Technofile Mike ButcherOnce in a while it's nice to do a round up of technofile-type news, so here are some of the latest tidbits taking our fancy.
Technofile is a recent convert to the Spinvox.com voice to text service. This basically allows you to get your voicemail transcribed and texted to you automatically. No more having to dial and laboriously listen in - especially handy when you are in a noisy bar. It will also allow you to access messages you want to listen to by jumping straight to the specific message, without having to navigate complex voicemail menus.
You can save on international calls, allowing you to remain available while saving on expensive roaming and voicemail costs. The system can also convert voice messages to e-mails. It is available free for a week, then it costs from 29 cent per message.
Some of us were lucky enough to hit London's Hyde Park for the Live8 bash last Saturday, but if you didn't make it then no matter.
Paul McCartney and U2 blasting through Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band (the first time it has ever been played live) can be downloaded from iTunes along with the day's finale the Long and Winding Road, with proceeds from the sales of these one-time-only performances benefiting debt relief in Africa. The concert itself was watched online by five million people and can still be seen from live8live.com. (Incidentally, iTunes is about to reach half a billion downloads.)
Creative's latest 20 Gigabyte digital music player, the Zen Sleek, is set to reach stores next week. Instead of taking on the iPod and its colour screen, or the Sony NW-HD5 and its long battery life, Creative is going for the style stakes, delivering a sleek looking model with an aluminium finish and white contours.
The Sleek's features are myriad: playback of MP3 and WMA (including copyright protected tracks from sites like Napster), and FM radio, integrated microphone for voice recording and a new style touchpad.
Battery life is 16 hours - a bit better than the new colour screen iPod. It sells for €295 but, as retailers discount it, it should come in lower than equivalent players.
Speaking of iPods, rumours are circulating that the tiny iPod Shuffle MP3 player is due for an overhaul. Apple's flash players may leap forward in capacity up to 2GB and 4GB. No official word on this yet, but the rumours are reaching a clamour - even to the extent of whispers about an 8GB iPod mini in the works.
Ever tried making a call over the internet? Yes. I know how you feel. There's a lot of hype, but, at the end of the day, just picking up a receiver is much easier.
Now "voice over IP" specialist Vonage has launched an adapter that enables users to make inexpensive internet calls through their existing landline phones rather than through their PC.
An adapter plugs into a standard phone and the ethernet connection of a broadband router.
Vonage offers unlimited Ireland calls for a subscription of just under €15 a month. Customers pay additional costs for calls to mobiles and international numbers.
Remember voice recorders? Plenty of them have gone digital in recent years, but are still not up to the big gigabyte capacity of MP3 players. Now M-Audio has been touting the FlashTracker USB recorder at two European trade shows.
The recorder is very small and comes with digital, analogue and mic inputs. Pricing is expected to be around €450. The recorder will output to MP3, making it handy to move files around.
