AllThingsD » sound

Jambox Grows Up, Gets Bigger

Lauren Goode — Tue, 01 May 2012 04:01:57 +0000

The worst-kept recent secret in tech — aside from Google Drive — is out: Audio-gadget maker Jawbone has created a monster Jambox.

The original Jambox, for those not familiar, is a nifty Bluetooth-equipped speaker that wirelessly connects with the iPhone, iPad and Android phones to play music. It’s easy to see why, even at a price point of $199, the little Jambox has become the best-selling speaker in the U.S. — it’s small, sleek, and it works; plus, it’s easy to travel with, as I noted in this review of a competing speaker.

Starting today, a new, bigger version of the Jambox is available for preorder, and is expected to hit stores on May 15. The bigger Jambox is called — wait for it — Big Jambox.

Big Jambox is 10 inches long by 3.1 inches wide and 3.6 inches high, closer to the size of the shoebox-style box the original Jambox comes in. It weighs 2.7 pounds, is made of stainless steel with a polymer base and sides, and has music-control buttons on the top of the speaker, in addition to volume control.

Soundwise, Big Jambox definitely packs more power and better sound than the standard Jambox. It’s got Jawbone’s signature LiveAudio technology, which is supposed to digitally enhance the sound coming out of the speaker to create “3-D” sound. The company claims 15 hours of continuous play on Big Jambox without needing to recharge the built-in battery, although that’s with the volume output at 85 decibels, and not maxed out at 110 decibels.

Like the little Jambox, Big Jambox also acts as a two-way speaker for phone conversations and conference calls. And there’s a bonus feature for Android users: If a calendar reminder pops up on your phone while it’s paired to the speaker, the Jambox will read the reminder out loud, then patch you directly through to any phone numbers you might have put in the reminder.

Unlike the little Jambox, Big Jambox allows more than one person or one device to be paired with the speaker at the same time.

It will be interesting to see whether consumers buy into Big Jambox as much as they did the original. With its “little” Jambox, Jawbone was focused on mobility — in terms of both mobile-phone connectivity and portability. Now, even though the company insists that the new device weighs less than a rolled-up yoga mat, Big Jambox is no doubt a little less portable. Plus, with a price point of nearly $300, the Big Jambox will now go up against products like the the Bose SoundLink Wireless Mobile speaker.

At the same time, Big Jambox is still less expensive than speakers like the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air or the JBL OnBeat Xtreme Bluetooth speaker.

Sound Kick: Solid Sound, but a Shaky Speaker

Lauren Goode — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:00:50 +0000

Speaker systems used to imply large towers, mountains of components, spaghetti-like piles of wires, and lots of listening to Pink Floyd to gauge sound quality. On the portable end, there was the boombox, clenching your cassette tapes in its teeth while you boosted it on your shoulder.

Today there are wireless, Bluetooth-enabled speaker docks that are smaller than a shoebox and allow you to play thousands of tracks from a single mobile device. Since I’m not really an audiophile, a speaker that works with my iPhone and gives good sound is good enough for me. But even some of those cost a few hundred dollars. That’s where Soundfreaq’s Sound Kick might come in handy.

This new portable Bluetooth speaker, which has an expandable chamber that pops out in the back for fuller sound, hits the market today at $99. It’s available exclusively through Target stores and through Soundfreaq’s Web site, to start. The Los Angeles-based company says the device will be available on Target’s Web site in a couple weeks; it will eventually be sold through other mass retailers, as well.

After five days of using the Sound Kick, I preferred its sound over that of its main rival, the best-selling $200 Jambox speaker. But the Sound Kick is a bit wobbly when standing upright, and isn’t nearly as portable as the compact Jambox, making it a tweener when it comes to being both an at-home dock and portable speaker.

The Sound Kick works with a variety of Bluetooth-friendly devices, including iPhone, Android phones, BlackBerry, iPad and some laptops. And unlike the Jambox, it has a USB port for charging devices while you’re playing music or audio.

Made of plastic, with a steel-coated front grill, the Sound Kick is a rectangular-shaped device weighing 1.6 pounds and measuring 10.5 inches by 4.2 inches. When closed, its thickness is actually the same as the Jambox; when the extra sound chamber is extended, the device is 2.5 inches wide.

Like some of Soundfreaq’s other products, it has smooth, indented, touch-sensitive buttons for adjusting volume and controlling music tracks. The speaker is available only in black, though Soundfreaq plans to introduce carrying cases in a variety of colors.

[ See post to watch video ]

To test the sound quality of the speaker, I connected both my iPhone 4 and iPad 2 via Bluetooth, then set my entire music library to shuffle on my iPhone, which means some audio files would be higher-quality than others. (This was also a good reminder that I’ve downloaded some really bad music in the past. And I can probably ditch the Christmas tunes when it isn’t the season.) I also played Pandora Internet radio songs from an app on an Android smartphone. I set the volume on my phones to around 75 percent, and the Sound Kick’s volume was at about two-thirds of its capacity.

The songs playing through the Sound Kick easily filled the small living room of my apartment at mid-to-high volume levels, without losing quality or starting to sound harsh. Some songs sounded tinnier than other, but that likely had to do with the music files themselves rather than the speakers.

Soundfreaq says the Sound Kick provides optimal sound quality through two techniques: The extra chamber on the speaker set, and a digital-enhancement button, called the UQ3 button. The pop-out chamber in the back is meant to help the resonance of the acoustics of the speaker, while the digital enhancement gives the listener the impression that the speakers inside the dock are spaced further apart, more like surround sound.

When I pressed the UQ3 button, some songs did sound fuller, with stronger bass. With other, more layered songs, instrumental sounds that had previously taken a backseat to the vocals got a slight boost.

Otherwise, the digital enhancements weren’t that noticeable to me. I also watched videos from “The Daily Show” on the iPad, and patched the audio through the Sound Link speaker. Since mobile phone and tablet speakers can be relatively weak, I liked the added oomph I got from the Sound Kick. But when I pressed the UQ3 button, it had little to no apparent impact on the sound quality.

The Sound Kick outputs at a higher decibel level than the Jambox does — 92 decibels, compared to the Jambox’s 85 — but this is a way to measure the amplitude of sound, and is not an indication of better quality. Basically, the Jambox’s amplitude peaks at a lower level than the Sound Kick’s does.

The Sound Kick has a lithium-ion rechargeable battery that the company says should last approximately seven hours with an iPhone 4 or iPod Touch connected via Bluetooth, with the volume turned up 66 percent. During my test, I had the speaker turned up to around two-thirds of maximum volume, and the battery lasted about eight hours.

But there were a few things about the Sound Kick that lowered its grade for me. Unless you have the back portion of the speaker fully extended, the Sound Kick won’t power on at all. Also, while I liked the touch buttons, I sometimes accidentally stopped a music track or jacked up the volume when I was moving the speaker around.

Unlike the Jambox, the Sound Kick isn’t a two-way Bluetooth speaker, so when my iPhone rang during testing, the Sound Kick wouldn’t patch my calls through the speaker.

The Sound Kick’s biggest design problem is that it didn’t feel very stable. The extra speaker space makes the device back-heavy, so when I propped it upright, it fell back; when positioned at an angle — as it’s supposed to be for better sound — it tipped over if I bumped my arm against it. Soundfreaq says that when it’s in the “kicked” position, the Sound Kick should be stable, but in the event that the speaker is knocked over, its steel front grill is meant to protect it from scratching or breaking.

If you’re looking for an inexpensive speaker dock with good sound quality that works with mobile devices and could be considered portable in a pinch, you might want to consider the Sound Kick. But, as I’m planning for my next couple trips, I realize I’m more likely to take something like the Jambox with me during travel. It’s just that much easier to carry around, also has good sound and acts as a two-way speaker, whether in the conference room, car or at home.

DARPA: That's Mach 20, Baby

Kara Swisher — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:50:21 +0000

In an onstage interview at the ninth D: All Things Digital conference in June, Regina Dugan — who is director of the federal government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — riveted the crowd by talking about a plane in development that can fly at a speed of Mach 20.

That would be 13,000 miles per hour, or 20 times the speed of sound.

Now DARPA is trotting out the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 for its second and final launch this morning at 7 am PT from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

According to the DARPA site, the aircraft will be boosted into the atmosphere via a rocket, and will blast around for 30 minutes. (See the chart below for the info as to how it does so.)

On its first outing, the plane already proved it can maintain Global Positioning System (GPS) signals while traveling 3.6 miles per second. But DARPA also lost contact with the vehicle, which had a controlled landing in the ocean.

The goal of the second flight, said DARPA, “is to validate current assumptions and increase technical understanding of the hypersonic flight regime. More than 20 test assets will collect continuous flight data to achieve this goal.”

Cool.

Here’s a video of the full interview at D9, with DARPA director Dugan talking about the Mach 20 flight and more:

[ See post to watch video ]

Children's Book Apps Get Curiouser And Curiouser

Nick Wingfield — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 21:41:27 +0000

I’m crazy about Web browsing, movie watching and other activities on the iPad, but the idea of reading ordinary books on Apple’s device just doesn’t appeal to me. I prefer the old-fashioned experience of reading in the printed form.

When cards really attack

I’m intrigued, though, by the idea that the iPad, and eventually other tablet devices will give rise to a hybrid medium—call them book apps—that mix text with video, sound and game-like interactivity.

After sampling several early examples of these books apps, I’ve seen some tantalizing hints of the creative possibilities for authors and publishers who recast themselves as app makers.

I focused on kids’ books because they’re among the first to cleverly exploit the iPad’s capabilities and their rich illustrations can look great on the iPad’s color screen. It also helped that my 7-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son were fascinated with the iPad, looking for any opportunity to smudge up its touch screen.

The most interesting of the book apps I found in Apple’s (AAPL) online App Store was “Alice for the iPad,” a 52-page version of “Alice in Wonderland” by a small company called Atomic Antelope that costs $9.99. (A shorter “lite” version of the book is free.) The color illustrations for “Alice for the iPad” are based on the elegant wood engravings Sir John Tenniel did for the original 19th century “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” which, like the text of the book, are now in the public domain.

White Rabbit’s pocket watch swings as you tilt the iPad.

The first sign there’s something different about “Alice for the iPad” comes when you flip to its third page, where the White Rabbit’s old-fashioned pocket watch, dangling by its chain from text, starts swinging whichever way the reader is holding the iPad. Other animated objects appear on later pages—a jar of marmalade, and collection of mushrooms—and move when you tilt the iPad or touch an object and drag it across the screen.

The animations can be predictable. On a page where Alice eats a cake that shrinks her body, a pile of cupcakes falls to the bottom of the screen, accumulating in an undamaged little pile, an action repeated on many pages with other objects. How much cooler would it be for the cupcakes’ frosting to get messy when they drop? I wanted to be able smear them all over the text on the page.

Still, there are wonderful moments in “Alice for iPad.” My favorite is when Alice is assaulted by a pack of flying playing cards. Alice’s arms and body bobble as a blizzard of cards slams into her. My daughter and I couldn’t resist trying to make the cards pile up on her by angling the iPad just so.

There’s something fitting about the sensation of gravity that the animations bring to a story with so much body-shrinking and mind-blowing going on it. It will be exciting to see what the Atomic Antelope crew does with their next project: an iPad version of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”

“The Lorax” ($3.99, also for the iPhone) from Oceanhouse Media is a vivid rendition of the Dr. Seuss classic, with some nice features to assist early-readers.

The app lets you read “The Lorax” like a traditional book, but with fun atmospheric sound effects like the sound of wind blowing and old crows cawing.

With my son, I choose another option that reads the book to him in a narrator’s voice. Words on the page were highlighted as the narrator said them.

While there’s no animation, one nifty feature of “The Lorax” app lets readers tap objects, like faucets, rocks and pails, to hear their names sounded out. My son was particularly fond of tapping to hear the words “Grickle-grass” and “Once-ler” over and over again.

The iPad version of “The Lorax” was the most static of the book apps I looked at, but considering the modest interactivity it brought to a lovely reproduction of a classic kids’ book, it was worth the price.

“Miss Spider’s Tea Party for the iPad” ($9.99) from Callaway Arts & Entertainment is based on a picture book about a lonely, tea-sipping spider that longs to make friends with other insects. The app narrates the story to readers or lets them read it on their own. Bumblebees, beetles and other illustrated characters make noise and move when readers tap on them—another big hit with my son.

The app also lets you passively experience the story as a short animated movie. With another option, you can assemble puzzles or color in paintings featuring the story’s characters.

“Miss Spider’s Tea Party” illustrates an approach I predict many book-app creators will take: tacking a lot of multimedia material onto an electronic book, without paying enough attention to weaving it all into one coherent story.

This app can’t decide whether it’s a book, a movie or a game.

I believe it’s a matter of if, not when, the great book apps for iPad will show up. I wager the good book apps will be original works, rather than adaptations of existing books, with an electronic version built from the ground up that will take advantage of the device. For now, “Alice for iPad” is the coolest book app out there.

Walter S. Mossberg will return June 24. Email Nick Wingfield at nick.wingfield@wsj.com.

Bluetooth Headsets That Up the Chic Factor

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:08:04 +0000

The cover of Wired magazine’s August issue showed Brad Pitt wearing a Bluetooth headset with the words, “Ditch the headset. He can barely pull it off—and you are not him.”

[ See post to watch video ]

Fashionable or not, more people are wearing these wireless headsets for making phone calls in the car and in everyday life. This week, I reviewed two that look stylish enough that you won’t mind being seen wearing them: Plantronics Inc.’s Discovery 975 (Plantronics.com) and Aliph’s Jawbone Prime (Jawbone.com).

These Bluetooth headsets cost $130 each and use the best technology from their respective companies, including impressive-sounding features like AudioIQ 2, WindSmart, NoiseAssassin 2.0 and an Acoustic Voice Activity Detector. Each headset aims to deliver clearer incoming and outgoing sound.

After using these two headsets in an office, while walking through noisy city streets and as I drove a car with its windows open, I found that I liked the Plantronics Discovery 975 more than the Jawbone Prime. It felt more comfortable and stable in my ear, and its longer boom fit my face better than the Jawbone Prime’s stubby build. I was able to hear people more clearly while using the Plantronics (PLT) earpiece. But on the other end of the call, friends said the Jawbone Prime did a better job of muffling noise.

The Plantronics Discovery 975 also has something that the Jawbone Prime doesn’t have: a carrying case that holds the earpiece and charges it on the go. This charging case can triple the device’s talk time from five to 15 hours, and it holds its charge for a week on standby. A display on the case shows how much battery remains both in the charged case and on the earpiece itself when it’s held in the case.

Aliph’s Jawbone Prime

I liked using this case because it meant I didn’t have to think so often about charging my headset. It also gave me a place to keep the small Discovery 975 earpiece, making it harder to lose in the bottom of a purse or large work bag. Though people who don’t carry briefcases or purses wouldn’t likely use this case, it’s convenient to have the option.

None of the Jawbone models come with carrying cases, though stores like Best Buy sell some cases that will hold Jawbone headsets. In the future, Aliph says it plans to make its own cases that will hold and charge its Jawbone headsets.

Aliph’s Jawbone has always been one of the most stylish Bluetooth headsets, thanks to its compact form factor and disguised buttons. The Jawbone Prime follows suit with a design that makes it appear slightly smaller than its predecessor. It comes in seven colors, including four especially bright “EarCandy” hues: Drop Me a Lime, Lilac You Mean It, ‘Yello! and Frankly Scarlet. The Prime maintains the original Jawbone’s namesake design feature: If worn properly, it touches your face near your jawbone and removes background noise. But a new feature also uses sound to detect the speaker’s voice and eliminate extraneous noise, so the headset doesn’t always need to touch the face.

The design of the Plantronics Discovery 975 ups the company’s chic factor by replacing its former model’s triangular boom with an elegant boom made of a single thin metallic sliver. It reminded me more of jewelry than a tech gadget. Like the Jawbone models, it looks less geeky because buttons are disguised, and it doesn’t emit a blinking blue light while in use—an improvement for Plantronics. The Discovery 975 comes only in graphite, though AT&T (T) stores will carry it in silver.

I started testing the Plantronics Discovery 975 and Jawbone Prime from my quiet office, without any distracting background noise. There, the Plantronics headset sounded better than the Jawbone, making my voice sound crisper, according to the person on the other end of line; likewise, his voice sounded louder to me. He also said he couldn’t tell I was using a headset while I was on the Discovery 975, but definitely knew I was on a headset while I used the Jawbone Prime.

The Plantronics Discovery 975

Next, I walked along the streets of busy downtown Washington, D.C., chatting on each headset while standing steps away from the squeaky sound of car brakes and taxis honking. Here, the Jawbone did a better job of fading that street noise into the background, compared to the Plantronics headset.

I also took turns using the Jawbone Prime and Plantronics Discovery 975 while driving through the city with all four car windows open to test the antiwind capabilities of each. Here again, the Jawbone Prime sounded better to the person on the other end, though the Plantronics didn’t sound bad. My friend said it would have been impossible to guess where I was while making the phone call using the Jawbone Prime. But from my end of the call, I was able to hear slightly better while using the Plantronics Discover 975.

While using the Jawbone, I accidentally hung up on friends in midconversation a few different times because the place where I pressed to secure the earpiece in my ear was also the Talk button. I tried each of the Jawbone Prime’s three fit earbuds, three round earbuds and its included earloop, but none of these felt as comfortable as the Plantronics headset.

Both headsets are capable of using Multipoint technology, allowing them to connect to two Bluetooth devices at once. They’re each lightweight at .28 ounce and .35 ounce for the Plantronics and Jawbone, respectively; the Plantronics case weighs 1.27 ounces. According to each company, the Plantronics headset takes one-and-a-half hours to fully charge and lasts for five hours of talk time; the Jawbone takes 50 minutes to fully charge and lasts four and a half hours of talk time.

When both headsets were in front of me and I wanted to make a hands-free call, I reached for the Plantronics Discovery 975 because of its overall fit and feel in my ear. It stayed in place using a soft, gel insert that wasn’t uncomfortable, even after long conversations. Its sound quality was good enough for me.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Two New Devices Give Presentations Some Portability

Nick Wingfield — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 02:08:05 +0000

Digital projectors are the best way to get the biggest possible image for a PowerPoint presentation or a movie. But the projectors are often pretty big themselves, with even most “pocket projectors” too big to stuff into the typical pocket or laptop bag.

That is changing. A new miniature-chip technology from Texas Instruments (TXN) called pico is making digital projectors truly portable, instead of merely luggable. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been using two of the first pico-based projectors on the market, Dell‘s M109S and Optoma’s Pico PK-101.

The products are designed for different customers with different needs. Dell (DELL) positions the 13-ounce M109S as a notebook companion, best suited for work presentations. The four-ounce Optoma projector is designed more as an iPod or digital-camera accessory for watching movies and slide shows on the go.

The Dell M109S

Their portability requires compromises, most obviously in brightness and image resolution. The Dell and Optoma projectors, respectively, support 11 and 50 lumens — a standard measure of projector brightness. That’s far dimmer than top-notch projectors that offer several thousand lumens. So neither product excels in well-lighted rooms, where overhead and ambient lighting overpower their images. You can compensate somewhat for this weakness by placing the devices closer to the surfaces onto which they’re projecting — for example, a wall. But the darker the room you use, the better.

At about the size of a candy bar, the $399 Optoma device is the smaller of the two projectors and the one with the most intriguing possibilities for expanding the tiny screen sizes of mobile devices like the iPod.

It’s powered by a rechargeable battery that Optoma says lasts for an hour on full brightness or two hours on a power-saving setting (the projector comes with two batteries). The projector has a tiny speaker, but people who want decent sound will need to use headphones or external speakers.

In theory, the Optoma device is small enough to bring along on a camping trip to show a film on the side of a tent, or to a restaurant, where you could inflict a vacation slide show on dinner mates by projecting onto a napkin or tablecloth.

I tested it on a recent airplane flight by projecting an episode of “Mad Men” from an iPod touch onto the back of the seat in front of me. The seat was a dark blue with embossing on it, so it didn’t work very well. It’s best to project onto an unmarked, light-colored surface. The quality of the image was better when I lay in bed one night, projecting a video onto a white ceiling.

Even under the most favorable circumstances, however, I found the images from the Optoma projector very dark, muddling the outlines of characters and action on screen. Although Optoma says you can get up to a 60-inch image from the projector, 45 inches was about as big as I could make the image before it got too fuzzy.

Optoma says the projector will ship with an iPod-compatible connector cable when it goes on sale in the U.S. on Dec. 15, though the unit I tested didn’t come with one. I connected the device to my iPod touch using a $50 cable from Apple (AAPL).

Compared with the Optoma device, the $449 Dell M109S is a behemoth, yet it’s still only about the size of a short stack of drink coasters. Most projectors weigh at least a few pounds, if not more, which is big enough to make them a hassle to carry around. I barely noticed the Dell projector inside my laptop bag.

Unlike the Optoma projector, the Dell M109S has to be plugged into an electrical outlet to work. It comes with an unsightly set of connectors for plugging the projector into a video source, such as the VGA port found on most laptops and a composite video plug that is standard on DVD players. I was, however, able to plug my iPod touch into the Dell projector using the $50 Apple cable.

And unlike the Optoma, the Dell doesn’t have speakers. To get sound for a movie, you’ll need headphones or speakers, like those on a laptop.

Despite its extra bulk, the Dell M109S literally outshines the Optoma projector. It produces a bright image that I found very watchable, even if it wasn’t high-definition. I projected the movie “James and the Giant Peach” onto an interior wall of my house, creating an image that was about 7 feet, measured diagonally.

The Dell M109S includes a capability called keystone correction, a standard feature in most projectors that adjusts a projected image to give it the proper dimensions, rather than the trapezoidal shape that results when a projector is angled upward. The Optoma projector doesn’t have this feature. To get a normal rectangular movie image, I had to hold the projector level, toward the projection surface.

For business travelers who do presentations or for people who want to create a theater-like experience in a hotel room, vacation house or against a sheet in the backyard, the Dell projector would be a good fit. For now, the Optoma projector is a good idea that needs refinement.

Email Nick.Wingfield@wsj.com. Walt Mossberg is on vacation.

Flip Camcorder Goes High-Def

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 01:40:05 +0000

Over the past couple of years, Pure Digital Technologies has changed the way people think about video cameras by turning these heavy, expensive, intimidating devices into affordable, user-friendly gadgets that fit into a shirt pocket.

To keep the prices of its Flip camcorders affordable, Pure Digital always made some sacrifices in quality and style. And though the company improved on style in June by releasing the sleek $180 Flip Mino, it stuck with standard definition while other companies boasted high-definition capturing capabilities.

The $230 Flip MinoHD is the first camcorder from Pure Digital Technologies to use high definition.

Today, Pure Digital adds a high-def member to its family: the $230 Flip MinoHD. This handheld camcorder looks like the original Mino (more digital camera than video camera), but the MinoHD is capable of capturing high-definition footage in 1280×720 pixel resolution, or 720p. (The regular Mino records at 640×480 pixels.)

Both cameras can be personalized with colorful designs that people can either make themselves or select from TheFlip.com. It’s also possible to upload personal photos to decorate the camcorder. This personalization process is free on new Minos, but people who want to personalize Minos they already own are out of luck.

I brought my MinoHD along on a weekend trip to a lake in North Carolina and used it to capture beautiful images of leaves at their color-changing peak and games of charades among friends. Overall, I really liked the quality of the footage, which had rich hues and sharp details such as glistening ripples of waves on the lake’s surface. And the MinoHD’s improved sound even clearly picked up the voices of two guys paddling away from our dock in a canoe.

[ See post to watch video ]

But if you’re the type of person who likes to play back videos after capturing them, you might be disappointed that the MinoHD’s 1.5-inch screen is no larger than the previous models. This means you won’t get a good look at the high-definition footage until you play clips back on a computer.

Another downside is that high-definition footage is much too large to easily send to others in its original format, so it must be compressed to 480×270-pixel resolution for sharing on Pure Digital’s software. Previous Flips also compressed videos for sharing (the Mino uses 360×270), but I particularly missed the ability to easily show others my videos in HD quality via the camera’s software. Pure Digital says it’ll enable HD sharing through a partner company by early next year.

The Flip MinoHD weighs 3.3 ounces and has four gigabytes of internal memory, or twice that of its predecessor, yet both hold 60 minutes of video because the HD format takes up twice as much space. In true Pure Digital style, the camera’s seven buttons are easy to use: Press the red record button to start and stop, and press plus or minus buttons to zoom in or out with a 2x digital zoom while recording. A play/pause button plays back videos and a delete button gets rid of unwanted footage to free up memory; alternatively, videos can be offloaded to a PC.

The MinoHD comes loaded with new software called FlipShare. I found this worked much better than Pure Digital’s previous sharing software, which was rather straightforward but had its share of quirks and rough edges. FlipShare worked on Macs and PCs running Windows Vista and XP. I should note that the software crashed and insisted on changing the color scheme on my Vista laptop the first two times I plugged in my MinoHD, but I had no problems after that.

FlipShare’s use of drag-and-drop video organizing resembles the way that Apple (AAPL) iTunes songs can be dragged into playlists. And just as iTunes searches for music when it’s installed, FlipShare scoured my computers for other Flip videos, neatly arranging those clips into folders. I easily named videos, and clips not saved to the computer were clearly marked as “Unsaved.” Eight large icons at the bottom of the FlipShare software illustrate what can be done with the videos: save to computer; play full screen; share via email, greeting card or Web site (YouTube, AOL Video or MySpace — no Facebook as of yet); or create a movie, snapshot or DVD.

FlipShare works with other Pure Digital camcorders, and users of the older software will get a prompt to upgrade to FlipShare next week. It’s also fully compatible with Apple’s video applications, including iMovie and iDVD. And when I plugged in my MinoHD, iTunes opened and asked if I wanted to import my MinoHD footage.

Pure Digital says the MinoHD’s internal battery lasts for two hours of overall use (recording, playback, standby, etc.) or for 90 minutes of straight recording. Compared with other Flip video cameras, this battery life is half that of the Mino and on par with the older Flip Ultra, which runs on two double-A batteries.

After using the fully charged device to record 60 minutes of footage over a weekend, I still had about one hour remaining. It charges by plugging its pop-out USB connector into any computer’s USB port, and will also work with some USB chargers, though not Apple’s. Pure Digital will sell a standalone charger for $20 that should be available by the end of the year.

If you’re in the market for a simple camcorder that records high-quality video, the Flip MinoHD is definitely worth $50 more than the regular Flip Mino. But don’t say I didn’t warn you so when you’re bummed out by the screen’s still-small size and its inability to share true HD footage via the FlipShare software.

– Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find this and other columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://walt.allthingsd.com

YHOO Blew It

John Paczkowski — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:00:57 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

iPod Phono: 10 Songs on Your Coffee Table

John Paczkowski — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:12:06 +0000

Turns out the long-playing (LP) record album may not be as much of an anachronism as once thought. As CD sales slip into the mud, and digital music outlets pop up on the Web as quickly as Starbucks stores, vinyl is staging a comeback. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, vinyl LP shipments spiked 36% from 2006 to 2007, to 1.3 million units. CD shipments dropped 17.5% during the same 2006-07 period, to 511 million.

Now, given the vast discrepancy between LP and CD units shipped in the past year, it’s entirely unlikely vinyl will ever claim a significant share of the music market–unless Apple (AAPL), for some reason, develops the iPod Phono. But it may well remain a niche market for some time to come thanks to audiophiles who prefer the LP “experience” and its so-called truer sound.

And so today Best Buy (BBY) is testing vinyl sales at some of its stores, as is retailer Fred Meyer (KR). “It’s not just a nostalgia thing,” said Melinda Merrill, spokeswoman for Fred Meyer. “The response from customers has just been that they like it, they feel like it has a better sound.”

iPod Phono: 10 Songs on Your Coffee Table

John Paczkowski — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 20:12:06 +0000

Flip Video Mino Takes Aim at the Cool Set

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:01:00 +0000

When Pure Digital Technologies Inc. introduced its Flip point-and-shoot camcorder a year ago, it dramatically simplified video recording. The Flip measured the size of a small digital still camera, cost less than $150 and its videos could be emailed in one quick process. Consumers gobbled up the tiny, nonintimidating device.

But to the style-conscious set, the Flip looked like a clunky Fisher-Price toy — especially when compared with a sleek, new iPod or more-sophisticated digital cameras — and was too thick to comfortably slip into a pocket. Last fall, Pure Digital introduced an enhanced version: the Flip Video Ultra, but its biggest aesthetic difference was new orange, pink and green colors.

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Today, the company will begin sales of its $180 Flip Video Mino (pronounced “minnow”), the hippest offering yet from Pure Digital. This 60-minute Flip includes many firsts for the company: rechargeable batteries; touch-sensitive buttons rather than old-school, push-down buttons; and a thinner build that measures 40% smaller, overall. The Flip Mino is also the first one in the family to enable publishing to MySpace (NWS); prior software limited Web-site sharing to YouTube (GOOG) and AOL (TWX) Video.

I’ve been using a glossy, black Flip Mino (it also comes in white) for the past two weeks and it looks much cooler than older models. Its newly positioned USB adapter pops up from the top of the camera like something from a Swiss Army Knife. The Mino offers features such as the ability to lock the delete button, so no one accidentally deletes your videos, and mute all camera sounds, so as to record silently during quiet moments like wedding ceremonies or speeches.

I brought it along with me almost everywhere I went because of its small size and light weight, even fitting it into a thin clutch purse with a cellphone and BlackBerry (RIMM). I used the Mino in various situations ranging from bright, scenic outdoor settings to indoors while eating dinner in a candle-lit restaurant. Overall, I was pleased with the sound and picture quality of the Mino, and I found its built-in software, which automatically starts when the camera plugs into your Mac (AAPL) or Windows (MSFT) PC, to be a pleasure to use.

Today, Pure Digital Technologies introduced its $180 Flip Video Mino, a thinner, more stylish version of its point-and-shoot camcorder.

It took just a few minutes to trim excess footage from my videos before saving them to my computer or sharing them with friends and family. Another way to share videos from the Flip Mino is via Pure Digital’s server, which sends emails with embedded video links, saving upload and download time on both ends. Though I didn’t publish any of my videos on a public Web site, AOL, MySpace and YouTube were just one step away.

The Flip Mino’s touch buttons, while stylish, were difficult to use at first. I missed the tactile feel of physical buttons as I tried to hold this small video camera and press the zoom buttons using just one hand. The new, touch-sensitive buttons weren’t as satisfying and stable to use, and I pressed them accidentally more than a few times. For instance, the Zoom Out button is directly below Record, making it easy to mistakenly touch it. After about a week of using the Mino, I grew more accustomed to using these new touch buttons, but it shouldn’t take so long to make the adjustment.

Just looking at the Flip Mino’s fresh new exterior makes it hard not to think about the things that this redesigned camcorder is still lacking, like a larger viewing screen (the Mino screen is 1.5 inches, no larger than that of the Flip Ultra), high definition video and wireless sharing capability. These features would likely raise the price and/or tax the battery, and many users of the Flip flock to it for its low price and simplicity. Still, Pure Digital says that it will offer HD video and a larger screen on a product within a year, and is looking into features that might include wireless transferring.

I grew fond of the Mino’s rechargeable battery. Whenever I plugged this gadget into my computer to transfer videos, my Mino charged up via USB without me having to think about it. A full charge lasts four hours and recharging a dead battery takes about three hours.

Pure Digital says that the sound quality and lighting are improved in this model. Like previous models, this Flip records in 640×480 pixels at 30 frames per second.

The Mino didn’t have a problem with lighting in most situations; indeed it did a nice job of capturing images of my family sitting around a table in a restaurant with little more than candlelight to brighten the picture. It doesn’t use a flash or a built-in light, but instead uses automatic sensors to adjust to various levels of light.

This svelte camcorder seemed to handle noise more evenly than I remembered in prior Flip models. It didn’t make my voice sound unbearably louder than everyone else’s, even though I was closest to the camera’s microphone, yet it managed to detect voices across the room. I did have some trouble on a windy day: While recording a quick video of a golf course in San Diego, wind audibly muffled my voice during a few moments in the video.

Along with the delete-lock and sounds-off settings, this Mino has a few other tricks up its sleeve. Each of the touch-sensitive buttons is designed to glow only when usable, so as to better help people who might not know which buttons to press while using this camcorder. For example, only the zoom buttons glow while recording since the other buttons (volume, play/pause and delete) can’t function in this setting.

Shortcuts built into each button provide more functions: Holding the play/pause button down will set the playback mode to play all videos on the Mino; holding the seek ahead or seek back buttons while watching a video will fast-forward by seconds within that video; pressing the record button as the camera starts up opens up the settings menu.

In conjunction with the Flip Mino’s introduction Wednesday, prices of the former Flip Ultra model will drop to $150 for the 60-minute model. The Flip Ultra 30-minute model will be phased out, as will the Flip Classic, which will cost $130 for a 60-minute unit.

Though the Flip Mino’s touch-sensitive buttons look great, they aren’t as functional as they needed to be. But if you really want a sleek, hip-looking gadget, you’ll learn to adjust to these new buttons. No matter which Flip you choose, Pure Digital’s software changes the way people capture and share videos, and that’s a great thing.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com