By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

You can forget ever having to send a “belated” Birthday email again with Gmail’s new Custom Time feature (although if the person doesn’t rate more than an email - not even an emailed greeting card - why bother?). Using an e-flux capacitor to resolve issues of causality, the new feature allows you to send emails to the past, but only to April 1, 2004, the day Google launched Gmail. You also get only 10 Custom Time emails a year. When asked about the limitations of the feature, Google said:

If we were to let you send an email from Gmail before Gmail existed, well, that would be like hanging out with your parents before you were born — crazy talk.

and …

Our researchers have concluded that allowing each person more than ten pre-dated emails per year would cause people to lose faith in the accuracy of time, thus rendering the feature useless.

The feature has already garnered a great number of fans and praise, with Delivery Girl Miriam S. saying:

“The entire concept of ‘late’ no longer exists for me. That’s pretty cool. Thanks Gmail!”

On the other hand, Epistemology Professor Michael L. said:

“This feature allows people to manipulate and mislead people with falsified time data. Time is a sacred truth that should never be tampered with.”

Please note that I personally hate time travel — too many paradoxes. This is why I hated every single Star Trek: TOS / TNG / DS9 / Voyager / Enterprise — and lets not forget B5 or any other TV show episode / movie ever written. Don’t get me started on “dream” episodes either.

BTW, since I Custom Time emailed myself the results of 9 sporting events and bet heavily on them, I no longer need to work, so this will be my last post ever. With the 10th Custom Time email I sent myself the location of Jennifer Aniston after Brad Pitt broke the news about Angelina Jolie to her, figuring she could use some comforting — so I’m also Mr. Aniston now.

We Say: I’m assuming by now you remember that it’s April 1. I hate this day, actually — it’s too hard to sort out the pranks and find real news!

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

It looks like the body of an SLR camera minus the lens– until you take a closer look. The new Olympus E-420 uses a super thin “pancake” lens to create a new hybrid camera - the point and shoot SLR.

Weighing only 13.4 ounces, the E-420 is a tad smaller than traditional SLR designs on the market today, but it packs a 10 megapixel sensor, and lets you frame a photo with the the viewfinder as well as the live view panel on the back of the camera. Nice! But the best part (if you like the concept) is the innovative pancake lens - a super thin .9 inch lens that provides a traditional 50-millimeter angle of view. Note: Olympus also released the first digital SLR with a live view monitor, the EVOLT E-330. Here is a hands-on review from a high end SLR user and his take on why this feature is actually useful.

Other notables: The camera is 5 inches wide and 2 inches thick, putting it within pocket range, and it prices under $1,000. $700 for the pancake lens version, $500 minus any lens, and $600 for the camera body plus a 14-42-millimeter lens. Source: NYT

Our Take: Looks cool, but the almost-but-not-quite styling may mean it gets a lot of stares, but stays on the store shelf. Would you buy one?

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Rumors flew yesterday about today’s YouTube announcement. Some thought it would be high-definition videos (long desired); others thought it would be a deal with Hulu (which would have been cool). The real announcement was an opening up of YouTube, turning it into a service that could power your own application, site, whatever, via new APIs.

No longer, for example, will you have to embed YouTube’s own player and its branding; you’ll even be able to upload videos and more.

According to the blog post announcement, these are the new APIs, which “build upon our existing APIs for querying the YouTube library and playing embedded YouTube videos”:
More

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

I just saw $3.99 on a gas station pricing sign this weekend, and you know it’s not going to get any lower. Being an optimist, I decided to see what other fluids are even more pricey than light sweet crude. Turns out - Ink Jet ink has now reached an unbelievable $8,000 a gallon.

We’ve covered this before, but let’s do some more math. HP is reporting that over 40% of its $2.63 billion in operating profits last quarter came from it printer business. Ink jet ink used to cost more by the ounce than Dom Perignon (still does,) but whatever way you measure it, people keep snapping up cartridges and filling up those thirsty, thirsty little printers. Source: Popsci.com

Our question: Why is this shrugged off?

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

Anyone who travels a lot will simply look at this device and sigh with relief. Why? Hotels are awful about providing enough power outlets near the desk - and with more and more gadgets hitting the road, it means a room strewn with charging cell phones and laptops and headsets, etc. One room I had not long ago sported a whole free outlet behind the bed - picture groping around behind that disgusting headboard.

Spec-wise, not much to say that you can’t see here. It boasts three surge protected AC outlet plugs, and will also charge two USB devices. Price: $24.99.

Product Page
Source: Belkin

Our Take: True, it means hauling along one more device and it isn’t exactly cheap, but if you really, really travel, this one is no-brainer, especially if you can expense it.

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

Happy Birthday Mr. MP3 player! 10 years old and look how far you have come. From the first player shown here - the all but forgotten MPMan F10 from Korean manufacturer Saehan Information Systems, to today’s iPod-dominated array of colorful video/audio players, things have certainly evolved.

The MP3Man F10 boasted a whopping 32MBs of flash-based storage to hold about 8 songs sampled at 128Kb/s. Songs were loaded onto the player via the parallel port (anyone remember configuring ports and getting COM and IRQ conflicts?) Retail price $250.

When Diamond brought the Rio PMP300 to market at $200, the player race was on. Many think that the Rio PMP300 was the first MP3 player, but a lawsuit wit the the RIAA gave it enough press to leave the F10 in the dust. (Until Apple came calling.) Sony meanwhile was focused on the doomed MiniDisc, and the rest as they say, was history. Source: The Register

We Say: Check out those tiny LCD displays!
Update: Want more Rio pics? Check out RioWorld. (I have owned 3 models myself.)

By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews

Google has begun offering secondary search boxes within their search results (above). Typical of Google offerings, not everyone is seeing the “feature” yet, as it rolls out to different data centers.

The secondary box restricts the search to the site in question. It seems like the searches that are most likely to bring up the secondary box involves retailers (as above), although The New York Times brings up a secondary box and some say YouTube and Wikipedia do also (though I did not see that result).

How are these sites are chosen? Do they have to pay for this extra search box, or is some algorithm at work?

Since it’s not available in all data centers yet, if you really want to see it now, you can try this data center where the new feature is working.

What do you readers think of this new feature? Try it out and let me know.

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Generally when presented with an opportunity to take a survey, I decline. This one might just have caught my attention.

It’s certainly not a done deal; it’s just a survey asking customers how they would feel, but Netflix, according to reports, is testing the waters to determine if customers would be interested in streaming video to their PS3s or Xbox 360s. They don’t seem to realize what a silly question that is, don’t they?

For the Xbox 360, the survey (above) says:

“Stream Netflix movies to your TV with Xbox LIVE. Now you can watch movies from Netflix instantly by using your existing Xbox LIVE account. You can choose from over 7,000 movies and TV series, and your choice starts playing on your TELEVISION in as little as 30 seconds. ”

For the PS3, the survey (click above to see) says:

“Now you can watch movies from Netflix instantly by using your Internet-connected Playstation 3. Simply insert a special Netflix disc into your PS/3 to enable instant movie streaming. The disc is available from Netflix for a one-time fee of $3.”

The PS3 survey goes on the say the same info about the 7K movies and 30 seconds for play to start.

In both cases, it’s indicated that there is no extra fee.

Now, how real is this? No confirmation from Netflix, naturally. However, this was reported in two separate locations, here and here, with two different screenshots. That seems to give at least some measure of reassurance.

Plus Netflix has been moving more into streaming, with Mac video streaming coming this year, new unlimited streaming options, and their set-top box deal with LG.

We Say: Of course, one possible problem would be a conflict with this and Microsoft’s Xbox Live Video Marketplace, which lets users purchase TV shows and rent movies that are downloaded directly through the Xbox 360. However, since Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is on Microsoft’s board, maybe it could all be worked out.