From Dick's Gadget Warehouse: The Long Range Cordless Phone With “A Five Mile Range”.

Dick’s Gadget Warehouse Friday, September 3^rd, 2010, Netcast 1170 

This gizmo won a CES Innovations Award back in 1999. The EnGenius SN-900 900MHz Ultra Long Range Cordless Phone and Two Way Radio claimed a range up to Five Miles (8km) in open terrain for both the telephone and the two-way radio. A big selling point for business was Digital Security Hopping. Using military designed technology this phone was said frequency hop more than 200 times per second for complete privacy. The thing I was most interested in was the range. Again, here’s what the company said: The EnGenius SN 900 Ultra has a range in excess of 5.5 miles. Wyle Laboratories Inc, an independent testing laboratory, in an open field environment, tested the product. The phone operated at up to 630 milliwatts. Most 900-megahertz digital cordless phones transmit at no more than 100 milliwatts; 2.4-gigihertz phones transmit at 260 milliwatts; and family-radio service phones at 500 milliwatts. The place I wanted to use this cordless phone met their criterion for open field environment. I was hoping to be able to talk from the handset from a marina across the river from my houseboat where the base unit was. The distance was about 4 miles, but all outdoors with no obstructions. I did the test by making a call the EnGenius SN-900 while I slowly motored away from my marina in an open boat. I lost the signal when I was about 1.5 miles away. I decided to add an outdoor antenna on a pole to the houseboat base station. That increased the distance a bit more, to about 2 miles. So it seemed at least to me that 5 miles was a bit optimistic, but the phone did offer the longest range of any cordless phones I had ever used. Pitched mainly at business customers, the phones were expensive. About $500 each! EnGenius is still in business producing long-range cordless phones, but they now claim the range is 3,000 acres of property, open land coverage. And they cost about $500. 

www.engeniustech.com 

Hear or SEE this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw1170

Here's An April Fool's Joke That Turned Real!

Thursday, September 2^nd, 2010, Netcast 1169 

Dr. Mom brought a guest (Joe) when she stopped by the Gizneyland Studio. (She also brought a LOT of baked good, including two boxes of Hamantashen.)  Joe wore the perfect shirt for a visit to Gizneyland Studio, the Personal Soundtrack T-Shirt from Think Geek. This high tech shirt was originally a joke product for April Fool's day. But so many people wanted one, Think Geek went ahead and made them. The Personal Soundtrack T-Shirt features a working speaker embedded into the front of the shirt. When you push the appropriate button on the pocketable wired remote you get music or sound effects appropriate for any situation... everything from drum roll, to cat call whistle, to western showdown. Check out the chart on their website to see the extensive list of built in sounds and suggestions on using them for dramatic punctuation in your everyday life. But wait there’s more! You can add your own sounds. Pop in your own SD memory card loaded with MP3 files to use your own sound effects and music. The Personal Soundtrack T-Shirt remote has buttons from 1 to 20 and each can play a different sound. You can also play sounds from your portable audio player through the speaker on the front of the shirt. Simply connect your portable audio player to the audio "input" jack on the battery box of the shirt and power it on (you will need a male-to-male headphone cable, not included). The Soundtrack Shirt amplifies your music and you can use the volume control on your portable audio player to control the volume level of the shirt! Pretty amazing. The speaker and electronics are removable when you want to wash the shirt. Runs on four AAA batteries. When this was written, the Personal Soundtrack T-Shirt was on sale for $29.95, 25% off the regular $39.95 price. (Price checked on August 30^th, 2010) 

[http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/interactive/a5bf/ 

Hear or SEE this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw1169

The Smart Pen Get Smarter with the new Echo model!

Wednesday, September 1^st, 2010 Netcast 1168 

We talked about the original version of Livescribe Pulse Smartpen just about two years ago, on September 10th, 2008, Daily Giz Wiz 653. (Link to hear that show is below.) Like the original, the new Echo Smart Pen records everything you write and simultaneously records audio, which it synchronizes it to the writing! Can’t remember what those notes you made refer to? Push the pen down on a word in your written notes, and it finds the matching recorded audio! Once you upload your notes to your computer (as PDF files) you can search them quickly by “keyword”. The Echo features an OLED display and a built in speaker. You can save notes to your computer, or send them over the web as "pencasts". (Pencasts, clever, eh?) This new Smart Echo Pen is easier to hold and has a "no roll" design. (Customer feed back indicated that the original pen could roll off the desk when it was put down.) You charge the pen via the included USB cable. Using that same cable, you can download apps to the pen that include translators, games, dictionary, etc. Some are fee based and some are free, like one that teaches you how to play the guitar! You can draw a mini piano keyboard with the Echo Smart Pen and then play it!! The Echo has twice the memory of original 2 GB model, so it's now 4 GB. (A 8GB version is also available.) And this new model includes free web space to store your notes so you can read and download them from any computer  – or share them with others. Optional software can turn your writing into text you can edit. The pen has a built-in video camera and uses special paper to know exactly when & where the notes were taken. But you’ll never run of paper, because in an emergency you can print the paper at home. The new Echo model is the same price as the original Smart Pen, $169.99. An 8 GB model is also available for $199.99. The original 2GB pen is still available for $129.00. Available on the web and at many retailers, so discounts should be available with a web search. 

www.livescribe.com 

Hear or SEE this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw1168 

Netcast on the original Smart Pen, Sept 10, 2008: www.twit.tv/dgw653

Monitor video of your home or business from anywhere in the world via the web or on your mobile device.

TTTT, Tuesday, August 31^st, 2010 Netcast 1167

On this Turn The Table Tuesday Leo shows us The Dropcam, a small easy to install, and easy-to-use webcam. The setup is simple because there’s no software to install. You connect the camera to AC and your router. Then you go to the Dropcam website, register and enter the code from the camera. Within a minute or two you’re up and running. Now you can monitor your home or business while traveling. If you want, you can receive automatic alerts to activity while you're away. The Dropcam automatically detects motion to record important events that happen when you’re not around. (You need an optional recording plan for that.) When something happens, you receive an email or text immediately. Leo set his up during this very episode so you’ll see how easy it was. He then showed us the output of the Dropcam on his iPhone. It’s pretty neat. No matter where you are in the world, as long as you can get on the web you can see video from your Dropcam. I tried one too and it works great. I just may set up my Dropcam at Gizneyland Studio to find out who is stealing my New York Times! With the online timeline you can see exactly when various events took place. All Dropcams come with free email alerts and viewing on your computer and iPhone. If you like, you can add online recording starting at $8.95/month. The basic color Dropcam has no audio and costs $199.00. You can get an audio enabled version for $279.00. Watch a demo and see actual video from various Dropcams at the company website: 

www.dropcam.com 

Hear or SEE this episode: www.twit.tv/dgw1167   

Logitech introduces a HD portable webcam.

Daily Giz Wiz, Monday, August 30^th, 2010 Netcast 1166 

Leo loves the Logitech C910 that I use weekly to record the video version of the Daily Giz Wiz. TWiT often sends one of those C910 web cams to guests who are going to on shows often in order to ensure good video quality. But now if you need a webcam that can go wherever you go, Logitech introduces the HD Webcam C510. It has a neat fold-and-go design. But there’s more! It also a feature I love and really needed! The C510 features 360-degree rotation so you can swivel the webcam around to include more people in your video calls and recordings. This something I really need when I have guests at the Gizneyland Studio. Since this was the gadget of the day, I installed it and used it to record this episode. Leo thought the webcam picture looked even better than the C910, even though the higher end model has a Carl Zeiss lens. So the C510 is the webcam I’ll be using from now on. It features HD 720p video calls on Logitech Vid HD, or any service that supports HD video calling.  Something Logitech calls Right-Light and Right-Sound do a good job of making your picture and sound look even better. There’s one-click upload to Facebook, and YouTube so it’s real easy to record and share videos. In addition to HD video you can shoot 8-megapixel photos. Although the camera comes with software that only works on Windows machines, I’ve heard from MAC users that they can use this webcam with no problem. You just won’t have all the software features you can use on a Windows machine. List price $59.99, but do a web search. It’s on Amazon for about $55. And that price might drop as the webcam gets into more and more locations. 

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/webcam-communications/webcams?sort=s4&filter=f1697 

Hear or SEE (using the Logitech C510 webcam) this Netcast: www.twit.tv/dgw1166