Here is a video put together by google that explains the basics of what Google Voice and what it does.

Here are a few more showing some of the specifics of my favorite functions.

Unfortunately, Apple hasn’t allowed the Google Voice app on the iPhone, so you have to use a few work arounds to get it to work. Google has provided a web app that you can bookmark to your home screen. It will open up Safari and give you access to the dialer, texting, voicemails. I’ll create a new post on how I’ve setup text message through google voice to push through the iPhone. As of right now Google Voice is invite only, but you can request to be invited on their page. Here are a few screenshots I’ve take on my iPhone showing the web app in action.

The drawing was planned for Monday, but for some reason they delayed it a few days, but it ended up being worth the wait. They only had about 12 entries and the were giving away 2 headsets, so my chances were pretty good. By some miracle I was the 2nd name drawn and won! I’ve been doing some reading up on the Icon and they have a special app for the iPhone and all sorts of other features that I’ve never seen on a bluetooth headset.

I was asked which Icon model I would like and I chose the rouge which is a dark red color. I thought that would be nice instead of the traditional black of most headsets. A video of the drawing can be seen on their fan page.

Here is the picture I used to enter the contest and a picture of the rouge model.

Now for the history lesson. In the late 70’s Boba Fett was offered as a mail away figure and one of the features he was supposed to have was the rocket firing pack. Before the figure was released, a 4 year old boy, choked and died because of a simular missile on the Battlestar Galactica vehicles. Because of this event, toy laws were changed. Kenner at the time tried a few different style launchers, but it was still deemed unsafe. In the end they removed the rocket firing feature, glued the missile, and when kids received their figure it included an apology letter. They even offered kids a replacement figure if they weren’t happy with the situation.

Several prototypes with the firing launcher did survive and made it to the collector market. They are considered Holy Grail collectors items as they come with roughly a $15k+ price tag and in limited numbers.

The new figure comes with a longer rocket in order to still comply with safety laws, but it is a great nod for the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes back.

Here are pictures of my original mail away version with the apology letter, the slide shown at the Hasbro Presentation, and some official photography for the figure.

Or in this case the Star Wars figures. This has been on my want list for a very long time and I finally got one and a steal of a deal. Here is the story behind this piece. Kenner Toys got the Star Wars license to make the toys roughly a month before the movie was released in theaters. There was no way to get the toys out in time, so they did a few things like puzzles and repackaged a few of their earlier toys and slapped the Star Wars name on them to hold people over. By the Christmas season of 1977 they still did not have any toys ready, so the President of Kenner Toys, Bernie Loomis, decided to sell this “empty box” known as the Early Bird Certificate Package. It was a way to remind people that the toys were coming and it also provided a way for kids to still have something Star Wars under the Christmas tree that year.

According to the Steve Sansweet Book, Star Wars: From Concept to Screen to Collectible, 600,000 of the envelopes were sent out to stores and about half of them sold. The rest would have been sent back to Kenner after December. Even though only half of the enevelopes sold, it was still considered to be a successful promotion as it kept the idea of Star Wars toys in the public mind and when the figures were finally released, retailers couldn’t keep them in stock.

Okay so here is where the good deal I got comes into effect. This one showed up on ebay a few days ago with a buy it now of $65.00. An envelope and stand in this condition will normally sell for $160-$200, so without even thinking about it, I clicked the buy it now button. The nice thing is that it also included another playset cardboard display. I should get roughly $30-$50 by flipping it, so when you take that into account, I basically got a vintage early bird envelope for the original 1977, $13 retail price in 2010. The other nice thing is that it came with the mail away form for the mail away display stand in unused form and the original toy booklet. Collectors pay a pretty penny just for these pieces of paperwork. The booklet features pictures of the actors rather than the toys like later booklets. These two pieces of paper weren’t included in the envelope, but with the set of figures when they arrived in the mail. I hope to add the followup figure set sometime in the future.

Below are some pictures of the Kit I bought, the followup figure mailer from another collection, and the original 1977 commercial. Also, here is a link to a video of Steve Sansweet talking about the Early Bird Kit and showing the one in his personal collection.

Here are a few good online resources about this.
Bernie Loomis Remembered on starwars.com
Early Bird Certificate Package on theswca.com
Mail Away Offers: Early Bird Package on theswca.com

Click Here to watch the event

It has some pretty cool specs in a small casing. All of which can be read here. The most notable is the fact that it is now using an Apple A4 1GHZ processor. This is the first processor that Apple has come out with since buying out a processor manufacturing company. It is supposedly low powered enough to get 30 days of standby time and 10 hours of video playback. That is pretty impressive. It makes me wonder if the next iPhone will have a simular chip. I do not expect an iPhone to get that much power as the iPad because of a smaller battery, but it would be nice to get at least 2-3 days on standby and more talk time.

One limitation that people are complaining about already, is the ability to run multiple applications at the same time. I personally think that this could change by the time the iPad starts shipping in 60 days. I think this event was to show off the hardware and give an idea of what it can do. I think within that 60 day time frame we’ll see another announcement like this that will focus on iPhone OS 4.0. At that announcement multitasking could be announced as a new feature for the iPad and even the iPhone. It is right now a limitation of the OS and not the hardware. This is just my speculation.

Another speculation I have from this about iPhone OS 4.0, is that the iPad allows you to choose your own wallpaper for the home screen. I could see this also coming for the iPhone as I know it is a requested feature that jailbreakers always like to show off.

The pricing is also much better than I thought it would be. I had heard rumors of $600 and I thought they might start there, but other rumors even said $1000. The wifi models are available for $499, $599, and $699. For people who also want the ability to use a 3G network connection they can pay $30 more on those prices and get a version that allows you to pop in a sim card and get a data plan from a GSM carrier. (AT&T and T-Mobile in the U.S.)

The video of the event will be posted on Apple’s website later today, and I’ll post a link here.

All the text and some photos of the event can be viewed here at the link I posted earlier

I think it looks like a great product that will probably do well for Apple. I don’t think I need one as of now, but that might change when I finally get one in my hands.

Here is Apple’s Product Page for the iPad

The actual video fo the event will be online later this evening.

Looks like the rumors might be true about two mailaway figures this year. In my email this morning I had a message from Hasbro about this exclusive figure from the Clone Wars cartoon. I’ve already found a seller on ebay that has the forms and UPCs for about $6 which is a lot cheaper than buying 5 figures.

The rumored mailaway offer that will be available this summer is supposed to be Boba Fett. This would go well with the 30th Anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back and also nods back to the original 1979 mail away Boba Fett promotion. It will be interesting to see if it turns out to be true.

Exclusive STAR WARS Nahdar Vebb Figure.

The big one of course has been a new Apple tablet computer. This tablet has been a rumor for a few years now, so it will be interesting to see if Apple finally comes out with one. It is rumored to be running a modified version of the iphone OS and will tie into the app store.

Another rumor is that iLife ‘10 will be announced and will include a photoshop type application. That could go with the paint splatters in the invite. New versions of iLife have been typically announced at this time of year, so it is very possible. I’m also looking forward to seeing what updates they make with iPhoto, iMovie, and Garageband.

The last two rumors are iPhone related. This seems a little too early right now for iPhone news, but it is possible. The first is that iPhone OS 4.0 will get announced and demoed. It is possible that it will have some very radical changes, so this would get developers ready to have their apps updated by the typical June/July launch time for the OS. Not much is out there as far as what will be new with the OS, but I know many want a new notification system that matches close to the Palm Web OS and Google’s Android. Also, the ability to run more than one application at the same time besides Apple’s.

Finally, is the new iPhone model. This would be a very early time to announce the next iPhone as that usually happens in June, a few weeks before the actual launch date. However, it has been rumored that the next iPhone could be released as early as April/May this year. The speculation there is a dual core processor, hybrid gsm/cdma chip (so it possibly could work on all U.S. cell phone carriers), and the always front facing camera rumors. I also think we will see a 32GB and 64GB models which is an upgrade I can use right now as my 16GB is pretty much full. The front facing camera has been a rumor for the last two years. I think it is a great idea, but I’m not sure if cell phone carriers would want that as it would eat up a lot of bandwidth on their networks.

One of the reasons I read on the May launch, which could make sense, is that the AT&T exclusivity contract is rumored to expire this year. They could come out with the new iPhone in May on AT&T to get people to renew their contracts for two more years and stay with AT&T. Then in June/July they will launch the iPhone on another U.S. carrier. Most likely T-Mobile, as the current iPhone is not compatible with Sprint/Verzion, unless it gets that hybrid chip previously mentioned.

Here is a mockup that someone made of what they think the new iPhone could look like.