One of the complaints with the iPhone, other than the fact that AT&T is the carrier, is the fact that it isn’t able to multitask.  I can personally live with the one-at-a-time style of the iPhone… but maybe I don’t know what I am missing. 

The rumor of the day states that a new iPhone is coming this summer and will be more powerful and have the ability to handle multitasking.  Will have to wait and see.

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Ever wanted to watch CNBC while riding sitting on the bus or just killing time?  The FLO TV Personal Television allows you to watch TV almost anywhere.  This isn’t designed to replace your home TV experience… but supplement it.  The 3.5-inch, 320-by-240-pixel touchscreen is surprisingly clear and will let you watch a full 5 hours of TV before the battery runs out.  The unit has built-in stereo speakers and they put out fairly good sound, if you want privacy use the headphone jack and included earbuds.

The Flo TV works uses a slightly different band from the cellular network digitally over UHF channel 55.  The Personal Television currently has 13 channels (channel lineup here).  The Flo TV ends up costing about $200 which isn’t bad… the part I don’t like is the monthly or annual fee to get the content.  The plans are as follows $14.99 per month after the included six month trial period ends, or $149.99 for 1 year, or $199.99 for 2 years.  Video of the Flo TV in action after the break.

Gene and Steve’s favorite item… the Apple iPad will start taking pre-orders on March 12 and will start shipping on April 3.  I wonder if people will line up for this like Steve hopes… or if it will be just ho-hum.

“Beginning a week from today, on March 12, US customers can pre-order both Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models from Apple’s online store (www.apple.com) or reserve a Wi-Fi model to pick up on Saturday, April 3, at an Apple retail store.”

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This sunglass-style eyewear, with a virtual 67-inch screen as seen from 10 feet, displays crystal clear 2D and 3D video while sitting by the pool or in an airplane at 35,000 feet. With support for standard 2D movies as well as virtually all common 3D video formats, you’ll be able to watch all the latest movie releases, as they were meant to be seen.

Vuzix Wrap 920 eyewear connects to all NTSC or PAL audio/video devices with video-out capabilities and composite video connections. An included* Composite A/V Adapter for iPod®/iPhone® ensures simple plug ‘n play connection to today’s most popular portable media player. Optional Wrap Adapters provide connections to HDMI equipped devices and even desktop PC and laptops for watching movies. A single pair of video eyewear for all occasions.

World’s most advanced sunglass-style video eyewear with 2D & 3D big-screen capabilities

• Compatible with iPod®, iPhone®, portable DVD players and virtually any portable video source
• Projects video from any source to a virtual 67-inch screen viewed from 9-feet
• Powered by two AA batteries that provide up to six hours of continuous use
• Weighs under 3 ounces, features removable noise-isolating earbuds and an adjustable nose bridge

Back in May of 2009 SlingPlayer made it to the iPhone but needed a Wi-Fi network connection… bogus!  Well it looks like the folks at AT&T approved the SlingPlayer app to stream video over the 3G network.

The 3G-friendly version of SlingPlayer for the iPhone will be a free upgrade to the $30 application, and should be available as soon the app store approves the new software.

The solBAT II is a backup battery that charges through its solar panel and stores the power for future charging of any USB device.

Position the solBAT II in the sun by mounting via suction cups or clip and the 1500mA solBAT II slowly charges.  When full the solBAT II puts out 5V through USB, which is enough power to charge your iPhone as quickly as you can from the wall.

The best part is the fair price of $30 (available soon).  We will do a few review when we get our hands on this bad boy.

[Scosche]

OK here is my iPad rant whine.  When it comes to Apple and All Things Mac, I am a little like Agent Fox Mulder from the X-Files – I want to believe!  But the Apple iPad product announcement left me seriously underwhelmed. I was watching Steve present his Magnum Opus and hearing the vacuous sucking sound – we waited so long and this is it?!  The positive stuff was there too – its slick and cool looking -yay.  It reminds me of other things I love like my iPhone 3GS – yay!  It has serious potential – yay!  That said I just felt like a kid who was looking forward to Christmas all year long only to get a really bitchin pair of socks…  So without delay read on for my WTF moments from the iPad presentation.

• No Camera!!!  Really Steve? REALLY?!?!
• No Multitasking – *checks the calendar* WTF?
• No Flash Support – I understand Apple’s hard on for Adobe, but the iPad was supposed to offer almost sexual level of gratification for browsing the Web. Not!
• No 720p Resolution – *taps foot* seriously, what’s with the 1024×768 rez?

I mean this wasn’t exactly a total “mene, mene, tekel upharsin” moment but I found the whole thing lacking.  Here’s hoping for the version 2.0.

Viewsonic is getting serious about the portable media player business with it’s latest gadget the MovieBook VPD550T.  The VPD550T comes with a 5-inch LCD touch screen (800×480-pixel resolution), 8GB of memory, microSD expansion slot, and an HDMI output capable of full 1080p.  Read on for more details.

Because of the hefty price tags attached to most portable media players (Archos, Cowon, etc…)… sales have been slow.  Honestly, how many people do you know that have a portable media player?  Looks like Viewsonic may have figured this out with their $199 price point.  The MovieBook VPD550T will support  DAT, MPG, MPEG, VOB, MP4, MOV, AVI, DVD Video, ASF, WMV, MKV, TS, RM/RMVB, MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC ,OGG, FLAC, APE, AC3, and DTS formats.  Image and ebook content will also be able to be viewed on this gadget.  Expect battery life to be about 20 hours of audio and 4 hours of video.

Until my iPhone or iPod gets 1080p this isn’t a bad addition to the gadget pile.  The VPD550T is expected to hit in late March or early April.

“Because of their compact size and light-weight designs, video-capable smartphones and pocket-friendly camcorders can be rather difficult to keep steady when filming. But that won’t be an issue any longer since Steadicam-Tiffen, the company that pretty much wrote the book on camera stabilization, has revealed their new Smoothee stabilizing device initially designed for the iPhone 3GS, the Droid and the Flip. Now in order to use one of the devices with the Smoothee you have to place them in a special case, but besides providing a quick-release mount, the cases are actually strategically weighted for each device ensuring the setup is always in proper balance.”

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Looks like Sybas Technology is jumping into the video content boxes with a clean UI and few extra frills.  The Popbox has an ethernet port for getting the goods and a HDMI port for putting it on your TV.  Forget about storage unless you want to add an SD card or USB hard drive.  No need for a Tivo or PC to run Netflix online on your TV now… not bad.