To maximize PC performance, I listen to the music played by my iPhone snuggled in it's cradle next to my PC rather than iTunes. This is a nice arrangement, except I can't use last.fm, and more importantly when a phone call comes in I have to quickly unplug my headphones because they won't work with phone services (even though they work fine with iPod services). My Sennheiser HD560 headphones do not have a microphone, or an iPhone compatible jack. But they have a detachable cable at the headphone-end, and it would be a simple matter to manufacture a replacement cable with the appropriate plug and microphone. This would rock. I imagine this would be something of a niche market, but if you could build such a cable in China for $1 and sell for $30 over the internet, it might be worth doing. :) I wonder how many other headphones have removable cables?
The other idea came to me while playing piano: I want to jam on my keyboard and then sift through the MIDI results later, and I don't have a good way to do it right now. My keyboard does not have a built-in sequencer, and I would like to record my jams. It has a USB MIDI port though, and I was thinking it would be nice to attach a thumb drive, and transfer the data later to my computer with Ableton (this way I don't have to boot up into my computer to just jam and make ideas). But then I got to thinking, why not make it a universal recorder that just records whatever USB voltage wiggles it senses? You could use it as a keylogger, or a voice recorder, or whatever.
Speaking of keyloggers, here's a novel, legitimate use for them: let's say you're an author and you're going on a long trip and don't want to write in longhand (it's too slow, too illegible, etc), but don't want to bring a computer either. So you bring your favorite normal PC keyboard, and type blind into a special thumb drive. The thumb drive would need to be powered, but it would be a pretty darn efficient way to type simple journal-style content. Of course, higher end versions might have a tiny LCD display on the top so that you could catch your obvious mistakes as you type them, similar to what old Brother style hybrid typewriters used to give you. If you are a travel writer, you could slip the thumbdrive into an internet cafe, and dump the text into a web-based client software that would help you organize and edit what is bound to be a pretty messy text stream.
(Unfortunately this device would not be suitable for digicam backup because AFAIK cameras don't PUSH their data down USB, the data is PULLED by requesting client software. I'm not sure there are standards on requesting data. However, maybe the "direct print" interface present on some cameras) could be pressed into service for this purpose.)
The other idea came to me while playing piano: I want to jam on my keyboard and then sift through the MIDI results later, and I don't have a good way to do it right now. My keyboard does not have a built-in sequencer, and I would like to record my jams. It has a USB MIDI port though, and I was thinking it would be nice to attach a thumb drive, and transfer the data later to my computer with Ableton (this way I don't have to boot up into my computer to just jam and make ideas). But then I got to thinking, why not make it a universal recorder that just records whatever USB voltage wiggles it senses? You could use it as a keylogger, or a voice recorder, or whatever.
Speaking of keyloggers, here's a novel, legitimate use for them: let's say you're an author and you're going on a long trip and don't want to write in longhand (it's too slow, too illegible, etc), but don't want to bring a computer either. So you bring your favorite normal PC keyboard, and type blind into a special thumb drive. The thumb drive would need to be powered, but it would be a pretty darn efficient way to type simple journal-style content. Of course, higher end versions might have a tiny LCD display on the top so that you could catch your obvious mistakes as you type them, similar to what old Brother style hybrid typewriters used to give you. If you are a travel writer, you could slip the thumbdrive into an internet cafe, and dump the text into a web-based client software that would help you organize and edit what is bound to be a pretty messy text stream.
(Unfortunately this device would not be suitable for digicam backup because AFAIK cameras don't PUSH their data down USB, the data is PULLED by requesting client software. I'm not sure there are standards on requesting data. However, maybe the "direct print" interface present on some cameras) could be pressed into service for this purpose.)
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