Strange New World: Picks of The Week
This green gadget changes wind into electricity to power all your gadgets.
April 24, 2008 — -- Ah, the first weeks of spring and new technology continues to bloom here in the Strange New World. Like some techno Cirque du Soleil dancer, Microsoft is getting itself in one heck of an operating system contortion: It has released service pack upgrades for both Vista and XP at basically the same time. The company is on record as saying it will wind down XP support. But considering the less-than-lovely response to Vista and the proliferation of cheaper OS alternatives, Microsoft may be supporting both systems for some time.
Also, global positioning systems are getting downright chatty, and just in time for Earth Day, eco-gadgets are getting real. This summer you will be able to rock out on your iPod with little to no carbon footprint to feel guilty about.
Here are our picks of the week:
It looks like global positioning makers are taking idle chatter very seriously. The next generation of in-car navigation systems includes once-unimaginable voice-recognition features.
Now voice commands give deeper instructions than simply "turn right" or "turn left" and they offer improved information services and directions to local points of interest. Even more bizarrely, they now offer subtle commands and prompts that keep you from speeding or missing turns.
The big mover here is the new AVIC-F system announced by Pioneer last week. Units start at $850 and are offering some sophisticated voice recognition. So instead of saying, "play Jay-Z," you can now say, "I, uh, want to, uh, maybe, like, hear what's his name … Jay-Z." We figure that will make the AVIC easier to talk to than your kids.
Microsoft has confirmed that the Windows XP Service Pack 3 has been released to manufacturers and will be available for download next week. Now don't get too excited. SP3 will not update your old XP machine into a Vista machine. In fact, the service pack does not include all the new features found in Vista. It does have some network protocol functions, but we're talking about the sexy features.
Related Stories
ABC News Live