From the category archives:

Technology & Gadget Reviews

Cricket Australia Simultaneously Encouraging and Banning Taking Photos

I’ve always been a cricket fan. Last week I attended a T20 Big Bash league match at the Sydney Cricket Ground and found that the Cricket Australia terms and conditions of spectator entry regarding photography inside the venue were seemingly arbitrarily enforced. When entering private land you consent to rules that land owners impose on [...]

1 comment

Analog to Digital Shift: Implications of Owning Vs Renting Books, Music, Movies etc

What happens to the concept of ownership of books, music, DVD Movie & TV series collections etc in the shift from Analog to Digital? As a journalist and keen observer of how technology affects society I see many upsides to digital content such as ease of use and the ability to carry around massive collections [...]

4 comments

Reviews: SPOT 2 Satellite GPS Messenger and Inmarsat iSatphone Pro

Mobile phone coverage spots in remote areas like Western Australia’s Kimberley region are few and far between for Telstra NextG customers, and mostly non-existent for Optus and Vodafone. So the only way you can regularly make contact with family, friends and work colleagues is to use satellite-based communication systems. As luck would have it the [...]

1 comment

Canon PowerShot SX230HS vs Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ20 Compact Ultrazoom Cameras Compared (Review)

Two compact ultrazooms are competing to be king of the ultra zoom digital cameras. I put Canon and Panasonic’s new geotagging marvels to the test. Compact ultrazoom cameras have progressed a lot in the last five years, It’s fair to recognise the great success of Panasonic’s Lumix TZ cameras in leading the pack but Canon’s [...]

4 comments

Internode Fetch TV (Review) – Subscription Pay TV via Broadband Internet

Until recently Foxtel and Austar have been the only mainstream ‘subscription’ pay TV options available to Australians. Fetch TV seeks to shake up this duopoly by providing subscription pay TV content delivered through broadband internet, connected to a dedicated digital video recorder that comes as part of the deal. It’s an interesting idea that has [...]

1 comment

NBN Australia: Big Picture Historical, Present, Future perspective on National Broadband Network

The National Broadband Network (NBN) was a key policy in the platform that led to Labor winning government after the 2007 and 2010 Australian Federal elections. The project will take almost a decade to build. And yet most reporting on the NBN tends to focus on the news for that day, or week at best. [...]

2 comments

Sigma 120-400mm F4.5-5.6 DG OS HSM Telephoto Long SLR Camera Lens (review)

The Sigma 120-400mm F4.5-5.6 DG OS HSM provides SLR camera owners an excellent value for money option for wildlife, astronomy, bird watching and other photography subjects that are far away and require a telephoto long zoom lens. It doesn’t matter which brand of SLR you own because Sigma offers the lens at the same price [...]

1 comment

Jabra Stone 2 Bluetooth Headset (Review)

Bluetooth earpieces come in many shapes, sizes and colours, most of which leave you looking like a lame call-centre operative who has wandered into the street to carry on a conversation. In this respect the Jabra Stone 2 really stands out. With its unique shape and charging mechanism, it’s the first of its kind that [...]

1 comment

Wisper 805FE Folding Electric Bike (Road Test Review)

During research for a previous in-depth article about electric cars I was disappointed to find the $220,000+ Tesla Roadster marginally outside my disposable income bracket. In comparison the Wisper 805FE Folding Electric Bike loaned to me for review by electric and folding bike retailer Commute sells for $2150, 1% of a Tesla’s cost. Omar Khalifa, [...]

6 comments

Sandisk Extreme Pro SDHC UHS-I Camera Card (Review) Wildlife Photography

When you’re taking photos of wildlife like birds in flight at a lagoon or giant red and blue dragonflies you need perseverance, luck, skill as well as a digital camera, lense and camera card that are fast enough to capture a tiny fraction of a moment in time before the creature in question flies away. [...]

3 comments

Augmented Humanity – Cyborg implants, magnetic fingers, exoskeletons… (GEARE #65)

Forget augmented reality – why change the world around you when you can change yourself? Read on as I explore the new age of Augmented Humanity: Cyborg implants, magnetic fingers, exoskeletons and more. Cyborg definitions – 1: A cybernetic organism; 2: A reconstructed person capable of exceptional physical feats via replaced or augmented human parts. [...]

17 comments

Mobile Communication Off The Beaten Track for Rural Australians and Travellers

The falling cost of satellite phones and GPS tracker devices is making it easier for travellers to places off the beaten track to call, SMS, tweet and facebook their friends and family about their trip as well as contacting emergency services if they get into trouble. However this raises a troubling question. If the purpose [...]

4 comments

Aktimate Mini Active Stereo HiFi iPod/MP3 Player Speakers (Review)

Earlier this year I decided I was sick of the low quality of my cheap PC speakers when listening to podcasts and digital radio broadcasts as well as the weak sound from my TV speakers when watching digital TV, DVDs and Blurays. HiFi Speakers are an area where my technology journalist knowledge is weak so [...]

4 comments

Australian Digital Radio DAB+ : State of Play and New Features

DAB+ Digital Radio broadcast over the airwaves has come a long way since the official launch in mid 2009. DAB+ digital radio has totally changed my listening habits, my top 3 most listened to radio stations (SBS Chill, SBS 6 BBC World Service Relay and KOFFEE) are all digital-only radio stations. SBS Chill and KOFFEE [...]

4 comments

My First Computer Games: Nibbles Gorilla Stunts Dune II on MS-DOS 5.0

My first ever computer was a laptop powered by an AMD SX-25 CPU running the MS-DOS 5.0 operating system. More importantly DOS 5 included 2 games programmed in BASIC: Nibbles and Gorilla, which were the first computer games I ever played. I hadn’t thought about this at all for many years until I was chatting [...]

17 comments

← Previous Entries