I last cruised about 20 years ago, well before widespread mobile phone and email usage. Though, I was still quite surprised to see many teens talking and texting on their cells all day, every day. And I suspect their parents will also be surprised when the roaming fees hit. And speaking of fees, I found Royal Caribbean’s Internet rates pretty reasonable - maxing out at 55 cents a minute. I prepaid $38 for 90 minutes of usage (~$0.42/min). Which was more than enough time to delete junkmail and keep an eye on Techmeme in the Internet Cafe with ocean view or via WiFi on my iPhone. (The iPhone doesn’t currently allow you to simultaneously disable GPRS/EDGE while enabling WiFi. Though it looks like I could prevent roaming, I played it safe by popping the SIM once we set sail.)

On the pool deck, I saw a woman reading a Kindle… and wondered if she’d also be comfortable bringing it to the beaches of Mexico. (A common topic this week?) However, between dips in the sea, I did notice a sunbather near us listening to a Sirius Stiletto. I wonder if she had satellite reception, or was strictly playing recorded content? Underwater, I encountered two separate snorkelers with digital (?) cameras in clear plastic enclosures. Overall, I was pleased with my choice of paperback book technology (3x) - didn’t matter if they got wet, sandy, or were stolen from my beach chair while submerged.

Post-vacation: At home yesterday, I tried out Animoto for the first time (more on that later) using photos culled from my small digical cam, iPhone, and a disposable waterproof Kodak. Here’s the abreviated 30 second clip. (Unfortunately, about half of the pics I shot with the disposable camera were lost - a good reminder why I left film behind years ago. Though I was pleased that Ritz could “develop” the pics only onto CD and for just $10 in an hour.)

And as of this AM, to increase my efficiency as I ramp back up, I’ve removed about 20% of feed subscriptions from Google Reader - any site providing only abstracts is history. Most of those publications are quite good, but time is valuable and the important news will land elsewhere.

By the time this post is live, I’ll be en route to my ship (above). As with my last vacation (Copenhagen), I’m leaving the laptop behind - travel tech is limited to my iPhone, Shure earbuds, and old Panasonic Lumix digital cam. Onboard WiFi runs $55 for 150 minutes, so I’ll periodically check in online to limit the twitching. Otherwise, I can be found at the pool or beach… with books… made from trees! See ya next week.

After all the pre-announcements, speculation, and leaks, TiVo’s finally official in Australia. The DVB-T (over-the-air) TiVo will be available July 29th for $699 (AUD):

Under a mutually exclusive agreement, Seven has created the digital platform to enable TiVo’s digital video recorder and service, including the award-winning TiVo user interface. All free-to-air television networks’ digital channels in Australia will be available on TiVo® DVRs. TiVo DVRs will be sold through the Harvey Norman owned complexes

I can’t say I know much, or anything, about the Australian economy and their consumer electronics habits but at the equivalent of $664 US dollars, I don’t see Seven and TiVo gaining much traction down under - even by forgoing the monthly service fee. I’d expect steep price cuts before the holidays…

Rafat’s (paidContent) disappointed with the upcoming Olympics web video, labeling NBC “totalitarian” and heavy handed - his major beefs seem to be that televised content will only be available online post TV broadcast and only viewable at NBCOlympics.com. As I commented Sunday, I’m pleased with any/all online viewing options - especially being able to catch the “long tail” sports and qualifying rounds:

Live doesn’t matter to me - I don’t even know what the time difference is and I don’t want to worry about remembering the schedules. However, I’m looking forward to being able to access lower profile sports (that interest me) like judo and freestyle wrestling that get very little or random, hard to find air-time.

In taking the screengrab above, I tried out the (Mac-compatible!) Silverlight player… and had better luck streaming via Safari than with Firefox 3 (which served up blank screens and stuttering video). Yet to be seen is if NBC can handle the traffic and how their site will organize and present video.

Random factoid: One of my first online purchases was an Olympics wrestling t-shirt during the ‘96 Atlanta games.

Google’s quietly introduced a (Windows-only) media server gadget:

Google Media server is about exposing content from your local compute(s) via UPnP protocol for devices on your home network. Google desktop is looking for content on you computer and network (if it is configured to do so). Google Media server uses Google desktop index.

Of course, being Google, they offer the ability to stream the web content under their control (YouTube and PicasaWeb) from PC to UPnP devices - in addition to the non-DRMed photos, videos, and music residing on your computer. As an occasional Connect360 user, this forum note caught my eye:

At time of development the only way to connect the XBox 360 to a UPnP  server, was to have a service that is only found on Microsoft services and for the server itself to be claimed to be made by microsoft. Legal would not allow us to pretend to be microsoft (although there are other servers out there that do).

It’s quite interesting to see Google dabbling in this arena - I wonder where they’re going to take it. In the current state, it’s purely a geek toy… (via Last100)

EngadgetHD’s Ben Drawbaugh recently abandoned TiVo in favor of a CableCARD Vista Media Center and has been evaluating the current crop of extenders. His ultimate advice: If you’re a gamer, stick with the Xbox 360 (despite the cost and noise). Otherwise, the quiet and relatively inexpensive Linksys DMA2100 ($240) is the way to go.

Yes! I received my very first YouTube takedown notice for an unedited presentation of the TiVo Series3 startup animation, originally posted fall of 2006. Of course, the irony here - and something THX may not be aware of - is that TiVo, Inc facilitated and OK-ed this video upload as a supplement to my Engadget review. I forwarded their email back to copyright@youtube.com asking for a THX contact. However, I don’t expect to receive any sort of info without filing a DMCA counter notice. Which I have no intention of doing. THX (and TiVo) will just lose out on the free advertising. Works for me.

I’ve been talking about this for quite awhile, and it’s finally time to get going. The Battle Royale will be a comparison of various set-top boxes (pictured above), with an emphasis on the movie rental experience. Each (weekly?) Battle Royale blog entry will focus on one specific topic (remotes, content selection, etc) and the devices will ranked from best to worst - there’ll be NO ties. Participants include:

• TiVo HD
• Xbox 360
• Vudu
• Apple TV
• Roku Netflix

Let’s get ready to rumble…