Olive-green 8GB Zune, with optional backplate designs.
(Credit: Microsoft)The new Zunes go on sale Tuesday, and everybody with a 30GB version will be able to get the new software and firmware. Last week, Microsoft sent me a new 8GB olive-green Zune to try out, along with some prerelease software (version 2.1).
This isn't intended to be an exhaustive review--there are plenty of other resources for that. Rather, this is a set of first impressions from a year-long 30GB user who was somewhat disappointed by Microsoft's October announcement in the wake of the excitement generated by Apple's iPod announcement a month earlier.
What I like so far:
The hardware. As was the case with the first generation, my favorite part of the Zune experience is the Zune itself. The 8GB model is extremely slim and lightweight, with a large bright screen of glass, not plastic. The touchpad works like a dream, letting you scroll through long horizontal and vertical lists--it may be the first portable player interface from a company other than Apple that's an improvement on the original iPod clickwheel. (I say "other than Apple" because the touch screen on the iPhone and iPod Touch are astounding at first glance and continue to be useful after the novelty's worn off.) It passed another test as well--a recent guest to the house was wowed by it, claiming to prefer it over the new more square iPod Nano that she'd seen at the Apple Store.
The on-screen interface. I liked the arrangements of horizontal and vertical menus in the first Zunes quite well, but the new interface is better. It's mostly subtle stuff, like the translucent overlay when you click a playing song for the next menu (which lets you set shuffle, flag the song, send it to another Zune, and so on), but overall it looks classier and I haven't found anything blatantly broken yet.
The sync process. I have about 25GB of music in my Zune library. My test unit has 8GB. No problem--after informing me that I have too much material for an auto-sync, it asks me to drag and drop items to the sync list, and immediately starts syncing, even as I'm still dragging and dropping new items to fill it up. It shows the remaining capacity of the device (based on the items I've dropped, not the items that have actually been transferred), as well as the number of files transferred, percentage completion, and so on, all with a slick little graphic of the device on the screen. I don't think it will do a random sync--something that the iPod Shuffle supports--but that's a minor drawback. I also updated the software on my 30GB and the sync improvements carry over quite nicely.
The pretty new software. Another Directions analyst sometimes disparages some Microsoft UI design choices as having been driven by the "pretty boys," but in this case, the PC software is significantly more attractive than the first version. That one was basically a skinned version of the Windows Media Player (which everybody--me, my boss, my colleagues, my wife, my 20-year-old nephew--hates). One tangible improvement is the three-column default interface that shows artists on the left, albums in the center, and songs on the right. A more ephemeral improvement is the "now playing" view, which shows about 100 album covers with the currently playing one highlighted and slightly larger; over time, the background subtly shifts, with new album covers replacing the existing ones, until it cycles through your whole collection.
What I don't like so far:
The pretty new software. The biggest drawback of Zune 1.0 was the PC software. Although the current version is much better, it still has some strange interface choices. For example, in the default view, it's now impossible to arrange songs by genre (or at least I couldn't figure it out after a half hour of fiddling). This is important if you're a music dork like me who applies custom genres to each song and then creates playlists based on the type of song I want to hear next. (Really, I do this--I hate having The Pixies and The Flaming Lips and Spiritualized automatically filed under the meaningless term "Alternative.") More generally, there seem to be fewer options, or those options are harder to get to, than was the case with Zune 1.0. It's fine to hide complexity to avoid alienating new users, as long as you don't sacrifice the features that experienced users have come to depend on.
No automatic playlists. From what I could tell, here's still no way to create an automatic playlist that includes, say, every song in the "Downbeat" genre, or every song that you've rated 4 stars or higher and haven't listened to in the last month. iTunes has had this feature, called Smart Playlists, forever. It seems like something that almost any music listener would want. (Oh, wait...there aren't any stars either. I've already ranted enough on that change, so I won't bring it up again.)
No equalizer. This is another standard feature of music players that the Zune software doesn't have...or at least I couldn't find it. It's true that audiophiles view equalizers as a bandage, to be applied sparingly. But listening to compressed audio on a typical PC sound card with typical PC speakers isn't an audiophile experience.
"Premium" earphones. The new Zune 80 (the 80GB hard-drive-based player) comes with so-called "premium" earphones, and they're also available for $40 (suggested price) for other Zune users. There's some subjectivity to audio, but to me, these earphones seemed to boost the heck out of the extreme high end. Some listeners might mistake this for extra "clarity," but it hurt my ears. They looked pretty cool, with multiple rubber nodules to adjust their size to fit in your earholes, but the standard earphones that came with my Creative Audigy sound card sounded better. At the very least, the Zune's earphones made me want an equalizer to soften that high end out a bit!
I haven't tried the wireless sync capabilities yet, but I expect them to be useful, given that I usually dock my 30GB Zune near the door, connected to a small boombox, far away from my PC. The social site isn't live yet--presumably that'll happen Tuesday when the players go on sale. I also haven't bought anything from the Zune Marketplace--I have 25GB of music with plenty more records to rip. And I haven't listened to the radio. (That's why I bought an MP3 player in the first place--so I wouldn't have to listen to the radio.)
Overall, I'm more impressed than I expected to be, given the original announcement last month. If you want a solid, good-looking music player and for some reason don't want an iPod, the Zune is a good choice. Anecdotally, I've heard far more interest and awareness of Zune than I expected. I do live in Seattle, but there seem to be quite a few people outside the techie/Microsoft circles who are aware of Zune and interested in at least giving it a head-to-head chance against the iPod this holiday season.
If Microsoft continues to fill the gaps in its PC software, then I think the company will have a solid competitor to the equivalent iPod models.
Our review of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard last Thursday lauded its lovely interface innovations but withheld judgment about the operating system's speed until we could put it through its paces.
Tests returned from CNET Labs on Saturday show that Leopard didn't perform noticeably faster than Mac OS 10.4.6 Tiger. (See the chart in CNET's review of Tiger.). Because Leopard's improved speeds of between 1 percent and 3 percent fall within the 5 percent margin of error, it's fair to call Leopard and Tiger even.
GarageBand wouldn't run the first time we opened it in Leopard.
Lab tests explored Leopard's boot time, multimedia multitasking, and handling of the Quake 3 game. Similarly, the 2005 release of Tiger did not demonstrate vast speed improvements over Panther, a previous version of Mac OS X.
Still, some users commenting on Leopard-related message boards and stories at CNET and elsewhere swore that they detected faster performance with Leopard.
Unfortunately, CNET Labs could not vouch for the performance of Adobe Systems' Photoshop CS3, which, for reasons not yet understood, wouldn't run on Leopard in our usual battery of automated tests. Don't jump to conclusions, however; the photo-editing application seemed to behave under normal conditions, and Adobe insists that Photoshop can run in Leopard.
However, full Leopard support for all versions of Adobe Creative Suite 3 won't become available until Adobe releases updates in three to four months. Among the applications needing updates are AfterEffects, Premiere, Soundbooth, and Acrobat Pro 8.1.2 (PDF). Sadly, Adobe fans cannot count on running earlier iterations of the Creative Suite or Macromedia Studio uneventfully within Leopard.
Although we find Leopard's interface relatively seamless, the same can't be said for everyone's experience getting started. Some people reported installation headaches, including the famed "blue screen of death," which historically has made so many love to hate the rival Microsoft Windows. Apple has acknowledged that issue as a glitch with third-party software.
Another application that won't run properly in Leopard yet is FileMaker Pro 9, due for an update next month. Some at CNET have found other applications, such as Groupcal and Parallels, failing unexpectedly in Leopard. And although only Safari was also running at the time, GarageBand wouldn't run in our first two attempts to open it in Leopard. A reboot seemed to do the trick.
Leopard also appeared to be converting some Mail settings from administrator to standard accounts; MacFixIt explains a solution. We're looking into these and other issues, and will continue to update our Leopard review as we learn more.
Our conclusion remains that you must have Leopard if you need to run Boot Camp, and you'll want it if you eagerly await Time Machine's elegant backup system. Developers will also like the full, native 64-bit support for both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs.
Yet the majority of obvious improvements are on Leopard's surface. That isn't necessarily a bad thing; interface tweaks like Cover Flow, Quick Look, Spaces and Stacks offer powerful, practical improvements that make it easier to multitask. The operating system overall is a treat to use, even if it's unlikely to deliver preternatural speed.
So unless $129 feels like a trifle to spend, holding off on this upgrade wouldn't hurt. Depending upon your software toolkit of choice, waiting for third-party applications to catch up to Leopard might even save some frustration.
Used to turning to Consumer Reports for product reviews? You might want to bookmark MrCoversClassReviews.com.
Students from Fox Meadow Intermediate Center put the Weather X Flashlight/Radio through its paces.
(Credit: MrCoversClassReviews.com)Sixth graders at Fox Meadow Intermediate Center in Jonesboro, Ark., have started testing consumer products and posting their reviews online. And given their clear and thorough assessments, it looks like Jonesboro may have a future David Pogue or Walt Mossberg in its ranks.
Students in Millard Cover's reading classes are getting gadget-ey to learn to apply analytical and critical skills to nonfiction. "When we review a product, we first review news releases, advertising, packaging, manuals, and other written materials to see how the product is supposed to perform," the students explain on their Web site. "Then we test it to see how it does compared to our expectations based upon our reading."
The young gadgeteers have just posted their first set of reviews--of the Weather X Flashlight/Radio emergency and safety weather device.
Many students gave the product a smiley emoticon for being easy to read and having a number of power sources (rechargeable batteries, AAA batteries, and a hand crank). A number of young reviewers found the alarm hard to set, earning that feature a frown. But overall, the kids found the product up to their standards, ruling that it warrants their own quality-recognition distinction--the coveted "Sly Fox Award."
"This lean, mean, little cool machine is a functional device that can help you in storms such as tornadoes, hurricanes, flash flood warnings and severe thunder storms," writes one team of reviewers. "This device can help you with all those things FOR A LOW PRICE OF $29.99."
Students test the Weather X Flashlight/Radio outdoors.
(Credit: MrCoversClassReviews.com)Future review products are likely to be a karaoke machine and a flying, remote-controlled helicopter, according to Cover. Manufacturers who would like their goods reviewed by the students can contact Cover via the MrCoversClassReviews.com site. Products can be returned or donated for a student raffle.
But the Arkansas gadget watchers aren't stopping at consumer electronics. As the final step of the reading project, they will use their analytical skills, honed through the review procedures, to analyze scholarship applications. They will then award two, privately funded $500 "Sly Fox Scholarships" to high-school seniors from their school district.
But scholarship applicants best beware. Cover's students have exacting standards.
"The 6th graders who will be evaluating these scholarship applications are ruthless when it comes to checking for grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.," the kids warn on their site. "So, please be sure to edit and proof your application prior to submission."
Since I wrote this article on Yelp, the people-powered reviews site, I found out that a owner of a San Francisco Bay Area cafe mentioned in the piece has posted signs in his two coffee houses that read "No Yelpers!!"
Why? Apparently the cafe owner wants to discourage any (more) customers from writing bad reviews of his businesses on the site. I'm pretty sure that's not the way to do it.
But more importantly, it seems like that first homemade sign in a coffee shop means Yelp has come up in the world, if only a wee bit. It's joining an esteemed list of cafe no-nos: no cell phones, no skateboards, no bare feet, no Yelpers.
Unlike refusing to serve a barefooted hippie talking on a cell phone with a skateboard under foot, policing Yelp reviews is next to impossible and like trying to stuff a genie back into the bottle. Many small-business owners angry about snarky customer reviews have learned that lesson. Sniffing out a Yelper or any other reviewer in an anonymous sea of armchair critics online is no easy task. The best advice is to adapt.
I spent about 90 minutes Monday night trying to set up an Ooma, a phone system that piggybacks both on your broadband Internet connection and land line. My experience: it was a pain to install, but now it works pretty well.
(Credit:
Ooma)
I've griped to acquaintances about how ordinary folks have had to become first system administrators and now, with broadband and multiple computers per household, network administrators. Setting up a review model from Ooma raised these hackles anew.
There was nothing seriously newbie-deterring like command-line utility, or even setup software. The Ooma system setup had two other afflictions instead.
First is the multitude of cables and wires that must be interfestooned with your existing tangle of network cables, phone cords, DSL line filters and such. My case, with a DSL connection, a wireless router and a four-port switch, was an exercise in topological combinatorics and dust-bunny avoidance. It's hard to imagine how Ooma could get around this issue, though, given the company's approach.
My other hitch was that the Ooma system was short on feedback. With no screen, you have to decode mysterious combinations of lit, unlit or blinking lights of various colors to figure out what's up. It took a long time, for example, to figure out one problem I had was that the Ooma's lights were dimmed and not that the system was shutting down abruptly because of some network glitch. It would have been nice to be able to peek at its status over the local network.
Once I finally got everything put together (and figured out how to turn off the direct-to-voice-mail setting), things started looking up. Calls are clearer than our regular old land line was, even with our junky Uniden phones whose failure I eagerly anticipate. It also was nicer than another VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol, aka Internet telephony) experience I've had, Skype. Checking voice mail online is nice. We've only tested the system for less than a day, though.
The Ooma boxes aren't junky, though. To the contrary, in fact. To me, accustomed to products with a half-life of 12 months, Ooma products feel a bit overengineered. But as another Ooma tester I chatted with said, "It is nicely designed, so I don't feel the need to hide it."
Our phone bills are pretty darned low, or more accurately our long-distance fees are paid mostly to cell phone companies, so I'm not eager to pay $400 up front to get rid of long land-line distance bills forever, as Ooma promises. But if you get in on the White Rabbit freebie system (which also serves to build out a necessary network of intercommunicating Ooma boxes), give it a shot.
Google cares what you think about local businesses and thinks other people do too. The company on Tuesday added a new feature to Google Maps that allows people to post user ratings and reviews of local businesses. The maps previously had professional reviews, but not reviews from users. More information is on the Google Blog.
I must say it was faster to do than writing a review on Yelp or CitySearch and a tad more intuitive than posting a review on Yahoo Maps.
Critics of the U.S. patent system have long griped that it's entirely too easy to get patents these days on obvious or otherwise unmeritorious inventions--in part because overworked patent examiners don't have ready access to information about what's already out there.
A yearlong pilot project, endorsed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in partnership with the New York Law School, is supposed to help.
The goal behind the Peer to Patent Project, officially launched last Friday, is to allow anyone who's interested to weigh in on 250 pending patent applications belonging to one of the more difficult categories to decipher: that including computer architecture, software and information security.
The project's Web site provides forums for discussing applications and tools for researching and sharing "prior art" references--that is, evidence that an invention already exists. It then allows for the top 10 of those references to be forwarded on to the Patent Office.
Right now, five applications from Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel and Red Hat are available for review. A number of other firms, including CA, General Electric, Intellectual Ventures, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun Microsystems and Yahoo, have also put in requests to participate.
Involvement in the project comes with some perks: Instead of having to deal with the average four-year waiting period to get a patent application reviewed, the applications selected to participate can essentially butt ahead in line and get turned around in one year, according to the project's organizers.
An idea resembling the Patent Office-sanctioned project has also cropped up in the form of a site called WikiPatents.com, which was launched last summer by a patent lawyer based in Salt Lake City. The United Kingdom is reportedly considering a similar approach.
CORONADO, Calif.--Say what you want about all the projects to bring low-cost PCs to the world, but at least someone's thinking of the children.
The Future in Review version of PCs-for-schools, Project Inkwell, tries not to get sucked into the increasingly competitive world of low-cost PC projects. Nick Negroponte of the One Laptop Per Child project recently traded blows with Intel Chairman Craig Barrett over who's more concerned about helping the poor, and who is simply looking for a new market.
"We think it should be a good business, we don't think there's anything wrong with generating profits," said Bruce Wilcox, CEO of Project Inkwell. Wilcox wants to get all the PC industry companies working together on the project, and recently brought IBM into the fold. IBM doesn't sell PCs anymore, but it's increasingly interested in the services revenue that comes along with helping schools set up networks.
Much of the debate centers on the merits of the specific device, whether it's Negroponte's XO, Intel's Classmate PC, or something else. But making sure that the industry works both sides of the fence, the devices and the services, is vitally important, said C.J. Holthaus, technical director at chipmaker Via Technologies. "You can't do The Gods Must Be Crazy strategy, just dropping the laptops out of the plane," he said.
CORONADO, Calif.--It's not a vacation home in Santa Barbara, but the best thing that people can leave to their children might just be a DNA map.
At least, that's what Ryan Phelan, founder and CEO of DNA Direct, thinks about her company's services. Phelan told attendees at the Future in Review conference that people who are taking several different prescription drugs or have a family history of cancer should consider looking into their genetic profile.
DNA Direct offers people a chance to send in a DNA sample (a cotton swab to the inside of the cheek) and get the results back in three to eight weeks. Naturally, there's a profit motive behind the pitch. The cheapest test offered by DNA Direct costs $199, and it scales up from there.
Tests are available to determine the genetic probability of several types of cancer, cystic fibrosis, and blood-clotting disorders, among other things. Knowing one's probability for diseases or other health problems could prompt people to get advance screenings when treatment could make a difference, Phelan said. And assembling a family DNA profile could make future generations aware of their susceptibility to various diseases.
Phelan took the opportunity in front of the conference attendees to float a trial balloon: are people interested in paying for a home DNA storage kit? According to an unscientific show of hands, lots of people are willing to pay $100 for such a kit, and Phelan's company is thinking about offering such a product.
CORONADO, Calif.--The real threat to the future security of the world might just be the AIDS virus, according to a U.N. official.
More than 25 years after the discovery of the virus that causes AIDS, 65 million people have been infected and 25 million have died, said Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, at the Future in Review conference. The way the world looks at AIDS is changing from short-term fear to long-term worries about the stability of countries that fail to control the epidemic, he said.
"It's moved into one of the defining issues of our time," Piot said. Countries in the Americas, Europe and Africa have been dealing with these problems for years, but countries such as Russia and China are starting to realize they will have to plan for AIDS as a way of maintaining stability, not just as a public health problem.
Russia has the fastest-growing rate of infection, and some countries in Africa are staggering with 30 to 40 percent of their citizens infected. "When one-third of your population has an incurable disease, that's destabilizing for your country," Piot said.
Progress is being made, Piot said. The political will of major countries to fight AIDS has never been stronger, and as a result contributions to AIDS programs have never been higher. The key? Governments and research organizations are starting to see a "return on investment," not just good will, from their contributions toward fighting AIDS.
Still, little progress has been made on a vaccine, which is an old story, Piot said. Since the 1980s, researchers working on vaccines have promised results in "five years," and that marker keeps moving out. "This is the smartest virus we know."
