January 5, 2005 Iriver's N10 hangs around your neck like a piece of jewellery and looks the part. The necklace also functions as a set of earplugs, and the N10 is an MP3 player with 512 MB of recording space. It is also a voice recorder and can be activated to record almost instantly. This makes taking lecture notes a breeze as the file can then be downloaded to your computer in Mp3 format, annotated and even transcribed. It also opens up the possibility of routinely recording verbal briefings, business meetings and instructions.
Two of Gizmag's stalwarts recently attended a series of seminars and trade shows in London. There was too much to do for us both to be in attendance at all the seminars we wanted to attend, so we bought an N10 and recorded the lectures. The N10 worked hard for two days and recorded 7 hours and 39 minutes of high quality audio, being constantly switched off and on - on one charge.
It's not the sort of thing you'll wear everywhere, because in some neighbourhoods, the bling value might get you mugged, but you can get away with wearing it almost anywhere because it is unobtrusive at just 6.2 x 2.7 x 1.3cm and 24g.
Some might think this Gizmo is geeky. We don't. We think it's a wonderful device for capturing the information flow and turning it to one's advantage.
We have previously enthused on this subject in our writings on Nokia's Lifeblog and Microsoft's Sensecam
Nokia's Lifeblog creates a multimedia diary of your life through images, messages, and videos you collect with your phone. Similar in concept to Microsoft's Sensecam, the two projects offer an interesting future for the way we manage our lives.
The SenseCam is a badge-sized wearable visual diary that captures up to 2000 VGA images per day into FLASH memory, offering a continually building repository of information on what you have done during the day in visual form. In addition, sensor data such as movement, light level and temperature is continuously monitored and any sudden changes in any of the above triggers the camera.
Add a transcribing VPedal for US$75
Making the N10 even more effective, interviews can be transcribed very efficiently with the files in Mp3 format using a USB-connected Vpedal.
The Vpedal is a foot pedal for transcribing voice recordings and it worked perfectly from the outset when we tried it. It can even be dialled-in to suit the user's preferences for sensitivity and with variable speed so that it becomes a very efficient and effective tool.
It also works with NCH Express Scribe & Express Dictate, iScribe, Dictation Buddy & FTR Player Gold and all the plug ins are available from www.vpedal.com that allow Vpedals to operate with Winamp versions 2 & 3 and or Windows Media Player 9, RealOne & iTunes