Gadgets Blog » Dan Evans

Television as we once knew it may be approaching its final days. Thanks largely in part to Internet sources for TV series and movies, the slowly emerging market of streaming-based TV content has become a prominent force in the electronics world.

Once just a distributor of by-mail DVD rentals, Netflix has solidified its place in the 21st century, providing the best quick-streaming services out there. Competitors like Hulu for TV and movies and VEVO for music have followed suit with a similar business model, leading to a whole new market of internet-TV streaming devices.

Apple and Google have both jumped on board this bandwagon, with Apple TV and Google TV bringing a wide variety of content to users thanks to TV set integration as well as standalone units. With titans such as these in the ring, is there even room for smaller companies? Boxee, a gadgets maker that has been utterly unknown save for a beta version of today’s product, may very well say yes.

Fame in the world of the Internet can come quickly, burn brightly and fade back into obscurity in a matter of seconds. With the emergence of online culture, memes and other must-see images and videos have the potential to spread like wildfire across the Web, passed through social networks on and off the Internet. The same could very well be said for Internet success. If the dot-com bust of the late 1990s taught us anything, it’s that a company has to be quick to adapt to changing expectations and demands in order to stay relevant for long.

Such a phenomenon explains the dramatic rise and fall of MySpace. Before the leviathan that is currently Facebook, MySpace seemed to be the Internet darling of the 2000s. With millions of users picking up pages, only to abandon the site in favor of the more streamlined world of Twitter and Facebook, the Web site is currently home to countless abandoned profiles. This week, for the first time in a long while, MySpace redesigned its template altogether, an announcement that didn’t drastically change the world in the way it once might have.

The focus this time around? Music and other media.

Apple’s music empire just grew in an important way. Arguably the greatest band of all time, British quartet The Beatles has, for the longest time, been absent from Apple’s online distribution center, the iTunes store. All that came to an end late yesterday, as the complete works of the band finally made its way to the Internet for release. Apple and iTunes commemorated the event with a full-page spread of the band.

The move accompanied a press release from the surviving members of the band, Ringo Starr and Sir Paul McCartney. Due in part to record label constraints as well as personal feelings, the super-group had never made the transition over to Apple’s store. This was, in part, due to concerns about what online distribution was doing to the music industry as a whole. Today, individual songs outsell albums 16:1 through online channels, and companies like Apple keep a tidy overhead thanks to their distribution methods.

It will be interesting to see how this functions with the future of online distribution.

Few titles are as revered in the world of gaming as Gran Turismo. The signature racing simulator for Sony’s line of gaming consoles, Gran Turismo got its fantastic origins on the original PlayStation.

Over time, the series has become one of the most hotly anticipated and best-selling entries into Sony’s impressive lineup of titles. Along with the name recognition and revenues working in Sony’s favor, there has come a strong love-hate relationship with the game’s development. The series is no stranger to significant delays in production, pushing back the release of these essential titles for weeks, if not months, at a time.

All that is coming to an end for the title’s latest release, Gran Turismo 5. Sony’s got a little extra bit of fanfare in the works as well, gearing up a brand-new limited-edition version of the PlayStation 3 specifically for the event. Nov. 24 will mark the exciting return of the franchise. The premise behind Gran Turismo is part of what makes it so compelling. Unlike arcade-style racing games, the title focuses on the technical aspects of driving, pitting the player against competent AI opponents on a series of difficult road courses.

The world of the indie rock star has become a lot larger here in the 21st century. In a previous generation, a musician had to rely on slogging all over the country and playing shows to small crowds of people in the hopes of distributing a record and establishing fans. The Internet, obviously, has changed all that. Instead of touring, artists can interact with their fans completely online, taking their music to the masses. A number of Web sites have attempted to do this over the last several years, including (now defunct) Mperia, PureVolume and MySpace. None of them compare to Bandcamp.

Bandcamp is a music Web site designed for musicians and not for IT professionals. With its simplistic and sleek interface, uploading information to the site is an utter breeze. I gave the Web site a spin for my band’s latest record, having been told by the Internet what a smooth and easy-to-use venture it would be. I was not disappointed. After a simple registration process, Bandcamp immediately prompts the user to begin uploading music. The idea behind this is quite simple: quickly beam up a high-quality copy of the song you’d like, and the user can download at whatever bit rate they want.

This fall, my parents surprised me with an exceptional gift just before my return to college. While I had owned a digital camera before, the unit they gave to me now was above and beyond anything I had previously expected out of a camera. Modern point-and-shoot digital cameras are stunning with their wide array of features and incredible photo quality. For an aspiring photographer, they make an excellent entry point into a lifelong hobby. But if you’re interested in acquiring a tool with a little more power behind it, where should you turn?

One possible answer is today’s gadget, the Samsung NX100 digital camera. The device is what Samsung has dubbed a “compact system camera.” Essentially, this line of cameras represents a middle-ground market for photography, great for users who want something more than a point-and-shoot but who aren’t ready to shell out upwards of $1,000 for a high-end device. With 14 megapixels and a keen autofocus feature, the NX100 has all the makings of a great intermediate camera.

There’s been a spree of tablet-related news here on the Smarter Gadgets blog, and with good reason. As the holiday season approaches, developers are putting the final touches on their gadgets in time for the high-consumption period after Thanksgiving. Apple’s iPad has clearly set a bar that is quickly being chased down by rival electronics companies. But while the iPad and its imitators have taken aim at general consumers, and Amazon’s Kindle has taken aim at the paperback, is there anything else that can fit into the increasingly crowded market for tablet computers?

The answer could very well be yes. Introducing the Kno, a tablet computer developed specifically for students. The Kno is an impressive gadget that is intended to provide a valuable resource to students. Developed in partnership by a Princeton professor and an electronics entrepreneur, the tablet computer is intended to integrate all elements of the learning process for a typical student, creating a handy device that displays textbooks in electronic format, while also providing a workspace for students to take notes and on-board tools for in and out of the classroom.

It’s difficult to talk about a new video game release these days without mentioning a sequel. In the current generation of consoles, developers have seen the stakes of their successful titles raised to new heights. The immense costs of creating a game with the current standards of graphics, gameplay and content have placed pressure on developers to deliver revenues to their companies. As a result, many of 2010’s biggest titles were sequels in successful franchises. Call of Duty: Black Ops is no different, but it boasts perhaps the most difficult challenge: filling the shoes of the hottest-selling video game of all time.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is the spiritual predecessor to Black Ops, and it was a divisive title in the gaming community. Utilizing current-events politics and contemporary weaponry, the title weaved a fiction dealing with global conflict, putting the player in charge of defending the United States from invasion. It was a great release with multiplayer, bringing users back to the title again and again. But it wasn’t perfect. The writing in MW2 served as a major downside, as the plot of the game relied too heavily on Hollywood-style melodrama and cheap tricks on the player, typically involving the “death” of the user in a cinematic cut scene.

The iPad may hog the limelight as the most visually impressive gadget, but in the world of tablet-style computers, Apple’s creation is nowhere near the top. E-readers have been around since before Apple ever brought iPad to the market, and in that regard, Steve Jobs & Co. have some catching up to do.

The most prominent e-readers on the market come from less likely companies. Barnes & Noble has found great success with their Nook, but the most successful e-reader stands the Amazon Kindle. Now entering its third generation, the Kindle and its tie-in with Amazon’s reputation as a book distributor have made it a breakthrough product for Amazon.

The Third-Generation Kindle stands as the latest and greatest in this line of gadgets from Amazon. It boasts a number of new elements that are likely to bring even more consumers over to the Kindle brand, first and foremost being the screen. The screen for an e-reader like the Kindle suffers from slightly different demands than other electronic gadgets. The Kindle has been built with traditional books and long periods of use in mind. The e-ink technology that has been used provides a solid medium for reading. The realm of visibility is one of many features that Kindle has looked to upgrade. While a bright light will still wash the screen out, brightness is not the issue it once was.

Creative’s latest line of gadgets is certainly living up to its name. The company often gets lost in the shuffle of other big gadget and electronic companies. They don’t have the name recognition of Palm or RIM’s Blackberry, and they don’t have the sheer size of companies like Samsung or Sony. Nonetheless, in an announcement earlier this week, Creative rolled out a series of tablet-style devices that run using the Android 2.1 operating system.

While several of the devices are exciting, latest entry in their ZEN MP3 player lineup looks to be particularly worth getting excited over. Creative’s ZEN players have been strongly reviewed over the past generations, and customers have gradually begun to take note. The latest ZEN player is a direct response to the iPod Touch, something that the market certainly needed. The iPod Touch stands as the most popular MP3 player on the market right now. With its host of non-music features, it has been the go-to option for gadget aficionados.

The Creative ZEN Touch 2 stands as a pretty clear reaction to the success of Apple’s MP3 player. First and foremost, it comes with a full features set that is second to none. The Touch 2 is Bluetooth-enabled, has the potential for GPS navigation and has a Micro SIM card slot. Some of these features aren’t necessarily standard on MP3 players, but Creative’s dedication to giving a full-featured gadget really shines through here.