Strange New World: Tech Picks of the Week

Oct. 18, 2007 — -- Alternative reality — or alternatives to reality, rather — rule the strange new world of technology this week. Alternative power options are entering the gadget-o-sphere; now wind and solid state fuel — not batteries — can drive your electronic ambitions. And Apple's alternative to the Windows Vista operating system is coming to market later on this month.

Clearly Steve Jobs is spoiling for another crack at the PC computing market. And, finally, a Web site is offering a clearer alternative to YouTube. High-definition video is coming to the Internet. Better watch out — pretty soon those wacky Japanese game shows will be streamed in pristine video quality.

Here, then, are our picks of the week.

Unless you live in a cave, you know "green" is in right now. (We guess if you live in a cave you are already ahead of the curve, but never mind). And as Vice President Nobel is teaching us, we all need to do our part. But before you go starting your own organic farm, there are some more modest steps you can take to "greenify" your life.

For instance, you can drain less power from the grid when charging your gadgets. We like two new products that will make sure your iPod is charged and ready — and will save a lil juice for the rest of the planet.

First up is the Hymini, a mini turbine that you can take with you on a bike ride or stick out your car's window to harness the wind. The thing has a small prop that spins in the breeze and converts that motion into electricity that can charge your gadgets.

We also like the Medis 24/7 Power Pack Fuel Cell. This $30 electro-chemical gizmo will provide enough power to recharge your Treo even if there is no outlet in sight. And best of all, when the fuel is depleted, there are no chemical reactants — or batteries to throw away for that matter.

Apple has announced a ship date for its brand new operating system, code-named Leopard: Oct. 26 at 6 p.m. Set your watches. We got an advance look at the OS. Here is the skinny.

First the bad news: Those with gear more than 3 years old will be left behind. The snazzy new OS runs only on processors with greater than 867MHz. It will cost $129 for a single machine and $199 for a five-machine license. That's pretty darn cheap compared to Windows Vista, which can cost almost twice as much.

Leopard promises to have more than 300 new features. The new desktop will be sleekly redesigned with more one-click app access with the Finder feature being significantly upgraded. You can search your Mac for files and apps a la the cover-flow system found in iTunes. You can flip through pictures and visual representations of your files and apps. It looked very, very nice in our demo.