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Polaroid POGO: Instant Gratification

Last November, I posted about Polaroid’s leap back into instant photo gratification with POGO, an ultra-portable photo printer using zero ink technology from Zink. I was pretty stoked about the device; I was big fan of Polaroid back in the day and recently I’ve been looking for a decent method to print out some mobile pictures.

Time goes by and the POGO falls off my radar… that is until I walked into Target today and noticed it was on sale for $129 (original price, $149)! The desire for instant gratification struck instantly. I instantly had to have it and instantly marched to the camera counter. Instantly purchasing it, my compadres and I (we were on a post GBC breakfast excursion) instantly headed back to the car.

I instantly started to free my overpriced photo printer from its cardboard cage welcoming it into my loving realm of mobile gadgetra. Immediately inspecting the instructions, I installed the battery and paper pack; it instantly spit out the paper calibration “smart sheet.” And then it instantly died.

First gripe: put a charge in the battery for Christ’s sake. I know we all are supposed to charge a full 2-24 hours before stuff works, but no one ever does and most everything else has at least half a charge on purchase (ipod, phone, camera…).

With my efforts dashed to justify the purchase with my compadres by showing them the awesome power of instant gratification, I eventually made my way to my office to plug the damned thing in. Eventually, I unraveled the power block and extension cord; the POGO prints while plugged in, but this is a mobile gadget and meant to be carted around in a messenger bag. the construction is solid and metally. I’d say it weighs about a pound, but feels very study. The thing was expensive enough; it better weigh a ton.

On to printing. I tested the pogo with the gamut of photo sources, all routed from my phones bluetooth; you can connect to a digital camera with a USB cable as long as you have a PictBridge enabled camera. First picture was one I took of kirk, taken with my T-Mobile Shadow in  a lot of sunlight; it came out well enough. Then, I emailed a few pictures from Scranto’s flickr to my phone and printed them out with more stunning results. The colors were full and bright, and the resolution crisp. At 2×3 inches per photo, you won’t have to worry that much about mobile phone resolution; anything over a mega pixel will look just fine printed from the POGO.

Since a lot of my BuffaViews and Snaps are in B/W, I printed out skylar from my previous post, and Lafeyette Square from the post before. Since the ZINK technology isn’t CYMK but rather CMY, the b/w photos had a slight blue hue, which I don’t seem to mind at all.

If you really enjoy having hard copies of your mobile photos, then this printer is for you. I wouldn’t recommend this for someone with a shitty camera phone, or a Verizon anything, since VZW cripples bluetooth so that it can only pair with a headset.

Polaroid - POGO

Switch-A-Bit: upload to flickr and send to twitter.

I don’t have anything against TwitPic (or any other of those mobile photo to twitter apps), but I already use flickr to store my photos. If I use TwitPic, I’ll have to re-upload my photo to flickr or just lose out. With all the social networks, your intellectual property can get spread out and lost, so I like to keep flickr as a basecamp for all my photos.

However, Flickr doesn’t allow me to directly tweet pictures. Though I have streamlined the process of blogging from my phone using email-to-flickr, I wanted a way to tweet my snaps without having to send anything twice, and without using another photo hosting service. And by god I think I found it. Enter Switch-A-Bit.

Switch-A-Bit is a switchboard/router/thing-of-magic for your social networking needs. Sign up and connect it to your accounts, and switch-a-bit monitors your activity, routing content back and forth along the channels you set up.

Switch-A-Bit lets you set trigger words to activate the channels preventing you from overloading your social networks with a lot of useless data, like what happens with the inadvertent blog spammers on twitter. For example, on my flickr-to-twitter channel, when I’m posting from my phone, I append (#snap) to my post. It uploads to flickr then on to my blog, like normal. Switch-A-Bit catches the “#snap” and posts a tweet with a link to my photo.

Switch-A-Bit is as simple to set up as dragging and dropping. In fact, I was a little confused at first that it was working because there wasn’t a lot of set up or even options. Links are processed for twitter by a new sister service called bit.ly. As the service progresses (its still in beta), You can be sure to see a bunch more social network added. Right now they offer connections to blogger, facebook, flick, jaiku, tumblr, twitter, and your wordpress blog.

Switch-A-Bit

Firefox 3 Download Day: Help Set a World Record

Back when FF1 was released, I was a real active member of Spread Firefox. I’d shoot my badges all over the web and preach the ways of alternative browsing, life free of pop ups, and a general Exodus from all things IE. I was really into it, even made a few flash sigs for forum use, like this one..

[Totally Unofficial ATHF FTW]

So, I’ve been kinda lax on the FF preaching, despite a few sermons on addons and tricks. Maybe I’ve realized that Firefox isn’t a perfect browser, and that all those wonderfull addons can drag the poor fox to the ground, and that effing flash issue…. Or maybe I’m just lazy in general.

Well, praise be to the gods, because Firefox 3 is here to save us, with load of new features, upgrades to the rendering engine, (Gecko 1.9) and bit more polish all over. You can download the RC1 and see it for yourself; and more plugins are syncing up to make the upgrade easier and more attractive.

The SpreadFirefox team is also planning on setting a Guinness world record for the most downloads of a software title in a 24hour period with the launch of Firefox3. Since this is the first attempt on record, there isn’t really a goal, but we want to make it as high as possible. One, thing though, they don’t actually have a date for this event, so hit the badge above and pledge your download; you will be emailed when the time is nigh.

Wired 15th Anniversary: For the Love of PMS805

Wired has long been a fan of using neon inks for their magazine covers, and Pantone 805 Orange-Red Neon Ink is somewhat of a signature color. To celebrate, they doused the entire cover in PMS 805; I literally saw the thing sticking out of the mailbox from the other end of the driveway (and I live in a carriage house!). The articles are pretty swell too, a farewell to Bill Gates, BSG, and a bit about how to really cut down global warming…

Subscribe now (Only $10) and you’ll get this issue guaranteed, or go the the bookstore and look for the sore thumb… Its totes worth it.

• PS. CondeNast just acquired Ars Technica, meaning Wired has a geeky new brother in the Wired Digital family (Reddit, WebMonkey, HotWired, Wired.com, and more).

Jawbone ad: Rugby Drinking Party

Jawbone headsets are pretty amazing, they work to eliminate exterior noises, letting your voice travel clearly to the caller on the other end. To demonstrate this capability Jawbone released a series of Youtube video ads, one of which involves some very tempting material. and by material, I mean smoking hot Rugby boys making out, while the pixie haired chick at the bar talks to her girlfriend. She’s completely unaware of the hot toungue brawl going on behind her, thus proving the effectiveness of Jawbones technology, right?

• Jawbone

GRL Documentary Sneak Peak

BoingBoing TV gave us an early peak at the upcoming documentary on the Graffiti Research Lab, a collective “dedicated to outfitting graffiti artists, pranksters, and protesters with open source technologies for urban communication.”

Some of you may not have heard of the GRL, but possibly if you remember the giant scare with the ATHF Mooninites in Boston, they were the first to be blamed (then it turned out to be just a dumb stunt by Adult Swim). And if you’ve ever seen or heard of a LED throwie, its the GRL that came up with them.

The press release, as redacted by the dept of Homeland Graffiti

• From their origins in the trash room of a non-profit in Manhattan to their emergence as the instigators of an international art movement, Graffiti Research Lab: The Complete First Season documents the adventures of an architect and an engineer who quit their day jobs to develop high-tech tools for the art underground. The film follows the GRL and their network of graffiti artist collaborators (and commercial imitators) across four continents as they write on skyscrapers with lasers, mock advertisers with homemade tools, get in trouble with The Department of Homeland Security and make activism fun again. Primarily using video footage from point-and-shoot digital cameras (“The Pocket School”) and found-content on the web, the movie’s visual style draws as much from the art of the power point presentation and viral media as conventional documentary cinema. Narrated by GRL co-founders, Roth and Powderly, The Complete First Season makes a humorous and insightful argument for free speech in public, open source in pop culture, the hacker spirit in graffiti and not asking for permission in general. The film was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008. Available 24/7 on The Pirate Bay.

• Graffiti Research Lab

• Via BoingBoing!

Google owns sexpornotits.com and thousands more

Seeing as Google owns pretty much everything else, why would it suprise us that they own thousands of domains?

Pingdom has done what they do best (ping of course!) and compiled a giant list of all the domains owned (or merely pointed) by Google.

Some of my favorites….

• gmailblows.com
• googleporn.com
• googlepoo.com
• googlemotherfucker.com
• mariolovespasta.com
• frooglesucks.com
• googleclusters.com
• bayareaburritos.com
• hostedbygoogle.com

Pingdom via Techcrunch

AV best of buffalo party

stopped down to the ArtVoice Best of Buffalo awards. I didn’t win anything, and neither did WNYMEdia, but its the one place to bump into those people you can only stand once or twice a year.

However congrats should go to my buddy DJ Lil Joe for winning Best Dj for 4 years in a row, and Jimmy “Mamma” Hill for winning Best Male Bartender again.

Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile

The only good thing about April Fool’s on the web is…

We all know it’s April 1st. everyone is on alert, youtube links are most likely rickrolled, and digg becomes amazingly more worthless and irrelevant than normal. However, not all is lost on the web. Each April fools, ThinkGeek publishes a fake front page, featuring amazing and incredible new geek toys that, well, really are incredible.

Last year, the most prominent item was the 8-bit tie, which after a well planned flood of demands to the TG email boxes, was realized and put on sale later in the year. This year, it goes to the defendius, an innovative chain lock designed by art.lebedev, and intended to help keep your precious and rare date inside your lair of love. [disclaimer from TG: ThinkGeek does not condone forced captivity - no matter how desperate you are.]

Product features:

• Chain style Doorlock forces you to solve a maze to exit
• 100% Titanium Alloy Construction
• 8″ chain
• 10 mounting screws included (2 extra)
• Tested to 700lbs of force.

• This innovative lock is designed by Art Lebedev Studio… responsible for the amazing Optimus Maximus keyboard with a tiny screen on each key. Constructed of 100% titanium alloy, nothing less than a level forty-two spell of ultimate cutting will break the Defendius lock open. Really, just look at it: no one is getting out easily. You’ll have to guide the lock nib through the labyrinth before you can open to door. There is only one solution, so no cheating will help. Maybe when confronted with the Defendius Labyrinth Security Lock, your date will reconsider your offer of playing the game of love in co-op mode. And don’t worry, these locks were tested by robots and confirmed to be the strongest lock commercially available. So, install a Defendius Labyrinth Security Lock today, and make sure your next date gets to the bonus level.

Here’s the thing: defendius was actually designed by art.lebedev, prank or not. If you want this one for reals… bomb this email address [mailbox -at- artlebedev.com].

Mond.. er Tuesday Tunesday: Butterfingers

I was a little preoccupied getting back to work Monday and missed getting this video posted, but better late than never.

This is Butterfingers by 80’s Electropop group Bomb the Bass. They recently came out of the woodwork with Butterfingers being the first single off of the upcoming album “Future Chaos.” The video features a puppetized minimoog, produced by the Parish Factory. Check it out here. [via NotCot]

• Bomb The Bass