TwitterPeek sells for $99 or $199.
(Credit: Peek)A new gadget designed specifically for people who want to tweet on the go was launched Tuesday by gadget maker Peek.
The device, dubbed TwitterPeek, does one thing and one thing only: it lets people tweet. It doesn't access e-mail. It doesn't make phone calls. It tweets. That's it.
TwitterPeek, which looks like a smartphone, features a QWERTY keyboard and comes in black or aqua blue.
The idea behind TwitterPeek is simple. After buying the device, users need only to input their Twitter credentials to get going. The gadget lets them tweet, reply, retweet, send direct messages, and download followers. It supports one account at a time. Users can also view TwitPics by clicking the "view content" option from the TwitterPeek menu. The company claims its battery lasts three to four days with average usage.
Included in the price of TwitterPeek is a service plan. According to the company, users can access Twitter nationwide through Peek's own "mobile network," which accesses mobile-phone networks. If users choose to pay $99 at the time of purchase, they will get the TwitterPeek device and six months of Peek service. After that, they need to pay $7.95 per month for network access. If customers plunk down $199, they'll get the device and service for the life of the product. In either case, TwitterPeek allows for unlimited tweeting.
It makes sense that a device designed exclusively for Twitter would come from Peek. The company already offers the Peek and Peek Pronto, which are designed exclusively for mobile e-mail and text messaging.
But TwitterPeek, while an interesting idea, will need to convince consumers that it's really necessary in the marketplace. There are a slew of mobile apps that allow people to tweet while they're on the iPhone, some BlackBerry models, and Android-based devices.
It's also debatable whether even the most ardent Twitter users will want to pay $199 just to have access to a tweeting gadget. Evidently, the gadget was built for people who don't have access to mobile Twitter apps. It may also be useful for people who access Twitter from their mobile browser; that experience tends to yield more headaches than value when people want to post a quick tweet.
If you're interested in picking up a TwitterPeek, you can buy it exclusively on Amazon.com for $99 or $199, depending on your desired service plan.
But will you? Let's hear it in the comments below.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Google is ready to open up its iGoogle home page to the social world.
The company is expected to announce Wednesday that gadgets for iGoogle can now take advantage of the Open Social API to build social-networking features into the small little software programs that iGoogle users can use to customize their home pages, according to Marissa Mayer, vice president for search products and experience. For example, gadgets will now be available for Flickr, YouTube, and social games like Scrabble.
Google opened up the Open Social API to iGoogle developers last year, but only in the "sandbox," a protected area for experimentation. If developers like what they see, it could help turn iGoogle from a personalized home page for "tens of millions of users," according to Mayer, into sort of a mini social network.
For example, friends (who have to be iGoogle users) can share YouTube videos that will appear automatically on the iGoogle home screen if you choose to embed that gadget on your home page. You can also access a "stream" of updates and see all the different types of content your friends have shared recently.
That's exactly what Facebook's News Feed does for folks on that social network. Google downplayed attempts to compare this service directly to other sites like Facebook, but "we'd like people to see all of the 'push' content that they would like to see on this page," Mayer said. She was referring to content that is regularly updated and delivered to the user, as opposed to search, where a user "pulls" information from Google.
iGoogle users in Australia have been using these social gadgets for about a week. Games and news dominate the first crop of Open Social gadgets on iGoogle, with chess, Scrabble, The New York Times, Huffington Post, and NPR represented among the initial 14 applications from third parties.
_610x596.PNG)
The new iGoogle Open Social gadgets let you keep track of what your friends are up to online.
(Credit: Google)
The economy is in a major state of flux right now. Although unemployment is still on the rise, the stock market is on the rise too as of late.
If you're one of those people trying to make sense of the markets, you might be happy to know that instead of jumping from site to site to get all your financial information, you can simply add some gadgets to your iGoogle home page. From currencies to commodities, iGoogle gadgets will satisfy any desire.
10 finance gadgets
Commodities Market If you're looking to find a way to easily track the price of oil and natural gas, the Commodities Market gadget is for you. The gadget displays the major commodity indexes, including crude oil, natural gas, and even coffee. You'll see the price fluctuate as market factors change throughout the day. It's a great way to stay up on the commodity market.
Stay up-to-date on commodities with Commodities Market.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)Company Overview After you install Company Overview, you can input any company's ticker symbol and see an overview of its operation. You can also get company news, see key financial ratios, check out its financial performance, and even see who the company's key managers are. If you want to listen in on quarterly earnings calls, you can find all the information you need to join those calls in this gadget. Check it out.
Company Overview displays a lot of great information.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)
Gdgt, a new site co-founded by Peter Rojas (founding editor of both Gizmodo and Engadget) and Ryan Block (former editor in chief of Engadget) is opening up today.
It is--surprise--yet another gadget site, but it's quite good, and more useful to real people than the gadget porn sites these two editors came from. It's a community-driven site, wiki-like in features and general atmosphere, so it's the site's users that will make it succeed or fail.
Meanwhile, the new version of Retrevo (previous coverage), another tech product site, launched on Monday of this week. It's a more sober site, useful but not as exciting as Gdgt. It's more of a buyer's and owner's resource.
Gdgt: By geeks and of geeks
"It's the gadget site we always wanted," Rojas and Block say about their new site. Conceptually, it's quite simple, and potentially powerful. Users on the site pick the products they have, want, or once had, and write up quick reviews of them if they like. It's social, it's fast, and if the product you want to write about isn't in the database, it's pretty easy to add it.
If you're looking for solid advice on a product--how to fix it, if you should buy it--the community could provide value. You'll be able to see what users are saying about products and dive into discussions about particular features. If you like researching what the people who are really passionate about their gear say, this will be helpful.
But the people who get the most out of Gdgt will be product geeks and fanboys who like chatting about toys. The service has a very high social component. You can follow people, friend them, get alerts when your friends write reviews or respond to yours, and so on. There are also free-floating discussions about product companies, and "feature" stories (blog posts) by the editors that will serve as jumping-off points for community chatter.
It sounds like an straightforward concept, but Gdgt wins points for execution. It's fun to use. It's fast (at least the unloaded beta I tried was) and most of the pieces are where you expect them to be. Those that aren't (like the site's preference for using product model numbers instead of more popular brand names) will likely be fixed based on user feedback.
I admit I do have issues with sites that encourage people to define themselves by what they own, and Gdgt definitely does that. There's a tacit game of one-upsmanship in the "I have" list. But if you do have the gadget bug and see no issue with feeding it, I think Gdgt will end up being a great place to hang out.
Gdgt is as much about products as it is about their fans and owners.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)
Retrevo: Get in, get info, get out
In contrast, the new, recently launched version of Retrevo is designed to "make the shopping journey simple and enjoyable," an anodyne pitch if ever there was, but attractive, no doubt, to people freaked out by the idea of buying a digicam or a flatscreen.
Retrevo has an AI core that gathers up product review and pricing data from numerous sources (including CNET), to present overall recommendations on products. What's new is its Farecast-like feature of telling you if the product you're looking at is at its peak of popularity, or heading toward or away from it, plus indicators telling whether users like it, and if it's a good value or not at the moment. If you trust the Retrevo machine, it provides good info to reduce buying anxiety.
A new automated "product catalog" also gathers up information on entire categories of products and puts into a catalog-like format that's supposed to be comfortable to users. I found the information on the catalog pages poorly organized, however.
The site will now also telegraph the essentials it knows about products to you via Twitter if you send it a query, which is potentially useful if you're in a store and curious about a product you're looking at on a shelf, and if you don't care if all your Twitter followers see when you query the Retrevobot. Another handy feature (which I don't think is new) is an electronic "shelf" for keeping product manuals. Retrevo has a nice library to stock it from.
This should make it easier for you to part with your money.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)If you're a gearhead, try Gdgt for fun and community, but don't skip Retrevo when you're looking to make a purchase.
And to keep me employed, be sure to check out CNET reviews as well. Thank you.
Disclosure: In past jobs at Red Herring and Ziff-Davis, I have worked with people now at both Gdgt and Retrevo.
Web sites that promise to pay for your old gadgets look bright around the holidays, when every extra dollar can count toward new gifts or even utility bills. But are the services worthwhile? How much can you earn?
We examined nine services that pay for your unwanted digital wares. These are among the newest options to help keep electronics waste out of landfills, while uncluttering your closets.
Click on this image to see what seven services quoted to pay for 11 used electronics.
(Credit: Elsa Wenzel/CBS Interactive)We looked up what each service said it would pay for working iPods, PDAs, laptops, gaming consoles, and more, with cables but lacking their original boxes. For dead devices, some offer a pittance, or will connect you with willing recyclers and charity recipients. Our chart (at right) shows what each site claims it pays for specific equipment. Keep reading for highlights of the trade-in services.
We can't yet vouch for the start-to-finish experience of mailing in products to these companies. Those that find your equipment in worse shape than you estimated will downgrade the trade-in value.
If you only need to offload an old phone, look out for our upcoming comparison of sites that specialize in refurbishing and recycling handsets, including Cell for Cash, Simply Sellular, and ReCellular.
... Read more
(Credit:
Google)
Google has put out an official Gmail gadget for its Google Desktop product, giving users the option to run multiple instances of different Gmail accounts as standalone gadgets. The tool includes several useful Gmail features like keyboard shortcuts, mail, and contact search, along with the option to star messages. Users can also compose messages in a little pop-out window, which keeps them from having to fire up their browser.
The app is currently Windows-only and requires Google Desktop version 5 or higher, leaving Mac and Linux users of Google Desktop out in the cold. Anyone looking to use Amnesty's Generator program to convert it for other platforms like OS X's Dashboard are also out of luck, as Google has not offered it as an iGoogle, Web-ready widget.
Google has adopted OAuth, an open Web authentication standard for controlling privacy, for its widget platform, Google Gadgets.
If a user has personal information stored on one Web site, OAuth provides a mechanism for him or her to authorize that Web site to share the data with another Web site or widget. It also makes it possible to do this without the first site having to reveal the user's identity to the second site.
Google announced in June that it was to adopt OAuth for sharing data through its Google Data application programming interface. The company on Tuesday said it will now also use OAuth for Google Gadgets, which are interactive mini applications for the desktop that show, for example, personalized news feeds or localized weather reports.
"We also previously announced that third-party developers can build their own iGoogle gadgets that access the OAuth-enabled APIs for Google applications such as Calendar, Picasa, and Docs," Eric Sachs, Google's senior product manager for security, wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. "In fact, since both the gadget platform and OAuth technology are open standards, we are working to help other companies who run services similar to iGoogle to enhance them with support for these standards."
Sachs added that the new OAuth-enabled gadgets being created for iGoogle would also work on those other sites, including many of the gadgets that Google offers for its own applications. "This provides a platform for some interesting mashups," he wrote.
"It would allow a mutual fund, for example, to provide an iGoogle gadget to their customers that would run on iGoogle, and show the user the value of his or her mutual fund, but without giving Google any unique information about the user, such as a Social Security number or account number," Sachs wrote. "In the future, maybe we will even see industries like banks use standards such as OAuth to allow their customers to authorize utility companies to perform direct debit from the user's bank account without that person having to actually share his or her bank account number with the utility vendor."
David Meyer of ZDNet UK reported from London.
Intel's CEO Paul Otellini demos new mobile tech.
(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET Networks)SAN FRANCISCO--There is a light at the end of the dark financial tunnel, Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini said onstage at the Web 2.0 Summit on Thursday morning. And he brought out a shiny new toy to prove it.
"All the smart people I've talked to in this area suggest that the U.S. is in a two- to three-quarter recession," Otellini said, though he added that the current economic slowdown is "the deepest one I've seen in my lifetime" and predicted that morale may stay low for longer because unemployment may remain high even after growth has resumed.
The point of his talk, though, was to focus on the good stuff, namely the innovation that will still be on the way regardless of how far the markets fall. "I like coming here," Otellini said of the Web 2.0 conference. "It's a respite from, sort of, watching the stock market crash every day, and think about what the future is going to hold for us."
Otellini showed off two projects that the company is working on internally. One of them is a business-networking software product that Otellini said will make a big difference in how employees of large corporations socialize and network with one another, learn more about the company, and collaborate on products. In a demonstration of the prototype, the CEO suggested that it was something that could eventually make a difference for many companies.
"There's an interesting thing about businesses and software," he said. "They pay for it. If you're looking for a business model that might be interesting, finding a way to capture the needs of enterprises...is a pretty good way of making a living."
But the more impressive of the two demonstrations was a shadowy, unnamed handheld gadget that's so early in its development that Otellini admitted it had to be powered by computers backstage. Otellini showed how the always-connected device, which resembled an iPhone and which Intel has shown off a few times before, could use a "smart" camera to translate Chinese text into English almost instantly, and gain product information and reviews when hovering over a toy for sale. With no release date, it was effectively the mobile gadget world's equivalent of a slick concept car at an auto show.
But it hasn't been all fun, games, and shiny toys for Intel recently. He admitted that the aforementioned mystery concept gadget would require "a really good, first-class broadband infrastructure around the world." Intel's support of the always-just-a-milestone-away WiMax technology is one of the company's biggest challenges, and critics have been skeptical of the company's reliance on WiMax's success in its projections for the future.
Additionally, Intel supplies the chips for Apple's desktop and laptop machines, a landmark partnership that has been several years running now. But the relationship became strained recently when Intel started holding up Apple's iPhone as a device that suffers technologically from not having one of its chips in place.
Otellini generally avoided talking about this, saying that he sees huge potential in the iPhone--"Our phones started ringing the day after the iPhone was launched"--as well as other mobile technologies in general. Beyond a few ambiguous words about the iPhone, he was mum on Apple.
In conclusion, Web 2.0 Summit co-host John Battelle of Federated Media brought up a quotation from former Intel Chairman and CEO Andy Grove, "only the paranoid survive," and asked Otellini to reflect on the statement and what he was afraid of.
"(Grove) said that to reflect, to some extent, the risk characteristic of our business, of our industry," Otellini said. "There's always a new technology that's potentially disruptive to your entire business model. What he was worried about was something coming up to disrupt it...I try to live by that."
Google has a new iGoogle gadget to keep up with Google blogs.
(Credit: Google)Google loves to announce new developments on its profusion of official blogs. Keeping up with the blogs is easy--if you're interested in only a small fraction of the online giant's activity. But dealing with the full arsenal of dozens of Google blogs can be taxing.
Google's fix for the plight: more Google technology. The company announced late Sunday what amounts to a channel changer for its iGoogle customized home page service, a Google blogs gadget that gives quicker access to the full list of Google blogs. Think of it as special-purpose RSS feed reader.
Also new is a site that lists all Google blogs, subdivided into five categories.
gOS--a company known for its debut in the $199 Wal-Mart gPC and Netbooks--announced Wednesday the details of gOS 3 Gadgets, the newest version of its Linux operating system for consumers.
The San Francisco-based company made the announcement at LinuxWorld Expo.
The main feature of gOS 3 Gadgets is its ability to instantly launch Google Gadgets for Linux on start-up, allowing users access to more than 100,000 iGoogle and Google Gadgets applications. These applications, though graphically rich, are small enough to be added to the computer in seconds over an Internet broadband connection. The new operation system will also be loaded with WINE 1.0, Lightweight X Desktop Environment (LXDE), and other Google software for Linux to improve the user experience.
While WINE has been known to allows users to use thousands of Windows applications on Linux platform, LXDE is a renewed effort to develop more lightweight desktop applications for Linux environment. By supporting LXDE, gOS 3 Gadgets, apart from desktops, would also make a good choice for ultra small mobile laptops, which are generally suffer from having slow hard drives and processors.
In addition to Google Gadgets for Linux, gOS 3 Gadgets can also run other Google applications more well-known in Windows platform including Google Desktop, Google Picasa, Google Earth and Google Maps. In the new gOS 3 Gadgets, other Google's web-based applications such as Documents, Calendar, and Mail launch have a closer appearance and functionality to desktop applications than other platforms.
