Digital Life: Pepper Pad

The Pepper Pad from Pepper Computer is a remarkable portable device designed for the broadband activities you want to do most: browse the web, e-mail, instant messaging, listen to music, watch videos, play games, view slideshows of your photos, and control your TV. It runs on Linux 2.6 and includes a browser that uses the Gecko rendering engine which Firefox is based on. The Pepper Pad has a 20GB hard drive and built-in Wi-Fi support for 802.11b, WEP, and WPA-Personal. It also has Bluetooth device support and Dual IR emitters and IR receiver. The screen is an 8.4″ 800×600 SVGA TFT LCD that is ideal for viewing most webpages, along with 16MB of video RAM and 256MB of SDRAM memory.

User input is done through a resistive touch screen with stylus, a full split QWERTY keypad, a direction-pad, and a scroll wheel. These features combine with a powerful system and an intuitive interface to create a very rewarding experience. The remote control features allow you to pick a room and then choose the device you want to operate. The Pepper Pad can quickly be turned into a digital picture frame and touching the screen brings it back to the regular mode. There is even integration with the Flickr photo sharing service to upload your photos easily to Flickr from the Pepper Photo Library.

This rugged, splash resistant device weighs in at only 2.3 lbs and has a 3.6mAh Lithium ION rechargeable battery. Pepper Computer has created a device that is not just the combination of a PDA and a Tablet PC. It is a carefully designed work of art. They thought of everything when they designed the Pepper Pad; its ease of use and comprehensive feature-list make it an attractive buy for all levels of computer users.

Buy the Pepper Pad Internet Media Player on Amazon.com

Digital Life: Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo

The Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo Edition comes in two flavors: a 600GB version and a 1TB version. Both feature RAID 0 right out of the box, with the option of setting up RAID 1. It’s designed for professionals and it has a sleek, industrial design. It supports FireWire 400, FireWire 800, USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 for fast data transfers. The drives are preformatted for Mac and can be easily formatted for Windows. You can even boot Mac OSX directly from the drive.

While the drive may look nice and it has a large capacity, the price-point seems a bit steep. At $899 for the 1TB version it should also do my taxes. But then again, I’m not the professional they are targeting. At least the drives are stackable.

Digital Life: Xbox 360 Wired Controller

The Xbox 360 controller is a well-designed and produced item. It’s very similar to the original Xbox controller, but it has a smaller and easier-to-handle design similar to the S-controller for the original Xbox. While visiting Digital Life I found out that the wired Xbox 360 controller has a standard USB connection that can connect to a PC. The photo here is of me holding the Xbox 360 controller before playing the King Kong movie game on a PC. I lost the game, but the experience of both the game and the controller was a win.

The Microsoft rep at Digital Life did not know if there will be a way to connect the wireless controller to a PC. If not then this leads me to wonder why people would want a wireless controller, when the wired controller can connect to a PC. It’s a trade-off between compatibility and freedom of movement. I might want the Xbox 360 controller even if I don’t get an Xbox 360.

Digital Life Tomorrow

Tomorrow I will be attending Digital Life, and hopefully I can get some good photos and news to report. I missed out on the first day, but tomorrow should prove to be much of the same. It would have been nice to be at the Xbox 360 keynote, but Nathan should have some reports soon. The Xbox 360 looks like it is shaping up to be a really big deal, as long as they can ship enough on the launch date. No other console developer has attempted to launch globally on the same day.

Digital Life Tomorrow

Tomorrow I will be attending Digital Life, and hopefully I can get some good photos and news to report. I missed out on the first day, but tomorrow should prove to be much of the same. It would have been nice to be at the Xbox 360 keynote, but Nathan should have some reports soon. The Xbox 360 looks like it is shaping up to be a really big deal, as long as they can ship enough on the launch date. No other console developer has attempted to launch globally on the same day.