Kleenex released a pretty annoying commercial last year, while driving me up a wall had an interesting message attached to it. We touch just about everything. It’s kind of sickening in a way, if you truly think about everything that you touch during the day. But that’s neither here or there. In case you haven’t seen the commercial, here it is (be prepared to hear the word “touch” a lot):

In the past couple of months, I’ve bought two devices that utilize a touch screen interface. I received an iPod Touch for Christmas, and bought a LG VU as an upgrade for a new two year contract. After a month and some change, I love my iPod Touch and can’t imagine using a MP3 player any other way. The LG VU, I’ve only had for a week but so far is a dream to use compared with my old phone. Which I had to always put on speaker just to be able to hear it.

The touch screen technology in both devices is spot on. After using both of these pieces of technology, I’m completely sold on touch screen. I want everything in my life to be touch screen. Ok, that might be going a bit overboard but you get the point. I’m still pondering what drives my fascination with touch screen.

One aspect of the touch screen interface, is how it simplifies the physical layout of devices. Take my LG VU for example. On the front of my phone is only three buttons. It’s a very sleek, and simple design that while being minimalist in approach provides ways of navigating that you can’t get with traditional layouts. I think that touch screen will greatly help those who are less tech savvy as well.

Generally, to execute functions in handheld devices, it requires a combination of buttons, and menu browsing. This is the case for cell phones, smart phones, MP3 players, and blackberries. Learning these combinations can be a struggle, specifically for those who are technologically challenged. Touch screen brings some relief to these poor souls. Sure, it still takes some savvy to get around, but everything is visually on screen for you to click through. You don’t have to memorize anything, because the applications, and executions are right there on screen for you to touch.

For myself personally, I haven’t reached a total conclusion yet but I think I enjoy touch screen so much because it’s second nature. Flowing your finger across the screen just feels right, like you’re writing instead of pressing buttons.

Let me hear back from you. Are you an avid touch screen user? If you don’t prefer to use touch screen, what interfaces do you like to use? Feel free to let loose.

Tags: Gadgets, Videos by JohnnyV - No Comments »

One of the main things that I found as a major drawback on iPhone is that it doesn’t have Instant Messaging capabilities. Although the SMS ( texting ) interface looks like iChat you can use it only to send text messages. I hope you read the previous post before this where I wrote about meebo.com. Yes, just go onto http://www.meebo.com/ on your iPhone’s browser and use meebo’s services to chat. All you need to have is a username and password for whatever Instant Messaging ( AIM, Yahoo Chat, Google Talk, MSN ) you use and voila! There you are chatting on your iPhone.

Tags: Gadgets, Technology by Ritu - No Comments »

I was browsing the web like crazy as usual and I came across this site which sells a product that is quite something. Yes, you guessed it right, a rear view mirror for your computer screen. Why do you need one? You are the only one who can answer that. If you are at work working on some confidential data and your colleague stops by then yeah it might be a handy addition to your computer. But if you are at home and using the vast resources of the internet to satisfy your hunger of you know what I dont know how useful this mirror would be. Think you are a 21 year old guy watching something on the internet you shouldnt be and someone walks in to your room and you close the window but you have a mirror pointing to find out who is coming in. What do you tell them, what are the reasons you have a mirror on your home computer screen? I dont know to me it seems like this is a tool that more like says it, Hey, I am doing something, you know what I am doing but you have no way to prove it cause I seen you on my rear view mirror. Wow, what a product.

Tags: Fun, Gadgets by Ritu - No Comments »

Gone are the days when we needed to shell out 400 dollars to buy a cell phone that would easily let us access our emails. Most of the users who use smart phones are looking for a phone that can connect them to their emails.

A new service from teleflip now lets you access your emails on your very basic cell phone as long as your phone has text messaging capabilities. There are no softwares to download. You can go to teleflip website and simply enter your phone number and the email addresses that you want to receive emails on your phone.

On the negative side since text messages can only be 160 characters, longer emails are split into halves. Also if you pay for text messaging service this might add up depending on how many messages you receive a day.

Tags: Gadgets, Technology by Ritu - No Comments »