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Santa LeBron Gifts Unsuspecting Teammates With Flip Mino HD Cams
The New Mantra of Tech: It's Good Enough
Cisco Acquires Pure Digital, Makers of the Flip Video Cam, For $590 Million
Flip Mino Now Available With Fully Customized Paintjob
New Flip Mino Mini-Camcorder Outed, Looks Incredibly Small

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Nick
05/05/09

In reply to Santa LeBron Gifts Unsuspecting Teammates With Flip Mino HD Cams
why do i have the feeling we will be seeing much more "video evidence" in the upcoming months.
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Lite: hates Illinois Nazis
05/05/09

In reply to Santa LeBron Gifts Unsuspecting Teammates With Flip Mino HD Cams
Show me the money!

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Kaiser-Machead
04/27/09

In reply to The New Mantra of Tech: It's Good Enough
An abundance of functions is not the key, so much as the product's overall usability. An iPod, a camera, a computer can have a plethora of functions, many of which you may never use. The trick is to have these functions available without becoming obtrusive to the most basic everyday tasks that just about 100% of its buyers actually bought it for. If a camera has tons of extras in its UI, it won't make a difference, so long as the basics are no less accessible in their addition.

But I agree that a scattershot pattern of function-stuffing can end up with a product that aims to be a Jack of all Trades, yet is lackluster at any single task. A good example are the extremely cheap iPod knockoffs you see on ebay. They claim to support more formats and have more functions built-in, but that hasn't stopped them from being some of the poorest pieces of shit ever.
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OMG! Ponies!
04/27/09

In reply to The New Mantra of Tech: It's Good Enough
The BlackBerry is a good example.

When companies were all packing cameras into their phones, RIM kept a few models without a camera. Companies and government agencies with security concerns gravitated to those models.

I don't want a dSLR with video recording capabilities. I want a dSLR that focuses on still photography. If I want to shoot vid, I'll use a videocamera that is designed to shoot video.
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imTheKing
04/27/09

@OMG! Ponies!: Unfortunately the 5D Mark II has proven that DSLR owners want video capabilities. So much so that many directors are looking at 5D's as shooting reference points.
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Kaiser-Machead
04/27/09

@OMG! Ponies!: I agree that for some products, the sacrifice in the quality of a single function is unacceptable. That said, I love having the video recording feature in my SD1000. It's obviously not going to touch a DSLR, but it's proven useful overall.
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OMG! Ponies!
04/27/09

@imTheKing: Again, diversify the portfolio of offerings. I don't want to pay for features I won't use.

I have a phone that plays music. I also have a music player. I use the phone to make calls and the music player to play music.
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imTheKing
04/27/09

@OMG! Ponies!: yeah but why would a company make 2 versions of a single product just because someone doesn't like having that small feature that a larger percentage of people do like having? Not only that but it just seems like a waste of resources. In some cases that might work but most cases I think are heavily out weighed into one direction.
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OMG! Ponies!
04/27/09

@imTheKing: Again, I refer you to the BlackBerry. They had a top-selling model that was distinguished by a lack of camera.

Additionally, there are other examples like the iPod shuffle (modeled on the phenomenon where people put their iPod on shuffle mode to rediscover old music that they had), bare-bones cellphones aimed at either parents (phones that will only call a set number of people) or older users (fewer features and a large keypad), or text-only plans for the deaf and hard-of-hearing.
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Nick
04/27/09

@imTheKing: blackberry, even now, has products that are identical minus a camera. sprint has them on sale now if you wanna check it out.

also, other companies will do it for many reasons. video card companies come to mind first. hardwarde essentially the same, but drivers slightly different. a tweak and a mod and you have one card performing just as well as it's twice as costly big bro.
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Nick
04/27/09

In reply to The New Mantra of Tech: It's Good Enough
i think a shinning example is Google's homepage.
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RaptorCK
04/27/09

@Reply Works Again _Nick: Don't you mean Shining?
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Nick
04/27/09

@RaptorCK: uh, not at all. i was merely trying to express through anataomy the importance of Google and its role with the internet. it's like the shin. shins are very important to the leg.
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combat chuck
04/27/09

In reply to The New Mantra of Tech: It's Good Enough
Megapixel counts on digital point and shoots have to be the perfect "good enough" example. I'm not a pro photographer, so I will never shoot anything higher than maybe 4mp, so stop trying to sell me an 8 or 10mp camera to justify the $400 price. Put a better lens on it or lower the price.
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.357
04/27/09

In reply to The New Mantra of Tech: It's Good Enough
No love for the 85 function Swiss Army Knife? I think it's a great invention for fighting off Swine Flu zombies, which makes it automatically good enough.
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Curves
04/27/09

@.357: I am loving that knife (all the stuff you can do with it!) but I also know there should be a law against someone like me ever owning one. Disaster (and severe injury) would SURELY follow.
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friedgold
04/27/09

In reply to The New Mantra of Tech: It's Good Enough
cellphones? no, if the iphone has taught us anything, its that people WANT to be able to do tons of shit on their phones.

tv's? i'd say we've already hit that stage, with all the cheap generic brand tv's like vizio selling like hotcakes. people don't care about build quality or contrast ratios, they just want the HD's

how about cars? things like the tata nano might be a big hit if they ever made it over to the united states (and could make people feel safe about them)
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Hello Mister Walrus
04/27/09

@friedgold: The iPhone is like the "normal" Swiss army knife in the picture. It plays music and video, accesses the internet, and can make calls. Depending on how you look at it, that could be a phone with a shitton of features, or it could represent the comfortable minimum for pocket-sized portable computers.
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.357
04/27/09

@friedgold: Cars like the Tat Nano? Actually, the reason they even sell in India is because they are a step up from motorcycles and the next cheapest car, the Maruti 800. I actually think that consumers want more in terms of cars today. I mean even your average Honda Civic comes with so much more safety equipment and small luxuries than most everyday cars did 20 years ago.

But, I do agree on the cellphone thing. More people want smartphones that can do more than just answer calls.
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.357
04/27/09

@.357: *Tata*
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noamjamski
04/27/09

@friedgold: if you think of the iPhone as a phone, then it is the big swiss army knife. But that is not the appeal.

The appeal of the iPhone is that it is a laptop replacement. It does what 90% of casual people would want to do with a laptop on the go. And the app store fills in a lot of the gaps that the core functionality lacks. As a reason to not buy a laptop, an iPhone is "good enough" for mobile connectivity.
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qbrad
04/27/09

@noamjamski: Except plug it into an external display... What happens when I want to show my friends that funny video of the cat falling off the tv??
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OMG! Ponies!
04/27/09

@qbrad: You plunk down extra money for a dock to plug into your TV. It's all about the razor blade business model.
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willyolio
04/27/09

In reply to The New Mantra of Tech: It's Good Enough
also why the reason for the ipod's success. when you have enough features, there's no point in wasting your effort adding more. use it on looks instead.

ipods are "good enough" mp3 players with a shiny package.
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gauden44
04/27/09

@willyolio: I'm an engineering student in a product design class, and one thing we've talked about is the iPod. Steve Jobs said that the revolutionary thing about the iPod was navigating content--that it was the most important part of the player.
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Purple Dave
04/28/09

@gauden44:
I'd have to agree there. Digital music players were meant to replace the portable cassette and CD players, both of which were extremely simple to operate. It's ideally supposed to be about listening to music, not screwing around with the interface. You want something different, go buy something different, and stop whinging about all the people who don't. And if it's got everything you want, there you go.
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elementary
03/19/09

In reply to Cisco Acquires Pure Digital, Makers of the Flip Video Cam, For $590 Million
Flips seem so ergonomically awkward. I guess they can make 'em cheaper without the flip out lcd screen required by pistol grip pocket cams.
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Monty
03/19/09

In reply to Cisco Acquires Pure Digital, Makers of the Flip Video Cam, For $590 Million
Cisco has been so active in buying property and re-selling it that it seems reasonable that they are just trying to flip it.

Get it -- "flip it"? It is like a joke on the name of the video camera, but it also means to re-sell it. Kind of funny. Don't you think? I worked on that one all night. Don't thank me. Really. It's okay.
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-1-
03/19/09

@Monty:

"worked on it all night"

You mean for the 11 minutes between the posting and your comment?
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Monty
03/19/09

@-1-: Eleven minutes. Hah! You vastly underestimate my comic genius.
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