than it is wide and the Vision:W is wider than it is high.
This has won awards. Awards people are stupid.
by Staff Writer
Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund
April 16, 2007, will be remembered as one of the darkest days in the history of the Virginia Tech community and the world beyond.
To remember and honor the victims of those tragic events, the university has established the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund to aid in the healing process and generate financial support.
The fund will be used to cover expenses including but not limited to:
- Grief counseling
- Memorials
- Communication expenses
- Comfort expenses
- Incidental needs
If you plan to give, please click the link below:
Steve Shickles
451 Press, LLC
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Your Creative Zen Vision M’s got to be up to some serious stuff to require A FULL BODY SHIELD. Even the FBI only have the vests and maybe a helmet.
But wait. There’s more. It’s an invisible shield. This is cooler than just about all the superheroes put together. A full body shield AND it’s invisible. Nobody’s going to be messing with your Zen Vision M now. They’ll be looking at its 30GB storage capabilities with awe. They’ll be backing away from it when it walks down the street because THEY KNOW it’s the hardest portable music player IN THE WORLD.
I think the invisible body shield’s basically thick clingfilm.
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When I came to upload the accompanying picture for this post, I realised that I’d already covered one of Sony’s E-Series of MP3 players. The NW-E015F to be precise.
The problem is that you’d expect the E-Series to start with an E, not NW. How am I supposed to know which letter is the crucial one? After further investigation, I’ve discovered that all of the Sony MP3 players that I’ve covered have started NW. This can’t be a coincidence. NW must stand for something really obvious. Anyone?
Sony aren’t short of resources. They should plough a bit of cash into naming their products. That way people like me wouldn’t say they were shite, purely out of ignorant frustration.
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Hang on a minute, you say. This is exactly the same as iRiver’s H10 Pure. And indeed it is. I’ve even used the same picture because I can’t be bothered uploading a second one.
After a lengthy comparison of the features of the H10 Color and the H10 Pure, I can now tell you how to distinguish between the two. The H10 Color has radio.
This seems to have had a further and unwelcome knock-on effect however. The already lame battery life of the H10 Pure has been further shortened to just 12 hours or ‘up to 12 hours’ in iRiver’s words.
This is a stupid spelling of ‘colour’ by the way, even if literally millions of you do think it’s ‘correct’.
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Sumvision’s website’s a bit light on facts about their products. I searched for about five minutes, but visiting lots of technological websites is really boring, as you no doubt know. As punishment for their witholding of information, I’m going to be painfully prejudiced against Sumvision from now on.
There is virtually nothing that I can tell you about Sumvision’s Yumi Pro MP4 player that isn’t really included in its name. Instead I’m going to make stuff up.
The Sumvision Yumi Pro doesn’t work properly if you’re a child. Sumvision hate children.
The Sumvision Yumi Pro only plays at a very low volume, but then if something rubbish comes on, it turns up FULL BLAST.
The Sumvision Yumi Pro’s headset only fits over a top hat. Sumvision only cater for the wealthy.
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It’s the boom or bust machine!
Watch things in widescreen - hurray! The screen’s only 10cm wide - we’ll live.
Store 60GB of stuff - hurray! Watch four hours of it before the battery gives out - boo!
I hope that picture of a panda’s a sort of cover for the screen. You’ll need something to look at after you realise that giving the batteries a rub doesn’t do anything to prolong their mayfly-esque lifespan.
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This Noreve red leather case fits one model of one brand of MP3 player. Big market. I’m only writing a review of it because there isn’t an MP3 player released every day.
It opens. It closes. You can get at the bits that you need to. It protects the bits that you don’t need to get to. It’s red. It’s leather.
It actually comes in black as well, but I’m reviewing the red one. Maybe I’ll do the black one another day. According to the Noreve website: “Some of the colors are in stock also.” I think they might have missed the word ‘other’.
Even assuming there are other colours available, Noreve don’t tell you which ones. That would be rash of them.
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Argh. Owning this would freak me out. It’s clearly - CLEARLY - a bloke standing with his hands in the air.
Why are his hands in the air? Having your hands in the air is the universal sign of surrender. Why is he surrendering. You’re not doing anything to threaten him. Someone else must be. But who? There’s someone else in your house and they’re doing something that’s spooked your hi-fi.
Maybe he’s a gymnast. That’s an alternative. Gymnasts adopt that position when they’ve done their stuff. He doesn’t look like a gymnast though. He’s too rigid.
Maybe he’s lauding you. It could be a pose of praise. Arms aloft. ‘Thank you, saviour, for not using me as a coffee table, like the old hi fi’.
It’s a thing that makes your iPod a hi-fi, by the way. You guessed that from the name, didn’t you?
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“The feather-weight MP3 all-rounder puts more color in your life”
No, damn it. I don’t want more colour in my life. Colour’s distracting. Allow colour in your life and before you know it you’re having to actually THINK about what you’re going to wear in the morning. Far better to live a monochrome existence with more free time.
iRiver’s H10 Pure is 5GB in size, which is plenty big enough, unless you’re one of those people who likes to boast about how much music they’re going to lose in one go when their MP3 player gets stolen.
On the other hand, it’s got a battery life of ‘up to 16 hours’ which is pitiful at best.
