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DigitalDNA · May 12, 2004, 01:47 PM

Apple or someone needs to make a bluetooth microphone. With the new MS Office having a note taking setup with the ability to record audio while you take notes... this would be the ultimate tool for students. You can't really record with the internal mic of the powerbook b/c as you type the clicking would be recorded too but if you could set the microphone at the front of the room where the lecturer is and sit elsewhere in the room and type notes and record at the same time this would be awesome!

Any ideas?

d4nth3m4n · May 12, 2004, 04:52 PM

what about one of those bluetooth headsets for cell phones?

ratlater · May 12, 2004, 05:16 PM

I just bought a Jabra BT250 and it's slick for iChat, my cell phone and I can even use it to in UT04, but apparently they won't work for things like via voice, iListen or speakable items. I think it is a limitation of the OS or maybe the quality isn't high enough. I'm not sure if it'll work with office 04 though...it might.

-matt

andreas_g4 · May 12, 2004, 05:21 PM

Originally posted by DigitalDNA:
[�]but if you could set the microphone at the front of the room where the lecturer is and sit elsewhere in the room and type notes and record at the same time this would be awesome!

Any ideas?

BT range is too short for this purpose.

DigitalDNA · May 12, 2004, 06:48 PM

Originally posted by andreas_g4:
BT range is too short for this purpose.

I must respectfully disagree. BT is the pbooks is rated for a 30 foot radius. In most classes I'm 15-20 feet max from the professor and its usually even less than that.

SSharon · May 12, 2004, 07:17 PM

If I am 20 feet from my teacher its probably a small class and I don't need to record it. OTOH in my large 200-300 person lecture halls I am rarely 20 feet from my teacher so something with greater range is definately needed. I know some RF devices get 60 ft. range so something along that line at least.

DigitalDNA · May 12, 2004, 07:24 PM

Originally posted by SSharon:
If I am 20 feet from my teacher its probably a small class and I don't need to record it. OTOH in my large 200-300 person lecture halls I am rarely 20 feet from my teacher so something with greater range is definately needed. I know some RF devices get 60 ft. range so something along that line at least.

Well my opinion is if its a large lecture hall you can just sit closer but even in the small classes things need to be recorded. My prime example is molecular cell biology. There is just way too much information being spewed that you have no chance of getting all of it. There are maybe 30 poeple and each one of us has a tape recorder. I guess thats pretty common for biomedical science classes though unlike business classes where you don't even need to attend class to get an A.

SSharon · May 12, 2004, 07:30 PM

true about those business classes, but I am not always one of the first people to get to my lectures so the close seats are already taken. Then again I wouldn't feel great about leaving a mic 100 feet away from my seat and being worried that someone would steal it. My teacher already has a wireless mic so people in the back can hear him (but not read the board of course), if only there was something to intercept that signal and record it, that would be useful.

DigitalDNA · May 12, 2004, 07:49 PM

lol what? where do you go to school... our lecuture halls fill from the back to the front... no one wants to be the person on the front row right next to the profs.. lol. If you're late you're forced to sit in front

which is usually what happens to me.

SSharon · May 12, 2004, 07:54 PM

as it says by my name I go to the university of maryland. yes there are always people going straight to the back of the room but in my physics class the front does fill up quickly. some of our lecture halls are out of proportion and are long and thin which is not a good thing.

selowitch · May 12, 2004, 08:35 PM

This is incredibly frustrating. The Macintosh platform is the best in the world, yet there's no good way to do voice recognition with a headset (ViaVoice and iListen are both said to completely suck on the Mac; ViaVoice on PC is fairly decent).

Is this, at root, a throughput issue? A limitation of the Bluetooth standard? A Mac OS X issue? What? I must know....

Link · May 12, 2004, 09:41 PM

What's the point in bluetooth headsets anyway? I thought the whole point of having a cellphone was showing off how important you are.

selowitch · May 12, 2004, 10:31 PM

Originally posted by Link:
What's the point in bluetooth headsets anyway?

[list=1][*]Hands-free cellphone use.[*]Use with Xbox Live.[*]Theoretically, one day use with voice recognition/dictation on a Mac.[/list=1]

ratlater · May 12, 2004, 11:48 PM

Originally posted by selowitch:
[list=1][*]Hands-free cellphone use.[*]Use with Xbox Live.[*]Theoretically, one day use with voice recognition/dictation on a Mac.[/list=1]

4. Use with iChatAV
5. Use with computer games

selowitch · May 12, 2004, 11:52 PM

Originally posted by ratlater:
4. Use with iChatAV
5. Use with computer games

6. Use with VoIP.

SomeToast · May 14, 2004, 11:58 AM

Originally posted by Link:
I thought the whole point of having a cellphone was showing off how important you are.

I think that was last true in 1998.

rag on a muffin · May 14, 2004, 06:54 PM

Originally posted by SomeToast:
I think that was last true in 1998.

lol yeah. now you have to show off your powerbook.

the ones that are so small their hard to see are really funny. my friend's bus-driver has one of those, and she looks like shes talking to her invisible friend, because you dont know she has the headset.