Gadgets

For the love of iPod

Is the love of the iPod so intoxicating that it can sway PC users to ditch their desktops for Macs? If you believe a new survey by Morgan Stanley, it is.

Thanks to the phenomenal success of its digital-music player, Apple could soon control 5 percent of the desktop computer market, says Morgan Stanley, which polled 400 iPod users and found that 19 percent expect to convert from PC to Macintosh.

The implication appears to be that iPod owners' positive brand association with Apple will spill over to the desktop realm. Which got us wondering: How many iPod-carrying PC-using CNET … Read more

Call off the lawyers

OK, so maybe the folks at LuxPro aren't the most copyright-oblivious bunch of potential defendants to ever hit the consumer electronics business.

Turns out the company's Super Shuffle MP3 player, which raised eyebrows and predictions of legal ignominy last week, may not have been all that serious after all with its imitation of Apple's iPod Shuffle.

Doohickey blog Engadget reports that one of the fellows at DVForge, a maker of accessories for iPods, tried to get resale information from Taiwan-based LuxPro.

Turns out the company is a contract manufacturer, and the Shuffle clone exhibited at the CeBit … Read more

Dial E for extortion

And here, courtesy of Engadget: another item from that "Why it might not be the best idea to carry around superpersonal photos on your camera phone" file:

After discovering that her cell phone went missing, according to KEPR-TV, a woman in Washington state dialed her own number, hoping a Good Samaritan had picked up the device and would offer its speedy return.

Instead, 33-year-old Jason Dawson answered and threatened to publish explicit pics from the phone on the Net if the woman didn't fork over $50.

She agreed to meet him, then called the police, who arrested … Read more

A cell phone gravestone

The deceased, we assume, liked to gab on his cell phone. Or was it her cell phone? All we know is that he or she, of blessed memory, has been laid to rest beneath a gravestone shaped like a cell phone.

A photo of said mobile-phone stone, published on the site Engadget, inspired a series of creative captions. Among our favorites:

The "reception" after the funeral was great...

Ironically, the shot was taken with a camera phone, rendering the tombstone illegible.

I hope he is not paying roaming charges.

I wonder if they can … Read more