Gadgets

It looks like bad news for any Spanish fans of customer service — Telefónica is set to be the sole network for the Palm Pre in Spain, where it will appear alongside the abused iPhone on the company’s Movistar mobile network "before summer". The Spanish telco will also have rights in Latin America (again under the Movistar brand) and even in the UK, although this time using its British subsidiary O2.

If true (and several sources concur) then the Pre will be going straight up against the iPhone. If you love Telefónica, this is great. But everybody actually hates the company, so expect to get screwed on contracts and data plans just like you did with the iPhone.

The UK outlook is, for once, brighter. O2 has one of the most liberal plans for the iPhone anywhere in the world, with decent data plans even on pay-as-you-go tariffs.

One night in Las Vegas, utilitarian hardware maker HP and boutique gaming manufacturer Voodoo totally got hammered, partied like maniacs, and blacked out. When they woke up the next morning, they were married and pregnant. The offspring from that evening now takes the form of wunderboxes like the Firebird 803. The progeny of two very talented parents, this PC is one of the smartest rigs we’ve tested. Here’s what reviewer Chris Null had to say:

HP and its boutique/luxe division Voodoo deserve serious praise for what they’ve accomplished with the Firebird 803.

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Someday someone somewhere somehow will invent a pair of noise canceling headphones that do three things: 1. Deliver top quality audio. 2.) Cut out ambient noise perfectly. 3.) Cost under a hundred bucks. Senior editor Dylan Tweney just reviewed a set of cans that fall far short of this trifecta. From his review:

To their credit these bulbous cans do a good job of silencing the traffic hum from the street below the WIRED offices, and they nicely muffle the gnashing of teeth in the newsroom around me.

But sonically, they’re about as satisfying as a week-old rice cake.
The sound feels clipped and flat: High-end frequencies that hum crystal-clear in better headphones are missing or muffled in the Plane
Quiets.

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The Boston Globe’s Big Picture is probably one of last year’s best new blogs, featuring in-depth galleries of news events. The twist is that the photos are huge (you’ll be hitting the maximize button on your browser window) and that the picture editors choose some exquisite images.

Normally the Gadget Lab has had no reason to mention the Big Picture. Until now, that is. The site has a fascinating gallery of robots, from all around the world (although mostly from Japan).

Kiosks at malls selling iPod and phone covers, decals and accessories may be going out of business but there’s a new high-tech Silicon Valley competitor to take their place.

Coveroo, a San Francisco-based company, is offering custom laser engraving and replacement cellphone covers for select models of phones and iPods. The idea is play on the trend of personalization and customization for gadget heads who must have that Garfield, Dexter or Resident Evil 5 cover on their iPod nano, says the company.

D_skin is a protective cover for DVDs, a scratch guard for optical media. Unlike the hard to apply, sticky film protectors you are familiar with, the d_skin clips on and can therefore be replaced when you scratch it.

There is, however, a problem. The d_skin cost more than the DVDs it protects. At $12 for a five-pack, they come in at around ten times the price of DVD-R blanks. Of course, if you buy pre-recorded DVDs, in the form of movies and video games, the price ratio of this replaceable prophylactic improves. But the product site pushes this as a cover for your regular, home made media, even touting the fact that you can burn a disc with the skin in place.

Regular readers will know that we are big fans of e-books here at Gadget Lab, and I am especially fond of anything that will let me read books on my iPod Touch. So when I found out abou the launch of Shortcovers today, I got excited.

There are a lot of ways to get books onto an iPhone or other mobile device, but so far there has been no way to browse. In fact, that’s true of online book buying in general — nothing beats going in to a book shop and wandering the stacks then reading over a few chapters with a mochachocachino, or other child’s “coffee” drink.

The aim of Shortcovers is to bridge this gap. With it you can browse single chapters of many books and then buy them, either in electronic format or as traditional wads of paper. And Short Covers has overcome the biggest hurdle of this kind of endeavor — it has managed to sign up real publishing houses, so you’ll find new books and popular authors (Steven King) as well as unicorn-stroking fan fiction.

Worst iPhone app ever.

Of all the strange, quirky stuff we’ve seen in the iPhone’s App Store, this one takes the cake: An application that enables you to virtually spank your friends, family or coworkers.

The design of the app is shockingly stupid: You snap a photo of a person, then it displays a bubble above him or her that says "Spank." Then when you shake the iPhone you hear the sound of a spank, followed by a man yelping.

The app costs $1. (Please don’t buy it.) There’s a similar one in the App Store called Spank the Monkey, which does the same thing, only it costs $5 and you’re spanking cartoon monkeys rather than humans.

A hat tip to iPhone app review site Krapps for stumbling upon this.

My question of the day: How the hell did this get approved in the App Store?

An analytics company recently conducted a study that found most free iPhone apps are rarely used after the first day they’re downloaded.

In fact, only 20 percent of users use free apps again after the first day they’re downloaded, according to Pinch Media, who based its analysis on trends seen in 30 million downloads. And within a month, most users stop using the app altogether.

The problem for developers? Advertising revenue. Advertisers shell out cash not just based on the number of downloads, but also how often each app is used. In other words, if you’re hoping to make it big like iShoot developer Ethan Nicholas, just know it’s extremely difficult to rake in money with a free iPhone app given the quick drop-off.

I can certainly vouch for the analysis. I’m especially picky about what stays on my iPhone springboard, and I’d say I delete about 90 percent of free apps a day after I download them. What are your thoughts?

Image: Apple

An Indian company has created a rechargeable rechargeable solar lamp that could provide a valuable solution to low-income students in developing countries. Apparently, the loss of valuable study time due to India’s power shortage problems and lack of proper, cheap lighting has been a source of consternation for educators for years.

The Studylite lamp comes with an attached solar panel that charges an NiMH battery lasting up to six hours.