There has got to be a better way to get news from Demo

by on September 27, 2006

When Buzz Bruggeman called me from Demo last night I asked him “what was the coolest stuff?” Here’s what he told me:

The Mojopac. Turns your iPod into a storage device for your PC.
Grand Central. One number for your phone (LifeHacker has a good writeup). That does a whole lot more.
Sirius Zing. Cool Satellite radio portable device. (That link points to Gizmodo, I couldn’t find the home page for this device funny enough).

Buzz is blogging Demo here.

While I’m talking new stuff, here’s a couple more things that caught my eye over on Gizmodo.

Gizmodo knows how to get my attention: sex in my ear canals. Oh, I already have Ultimate Ears headphones. They BLOW AWAY those that come with the new Apple iPods. Disclaimer, I got a free pair of the custom ones (not the new ones that Gizmodo is talking about). There’s no other investment you can make that’s better. I wish they sold iPod’s without headphones for a small discount so I could upgrade to third-party headphones.

Heheh, I always knew that PC users were smarter than Mac users. Don’t shoot me, I use both.

Who has the best blogs from Demo? It’s amazingly difficult to find good stuff from the blogosphere. More shortly on that.

  • The Ultimate Ears are indeed ultimate (although Shure's new top-of-the-lines with custom earpieces are probably pretty close), but for $1000 or so, out of most people's range. You can get some pretty decent stuff in the $100-300 range, and Shure's E2c (at the low end of that) is a great bargain if you're looking for good (though not completely accurate) sound and excellent isolation. Or you could get big-ass Sennheiser sealed traditional headphones and look like a dork, like me.
  • Hmm. Last comment got nuked. Anyway, the Ultimate Ears and new top-of-the-line Shures are of course great for $1000, but for $100-300, you can get something quite good from Shure or Ultimate or Etymotic that isolates just as well and sounds pretty darn good. Or big old sealed headphones like my Sennheiser HD280 set, which look dorky but do the job.
  • Derek: I agree. The $300 Ultimate Ears blows away the iPod headphones too. Much better bass, better isolation from environmental noise, better comfort, and better quality across the hearing range. But they cost about what your iPod does, so they, too, are pretty high end items.
  • I'm not arrogant enough to claim my blog is necessarily the best source of DEMO information, but I have tried to cover it fairly extensively since I know a lot of folks who are interested and couldn't be there themselves. My Top 5 list is due out later tonight, but I have each day's Top 10 lists up on Pardon the Disruption already.

    Greg Narain over at SocialTwister has also done a nice job with his coverage.
  • LayZ
    Given the way the NYT has been going lately, I'm not sure I'd be bragging about being an editor, or equating it to being smart.
  • Rory
    Your 'stab' concerning PC users being smarter than mac users - using John Hodgman as the example in your link above:
    "John Hodgman: PC Guy from Apple Ads Way Smarter Than Mac Guy"

    Yeah he is - *CAUSE HE USES A MAC* !!!!!! Bwahahahahaha

    http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/commen...

    From the Q&A in the article:
    "So, to get into character as the PC, does that take some sort of method acting?
    No, I’m not an actor, per se . . . . I was out there in the wilderness with PCs feeling completely frustrated, and appreciating their attempt to be nice and easy to use and constantly amazed by the fact that they were the most confusing boobs. I myself am a Mac user. I bought the very first Mac, or convinced my father to buy it, in 1984. I used it through high school and college; it was the first computer I used outside of college, then I went though a brief period of exile during my corporate years as a professional literary agent, where I was forced to use a PC . . . . Mac has always gotten the design and the interface down pat. They just know it. PC’s efforts to emulate this, and its constant failing, and its self-satisfied arrogance about it being the most used platform in the world, all of that made it very easy to craft a character who, while he is a boob, and often concerned about how he comes off, at his core really feels bad for the Mac. Is really so delusional to believe he’s much cooler than the Mac. The whole reason they’re standing in that white room is because he’s trying to help the Mac out."
  • Bob
    MojoPack appears to have fallen flat on their face. It sounds great, but once you sign up and try to install it, you can't (on many devices). In order to get to the forums you need to sign up. But once you get to the forums you find that there a a lot of issues with the software not being able to install. Also you apparently can not use it on a machine unless you have Admin priveledges (isn't that the point of having this?).

    There is also pretty much complete silence from Mojo in the forums, tons of questions, and very few answers.

    Failure to Launch - Bummer
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