ASA: CD ripper “incites” law breaking

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

God bless the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). This fearless defender of everything that’s right, moral and upstanding has allowed ISPs to advertise fantasy headline speeds and limited “unlimited” packages for donkey’s years, but when it comes to the really big issues, it’s not afraid to wield the big stick.

The latest victim of the ASA’s wrath is 3GA Ltd, the company that makes the Brennan JB7 –  “a CD player with a hard disk that stores up to 5,000 CDs”.

The adverts for the Brennan highlight the convenience of ripping your entire CD collection to the device – much like we’ve all been doing for years on our PCs, iPods and other MP3 players.

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Five reasons why Apple’s earbuds aren’t that bad

Monday, September 6th, 2010

Sometimes things become bad, just because received wisdom says they are. Windows Vista, James Blunt, Dan Brown novels – all victims of a sweeping change in public opinion that renders them as unfashionable as a bum bag on Gordon Brown, even though the quality of their output has remained largely unchanged.

Apple’s earbuds could be easily added to that list. It’s become something of a truism – both in PC Pro and the wider world – that the headphones supplied with Apple iPods/iPhones are as offensive on the ear as Janet Street-Porter with a megaphone. Well, I, for one am prepared to stand up for Apple’s white delights. I’ve owned an iPod/iPhone for five years or more, and I’ve never found a compelling reason to part with the headphones supplied in the box.

Here are five reasons why:

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The wonderful world of d3o orange goo

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

On a recent edition of Dragons’ Den, Jason Roberts, founder and CEO of a company called Tech21, managed to convince Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis to part with £150,000 (in return for a 40% stake in his business) for what is effectively a range of laptop bags, MP3 player and mobile phone cases.

Doesn’t sound that exciting, does it? But there is something rather special that lies at the heart of his apparently mundane products – a fabric called called d3o. This is an impact-absorbing material, that’s becoming increasingly popular in the world of protective clothing – it’s been used by the military, the US downhill ski team, and motorcycle clothing manufacturers to provide impact protection in the event of a crash.

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First look: Sony Walkman X-series

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

Sony has taken the wrapping off its most obvious iPod Touch competitor yet – the OLED-equipped X-series Walkman.

We’ve been hands-on with Sony’s latest addition to the Walkman family at the London launch and, while it’ll have to go some way to beat the all-conquering iPod Touch and iPhone duopoly, we’ve come away impressed.

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Loving the Papermaster pinata

Monday, November 17th, 2008

I can’t imagine that when Mark “is this really my surname” Papermaster decided to ditch IBM’s boring old blade servers for Apple’s ever-so-hip iPods he could have forseen the fuss that would ensue. Trade secrets, accusations of desertion, shattered promises and a thousand broken hearts are just a few of the gems that have fallen from this legal pinata. And yet my favourite, my absolute favourite, is that just before he left, Papermaster was reportedly told by the company “to consider the effect of his decision on his family.”

How brilliant is that? IBM pulled the family card, and what a card it is… because obviously when a man decides to upsticks from Texas to California, to throw 26 years of his life in a truck and turn his back on his friends, he does so on a whim. He wakes up in the morning and says “honey, forget the toast, I’ve decided to ditch my suit for a polo neck and work for Apple, I don’t know if there’s a position available but by lord I intend to find out. I’ve spent nineteen years designing servers and now I want to follow my dreams… what do you mean the children? Oh, who cares, Tom’s always been a nuissance… his name’s Mark you say, well that proves it. Come along darling, the bus for Cupertino’s waiting!”

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Blik becomes iBlik

Thursday, August 21st, 2008

I played with the Blik RadioStation a while back, and I must admit that I was thoroughly impressed. It was the first combined DAB, FM and Wi-Fi radio I’d seen, and the sound quality was good enough to easily bag it a recommended award.

Not content to rest on its laurels, though, Blik has thrown another audio source in to its new model. Now you get three flavours of radio and an iPod dock. In the time-honoured tradition of iPod accessories, the model name has been preceded with a meaningless “i”, to become the iBlik.

None of us here in the labs have an iPod, so it’s my duty to admit that the above image is a cunning mock-up. We wouldn’t want to deceive you here at Pro. We’ll test it out and get back to you, but if the dock’s sound quality can match that of the radio inputs then it has nothing to worry about.

Just in: Noxon iRadio for iPod

Thursday, June 12th, 2008

Terratec’s Noxon iRadio for iPod – which has just dropped into the PC Pro office for review – is a veritable Swiss Army Knife of digital audio. In addition to the standard internet radio functions, it boasts an FM tuner, iPod dock and can stream music from other PCs in the house. If it could make a decent cup of tea, too, it would make the perfect replacement for our news reporter.

Within five minutes of taking the bread-loaf sized device out of the box, we had it connected to our Wi-Fi network, thanks to a commendably simple set-up wizard, although entering our router’s WPA key with the Noxon’s quirky remote control was akin to trying to spell egalitarianism. Backwards.

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