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Bill Sodeman writes about management, mobile computing and information systems

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Solar-powered Bluetooth headset

ism tech

Posted Friday, 7 March 2008

From ChipChick and Engadget comes information on a solar-powered Bluetooth headset. Bluetooth headsets need a battery to power the radio, but it’s usually a low-wattage affair. The Iqua Sun 603 uses a small solar panel that on the exterior side of the headset to trickle charge the battery. It looks like an ideal headset for the sunny tropics, but it’s not available yet in the USA. Price is £40 in the UK.

My current headset is the Jawbone. It’s not solar-powered – the charger uses a proprietary cable that has a USB jack on one end and the headset plug on the other. The Jawbone’s best feature is sound quality. It does a very nice job of eliminating background noise in the user’s vicinity. It looks good, too. I’ve seen some really ugly headsets in the last couple of years.

Tags: battery, Bluetooth, dc, electricity, hardware, Hawaii, mobile, power, solar, UK, USA, USB

The late lamented floppy disk drive

ism tech

Posted Friday, 7 March 2008

I rarely see a floppy disk these days. But if you need a 3.5 inch FDD in your desktop computer, consider adding an internal drive with flash memory slots, as seen on Gizmodo last week. It’s available in the UK – see RedFerret for a link.

Tags: hardware, legacy, storage