We don't want to make fun of her for being old (we're all going to get old eventually), and not to make fun of her for having abnormally slurred speech (recent stroke? did she hit her head like Conan?). It's more that we find it interesting that she's talking like a grandma that just discovered email for the first time. The looks of the people around her, especially David Pogue and the guy in the still, says it all for us. [Martha - Thanks Intern Anna Edwards!]

• Dongle
• Cookie
• WAP
• Phone jack
• (Nokia) Navi Key
• Time shifting
• Digital TV
• Ethernet
• (Nokia/Others) PC Suite
• Desktop

It's an odd list. Even though the UK loves its Nokias, the inclusion of two proprietary Nokia terms seems innately disproportionate. "Time shifting" was an awkward term to begin with that's specific but antiquated now that "DVR" has taken over. And as for "phone jack" and "desktop," yes, it's disconcerting that laymen don't understand this "jargon," but I can't remember the last time that I used either of these technologies.

So that pretty much leaves "cookie," "dongle," "ethernet," "digital TV" and "WAP" as the terms people need to learn. Please call your grandmothers and inform them as to the proper definitions immediately. [BBC and image]

Joel has a great writeup on Boing Boing Gadgets about the non-new gadgetry he uses on a regular basis that's a pretty entertaining read. [Last Year's Model via BBG]

[Geekologie]

1) Too Slow: Most Computer magazines will write reviews of product you've already bought or read about on blogs 2 months before. With the exception of Laptop Mag and a few others. How are they catching up in speed? Surprise: blogs.

2) They sometimes ignore the things companies want you to ignore: Magazines need to cover the unofficial topics that are important, even if it involves illegal activity like IP theft. Like BitTorrent. Even if the sponsoring companies don't agree with how the technology is used, its important to educate the public and industry to its benefits and problems. And rumors are clearly useful to warn people not to buy the stuff that's just about to become outdated. Without news that corporations don't sanction, magazines might as well reprint press releases.

3) They charge: So much info on the web is free and ad subsidized, including the blogs. They've got ads. So why are they still charging when its costing them readership? The magazine model of getting people to pay for copies is dying a slow death. See: The difference in subscription and cover prices and Chris Anderson's Free.

4) The websites sometimes suck: In the worst cases, you can't tell where the new content is. It's all over the place, nested in a field of links that mean nothing to anyone but advertisers and industry wonks. In the best cases, they make you click through 10 times for every feature: Come on. Pageviews are a dead competitive metric, and you're just annoying everyone.

5) Their columns are written by people I can't relate to: The most prestigious print columnists today are at least a decade away from 35. The age is not the issue — but there are economic, social and generational gaps that can't be bridged.

6) They cover a whole lot of stuff no one cares about: Just because a company puts something out or writes a press release, and it's on a publication's beat, doesn't mean anyone actually cares about it. Market share is not indicative of success. Porsche sells fewer cars than Toyota. More tech journalists should learn to follow their gut instincts, because as tech lovers, you get a great sense of what people are also excited about.

7) They review products without the bigger picture: Most trade mags do a fantastic job of explaining the specs and the benchmark results, without the overall real world effect (usually a small delta of improvement) and social context (see: iPod shuffle's tiny buttons). Most tech pubs fail at this, blog or mag. Exception: The big columnists at the papers do a great job of this, especially the four horsemen, Pogue, Moss, Levy, and Baig.

8) They presume to be error-free: Last year, right before I canceled my subscription, I read a computer trade with more errors than I'd seen in any magazine. It included typos, but also factual F-ups like mention of "Pioneer LCDs TVs". (Pioneer doesn't make them here.) Magazines have copy editors, fact checkers and 2 months to deliver this content. And you can't retract paper.

9) The writing is often boring: OK, not every article has to be funny or Shakespeare, but it shouldn't make you want to tear your eyes out or go to sleep, either. Tech is inherently a left brain topic; making it an easy and enjoyable thing to learn about and digest is critical and something many trade pubs fail to do! This is increasingly critical as tech and gadgets go more and more mainstream and the average joe comes looking for information.

10) They fail to realize news is collaborative: Mike criticized the gadget blogs for rehashing reviews. First off, aggregation is a service. If someone can check one site, instead of 400, that's useful. This attitude also seems to ignore the fact that news is collaborative. Sites send each other tips and in return, send links and readers back to the source. That's how we give credit to our peers online and grow together, as a network. You can't do that in print.

Bonus 11) Paper: They kill trees and give you papercuts. They cost money to mail. They are heavy and take up space. And they can catch on fire and burn your entire house down! And after all these years, the subscription cards are still annoying. And you can't search through old print as easily as you can search through old online content.

[image by Mannobhai]

It's not that I think all kids are bad. Nor is it about avoiding breeding spoiled brats. Buying high end gadgets for kids is not quite like buying new driver a sportscar. Not exactly. But a kid driving a beater that is slow, handles poorly and needs mechanical love once in awhile can teach an early driver a lot more about how to coax the maximum performance and life out of a car when learning on a piece of junk. Likewise with tech. Giving them great gadgets can deny kids the unavoidable toil poorly designed or rough-around the edges technology offers that can be so educational. I don't have kids, and I won't presume to actually propose parenting advice to anyone, but I can draw on my own childhood, where I learned tech by taking the harder way.

My dad wisely refused to buy me a complete toy remote controlled car, but instead had me work on a Tamiya kit car, which required me to learn how to solder at age 7. The kid across the street from me eventually had to ask me how to build his own car. He was 16. In another instance, one of many, I couldn't get Ultima to run on my dad's old 386 until I got the autoexec batch file set up right. It was a pain but getting that game to run right taught me a nugget of knowledge. I had plenty of experience like this, and they all added to my collective experience with machines.

One famous geek dad I put this theory to said he didn't think high end gear in itself was the problem.

Because computers suck so much, every high-end gadget requires learning all sort of tricky OS stuff like managing several devices, understand DRM, password and username management, updating firmware, rebooting when things go wrong, etc. Compared to a games console, practically everything involving a computer is a mini lesson in IT.

I can agree with that, but I think it strengthens my point. What's funny is that the types of devices I use manage most of these problems he mentions very elegantly. Today, most of the gear I use is from a certain manufacturer that prides itself on making things very easy to use and consumer oriented. And I appreciate it, but I can't help but feel like I'm becoming dependent on technology so polished, its no harder to use than biting into an...Apple.

Then again, other tech parents I talked to believe what I'm saying is nothing new. One creative family in particular thought the philosophy here could be applied to all mediums. For example, Instead of having their kid listen to pop music, they give her weekly music lessons. And although their daughter has total access to all the gadgets her father and mother do, they're using it to ramp her up to more difficult and advanced ways to interface with and control tech. That is, she's getting programming lessons soon. Knowing the girl, I think she'll enjoy them, even thought she's been raised on easy to use tech. But perhaps the difference here is how that energy is diverted — instead of using a tinkering mentality to get the baseline OS working, she might use it to write programs.

Another parent says this is all theoretical. I heard on some NPR show awhile ago that there's not much you can do to encourage or discourage the spirit of a young person. I guess what I'm saying is that giving junior geeks personal tech problems from a young age can be can be good basic training, so what benefit do we get by buying them stuff that works out of the box?

It supposedly tracks Obama tech news and events, but it does a pretty crappy job at it, even though there's a ton of stuff to cover, which would go to their whole point—no mention of the Dems' digital billboard at the Palin rally, the fact that the $3 million dollar projector he supported is sweetass, or most surprisingly, the Obama iPhone app.

They don't talk about the fact that Joe Biden sucks on tech stuff, either, but that's kind of expected. He's, like, old and stuff.

Update: Here's Wired's take on both candidates. [Tech for Obama]

P.S. Please keep all flaming to a low smolder, thanks.

The Room Tech Lamp has a touch sensitive domed head, which allows the user to turn the light on, as well as select from a variety of colors simply by touching it. Additionally, the lamp has a speaker built in that can be hooked up to your MP3 player. The Room Tech duo are due out in September and will retail for £39.99 ($79) each.

Given Gizmodo writers mostly work from their beds, the biggest chore in the morning is turning on the light; we're just too lazy to pull the blinds up. Frankly, how we got by without the Room Tech series is quite beyond us. We're already in line. [Pocket-lint]