While browsing the UChicago Law School’s website tonight, I noticed that the there was a podcast of the keynote address given by Cindy Cohn, legal director of the EFF, at a recent symposium held at the Law School. I had the privilege of attending; it was a really enjoyable talk. I thought the crowd was kind of funny when I attended; I noticed that most of the law students were dressed more formally than Cindy Cohn, but I won in the informal dress category with shorts (yes, the talk was in November in Chicago), sandals, a t-shirt, and a hoodie. Different cultures I suppose. The talk was definitely more for lawyers than anyone else, but I still learned quite a bit about the EFF’s recent dealing, and the current state of the law and the Internet. See: Post on Law School site MP3 File

To further my addiction to gadgets, I have purchased the Archos PMA430. Every mp3 player I have owned (that is, things I got as mp3 players) has been an Archos thus far. To put it quite simply, Archos does what I want; I don’t have to use any particular media player or operating system to transfer data (has always worked as a USB mass storage device), I can record stuff, and there are usually a few more features. I got this one because my archos gmini 200 is starting to show it physical and technological age (because 3-4 years is somehow old). Anyways, I saw this thing for sale for $200 off something on dealhack and decided to go for it. Enough with the brutal details.

What I find curious about it is the price I got. Obviously, I did some reading first. cNet called it the “holy grail” of whatever the hell you call this class of devices. The main problem they raised was price. When it came out in 2005, this thing cost something like $800. I wouldn’t pay $800, but I would pay a decent amount for a Linux-based mp3/video player/recorder, with wi-fi, and a slue of other crap from a brand I trust. I just don’t get how they make money. They don’t have a page on their site anymore for this thing; they have pawned it off to second-sellers at this point. Every time I have gotten something from them, I have been amazed out how far ahead of Apple they always are. Perhaps Archos moves too fast for the general public, but I tend to think that they just market badly and don’t have the best hardware designers out there (that is, design of appearance). I just don’t get it.

Anyways, this thing has been added to my daily device set. Currently, this set is my cellphone, this thing now, and my nokia n800. As of one day of use, it looks like I should have some fun with this thing. One thing I will miss is that I got to a point with my gmini where I could operate it almost fully without looking at it. I can’t do that with this thing, so I am going to have to start using things like playlists. I also have an Archos something 700, which has a huge screen and many of the same features, but it not at all portable. I think I am going to start using the DVR functions on these things a lot more. Transfer is easy as those two can act as hosts to other USB things. The main problems I read about involved the wi-fi, and battery life. I haven’t had troubles with the wi-fi, but I don’t think I will really ever use it since I have the n800, which already serves the purpose better than thing could so it is not really a problem. I haven’t really been able to test battery too much, but I it needs a lot of juice for video, so music time benefits a lot. We will see how it works out….