Tech.Wapline

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment.

For nearly as long as the Internet has had value to average consumers, companies have sought ways to deliver its infotainment more conveniently. Early efforts such as WebTV, the hackable Netpliance i-Opener, and the MSN Internet Companion suffered from slow dial-up access and unsavory subscription plans. Portable wireless efforts using inexpensive distribution networks such as the paging network (Ambient Dashbard) or FM radio (MSN Direct watches) have struggled with information presentation interfaces and breadth of content.

While most of these devices have been marketplace failures, the quest clearly continues. Much of the attention yesterday around Android and the unveiling of the Open Handset Alliance revolves around getting a better Internet experience into the mobile phone, the clear payoff for Google.

Chumby, the open source, Wi-Fi-savvy, touch screen-enabled, accelerometer-equipped bit bag represented by what appears to be a mutant octopus, has been tossed onto this treacherous trail of Internet appliances. Chumby resembles a portable GPS device such as the TomTom Go or Garmin StreetPilot C330, but with a rear that hasn’t been to the gym in a couple of years. Instead of displaying directions, Chumby can display Flash Lite widgets from scores of content providers. These include, for example, movies from FimCritic.com, weather updates from The Weather Channel, “news” from MTV, and even SAT vocabulary words from fear profiteer Kaplan.

Not that anyone was actually keeping track, but Sanyo just announced the world’s largest capacity MP3 voice recorder.

That’s 8GB kid with a hefty ¥43,000 (about $375) price to match. For that you get up to 12 hours of PCM stereo recordings or up to 1,000 hours of lowly MP3 compression. The flash memory can also be divided into 4GB of encrypted recordings (accessed with a PIN) and 4GB of general purpose rants or music including DRM’d WMA tracks from your fave PlaysForSure music store. The ICR-PS390RM (aka, DIPLY TALK) launches in Japan later this month.

Now that Microsoft’s Windows Home Server and Leopard’s Time Machine have legs, you’d best get to thinking about your digital storage AND backup requirements. Not up to it? No worries, Intel’s here to offload that processing with their Entry Storage System SS4200x. Their WHS friendly box will ship in two flavors: the hardware-only SS4200-EHW and SS4200-E with integrated software from EMC. The latter can be dropped onto your network as Network Attached Storage with support for 11 languages including those spoken my Macs and PCs. Besides being stuffed with all the requisite Intel chipsets (including a Celeron 400 class proc with DDR2 memory), the SS’s feature up to 4x internal disks for “several terabytes of capacity.” Exactly, Intel? Add a few more through the unit’s eSATA port for something between oodles and mucho capacity. Available in December starting at $500.

Sierra Wireless sure doesn’t seem to be skimping when it comes to USB HSUPA modems, with it now following up its recently-released 880U and 881U models with its new and somewhat improved Apex 880 modem. About the biggest addition here is an always useful microSD card slot, which should let you ditch at least one USB thumb drive from your bag. The modem itself is also slightly smaller than the previous models, measuring just 85mm x 37.5mm x 15mm. Otherwise, you’ll get the same peak data speeds of 7.2 Mbps on the downlink and 2.0 Mpbs on the uplink as before, and support for tri-band UMTS and quad-band GSM/ EDGE networks to keep you connected at all times. No word on a price just yet, but it’ll apparently be available in January.

[Via Electronista]

Aimed for Europe’s roads (for now), Blaupunkt has announced the TravelPilot Lucca 3.5, a circular GPS unit that will probably invoke some love it / hate it style comments. Either it’s a stylish looking unit, or its a waste of space (consider the square screen).

Either way, this thing features a 3.5-inch LCD, a Centrality Atlas III Dual Core 400MHz processor, detailed mapping of the UK and Ireland, major European roads, and detailed European mapping available at extra cost. It also has a SD/SDHC/MMC slot, and locations of speed traps to save you a ticket. If you don’t fancy the circular 3.5, you can go for the new Lucca 5.3, which features a 4.3-inch rectangular screen and case, Bluetooth support, voice control, and external video input for rear view cameras. You’ll undoubtedly see these models in Europe first, but for how much and when, we don’t know.