Alive Matters has moved… this location may self destruct…

This instance of Alive Matters is no longer the official “thread”.  Please refer to:

http://www.alivematters.com, or

http://www.wirelessaudioblog.com

The new location is privately hosted, and no longer using the wordpress.com free blogging service (which I highly recommend).  I just wanted to respect wordpress.com’s terms of use, as clearly some of the posts on this site, I concede, supplement commercial activities.  I will leave the archive here as long as possible, but no guarantees!

Skype FREETALK Wireless Stereo Headset is for today’s Skype users… not tomorrow’s… not yesterday’s.

SkypeJournal’s recent series on Skype’s forward moving strategies included a discussion on the relevance of hardware. Well this Christmas, a piece of hardware near and dear to my heart will be ready to ship. I’ve written about the FREETALK in another post, so no need to repeat.

The nicest thing about this device… it is a very simple and elegant hardware solution that imporves the way *current* Skype users experience voice chat.

FREETALK is for the hear and now.  It does not distract you from the now.  It does not promise a future that is not ready.  It does not try to pretend you are in the past.

1. Other types of Skype hardware struggle with gear that is trying to bring skype to Skype-non-users. Make it look like a normal desk telephone, and give the simple number dialing usage model a home on the skype network. Harder sell. Gotta sell on lower cost. Gotta teach people new features. People who would get this are likely more attached to their PCs.

2. Or bring Skype to platforms where potential users are using a different telephony service. Run Skype on my mobile phone, now you’ve got to be better than the experience of making call on my mobile.

Black Friday makes a steal out of the Rocketfish RF-WHTIB

This Thanksgiving holiday season, I’ve seen more Black Friday chatter on the web than I can remember ever seeing in the past. From Gizmodo, Engadget, Google ads to ad hoc urls like http://www.blackfriday.info, it’s endless.

Obviously some deals are better than others. The one that caught my eye of course is the one offered by Best Buy for the Rocketfish RF-WHTIB wireless rear speaker kit. At $79.99, this is 20% off from it’s normal retail price. At $99, the commentors talk about what a great value this product is… so at $79, this is a steal.

Dell has made an Wintel iMac… when will Apple finally do something new to the desktop?

Dell, my old employer launched the Dell XPS One.  Not bad.  It’s like a iMac, except add some decent speakers and a phatty Windows Media Center remote.  I’m tempted to pick one of these up, since pretty much the only Dell stuff I’ve been buying in recent history are their desktop monitors.  In fact, I use a 24 inch widescreen LCD monitor from Dell with my Mac mini.

Which brings me to the point of this post.  What has Apple done since the iMac that has been innovative for the desktop?  The Mac mini was close, but small form factor PCs were around then as well.  Even though Apple’s was probably the coolest.  The iMac was refreshed earlier this year, but it was merely cosmetic.  And now it’s been around so long, and successfully so, that the Dell, the maker of what’s mainstream, has adapted the innovative PC-in-a-Panel architecture and slapped their “cool-guy brand” on it.

Come on Apple.  You’ve been quiet.   Been too busy developing phones, touch-screens iPods, and switching your PC lineup to Intel?  Where is a new notebook to lust after?  Where is a new architecture to disrupt what we think is normal?  This is what consumers expect from you, whether you like it or not.  There are rumors of a tablet.  Or for a ultra-mobile notebook.

Give me a good reason to figure out clever ways to have an “accident” with my current notebook, so I can get a new ride.

FREETALK Wireless Stereo Headset – Skype Certified

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Finally. Our first wireless stereo headset! It is available just in time for the holidays. If you use Skype more than 5 times a week, this headset will be your new best friend, I can guarantee it. I’ve been carrying my proto with me for the better part of this year, and it’s held up relatively well in my bag, taking many beatings. It sounds great, and works flawlessly. The range on FREETALK’s version is just over 35 feet. It will best the two other cordless options shown on this page. They are both based on Bluetooth… stop yawning, you’ll want to hear this.

People often ask how we compare to Bluetooth… often phrased as, “why wouldn’t I just use Bluetooth?” The few (powerful) reasons are:

1. FREETALK requires no driver installations. Freetalk is plug & play. Plug it in, wait for Mac OS or Windows to recognize it, and about 20 seconds later you are off to the races.
2. FREETALK achieves better than 30 feet of range. Our system’s wireless audio coding gives you a few more meters than BT can at the same transmit power. Just try it. You’ll get 35-40 feet in most conditions, and up to 60 feet in very clean RF interference & obstacle environments.
3. FREETALK gives you high fidelity stereo audio & wideband voice!!! The Freetalk headset natively supports 48 kHz uncompressed stereo audio to the headset, and 16 kHz wideband voice from the headset’s mic…. wait for it… at the same time. Boom. (Gamers rejoice – use it for World of Warcraft, Ventrillo, you name it) You have to hear it to believe it. With BT, you’re required to use a different profile (A2DP), which does not support simultanous usage of the microphone, AND it compresses the hell out of the audio using a very crude compression scheme called SBC (sub-band coding). About as clean as 96 kbps mp3 in best cases.
4. FREETALK costs less. Don’t even get me started.

Anyways, let’s hear about what you think. Check it out, and report back here. I’m pretty sure you’ll be asking straight-away, “why hasn’t this existed before?”