Something New…

Welcome to Black Spark!

This blog is intended to showcase a love of all things tech, gadget, music and movies. While my own personality will undoubtedly show through in my posts, topically it will stick to these four topics. This is just a simple introduction, so I’ll keep it brief.

Oh, one last thing: I want this to be a back and forth between between myself and you, my (probably not so) captive audience. So, leave your thoughts, opinions, critiques, etc in the comments section as often as you like. After all, we are our own worst critics.

Well, enough of the boring part, on to the blog!

Enjoy!
-M

G1 Has Been Acquired!

Well, I decided to try the newcomer to the Smartphone market, the G1. So far? Very impressed. Something of the kid in me comes out everytime I start playing with it. I love so many of the apps, and for now most are free!

Quick Impressions: The slideout screen is solid, doesn’t feel gimicky at all. The “chin” as most refer to it, is not nearly as ugly or noticeable as it looks in pictures. I will say that while I’m becoming accustomed to it, typing with the chin in the way is a little weird. This could also be due to the fact that I’m going back to a physical keyboard after using the iPhone for so long. I have to say, though, while the G1’s interface is not as polished as the iPhone GUI, it has a lot of charm. Everything moves smoothly, and most things are intuitive. I think the most exciting part about it is just thinking about the possibilities to come with the apps.

One final comment: the hardware, while not sexy, is not ugly, either. It feels good in the hand, has a nice texture and overall, I would say feels very solid and professional. On top of this, once I started playing around with apps and the phone’s OS, I honestly never looked at the hardware again. The screen, which most say is plastic, is very nice, and feels/works just as well as the iPhone’s, regardless of the different material. I would only think that eventually it will be more prone to scratches since it is not glass.

I love this phone, but of course that is mainly due to Android. As more handsets come out that are more style conscious, it will only grow in popularity. Seeing as how HTC pretty much has the crown when it comes to beautiful devices lately, I can’t wait to see their next Android device!

Something Useful for Once

With the plethra of iPhone accessories, it’s nice to see someone putting some effort into something that is not only different, but highly functional as well. Take note of this new skin currently in development: http://critica.us/product-design/invisual-a-tactile-silicone-case-for-the-apple-iphone/

It’s creator, Bruno Fosi, has named it the Invisual. Designed to be used in conjunction with Text-to-Speech functionality, it will help make the iPhone more user-friendly to the visually impaired. It’s great that someone is helping to make an effort towards making Apple’s products more accessible, considering Apple clearly isn’t that worried.

Government Regs Necessary for Captioning on the Web

The controversy over captioning and accessibility for online videos has been an issue for quite some time. No one has quite had the courage to say what needed to be said, though, until now. Introducing Joe Clark, a Toronto-based journalist and author, who makes some amazing points about the difficulties in proper captioning to online videos. No longer is it as simple as packaging a uniform text script into a television signal. Instead, the closed captioning must be tied to each separate video format, requiring separate files that will never stay perfectly bound together. There is much, much more within his article, so to briefly sum up his final point:

Legislators have to get involved (and indeed should) in order to introduce proper forms of captioning for folks with any form of disability. Up to this point, all attempts by YouTube, AOL, Yahoo and more have resulted in weak implementation better suited to supporting business goals, rather than improving accessibility to online videos. In addition to this, he notes that all roads of captioning research point towards one mystery institution that works in secrecy. Why should a group working privately be setting standards? To corner the market and make money, that’s why.

Check out the article, it’s very informative.