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Actually, the dev kits currently out don't even have full hardware support. There's minimal networking support, the controllers are nowhere near final (no tilt, no final design...) It's been rumored that the GPU on the most recent dev kits are at only 80% the speed the final PS3 (which has been dropped again)...
I want to see EVERY console do well, for the greater good (in innovation, consumer costs, FUN!) that competition brings, so the fact that SONY is bunging this up as badly as they are is only depressing.......I mean come on, who wouldn't want to play Madden with 6 of your buds by your side?!?!?

The better way would be to run XBMC (XBox Media Center), and xbmcmythtv. It's not perfect yet, but it's definately getting there. It requires a modded xbox (which you have), and doesn't require installing/booting linux, so it's quicker. It's a bit tricky to get ahold of the programs, since the source is distributable, but the binaries are not (MS won't sign them [hence mod required], and the xbox SDK forbids the distribution of non-signed binaries). They can be found with some digging.

Here's some links that might help you out:

http://waltercedric.com/Mambo/index.php?option=com _content&task=view&id=58&Itemid=40
http://forums.designtechnica.com/archive/index.php /t-4278.html
http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/cgi-bin/forums/ikonb oard.pl?act=ST;f=8;t=5934
http://hardware.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/07 /01/0353218&from=rss
http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/archive/index.ph p/t-40168.html
http://www.xbins.org/

The difference, in case the previous paragraph was utterly wasted, is the fact that blogged "news" can be attained elsewhere - blogs are like third- or fourth- or fifth-hand sources. The papers and broadcast news are effectively secondhand information - while you're not there in person, it's being explained, more or less directly, by someone who is. If it weren't for the paper, you'd have no other way to gain the knowledge other than experiencing it firsthand. With blogs, we have google and five billion other websites with the same data.

Though the idea of being able to cross-check information with that many more sources is good, you can easily get minor distortions that snowball into something completely different than the original. It's the difference between RTFA and just the summary. If you make assumptions based off of the half-picture you have of the situation, and then repost them, the story gets distorted, however minorly. Look how it turned praise for Apple's simple remote into a criticism of Apple's new products. And that's after only one degree of separation.

This is a joke, right? Mod funny? Because there are no end to iPod speaker accessories. None.

Use a ripping service like the ones here:

http://reviews.designtechnica.com/guide44.html

Sure, here you go: http://news.designtechnica.com/article9232.html

http://news.designtechnica.com/article8394.html

http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/09/27/hd_dvd_support_a _last_minute_switch/index.html

I don't know if WMP 11 allows it, but HD DVD specs allow it.

At first thats what i thought too, then he mentioned the HP microdisplay's so i googled: http://news.designtechnica.com/featured_article21. html "All models have a seemingly unique lighted front-connection panel (instead of the traditional rear jack pack), designed with a special slot under the TV so that audio and video cables can easily be connected from the front and then hidden from view. " couldn't find a pic though

Sony's consumer cameras are known to take better indoor photos than competing Canons. My main Canon pocket camera at the moment (Ixus 50/SD400) takes mediocre indoor photos.

Try searching for a review of a commerical product like a TV by model number. Google will fill the search with places selling the product, not with reviews. If Eopinions or Amazon does not have a review, you're screwed. You'll be buying blind. Okay genius, what keywords do you enter? If I wanted to find reviews on the Sony KDL-V40XBR1, I personally would type in "sony KDL-V40XBR1 reviews".

I tried your search. And I wasn't impressed with the results.

1. http://www.pricerunner.com/sound-and-vision/vision /tv/456966/reviews - No user reviews posted, no editor review posted
2. http://www.bizrate.com/marketplace/product_info/ov erview/index__cat_id--11520000,prod_id--346857528. html - two users reviews posted, no editor review posted
3. http://reviews.cnet.com/Sony_Bravia_XBR_KDL_V40XBR 1/4505-6482_7-31470102.html - 24 user reviews, editor posted review
4. http://reviews.designtechnica.com/review3148.html - 2 user reviews, editor posted specs
5. http://www.audioreview.com/PRD_343744_2728crx.aspx - no user reviews, no editor review

This is similar to what I've experienced recently searching for reviews on Google. I can eventually find them, but I usually need to use a much more complex search that removes keywords stores usually use. The next time, I'll try Yahoo and see how it goes.

Or maybe not. The same search at Yahoo turned up shopping.yahoo.com twice in the top 5, and a similar lack of reviews.

I read about this at Designtechnica too: http://news.designtechnica.com/article8671.html The problem is that the music phones out there sucks. I think the Sony Ericsson W800i is probably the best so far.

I haul one of these back and forth to work with laptop, power supply, minidisk, books, USB trackball and USB hub, various cables, toiletries, lunch, etc. http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?p roduct_code=51077312&pfp=srch1 http://reviews.designtechnica.com/review_printerfr iendly1047.html It's well constructed and I got a before-current model on closeout cheap at CompUSA.

http://reviews.designtechnica.com/review3298.html

These guys actually posted their last night, worth a read too.

http://reviews.designtechnica.com/review3298.html

So these videos are only available in 320x240 resolution? It sounds like the picture quality is pretty good.

Excuse me. Apple makes roughly $0 in profit on their media service (iTunes). They make alot of money on their iPod MP3 players - hardware devices. Last time I checked Microsoft doesn't compete in the portable hardware music player market. On the other hand, the following major media download services use Microsoft's media technology: Napster, Yahoo, Walmart. So far the only service using Apple's media technology is Apple iTunes. Yes, currently iTunes owns a dominant market share, but virtually all of it due to the pull generated by iPod. Mark my words, their market share will drop significantly over the next few years as competitors in the hardware player market come out with cooler devices.

BTW, here is a nice description of the big players in the digital music space:

http://reviews.designtechnica.com/print_guide33.ht ml

Designtechnica has posted a pretty good review too: Designtechnica's Game Boy Micro Review". Personally this is way too small for me.

See links

http://forums.designtechnica.com/archive/index.php /t-2975.html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/sep/08ipod.ht ml

It was not cheaper than a 20GB iPod on day one, which is when I got mine. I know it came down in price after a while. I don't know where I got the idea that it was $100 more than an iPod. Maybe I got confused as to the hard drive sizes. I think with less cachet, bad software, and being bigger than an iPod, it's tough to justify that price in my mind.

By the time the price came down, the word was out, they just weren't reliable. And so they didn't sell well. See the other people's reviews on here. See reviews on cnet shopper. See nearly anywhere.

I did miss one thing in my comments. There is a difference in the line out on the Karma. It has better stereo separation than a headphone out has. That can be pretty significant.

http://news.designtechnica.com/article8119.html

http://news.designtechnica.com/article7516.html

It might help to read the original article. Note, for example, that the drive uses the "industry's highest density 8 GB" flash to create 16 GB drives, meaning the drive probably uses striping. Also, the drive's performance seems to be pretty good:

"The SSD's performance rate exceeds that of a comparably sized HDD by more than 150 percent. The storage disk reads data at 57 MegaBytes per second (MBps) and writes it at 32MBps."

Conservatively, that's right on par with the fastest non-SCSI drive in the world, and by the time it's released, it will probably be able to directly compete with 10,000 RPM SCSI drives. When you consider that this drive weighs half of what a regular hard drive does, uses 5% of the power, gives off minimal heat, and won't break if you don't treat it perfectly (I've had to bring my iBook into the shop twice, both because the hard drive broke), is there anything to complain about?

Read about this at Designtechnica: http://news.designtechnica.com/article7610.html They are screwing their employees out of their pensions, but can afford to spend money adding WiFi to their planes?

Here is Rob Enderle's take on the whole Apple and Intel partnership: http://news.designtechnica.com/talkback57.html look like he may be onto something. Microsoft has a lot to be worried about.

I totally agree. I have been down the Netgear MP101 and can I say that the box is a big load of rubbish. It continually skips. Netgear keep releasing patches, and keep saying "on the next release we promise to fix streaming problems" (see here). But they dont (at least not yet).

I tried using their own software - XP based. rubbish. I tried the twonkyvision server. Nope.

There's lots of unhappy MP101 users out there.

Then I bought a squeezebox. What a joy. The server runs on anything (perl). The box is reliable, quick, slick. The boxes can be controlled from the server (turn on, change look etc). The boxes are *really* easy to configure. I have my music on the mythbox which streams it to my stereo and PC. I have squeezeboxen in the bedroom and garage.

My advice - dont waste time with the cheap crap. The extra few dollars for a squeezebox is worth it .

No where is it written that the next XBox will play current XBox games.

According to the title the Xbox 360 will play current XBox games. No where does the article provide any supporting evidence to this claim, and in fact largely runs counter to it. Nvidia says all but no, an unknown independent analyst agrees, ATI says that it is statistically possible, and some other unknown agrees with them. Microsoft says... Nothing. According to other sources Microsoft is "not guaranteeing" backwards compatibility, and if they decide not to include a hard drive such compatibility may not be possible at all.

nVidia may very well be playing to the press, but that doesn't mean such a thing wouldn't be difficult or expensive. Most systems achieve backwards compatibility by finding uses for the extra hardware. Software emulation for compatibility has never been attempted professionally in the console arena, but amature software emulation tends to lag two systems behind. You can push an XBox to do a meaningful SNES, but Dreamcast emulation is right out. With the right software the SNES could emulate the 2600, but not the NES.

Personally, I don't see why they don't just include a detachable Xbox chipset as a free add-on with an overpriced "premium" system with two controllers, and sell a regular setup with one controller for 100 dollars less.

But, as I mentioned before, no such thing has been announced yet.

Seems like it's been done.

Why don't you try downloading hijack this. You could be blaming microsoft for spyware you downloaded. I fixed a computer just the other day that was exhibiting the same problems... it had AITwoUpdater loaded on it. You can see a forum posting of a similar situation here.

Apple didn't invent the "little form factor" machine. With the Mac Mini, Apple has just been following a trend that has existed in the PC world for years now, towards smaller and smaller form factors, with a general arrangement of a DVD drive stacked on top of a motherboard. And while I don't know when Apple engineers looked at the Nanode, the Mac Mini is so close in its design to the Nanode that if anybody knocked off anybody, the Mac Mini is a knock off of the Nanode.

Apple's marketing department is really to be admired: when the PC world sells neat little PCs in novel form factors, it's considered as something that a bunch of weirdo case modders do. When Apple finally gets around to doing the same thing years later, from then on, anything else is a knock-off of "their" idea.

AllOfMP3 is under investigation by the Russian police. They were charged with (get this) criminal copyright infringement.

But hey, you enjoy your cheap downloads and pretend like they're legal. AllOfMP3 is exactly as legit as KaZaA Plus or MP3 Download HQ.

I don't really understand this when no one prosecutes the average Joe from copying a CD to tape or CD to MP3 player for convenience . . .

http://news.designtechnica.com/article6553.html

While we're at it, why don't we also talk about the new Thunderbird RC 1.0. It's on the same site! ;)

The new driver IC has overcome the physically impossible VGA-class and higher resolution images on small size TFT-LCD panels of less than 2.4 inches by resolving the vast space required for wiring connections between the panel and driver IC

More details can be found at Deisgntechnica.

Geekzone also has a similar article.

Of course dollar for dollar the first spam sent was quite a lot cheaper. But when you account for inflation and the reduction in volume per can (from roughly 0.00084 Volkswagens to roughly 2 iPods) the price is actually $0.40USD/Can more expensive

Don't believe me? Check my references.

Panasonic Unveil New DVRs (includes photo)

Panasonic Unveils New DVRs

Important additional details I noticed:

• will be introduced in Japanese market Sept 21 (no info on non-Japanese markets in press release)
• recording capacity of 709 hours of video in EP mode (?)
• offers high-speed dubbing from hard disk drive onto DVD-RAM at speeds of 40x and onto DVD-R disc up to 64x in EP mode
• no pricing details in the press release

My Fujitsu Lifebook P-5020 claims to have 11 hours of battery life, but I've never gotten more than 8. Of course, this is with the built in wireless on, so I'm sure if I turned off the wireless and dimmed the screen I'd get more.

It's a small laptop with a slower chip (~1Ghz), which is exactly what I was looking for. The laptop almost fits in a 1-gallon freezer bag, but remains fully useful. I carry it around in the front pocket of my backpack or a thin leather valise. It plays DVDs just fine, burns CDs just quickly enough, has excellent wireless antennae, and the long battery life and portable size make it fit my needs for a non-desktop-replacement portable computing machine. Apparently you can get it to dual boot your favorite distro, but I haven't had the motivation to tackle that yet.

Incidentally, I bought the machine from Portable One in San Jose, and I recommend them- good customer service and good selection, with reasonable prices.

Oh ya... another article over at DesignTechnica with the full Apple statement and other stuff.

Such as MSI's MP3 Player and Samsung's Cell Phone.

Come on folks- this is the internet.

On a side note- I dare you to /. my .sig :)

Talking of the 80s, looks like you can even play your old NES cartridges on it... I think.

That sounds more like a PC to me, I don't want my console having to download the latest security patch.

I see security as a big issue with getting online playmodes for console games, especially ports from PCs where you want network compatablility with the PC game. Who is be responable for creating console patches?

It's pretty certain that the Xbox2 will not have a HD either. There are quite a few reasons NOT to put a HD in a console.

1. makes the console more expensive
2. make money off selling proprietary flash
3. people like being able to move save-game data
4. the HD in the Xbox is great for storing pirated games.
5. a system without persistant memory is harder to screw up(errors/hackers/viruses)
6. they put off extra heat you have to deal with

"IBM dwarfs SCO in terms of lawyers and resources, but Microsoft dwarfs even IBM."

I'd say dwarfing is an overstatement. Let's look at the size of IBM in terms of lawyers by looking up statistics about patents: IBM owns a lot of patents: in 2003, it got 3415 patents, the most of any company (70% more than the number two). From this article: IBM has nearly triple the total of any U.S. IT competitor during this time [-last 11 years-] and surpassing the combined totals for Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, Intel, Apple, EMC, Accenture and EDS.

Now, compare resources from the financial statistics: IBM versus MSFT: Sure MSFT has a lot more cash and market cap, but IBM has more than twice the revenue of MSFT, it has a higher gross profit than MSFT. The MSFT cash gives them momentum, but the IBM revenue gives them power. Now how come MSFT has so much profit relative to their revenue? -> Because of low cost, and accumulated over the years that translates in the pile of cash that they have, which makes me think 'payroll', and a quick check on the profile pages shows that IBM has close to six times as many employees. Translation: MSFT didn't hire a lot of people compared to IBM, hence they we able to put the money in the savings account...

So I think that though MSFT has a lot of cash, IBM probably has more lawyers and actual noncash resources. MSFT has a cheaply operating golden machine that sells its output for a premium price. IBM has a very large and heavy machine that operates at terminal velocity. Translation: Given MSFT makes most of its money with two products (msoffice, mswindows) those products start to sag, IBM most likely will begin eating away at the MSFT pile of cash.

I note that ZDnet now has an article on this. And Design Technica and ENN have picked up (copied) the Register article.

I think we should be shouting this from rooftops. Microsoft secretly funnelled a whole lot of extra money to SCO, through intermediaries. It's a big deal, especially for a convicted monopolist.

posted Yesterday about Gartner in the midst of a major Virus attack and now this claims MS' code is improving on the Security front.

No where is it written that the next XBox will play current XBox games.

According to the title the Xbox2 will play current XBox games. No where does the article provide any supporting evidence to this claim, and in fact largely runs counter to it. Nvidia says all but no, an unknown independent analyst agrees, ATI says that it is statistically possible, and some other unknown agrees with them. Microsoft says... Nothing. According to other sources Microsoft is "not guaranteeing" backwards compatibility, and if they decide not to include a hard drive such compatibility may not be possible at all.

nVidia may very well be playing to the press, but that doesn't mean such a thing wouldn't be difficult or expensive. Most systems achieve backwards compatibility by finding uses for the extra hardware. Software emulation for compatibility has never been attempted professionally in the console arena, but amature software emulation tends to lag two systems behind. You can push an XBox to do a meaningful SNES, but Dreamcast emulation is right out. With the right software the SNES could emulate the 2600, but not the NES.

Personally, I don't see why they don't just include a detachable Xbox chipset as a free add-on with an overpriced "premium" system with two controllers, and sell a regular setup with one controller for 100 dollars less.

But, as I mentioned before, no such thing has been announced yet.

Just a clarification about the whole Centrino thing...just so people have a clear understanding of it.

Centrino is an Intel brand/platform for promoting mobile wireless technologies. So, it's really not a specific chipset but rather a set of different technologies designed to work together to promote longer battery life without sacrificing performance and good wireless performance (in terms of signal strength).

Currently, Intel demands that for a product to carry the Centrino moniker, they must have 3 things: a Pentium M mobile processor, an Intel designed supporting chipset (currently the 855GM/PM), and an Intel designed wireless chipset (currently the PROWireless 2100 and 2200).

If you change out any one of those components you don't get the blue and pink sticker. The most common part to change out is the wireless card since up until recently it only support 802.11b. If a manufacturer does this, they can have a Pentium M sticker for their product.

Another misconception is that "wireless" is built into the "Centrino chipset". This is untrue from the point of view that the wireless chipset is not part of the 855GM/PM northbridge chipset nor the Intel southbridge. The Intel PROWireless 2100 chipset is nothing more than a miniPCI Wifi card (like everyone else's card). You can easily change out Intel's card for any other industry standard miniPCI card. To Intel's credit, even though it's only 802.11b (for the most part), the performance of their product (in terms of antenna strength and throughput performance) is very good and much better than the consumer crap (i.e. and PRISM based chipset) that was put out before it.

So, while it's ok to say "Centrino processor" or "Centrino chipset" you should know that it is an umbrella term that refers to a specific set of technologies and not an actual product.

The full review on one page is available here.

Also, I must say, that is quite the small laptop. And you can see the fingerprints all over it in one of the photos on the main article. :-)

There are other images available here as well.

here are some links for you doubters of the
dvd+r superiority:

http://www.dvdrw.com/press/duallayer.htm
http://news.designtechnica.com/article1883.html
Phillips shows Dual Layer is possible
and quite nicely backward compatibility
with dvd+r readers.

http://www.dvdrw.com/press/16x_dvdplusr.htm
Phillips is able to burn at 16 speed
a dvd+r media... We already have 8x +r
burners... Where is -R? oh, you like to wait?

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/8742
Sony to release dual layer burner in April

http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/129
Another article about Dual Layer and
dvd-r and dvd+r... Sure, dvd-r team announced
dual layer media, but so far, only announced.
Phillips and Sony and Verbatim are delivering.

(-:Stephonovich:-)

While plextor was the first to release this, they are no longer the only one! Philips DVDR824P is available as well as Memorex's 8X entry.

Sony is also releasing the DRU 530A in Decemeber at about the same time as the Pioneer DVR-A07 and Cyber Drive 8X DVD+R drive.

Pretty soon we'll see 16x DVD recording speeds.

The parent post was copied directly from a DesignTechnica review of the SliMP3 (scroll down the page until you hit the "Likes and Dislikes" section). Do not believe the parent poster - his advice is a lie and he does not actually own a SliMP3. He frequently cut-and-pastes reviews and comments by others in order to build up his karma. If you don't believe me, visit his journal and see for yourself. You can take the DesignTechnica review as legitimate advice on the SliMP3, but ignore this joker.