While reading the New York Times site this morning, I came across this article about gadget addiction. This is a topic that’s been on my mind a bit lately given my own love for all things electronic and shiny. And I’ll admit that I do get occasional feedback from my husband about how my MacBook seems to be attached to me while I’m at home. And, there’s the fact that my iPhone usually travels from room to room with me while at home – for some reason, I feel the need to have it in my pocket or on a nearby table as I do laundry, wash dishes, and other things around the house.

So, am I addicted?
According to the article, almost, but not quite. I’m fine with talking to people live, although texting is more convenient most of the time, particularly when I’m at work and sitting in a cube farm. I definitely can’t leave home without my iPhone and would turn around to go get it if I somehow left without it. I can and do not use the internet when asked or to do other activities. I definitely can’t see giving up snowboarding or hanging out with my friends just to stay on the internet for a little longer. I don’t miss important life moments – that I know of, anyway. 😉 I’ve never been in a car accident or some other serious situation because of my internet or gadget use. In fact, I’m a bit of a stickler about hands-free devices for cell phones while driving (I have a built-in bluetooth system in my car that is fabulous), and I usually don’t listen to music while walking around the city to ensure I hear what’s going on around me. What about you? Check out the article and see how you stack up. And, remember – the first step to recover is being able to admit you have a problem. 😉

Well, there’s a lot going on and about to go on in the world of consumer electronics! CES is going on this week, and Macworld Expo will be next week. Many companies started announcing new products last week in advance of CES and the rumor mill is going strong about possible new products and updates from Apple. Being an Apple fan, I am most interested in what will go on at Macworld and am waiting with bated breath to see what happens.

Here are the sites I will be checking out for coverage of both CES and Macworld:
CES & live Macworld coverage: Engadget
Macworld coverage (also live): MacRumors.com

Did I tell you what I got for Christmas? There was one exceptionally geeky thing my husband got for me (it’s been on my ongoing gift list for over a year now) – a Roomba. And he got one for me! I never thought there’d be a day that I would be happy to get an item whose sole purpose is to clean as a gift, but I was absolutely thrilled. (And before I go on any more about the Roomba, I must note that I also received many other cool gifts from my husband, and I have not forgotten about them.) I now have a Roomba 560 – it came with a charging station and two lighthouses (these are battery operated beacons that help guide the Roomba to another room and/or prevent it from going past a certain point). I tested it out on Christmas day and completely freaked out our dog, and it works quite well – much better than expected, actually. Expect a full review soon!

I hate junk mail. I hate getting catalogs that I didn’t ask for. And we already know that I want a digital newspaper (see my 8/26 blog post). We heard about this service that cancels any catalog “subscriptions” you may have at no charge. I’ve signed up, but their site says it takes up to 10 weeks for your catalogs to stop coming. I’ll report back here in about 10 weeks to see if this really worked. In the meantime, you can try it for yourself – go to CatalogChoice.org (I’ve also added their logo/link to my site in the sidebar to the left if you’d rather click there 😉 ).

Speaking of digital newspapers, have you heard about the new Amazon Kindle yet? I was really excited for this release, having read rumors about it for quite some time. I *almost* ordered one on release day, but sanity prevailed and I’ve thought about it a little bit more. There are just a few things that make it not-so-attractive to me. The first is the lack of a backlight. Yes, I know that the E-Ink technology is supposed to be just like reading paper, but is there something about it that prevents a backlight from being incorporated? One of the most convenient things for me about reading ebooks is that I can read them anywhere in any lighting condition (on my Palm PDA’s, anyway). I don’t want to keep the light on and keep my husband awake when I’m reading before bed. And those little snap-on book lights don’t cut it either.

I admit that I LOVE the built-in OTA download of books and browsing the online store – that was an excellent idea (especially the part about it being free). And the price of new books is nice at $9.99 a pop. And the ability to get the New York Times or the WSJ downloaded automatically every day to the device is absolutely heaven! This is what I’ve always wanted! But you know what’s holding me back? First, there’s the backlight issue. Second, it’s the price for the device itself. This may sound odd coming from a girl who paid $599 for an iPhone on iDay, but come on! $399 for a dedicated ebook reader? I just can’t justify that. At this point, I’m just going to wait to see if an ebook reader will be a 3rd party application released for the iPhone in the next few months and work from there. Amazon: add a backlight and drop the price, then maybe we’ll talk. 😉

I love reading the newspaper. The Sunday paper is my favorite. I love waking up late on a Sunday morning, and reading the paper (comics first!) while eating a late breakfast. What I don’t like is the guilt I feel from killing trees to enjoy this little indulgence. Everything in the newspapers is readily available in digital format somewhere, so why can’t I get a digital newspaper? I would actually *pay* for a digital version of the New York Times. They could send me an email every morning with a PDF attachment. That PDF file contains the entire newspaper content (with or without ads – I’d pay more to get it without ads, too). I could read the PDF on my computer as I eat breakfast (and I’m normally in front of my computer anyway at that time), and then continue reading it on my iPhone during my commute. And I could finish, if I wanted, by accessing my email via webmail on my computer at work. I would so dig that.

I’m guessing that any newspaper publisher would want some sort of copy-protection of their digital newspaper. I’m not sure how sophisticated PDF encryption can be, but maybe it can be tied to the device’s MAC address so it can only be read on a limited number of machines that are “registered” with the subscription (with a maximum of 2 devices allowed per account)? Or perhaps one could pay even more for an unencrypted version to have the freedom to read it on any number of machines?

I lean toward PDF rather than a web-version since web access isn’t everywhere yet (I lose my Edge signal in the tunnel and in some places in my building at work). And my geeky self can’t wait until wifi is everywhere, but that day is not yet here yet.

What do you think? Does this idea sound interesting to you? If there are enough people interested to make this a viable idea for newspaper publishers, this could be a possibility in the future…