Uniden Brings Radio Scanning to the Masses with HomePatrol

Uniden held an event at their headquarters in Fort Worth, TX this weekend where they unveiled a revolutionary new easy-to-use radio scanner called HomePatrol. For new scanner users, programming the correct police, fire, medical, and other interesting frequencies can be daunting. The HomePatrol scanner only requires that you enter your city or zip code, and the scanner automatically programs all of the frequencies from the RadioReference database. Connect your GPS to the HomePatrol scanner, and it can automatically pickup nearby radio frequencies in the area (including digital signals).

Last year I purchased the Uniden BCD396XT, and have really enjoyed it. Whenever I travel to a new location and I want to monitor, I have to spend at least an hour or so programming my scanner. This task is made much easier using a program such as FreeSCAN for Windows. However, with the HomePatrol scanner, listening in unfamiliar locations will make radio monitoring a more enjoyable and accessible hobby for more people. As long as the price point is right, this could really change the scanner radio market. Exact price and release date have yet to be announced.

Strange Phone Calls from 524-228-1301

Anyone else getting phone calls from 524-228-1301? The phone rings and caller ID shows this number, but no one responds when I answer. I Googled this number and found that many other folks have also received suspicious phone calls from this number, some even claiming that there were Spanish speakers on the other end of the line, and others claiming that the caller asked for personal financial data. Shady!

Mouth Harp Beat Boxing

Now I know what I need to work on this summer:

iPhone 4 Glass Shatters at 3.5 ft. Drop

The new iPhone 4 design has the glass sitting above the metal bezel, as opposed to sitting behind the metal frame as with previous iPhone models.  The folks at iFixyouri discovered that the glass shattered while dropping an empty iPhone 4 shell from waist level (3.5 ft.).  On the third test drop, the glass was shattered.  If this was simply an empty shell, I would imagine that the velocity of the fall would be greater with actual components inside. (Via SlashGear)

iPhone 4

Creating a DVD with .MTS files from an HD camcorder

Early this year, we purchased a Canon HF200 HD video camcorder. The quality of the video and pictures is excellent, but the native format of the video (.MTS) is a little troublesome to deal with. Fortunately, there are several programs that allow you to convert .MTS files to .AVI, .MP4, .WMV, or any other more usable video format.