Google Talk launched

Apparently a day earlier than everybody expected (Tuesday instead of Wednesday) Google Talk was released. It is a beta IM/Voicechat client, but it has some interesting potential as witnessed by question 15 on the FAQ:

15. What new features are you working on?

We could tell you, but then you’d have to promise to not talk about it… Joking aside, Google Talk is still in beta, and we’re working hard to add features and make improvements. We’re just not quite ready yet to reveal the other cool things we’ve got planned. We can say this, though: we believe strongly in user choice and open standards, and we are committed to letting users access Google Talk using the client and platform of their choice, as well as to enabling our users to talk with users from other service providers.

We also want to keep making Google Talk better and we want your ideas and feedback to help make this happen! Talk to us using the Help link in the Google Talk interface. Let us know what you like, what you don’t like, and what you’d really like.

This leads me to believe that Google Talk is more than just the client: it will be an API that anybody can tie into. Also, this may be the end of any rumours that Google is buying Skype: they’ll just make their own Skype…

Exclusive pics of TiVo Download – Engadget – www.engadget.com

Engadget has a few pictures of a new feature on TiVo, the TiVo Download. It resembles the enhanced advertisements we have now, and it resembles the download of a program from another box. I’m anxiously awaiting this update!

iPod in the car

I’ve had my iPod for a month or two now, and I love the fact that I can listen to “radio shows” (also known as podcasts) whenever and whereever I want to. Almost immediately after I got the iPod I went out and bought a cassette adapter from Philips at Wal-mart for about $10. It works great (once I figured out that turning the volume way up on the iPod is much better than turning up the volume on the radio – the radio picks up the noise from the cassette adapter), but last week I was in two vehicles that didn’t have a cassette player. So I was SOL and PO’d…

I started looking at some FM radio tuner – since most cars still have a radio (but for how long…?). Two of them struck me as good products: the Griffin iFM and the DLO TransPod.


The iFM has besides the radio tuner two cool options: remote control and recording. The remote control looks pretty standard (play, pause, forward, volume, etc), but the recording has two options: record through a built-in microphone, or record the radio. Plus the little remote looks damn sleek. It sells for about $50.


The TransPod also has two cool options besides the tuner: it charges the iPod through one of your vehicle’s power adapters, and it has an adjustable mounting arm. It sells for about $100 (although I’ve seen them online for as low as $75 – new).

It’s a hard choice, but I think I’ll be going with the TransPod. I’m spending enough time in the car to make it worthwile, and I’m not going to be podcasting anytime soon – so the recording feature is lost on me.

TivoTool

TivoTool is a TivoToGo program for Mac OS X and Linux users. On the Mac it seems to integrate very nicely with iTunes (I don’t think it will do the same on Linux… :) ). It does require you to ‘hack’ your Tivo by applying a couple of patches and installing vserver on your box… so if you’re not ready for that, wait for the official release of TivoToGo for Mac (which may not be that far away – considering Tivo is trying to hire a Mac programmer).

Skype plugin for Trillian

Skyllian is a Skype plug-in for Trillian. I’m not sure as what the feature set is (can’t seem to find a documentation file out there), but it looks promising. I’ve recently joined the Skype revolution, and I must say the quality is amazing. If anyone is using Skyllian, I’d like to hear what your experiences with it are…