I was perusing the transcript of a Verizon webcast the other day (yes, I am that lame), and ran across two interesting and related points. First, Ron Lataille, Verizon SVP of IR, acknowledged that many young people don’t get wireline phone service when they move, but rather stick with just a cell phone. Not surprising in itself, but Mr. Lataille also suggested that starting a family seems to be a trigger point for converting from a cell-phone-only residence to one with a landline.I seem to be just past the cell-phone-only demographic, or at least among people living outside of NYC. However, I have to admit that if I had only had a cell phone a few years ago, that would have changed when I had my daughter. It’s not so much that I worry about the wireless infrastructure. Any phone system can go down with enough traffic overload. No, I worry about leaving my phone uncharged and then discovering that my power adapter doesn’t work. (It’s happened. Several times.) I also still worry about the issue of dialing 911. Until my cell phone is GPS-enabled, I want a landline the police can track my location on. (VoIP discussion, anyone?)

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I must preface this post by saying Netgear gifted me with their new $199 Dual Mode Skype Phone, part of my CES Blogger In Residence prize package (AKA ‘Dave got paid’). So, it’s entirely possible I’m not objective and therefore I won’t do a formal review. Having said that, quite a few products sit (unopened) on my floor for months waiting to be reviewed… whereas I immediately put this phone into production when I returned from CES.

Unlike Netgear’s previous WiFi Skype phone, this model has a base station which you wire to your home router. The base station will also accept a telephone connection from your “land line” — hence the “dual-mode” moniker: Skype + Land Line. Which brings me to the first point (of two) that I wanted to share…

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Whether or not Microsoft has the right solution, the company has hit upon a problem in need of solving: how to store your digital stuff. Microsoft launched its Home Server at CES with the goal to create a storage hub for your media files. Some folks wonder whether consumers will buy into the idea of a home server, but with the explosion of storage-worthy digital media, there’s no question. In fact, I’m a little surprised there hasn’t been more mainstream coverage of the Home Server announcement (you know, beyond Engadget and Ars Technica) given its importance in signaling a new trend.

Let me give you my own house as an example. We have two active laptops (1 Apple, 1 PC), one active desktop (Apple), two digital cameras and three iPods. All of these devices generate and store media files that we want to preserve, preferably in our own home rather than on a remote server. My husband has managed this in a couple of ways, first by rigging an old Apple G4 tower to act as a server, and then by buying a Western Digital USB hard drive. Both solutions have worked (the USB hard drive is excellent), but the general public probably wouldn’t consider either, simply because the general public probably doesn’t think about digital storage at all.

Microsoft has the power to change that.

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Part 3 begins with the coveted eStarling photo frame. (Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.)

eStarling Wireless Digital Photo Frame
Paying for the Hype

The $250 eStarling frame has gotten so much good hype, I suppose it’s only karmic-ly justified that everything went to hell when the product finally shipped again this year.

First the bad news — While eStarling shipped its back-ordered frames in time for Christmas, they managed to ship them with the wrong power adapters. (They’re shipping new ones…) Hence the reason we had to set up the frame I bought for my parents within a foot or two of the wireless router. Also, as Gizmodo points out, the resolution ain’t what it should be.

Now the good stuff. When it’s working, the eStarling frame kicks ass. Even with less-than-optimal resolution. I haven’t played with the much-touted, Flickr-feed feature yet, but I’ve had great fun emailing photos to the frame. (You can set up the account to authorize only specific email senders.) Hint: It’s a great gift for grandparents.

Here’s the top of the frame with buttons for the slide-show feature, static display, etc.

And here’s the side of the frame with power and USB ports, and memory card slots.

More photos and detailed coverage here. Someone (maybe eStarling) will certainly come out with something better in the future, but for now, it’s better to have a flawed, wireless photo frame than no wireless photo frame at all.

DigiMemo
Doesn’t Tell You Everything

The DigiMemo purports to allow you to write on a special notepad and then sync your handwritten notes to a PC. (Great gift idea from my dad to my mom…) I’d love to tell you I had a chance to try it out, but unfortunately the product doesn’t come packaged with OCR software. Great. So I get to import my notes, but they’re in the form of an image. Not very helpful.

We also discovered that the DigiMemo does not appear to work on an Apple running Parallels. Yes, my family is that geeky.

And that’s it for the Gadget-Giving Post-Mortem. Happy New Year, Everyone! Here’s to great gadgets in 2007.

I realize that even among the people that celebrate Christmas, few celebrate it the way my family does. We have a particular gene in our DNA that leads to obscene levels of spending on Christmas presents. Yes, you could view it as rampant commercialism, but we prefer to think of it as extreme generosity.

Below is Part 1 of a list of gadgets that made it under our tree and the current status of each one:

Wheee… The Wii!

Verdict - Thumbs Up

A family friend kindly stood in line till 3 AM so my parents could provide my brother with a Nintendo Wii for Christmas. It didn’t get set up till the 26th, but it has since provided non-stop entertainment. (Too bad we don’t have a Roomba…) I’ll limit my comments to saying how much I like the feature that lets you create an avatar in your own image for Wii Sports. Here’s a thankfully-not-true-to-life rendering of my brother’s girlfriend:

Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick

Survived the Set-Up

I’ll admit, the set-up for the Pro Stick took a very long time. This was a Woot daily special and I think they were giving away old ones because the device needed several software updates. Nonetheless, the Pro Stick is awesome. I don’t have an HDTV, but I can now get free, over-the-air HD on my laptop. Plus DVR functionality. Way cool. Look for a full product review in a future post.

iRecord

Still in the Box

The iRecord was a present for my husband. Think we’re into video this year? The idea here is that the iRecord will transfer video from your set-top to a portable device, like a Neuros. According to iRecord’s site, the gadget is the “world’s first H.264/AVC recorder for iPod & PSP.” I’ll let you know how it works when we get it back home.

Stay tuned for Part 2… highlighting the Dash, Squeezebox, eStarling digital photo frame, and DigiMemo.

While we (the writers and readers of blogs like ZNF) tend to think the universe of consumer electronics revolves around us, the truth is big brands are after a much larger and more lucrative market: the soccer mom and her family. Hence the new trend toward lifestyle marketing. Apple stores sell a “digital experience;” Comcast has created an “electronics spa” in a retail experiment with Circuit City; Sony Style stores have popped up all over the US.

This is a real shift in approach: the idea of architecting a digital home instead of selling gadgets. And at a Sony Style store over the weekend, I was somewhat amazed at how many dads, moms and tots were being drawn in by the lifestyle lure.

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I admit to feeling some trepidation when my Slim Devices Squeezebox review unit arrived. Since buying a house a year and a half ago, my stereo from early high school has sat unused in our basement. (Note the cheesy, Space-Invaders-like display on the screen and the layers of dust.)

I popped open one of the tape decks and look what I found:

Looking at the Squeezebox, I wondered not only if I could make it work with my stereo, but if it would even be worthwhile given my decidedly low-key approach to music.

Here’s the answer: Yes, yes, unequivocally yes. Can I have it for Christmas, please? Pretty please with a cherry on top?

Every new thing I tried with the Squeezebox just made it better — Starting with streaming my own music, then accessing the SqueezeNetwork and finally going full out with Pandora. If you want to skip set-up and some of the more gory details, scroll to the end for a list of pros and (very few) cons.

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