7. Hiding From: HRx, Wireless USB, Palm "Nova"

HRx Players

HD audio keeps getting more and more complicated, with too many standards, formats, and drivers necessary to get all available audio from media. One of these many formats—HRx—is being touted by PS Audio, which will probably show off an expensive player that’s necessary to read these HRx files. Do we really need this player or this format? No. Audiophiles already have plenty of luscious files to work with, thank you very much.

Wireless USB/USB 3.0 Standards

Sometimes, new standards can be exciting. Sometimes, they bore us to tears. A few products already exist for the Wireless USB standard, but none of them have changed the face of computing forever. Okay, so that’s a high bar to ask a new standard to jump, but seriously, we’re sick of the “wireless USB lobby” pushing the standard with words. We want action. Now, the same consortium (the USB Implementers Forum) is talking up another USB standard—USB 3.0, which promises to be superfast. Great! Show us a demo. Give us release dates. No products to speak of? Then shaddup, if you please.

Palm “Nova”

Once upon a time, we were in love with a Treo. It ran Palm’s Garnet OS. But that was a long, long time ago. Now, when we see a new Palm device, we almost always look the other way. That’s because Treo never seems to grow up. Now, rumblings from Palm suggest that the company is finally readying a new operating system for its smart phones (they’ll continue to make Windows Mobile versions as well), and there may be a prototype or two circulating in Vegas. But Apple, RIM, and even Google’s success in the smart phone market during the past year have cost Palm its chance. It’s too late. Even if it is an improvement on the current OS, Nova might be a no go.

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