Erix Clix

I just purchased the BlueAnt V1 Voice Controlled Bluetooth Handsfree Headset and I must say so far it has been an amazing experience! I think BlueAnt is proving to be a real contender in the handsfree arena.  Lookout Plantronics and Jabra!

This is my 2nd BlueAnt product.  The first, also purchased not long ago, is their Interphone helmet mount bluetooth headset which I use while riding my F650GS. Both devices are happily paired with my iPhone 3G and playing well together.

From the packaging, to the easy to understand quick start instructions, the BlueAnt V1 is a class act.  The design is simple and elegant.  The V1 is comfortable and more feature packed than any other bluetooth headset I’ve seen to date.  BlueAnt loads you up with accessories.  From 4 different earbuds, 2 rubber gels and 2 foam tips, to the wall charger, a car charger and usb charger.  I’m not sure they could have packed this thing with any more goodies!

What about the speech recognition?  Ok, the next step is setting up the device.  After a quick, full charge, the next step was to pair the headset with the iPhone 3G.  BlueAnt made this step so easy, I’m not sure it gets any better than this!  They insert a little note into the packaging that says “BEFORE YOU TURN ON YOUR V1 FOR THE FIRST TIME”, on the note, they actually ask you to wear the device during setup.  This is because it talks to you and walks you through step by step, waiting for you to complete each step, then moving to the next automatically when it knows you’ve successfully paired the headset with your phone.

After politely and painlessly walking me through the pairing process (which happened quite seamlessly on the iPhone 3G), the device then proceeds to assist you with available voice commands.  The built-in male voice is friendly and pleasing to listen to.

This is where it gets cool (as if it’s not super cool already!).  From speed dialing home, work, office and even GOOG-411 (GOOG-411 is pre-programmed into the V1), to configuration preferences such as deactivating the blue LED light (so you can attempt to conceal your tech-dorkyness by minimizing the flashing lights eminating from various electronic devices on or about your person) the BlueAnt V1 will assist you during every configuration twist and turn.

The V1 sports dual microphone noise-canceling, this improves the sound to whomever you’re talking to as well as improves the accuracy of the speech recognition.  Overall, the command voice recognition, was near flawless.  And in a tiny, unassuming device like this, the “V for Voice” in V1 is well deserved.

Sounds great! Does it have any flaws?  Well, as great as this headset is, it typically retails for about $119, a little pricey, but quality, usability and prestige are all included in the box with this product that may be worth shelling out some extra clams for.

Limited voice support on the iPhone:  Even though the V1 supports a cell phone that takes voice commands, the iPhone 3G does not offer voice control at this time, therefore taking full advantage of the voice features of the V1 is not possible with an iPhone 3G (this isn’t really BlueAnt’s fault but does take away from the “complete” voice control aspect of owning the product).  You can, however, still speed dial iPhone Favorites, ignore and answer incoming calls by voice with the headset, so it’s not even near a total loss.

And finally, the phone’s firmware is USB upgradeable (foreshadowing possible future enhancements, bug fixes, new features) and the documentation says to find information and software for this firmware upgrade on their web site, which with a few minutes of digging on their site, I couldn’t even find mention of support for this.

Finally, I think this little guy is great, and my rating is: “Highly Recommended”.  The V1 will pair with up to 8 devices (other phones, PCs, PS3, etc).  And with potential firmware upgrades, who knows what comes next!

If you have any experiences with the BlueAnt V1 you’d like to share please post as a comment to this article.

BlueAnt’s website can be found at:  www.blueantwireless.com

We here at ErixClix.com would like to congratulate America’s first African-American President.  With the world and the country in turmoil, Obama’s policies, his vision and his calm yet confident leadership style are just the shot-in-the-arm America needs.

Again, congratulations, and God Bless America for having the courage to do the right thing…it’s about time!

More posts to follow!

In Florida this week, Obama, referring to the John McCain’s views on the economy said, “Instead of common sense solutions, month after month, they’ve offered little more than willful ignorance, wishful thinking, and outdated ideology.” I want to focus on Obama’s mention of ‘willful ignorance’ because I believe that is more of a universal theme and is at the core of most of the issues we are facing today.

Willful ignorance has lead us to times of war, economic failure, and further dissolution of the middle class.

Willful ignorance put us in Iraq.  By ignoring the facts…no real evidence of WMDs, we ended up fighting an open-ended war with a society and culture simply not ready for democracy, losing $10 Billion a month just to fight that war and most importantly now killing over 4,000 American Soldiers.

Willful ignorance destroyed the economy and greatly reduced opportunities for success and independence among the middle class.  To say that Wall Street, banks and corporate executives thought their excessive greed would last forever is simply a joke.

And, yes, I also blame the consumer, running up credit cards without saving for the future and applying for loans they knew were a stretch.  Those were all conscious decisions, and a conscious, willful choice was made to ignore the obvious ramifications of those decisions.

The ignorance continues…

Watching McCain and Palin, with their empty rhetoric and pointless, directionless, anti-Obama attacks.  I believe even the most clueless among us are feeling what’s wrong with this picture.  So, to ignore this, is again ‘willful ignorance.’

It’s also willful ignorance that we don’t acknowledge the realities of Joe The Plumber.  1) He wasn’t a licensed plumber, 2) He owes back taxes, and 3) The Plumbing business he wants to buy makes well under the $250,000 tax bracket that Obama’s tax plan affects, so ‘Joe’, in reality, will pay less in taxes under Obama.

Why are the very citizens of our nation, who are the most negatively affected by the policies McCain represents give the most support to those people and their now failed policies?  And “Joe The Plumber” being fully aware that his business actually would NOT even qualify for a tax increase under Obama, yet continues this charade (his name isn’t even Joe, by the way) simply to support the other candidate, is quite a definitive example of willful ignorance.

Why?  Obama is different, and ‘Joe’ is afraid.  Most willful ignorance is fear based, and it’s tearing us apart.  I gotta say people, with a clear head, a fearless outlook on the future, whatever that future may bring, the decision now, more than ever should be a clear one to everyone, including ‘Joe.’

I will do the right thing on November 4th…you should too.

The probe into Sarah Palin’s actions trying to have her sister’s ex-husband fired showed that she, in fact, abused her power.

When does this end?

I have something simple to say here…mind you I love America and believe this is still the greatest country in the world for many reasons. But I must stress that it will require a real leap of faith to keep it that way by what we call ‘mainstream’ voters.

People, isn’t it interesting that this mudslinging is an issue now that McCain has dropped in the polls? Another broken promise.  McCain told us before that he won’t throw character judgements in this campaign.  Today, he’s broken that promise, as every other promise he’s made to his Arizona constituents for the past 20 years, his balanced policies and positions have dissolved away into the empty, rhetorical, nothingness that is the Bush Administration.

Please bear with my harsh words in the rest of this article, but things are absolutely ridiculous, while news organizations are trying to be so “even-handed” in their reporting that they aren’t telling how uneven the behavior of these candidates actually is!  McCain’s campaign is launching massive character attacks and spewing what are now confirmed lies, while Obama’s campaign simply has not been utilizing the same degree of underhanded tactics.

Now I must say:  Anyone subscribing to these ludicrous claims that Obama associates with terrorists should be aware that this is ignorant, misleading, rhetoric and if the majority of voters are buying this load of horse sh*t then the country deserves everything foul it gets by electing this kind of leadership.

Voting out of ignorance is the most dangerous thing.  If the choice between these candidates isn’t a clear one for most people now…then what will be the fate of a democratic nation that doesn’t intelligently research and fairly judge their candidates for public office?

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s ruling that a 1998 law protecting children from sexually explicit and other objectionable content is unconstitutional mentioning that it is “overly broad” and “vague.”  Thus striking down the law that since 1998 has not been enforced and looks like it is on its way to the Supreme Court.

While I do agree there should be some built-in protection that goes beyond the content providers simply self-policing, I strongly disagree with this law as it is written and I believe it was conceived prematurely in the history of the Internet, while the technology (web browsers and such) still had a lot of maturing to do to what it is today so the authors of this law could be as informed as possible.

The Solution

I propose a combination of voluntary and legally enforcable controls from both ends.  Action on the part of the content providers as well as security controls built-in to web browsers.

I will start with the voluntary.  Currently, there actually is a content rating system on the Internet (hidden HTML tags in web pages).  However, very few web sites and content providers use it as it is purely voluntary and there are no repercussions for not rating your content.  I believe this part should remain voluntary.  As it is completely impractical to monitor millions of web pages.  Utilizing these hidden “ratings” tags, pages will be rated by their own creators.  The creators will have motivation to accurately rate their content, read on.

So how do we protect the viewer?  This is where the law steps in…  Require web browsers to provide parental controls (with REAL security) locking and unlocking certain ratings for their young web surfers.  Any UNRATED pages will simply be blocked so the unsuspecting web browser cannot stumble onto an inappropriate site simply because that site hasn’t rated their pages yet.  This mechanism is not unlike the “V-chip” law that requires televisions to acknowledge ratings of broadcasts.  This may block much of the Internet at first, but the protection is there. (Currently, child content protection software for computers actually does block most of the Internet, unfortunately, it also blocks valuable, legitimate content mistakenly as well.)

If a “clean” site wants to be sure all browsers can view it, they MUST rate their site’s pages, hence the motivation.  Requiring web browsers to recognize content ratings will encourage any legitimate organization to rate their pages.  Almost “overnight” most of the valuable web will be rated as it takes relatively minimal effort to add these tags.

A “certified” web browser would be one that meets specific requirements.  Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari web browser constitute nearly 100% of all web browsers used (especially those used by children) and those organizations would find it in their best interest to get this certification.  It wouldn’t be required certification, but parents would at least have a choice in web browsers and know that, with certification, real protection is there.

What about inaccurate content ratings that can fool the browser into showing inappropriate content?

Yes, this is a risk and it is also the part of the cost of having truly Free Speech.  But there is a solution for this as well…a realistic one.

Utilizing a fraud reporting system (similar to SPAM ‘blacklist’ services) browsers can “double-check” a site’s credibility with the reporting organization (it can do this real time).  So, as soon as a viewer sees incorrectly rated material, they can report it.  With enough reports, the browsers will see that a “G” rated site, for example, isn’t really G rated and blocks it from the viewer as needed.  Further, the domain can be threatened to be locked for presenting incorrectly rated pages after a number of reported violations. (This may also be written into the new law so the new rating system requirements have “teeth” as it were).  Again, the law would not require ratings, just that the ratings, when used, are accurate.

So, it’s mostly still a voluntary system.  As it should be.  However, the law is simply providing a realistic mechanism so that we may more easily protect our children while still leaving our precious First Amendment intact.

Goodbye Mr. Gates and farewell…as you step down from active duty at the behemoth enterprise you named Microsoft (MSFT).  Just one thing…will you be missed?

From business, leadership and investment points of view…I don’t think so.  The contrast is seen when we examine the impact your counterpart Steve Jobs, at Apple, has on those same issues.

Just a few short weeks ago, Steve Jobs was introducing us to the new 3G iPhone.  Not minutes after the demonstration, blogs and editorials were filling up with commentary and concern about what appeared to be a sickly looking CEO.

Not a few days later, enough momentum was built up in the industry regarding the rumors of an ailing CEO, once stricken with a rare form of pancreatic cancer, for the news to negatively affect the share price (AAPL).

I believe it is normal for the health of a CEO as influential and successful as Steve Jobs to affect the value of a company.  If the person most directly responsible for a company’s success is no longer around, they cannot continue to lead that company to success.  Especially with a company like Apple.  Before Steve was brought back as CEO nearly 10 years ago, Apple had a succession of failed Chiefs.

So, the contrast to Mr. Gates is Steve Jobs.  Gates is leaving, he left, he’s gone.  Stock price…the same.  Investors…not worried.  Business world cares Bill’s leaving?  No, not really.

Why mention this?  It sounds like I’m simply honoring Steve Jobs as a leader…but I’m really talking business here…

This brings me back to any possible future value of Microsoft and Apple.  You can’t have a leader that leaves a legacy of ambivalence with the business world and have the company they lead last forever.  The foundation is shaky..the future is murky…the proof is in the pudding?  Microsoft’s share price hasn’t moved much in ages.  Meanwhile their market share is steadily being eaten away by Apple and Linux-based solutions.  I thought share price was based on the future outlook?

Just as the analysts jumped on board with Apple (AAPL) after they had already showed signs of growth and a promising future.  They will too, continue to be the master oracles they are and predict a problem with Microsoft’s future, but only after that future has come and gone.

The dishonest business tactics (see Microsoft’s settlement with the states on Windows price fixing, European Union record fines), faulty product technologies (unreliable, insecure OS) and unfriendly nature of their products…all of this…will lead to an uncertain future for Microsoft (MSFT).

Steve Jobs may not live forever, but the Apple “seeds” he’s been planting for 10 years will most certainly last another 100.  Even mediocre leadership can hold all this up for a while…20…30 years?  The proof of that claim is in the man that just exited the stage from the other company.

Top-level summary:  Very Entertaining…unfortunately, not much more to summarize, I wish I could have used phrases like “Spielberg’s best!” or “they’ve outdone themselves this time!”…but I can’t.

Aside from a few action scenes that were not only hard to believe but actually even looked as fake as they actually were (not Spielberg’s usual M.O.), the movie was fun and interesting.

Have blockbusters from this production crew been so successful in the past that our expectations are set so astronomically high they can never again be met by the same filmmakers?

Or did this movie fall short for many because of an overcooked storyline due to the fact that Indy’s aging and they wanted to squeeze too much of an “end-all” storyline into what is likely his last adventure? (referring to Harrison Ford’s character of course.)

Finally, I think it’s great to go to a real movie theater and see a new Indiana Jones flick.  That was probably worth the price of the ticket just for the nostalgia.

Internet Movie Database link to this movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367882/