My 1st generation Zune has been acting oddly for the past couple of months. It sometimes refuses to start (light the LCD) when it is charged (sometimes fully charged). Plugging the Zune into a power source (AC adapter in my case) lights the LCD and lets me use the Zune. But, still, it is annoying. It is a good thing I never take the Zune out? Otherwise, I might be faced with a temporary brick.
Category: Mobile Devices
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Project Gotham Racer for Zune HD? Now, I Might Have to Buy a Zune HD 🙂
Any info on availability/pricing of Project Gotham Racer for the Zune HD? The game was a favorite of mine on the 1st gen Xbox.
Originally posted as a comment by Todd Ogasawara on TechFlash using Disqus.
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Mini-Podcast 12: Recorded in a Noisy Downtown Area Using an HTC Touch Pro2
Although I only started podcasting regularly starting late last year (2008), I’ve been testing mobile podcast recording options for about two years now. I’ve tried a bunch of Windows Mobile Pocket PCs and smartphones, a LiveScribe Pulse Smartpen (which actually does a pretty good job of it) and an iPhone 3G. I would say the LiveScribe pen has the best recorded sound quality of all those devices. But, the problem is that because of the pen’s odd design and lack of a pen tip cap and pocket clip, it is not something I carry with me except when I know I am going to use it.
It is a bit early to say for sure, but it looks like the HTC Touch Pro2 may be the right device for mobile podcast recordings. Its recordings have small but noticeable audio compression artifacts. But, I think the overall audio quality is acceptable for podcasts (especially short ones like my infrequent, so far, mini-podcasts). However, I was very impressed by signal-to-noise ratio (me talking vs. everything else) in this podcast which was recorded in busy downtown area next to a busy street.
– You can listen to the podcast right now from your web browser by using the embedded player above.
– You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or this RSS feed.
– You can also point your smartphone’s browser at mobiletoday.podbean.com to listen to or download the MP3 file over the air to your phone. -
Mini-Podcast 11: HTC Touch Pro2 Voice Notes Recording Sound Quality Sample
The T-Mobile HTC Touch Pro2 is a Windows Mobile 6.1 touch screen smartphone. It comes bundled with a voice recording app called, reasonably enough, Voice Notes. I used it to record this brief (1 minute 10 seconds) Mini-podcast 11 to give you an idea of its recording sound quality. I think it sounds reasonably good although there is noticeable audio compression that gives it a kind of AM radio sound quality to it.
This mini-podcast was recorded in a reasonably quiet room. I’ll test recording a mini-podcast outdoors to see if the Touch Pro2 might be a useful tool for on-the-spot interviews/conversations for future podcasts.
– You can listen to the podcast right now from your web browser by using the embedded player above.
– You can also subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or this RSS feed.
– You can also point your smartphone’s browser at mobiletoday.podbean.com to listen to or download the MP3 file over the air to your phone. -
Flixster Movies for iPhone Facebook Connect Publish Button Bug Fixed in Next Update
I noted a bug in the way Flixster Movies’ Facebook Connect publish button worked over on the MobileContentToday blog. Looks like a fix for it is on its way:
I am the developer of Flixster for iPhone. We are aware of the bug where hitting the “publish” button does not close the dialog (it is actually a facebook bug that they have been really slow to fix). However, we are taking proactive steps to have it fixed and it will be fixed in our upcoming update (currently under review by Apple).
Originally posted as a comment by jeffgrossman on mediabistro.com: MobileContentToday using Disqus.
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MSN Direct Outlook Plugin A Pile of Fail
MSN Direct Outlook Plugin Failure One of Microsoft’s unfortunate mobile strategy failures was MSN Direct and SPOT (Smart Personal Objects Technology). I say “unfortunate” because I have two Suunto SPOT watches and an annual paid subscription for MSN Direct Plus that gave me the ability to sync my Outlook calendar over the air with the watch.
Unfortunately, the…
MSN Direct Calendar Add-in 1.2.27824
…does not install at all in Microsoft Vista. And, I just found that it fails at the end of its installation process in Microsoft Virtual PC (beta) Windows XP Mode (a virtual machine under Windows 7). You can see the failure message in the screenshot above.
And, since the MSN Direct project has been dormant for a couple of years now, there’s no chance of a plugin update. To make matters more annoying, Microsoft doesn’t even provide contact information on…
…to let me cancel my $69.96 annual subscription. I’ll start making calls to figure out how to do this the hard way over the next few days.
I still think SPOT was a good idea that just never lived up to its potential.