Sucky Tech # 4 – CellSocket

Not sure why I’d want one of these. WHP Wireless has a device called the Cell Socket which is basically a cordless handset that you connect to your cellular phone. You can make and receive calls over your cellular line using this handset rather than on your cellular.

The company states, “No more searching your house for your cell phone ... no more missed calls”. Must be a generational thing but I am away from my cell phone when I’m in the shower or swimming. If anyone ever rolls out a waterproof smartphone I’d be interested.

The 4 cordless phones in my house on the other hand; are usually not in their cradles. My other half tends to bring it with her while yaking and leaves it wherever she stops yaking. This used to bother me except that now I don’t bother answering the home line at all. Anyone who needs to contact me, that I would actually want to talk to, will call my cellular.

It’s a big sucker compared to my HTC Diamond. Why would I rather carry around this bulky handset when my Diamond is about the size of a candy bar and fits in a pocket? And it has less features, it’s just a phone handset. It makes and receives calls. Thats all.

And it’s giving other people access to my mobile line. Why would you want to do that? I once lent my Mom my phone for a day when she had a lot of errands to run and Dad took his to work. Over the next month or so I kept getting calls from her friends asking, “Is your Mom there?” No, call her at home. This is my cell and I’m at work. There’s no take your mother to work day.

If they had a device to let me pick up calls from the land line on my cell I might be interested but hands off my cellular.

Do it yourself Breathalyser Tests

Your drive home ever been interrupted for one of these? This iPod accessory I found on Slippery Brick has a fold out tube you can breathe into to test your blood alcohol content. Sure, it sounds s like a reasonable concept.

There have been numerous breath tests on the market but I don’t really think that someone dead set on driving home after a few beers with the boys is going to let blowing a little bit over on a not very accurate (can you save the test results and show it to a cop if you’re stopped?) test stop him. And the guy so far gone he can barely walk would probably have trouble using the test at all; assuming he remembers to stop and take it.

Doesn’t it make more sense to plan ahead and not drink unless you have a way of getting home? I love beer, but I have no trouble making arrangements prior to getting blasted. Are there really that many of us out there that will go out, have a few drinks, walk to the car, cross our fingers and hope we don’t blow over? I think that most of us can tell after getting up whether or not we should be driving, just by the number of drinks or the numbness in our head from standing. Those that still want to drive home, unfortunately, probably will.

You know what this device will really be used for? Bar bets. Who can blow the highest without not throwing up and such. Wish I had one when I was twenty something. Probably a lot more fun than who can drink the most shooters. My math abilities tend to decline with each drink and most establishments frown upon carving hash marks in their tables.

Sucky Tech # 05 – USB Barbecue

How many dumb USB gadgets do you own? I have some and coveted even many more. But nothing says WTF like a USB powered barbecue. Not sure I can or need to explain the tech here. Take power from USB to make heat and cook something with it. Sure, it can be done, but what inspires someone to build it and where the frack do they plan to use it?

So you were thinking before that you didn’t like the smell of another co-worker microwaving popcorn in the kitchen. Now it’s, “Hey Bob, what’s cookin? No you can’t have my last Johnsonville Brat.”

Why not add a USB beer cooler to the ensamble? Or how about a tiny ethanol gel fire-pit for making smores after? Where’s my USB powered Margaritaville mixer?

And from the looks of the photo, you need thirty USB cables to power it. Guess this won’t be available for a Mac. When they roll out the USB 3 spec how many cables would you need? Hopefully then they can get this down to requiring only one USB hub to power it.

Sucky Tech # 4 – Han Solo In Carbonite USB Drive

Han Solo Frozen in Carbonite USB jump drive. When I saw the headline for this item my Geek side went into overdrive. I was clicking the link with my mouse hand and reaching for my Visa with the other (difficult since I’m right handed, mouse with my right hand and keep my wallet on my right back pocket). Ecstasy quickly changed to utter disappointment when the page finally loaded.

First of all, it looks nothing like a young Harrison Ford. Second, the pose is way off. Legs are spread, what the hell? The hands aren’t even in the outstretched position you expect to see a person in when they are frozen in carbonite.

All you get is a cheesy knockoff piece of plastic where I would have to explain to people what it is. I want people to, when they see it, either say “Cool I want one?” or “You’re such a geek, I can’t believe you paid money for that”. When someone looks at this piece of crap I feel like I have to explain that it’s supposed to be Han Solo frozen in carbonite.

Third and last, it’s a one gigabyte jump drive. What the heck am I supposed to do with a 1 GB drive? Why do they make 1 GB anything these days? I wouldn’t even think of punishing my 5 year old with a 1 GB anything. I’d probably be ridiculed to death by him for how out of touch I am. I have lots of that coming when he’s a teenager. No reason to start now.

There should be a law against tech items that are due for the garbage before you get them home from the store. Just in time for Christmas though. If anybody buying something for me sees this item ... please get me anything else.

Sucky Tech # 3 - Trustpilot

Trustpilot, a shining example of innovative tech that at first glance looks like something you might want or need, but on deeper analysis, maybe you’re better off seeing what other people are saying about this product before installing it on your own machine.

The Tech. It’s a toolbar you plug into your browser. You get a green light for a site that has positive reviews. Orange for a site with average ratings and reviews. Red light for sites with mostly negative reviews and complaints. Ratings come from the company scanning the net for reviews and ratings from all across the web and compiling it in their database. Sounds like a great tool.

Have you ever made positive comments about a commercial transaction where all that happened was that you got what you expected? This scenario covers pretty much most of my online transactions. I’ve bought a lot of things where I have paid, waited for my stuff and got it. Never inspired me to go back to the site and write a glowing review.

It makes me sceptical of the people who do write these positive reviews unless they had some special request and got some kind of exceptional service. Plus, if this kind of review aggregation and statistical analysis became popular couldn’t you game the system by writing rave reviews of your own products and services?
Bad reviews on the other hand I can understand. No need to explain what kinds of things inspire enough outrage to cause people to make their displeasure public. On the other hand, some people are just dumb.

A year or two back I was scouring the net looking for a good price for an A/V receiver that had HDMI out. One review I read on the negatives for a Yamaha receiver on the Future Shop website read, “... only passes HD video through HDMI to the TV, won’t pass 5.1 surround sound to TV.” To the uninitiated looking for the best bang for his buck, this would seem to be lacking an important feature.

This made me wish there was a forum for reviewing the reviewers. Never heard of 5.1 surround coming out of a TV. The Sony Bravia, probably one of the best sounding TV’s out there right now, only has two speakers. I may be wrong but I don’t think that there is a TV with more than two speakers. If it did have four speakers + center channel + subwoofer, how big is the frickin TV? Do you sit inside it? The whole reason for buying a 5.1 channel receiver is to put the speakers around you.

The point is, looking at raw stats without examining the context is not going to give you a clear picture of the story. The raw number of complaints may be valuable if a site or company has a lot of pissed off customers but people need to take a broader sample to get to the facts. People who are unsatisfied for any reason are vocal. Most of the time, satisfied customers are not.

Make money gaming, quitting my day job

I finally found a way to eventually be able to quit my day job and play video games to feed my wife and kids. Gonna be living the dream.

Crunch Gear had a posting recently about Bring It, an online gaming site where you can play games against others for money. The idea was cool. Put up a few bucks for an online frag fest. Last man standing takes the pot. Wish I came up with that one. I'm going to have to keep an eye on this one.

Brings me to my advertising idea. With Xbox Live rolling out new avatars for your Xbox experience there is now an opportunity for different kind of online advertising that is trackable and verifyable. Nobody looks at banner ads anymore. Most of us, I am one of these, spend enough time online that we have conditioned ourselves to not even look at banner ads. Unless of course there is a scantily clad, well endowed woman in the banner. This method of advertising is tried and true and will never stop being a hit depending on your target market.

But how about T-Shirts for your Avatar? Think about it. Coke looks for people who are logged into Live a lot, interact with a lot of different people, win a lot of battles, whatever. Pay these guys to wear a Coke T-Shirt on their Avatar. You can pay people based on verifiable statistics based on criteria you set for them. Need to play these types of games, need to be on this game or that, need to talk about our product, etc. How about a simple T-Shirt with your website or blog's URL?

Now I just gotta get a way to sell it to Microsoft. Any programmers out there want to help me put together an Avatar T-Shirt Store? Fire me an e-mail.

Sucky Tech # 2 – Safe Bedside Table

Don’t really count this one as tech but I found it too humorous to not pass on.

This inconspicuous looking bedside table quickly converts into a beating stick and shield. Beating stick I can understand but the shield? Unless your bedroom is likely to be invaded by Barbarians, Vikings or the Mongol Horde do you really need a shield?

And wouldn’t it be easier to keep an aluminum softball bat under the bed? Full sized bats too heavy for you? Why not check out the smaller bats they make for the pee-wee leagues. Unless you’re trained to use a shield in combat I’m not so sure the two foot shield that comes with this set will be of much use. Other than being preposterous enough that while the intruder is thinking “WTF?” and laughing; you get a chance to club him good. Unless of course he just shoots you.

Personal defence close at hand; sounds like a marketable idea but lose the shield. I would have a higher chance of having my brother or one of my kids using this on me than I would bother to put on a shield to defend against someone in my home. Kind of ironic that they say that about guns too kinda.