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Airport shoe scanners holding up the show
Although it shouldn't take you by surprise to get held up a bit while going through airport security these days, a good few travelers are a bit perturbed by the Clear's problems with metal-infused footwear. Passenger's that spend more time cruising the friendly skies than motoring around in their own vehicle have the option to submit to a federal background check and cough up $100 in order to pass through newly-installed biometric scanners at certain airports such as Orlando International and New York's Kennedy Airport. However, even the snazzy scanners can't distinguish between benign and harmful metals, so customers who thought they'd save themselves the inconvenience of kicking off their kicks are still being forced to remove their shoes if even the slightest hint of metal is detected. Although the shoe scanners still won't be "broadly used" until they receive further TSA approval, Verified Identity Pass senior vice president Shawn Dagg simply suggested that "he hopes customers will learn to wear shoes without metal." We're sure that's exactly the answer these disgruntled customers were looking for, Mr. Dagg.
Cable VoIP calls clearer than landlines?
Thinking about ditching that landline? Are those VoIP options -- especially the free ones -- looking more and more attractive? Keynote Systems, a globally respected internet and communication testing company, has completed a ridiculously thorough investigation on the true audio quality that can be had using VoIP (within American borders), and the results are quite intriguing. To test call quality and remove human error / bias, they had automated machines in apartments nearly 3,000 miles apart call one another 125,000 times throughout the month of August, play a 30 second clip, and let an audio analyzer handle the rest. VoIP hard / soft phones, digital cable VoIP phones, and traditional landline phones were all tested and compared, only to discover that cable company-provided VoIP phones that utilized PacketCable -- an IP multimedia transmission system optimized for coax -- scored a whopping 4.24 MOS (mean opinion score), trouncing the 4.0 found in traditional phone networks. Granted, when viewing all VoIP venues, outliers were found around 2.6, which is fairly unacceptable when a 3.2 MOS is considered the "minimum" for a frustration-free conversation. All in all, landlines ranked second only to the mighty cable offerings, while hard VoIP phones (like the ATS E6501) slid in third, and "soft" services (Skype, for instance) were declared last. While we've personally had great success with the likes of Gizmo and other free internet calling alternatives, our ears certainly aren't sine wave decoders, so if you're thinking of tossing that ole rotary dialer for something with a touch more clarity, you might as well give that cable company a ring.[Via Ars Technica]
Case mods for the technically savvy
We've posted case-mods for the DS and DS Lite before, but most of said mods usually involve a skin or cover of some sort, leaving the original color (probably a bland white, right?) still seething underneath, like an angry hornet. If you've got the guts to mess around with some hardware, however, then listen up. Project SHOCK! is a full hard-case mod of the DS Lite, soon to be available in several different colors. The material is made of composite polycarbonate and plastic, so the standard "cheap feel" you get with standard mods won't apply here. They're offering several colors for preorder, including yellow, white, black, red, blue, and our favorite, clear. They check in at a pricey $35.00 each, and require some additional tools as well. They've posted a tutorial for those interested in how to perform the mod, so check it out to see if you think you can handle the job.[Thanks, Creamsugar!]
Motorola patents technology to clear up conference calls
For those of you trapped in a dreadful cubicle all day, you're probably more than familiar with the ever-popular conference calls that involve everyone and their mother-in-law trying to communicate at the same time. While the effectiveness of these chaotic gatherings are essentially nil, Motorola is hoping to clarify things, literally. The company has recently filed a patent to augment callers' voices so each individual sounds "distinctly different." The idea here is to use technology often found in recording studios, which adjusts the pitch of a singer's voice in order to disguise their inability sing on key, so to speak. Each caller would chat aimlessly for a few moments before getting down to the nitty gritty, so the Motorola magic could "determine a pitch contour for each individual voice signal," and if two or more folks sounded eerily similar, it would "shift [the voice] to one of approximately five semitones" in order to solve the confusion. Once the caller had the shift put on them, they'd blabber a moment more so the software could ensure the change was indeed effective -- and after all the voices have been given a tone of their own, you can supposedly identify your colleagues with ease. While this plan sounds admirable, and may solve a few embarrassing mixups while on the speakerphone, we just have to wonder which unlucky chaps would end up Alvin the Chipmunk and Bobby Baritone. [Via Textually]
iSkin releases Claro case for 5G iPods with belt clip/kick stand
Now here is one of the more interesting and functional 5G iPod cases I've seen in a while: a clear plastic case with a belt clip that doubles as a kick stand. This iSkin Claro easily shows up my clear agent18 case, but the $39 sticker price is a tad steep. If a plain clear case doesn't get your credit card numbers flowing, iSkin also provides Claro slims, 3-packs of colored skins for $20 USD that can spice up any oh-so-yesterday black or white 5G iPod. Oh, and don't forget to spend an extra $20 to succumb to your accessorizing obsession with iSkin CERULEAN XLR Bass Enhancing Stereo Earphones, with eight color choices to make sure you get as far away from Apple's trademark white as possible.The iSkin Claro is available at present only for 30 GB 5G iPods and can be had at iSkin's site.[via Playlist]
Pod Jams iDiddy fashion covers with iLanyard for iPod nano
The Pod Jams iDiddy fashion covers for the iPod nano come in two styles: Clear and Bling. Clear, as you might imagine, allows the true beauty of the nano to shine through while still protecting it in plastic. Bling (pictured) steps up the flashy style by encasing your nano in a diamond-like sparkling plastic case. Both of these iDiddy's come with an iLanyard, similar to Apple's lanyard, boasting superior earbuds that "pound out the base and highs." Fortunately these cases can be used with or without the lanyard.At a competitive $29.95, it's nice to see more lanyard style cases cropping up. They're expected to ship the first week of January '06.[via Playlist]