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You are a bit behind the times there.. 1TB consumer drives are here http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/05/hitachi-breaks- 1tb-hard-drive-barrier-with-7k1000/

iRiver has announced an intention to release an ebook reader as well.

All of these devices are pretty primitive because of current limitations of the displays (these are the ebook equivalents of those old 32mb mp3 players), but five minutes reading on one will make a believer out of hardcore readers. It's not just the battery life...the screens just look like paper. Lots easier to read.

45GB HD-DVd triple layer - May 2005

51GB HD-DVD Triple layer @ CES last week

Or you know you could just searched for it, I figured we'd all been accosted with so much disc format news as of late another couple links weren't really needed.
You're right that Click was released on dual layer BRD... as I said it wasn't until recently that they released them... Click was released in mid November, I'd say that constitutes "recently".

Considering the fact that it won't be until July 2008 before Microsoft gets games into the Zune, I'd say they're a little backlogged on iPod catch-up features. I'm seriously wondering what happened in the middle of your post, though, because it made lots of sense (or sounded like it, except it took me about 30 seconds to figure out what "visula voice messaging" was supposed to be), until about halfway through point 2.

Sure the phone has sensors (lots of devices do), but I'm sure it will never, ever be intended for them to be used in the way you described. Maybe there will be some kind of hack project to make the iPhone usable as a very basic interface for something, but the basic sensors it has are limited, I'm sure to being useful for their intended design purposes. The Wiimote was designed over a period of years to be used as a controller for the Wii. It's functionality won't be duplicated by a hacked iPhone. And I don't think Microsoft wants to make a controller/phone/Zune that costs as much as its competitors more expensive games console, to attract people to the XBox360. The last thing you want to do is throw your $500 controller for the $400 console at your $2000 plasma. Not to mention the fact that the Wii controller concept works because the Wii was designed around it. Unless Microsoft wants to build a Wii-style console, Wii-style controllers will never sell for it. Look up "Power Glove" and "U-Force" on wikipedia.

I'd rather have this:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/08/irivers-e-book- reader

IRiver's ebook reader. Dual display that folds out like a real book using e-ink and triple A batteries for supposedly 6 months of battery life.

Engadget has photos up of the iPhone here: http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/live-from-macwo rld-2007-steve-jobs-keynote

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/08/l...ss-conferen ce/

Blu-ray has 96% of the HD player market in Japan. In terms of Japan the game is already over there.

Only 4 of the top 20 DVD last year are from HD DVD camp. Almost all the top 20 movies are only available on Blu-ray.

Understanding and solutions believe Blu-ray will sell more discs.

Quote:
BDA has seen a 700% increase in software sales since mind-Nov. with the launch of PS3 and additional Blu-ray devices.
Top 5 Selling titles to Date in order: Underworld Evolution, Talladega Nights, Fifth Element, Click , Ultraviolet.

Quote:
Survey from 10k respondents plan to purchase Blu-ray moves to view on their PS3.
75% of the respondents plan to use their PS3 as a primary device for watching movies.
80% of 1 million = an installed base of 800,000.
Same source estimates that PS3 will far outsell the X-Box Drive.

Largest variety of movies.
Largest variety of hardware.
Only gaming console with built-in HD movie playback.

Quote:
Half of the Sony titles will be BD50GB, despite what HD DVD said.

They will release 18 titles by the end of Feb.
The Decent was 50GB and is the first with PIP, and has BDJ.
They announce more titles than we can type, look forward for the press releases, when they are available
Bob Chapek President of Disney.

Quote:
Over 20 Blu-ray titles in the first half of 2007, many world wide.
Mic makes loud noise, everyone jumps! Bob says "I didn't realize the other side wanted to win that bad" Everyone laughs.
He goes on to cover the previously announced Blu-ray titles.
From the fox film exec himself:

Quote:
On Dec 20th BD outpaced HD DVD.

Fox will continue to be aggressive with BDJ.
7-10 titles per month, most will be 50GB.
Will continue with day and date releases.
.

Quote:
Sony will target 90-100 titles for 2007.
Once again there were many movies including Casino Royal which will be AVC encoded. All the big releases from the middle of the year will be AVC.
Half of the Sony titles will be BD50, despite what HD DVD said.

Quote:
When will the format war end?
If we had a crystal ball we wouldn't need to do press conferences like this. It is a matter of time before the fact that BDA is the winner is evident to everyone.

I love the fact that a bunch of diehard Microsoft/Xbox fanatics went out and wasted 200 dollars on a giant ugly peripheral for a dead format.

No matter how much you can't stand that BluRay has won the format war, everyone here on Slashdot has to enjoy the fact that the bitter little fuck Zonk is crying his eyes out over the death of HD-DVD.

Plus, I would bet that most people are getting their Wii points through a store rather than direct from Nintendo, and I have to imagine that the store gets a cut of that.....(searches).... according to this website retailers pay nintendo $17 for a 2000 point card.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/08/hands-on-with-s andisks-usbtv

There was a ton more announced than what is listed in the headline...

From http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/07/live-from-the-b ill-gates-keynote/

6:20 (PST) - The connection is spotty as hell, but Ryan and I are here at the Bill Gates keynote, which should be starting shortly. Stay tuned for updates -- at least barring a failure of our EV-DO lifeline.

6:22 - They're asking us to take our seats

6:25 - Over the PA: "Ladies and gentlemen, the keynote is beginning in five minutes."

6:33 - Eight minutes later: "Ladies and gentlemen, the keynote will begin in two minutes." See, even Microsoft's keynotes can't launch on time... We kid, we kid!

6:36 - Lights are dimming, looks like we're about to get going. It's starting. A visual history of CES is playing on the giant monitors next to the stage.

6:39 - Gary Shapiro, President of the CEA is on stage. He's giving the usual spiel about all the industry leaders who are speaking this year.

6:41 - "It is my great privilege to introduce Bill Gates as a featured speaker."

6:44 - They're showing highlights from past Gates keynotes - this is the 10th year he's spoken.

6:47 - Another video, this one showing hip young people using Microsoft technology. Zunes a-squirting!

6:49 - Bill Gates is walking out on stage. "Good evening, I've always loved coming back from Xmas to go right into the most manic environment ever. Are you going to keep giving the keynote, but not sure about after that, might be talking more about infectious diseases."

6:50 - "It's amazing to see the progress over the course of the year. The digital decade is truly happening. 65% of homes have digital cameras. More broadband penetration. 40% of homes have multiple computers."

Portable devices proliferating, growing part of the PC market, connections with WiFi and 3G, getting information wherever you go."

6:52 - "What are some the metrics we have here. Devices with high fidelity. Six megapixel cameras and up. high definition screens that make you drool. Now it connects up to high def cable, PC, games. All taking advantage of that capability. Network bandwidth has gone up. Processors opening memory capacity up to 64bit."

Graphics revolution let's us represent reality on screen. Seeing in games, VR, presentation richness that all these great devices deliver. It's really quite phenomenal. Storage space, people are talking terabytes, or even petabytes of storage."

6:53 - "We have amazing hardware, love walking the floor, who has the biggest LCD, the biggest hard disk. But we need to deliver on promise of digital decade. Delivering means more than just great hardware. CE defined as much broader industry."

6:55 - "An enviroment where people want to do things across multiple devices with many different people. Delivering on connected experiences, where people are productive, where they're mobile, playing games, that's key element that's missing. For Microsoft, it's a big big milestone, foundational products are moving into the marketplace. First of that is Vista, lots of hard work. Most important release of Windows ever, highest quality, we've ever done."

6:56 - "Vista and the PC continue to have a central role, all these devices have to work together. Vista is a big project, rather than talk about features, rather talk about what we've been through."

6:57 - "Process we've been through, Beta 2., out to 2 million people, RC out to 5 million, in depth went in and interviewed people in seven different countries. Biggest investment ever into a piece of software, by the far the most used piece of software, any improvements can save time and enable people to do amazing things."

With Office, new UI, connect up to Office Live services, richness improved by UI. Features users couldn't find, now they can find. New UI was a risk, but it's worke

According to Engadget.com:

"Take heed, the software does indeed embed a non-visible watermark of your Media Access key into converted video -- same as the PC kiddo."

Click below for the full details:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/08/roxio-deliverst ivotogo-for-mac-yes-roxio/

My electric toothbrush works like this. Basically half the transformer is in the handle end of the toothbrush, and the other half is wrapped around a socket that it plugs into. Apparantly brushes like this have been available since 1997.

I'm trying to find some pictures, but this is how the last revision looks. (From the n770 Wikipedia article.)

Okay, found it. Here are beautiful pictures of the Nokia n800

http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/07/08/ricoh-laser-h ead-can-read-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray-discs/

http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/09/new-lasers-from -ricoh-read-both-hd-dvd-and-blu-ray/

Sadly, the illegal path provides the best way to QUALITY movie downloads. Encoded in xviD and around 700 Mb per movie. Sometimes sites will have a hanheld category with the same movies optimized for portable video players like the PSP and the ipod. Then there's torrents of either full DVD isos or re-encoded video with extras. Sadly, when these video services started their first plan was to create a DRM system that was "maybe possibly sometimes not able to be broken". they shot themselves int eh foot from the start. I think in the early days CinemaNow had player compatability problems: http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/06/cinemanow-claim s-94-of-download-to-burn-dvds-work/ If you're going to offer movies offer content, not some haphazard way to hinder my purchase. there will always be the perosn who gets it for free, no matter what. Hindering legal online purchases leads people to get the stuff for free. I don't think Mr. Johnson, with his 4 kids, plans on selling a movie he purchased over the internet to Mr. Willowby across the street and not let the MPAA in on theri greedy share. Chances are Mr. Willowby will buy a different movie and *gasp* they'll share the movies, which has been going on since the invention of VHS. In short, torrents are the best way to get DVD quality movies from the tubes to your....tube. Anythign else is a system built on maybes and is slaved by people makig hand over fist. If you feel really bad buy the DVD later or send the studio itself a check for $15.

What about those new 100GB iPod. http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/05/toshiba-announc es-100gb-1-8-inch-hdd-apple-swoons/

"1. Apple will announce plans for a set-top box, integrating gaming, cable, and internet browsing"

Your its vs. it's confusion aside, they already announced this in 2006.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/15/spring-2007-to- bring-wii-price-drops-and-color-choices/

Man, that page sure makes it seem that Blu-Ray sucks ass.

Blu-ray does suck ass and will die. It is more restrictive, has more DRM, requires java virtual machines to be implemented on all players (ugggh), requires the current DVD manufacturing plants to do serious upgrades because the surface layer is much thinner and also requires a special hard coating to be applied, and in turn is more expensive. Sure, it can theoretically hold more data but I think that will really only make a big difference for people who want to use blank discs to store data on them. Also, Sony doesn't have a very good record as far as having the public pick their formats.

Read more here:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1982533,00.as p
and
http://www.engadget.com/2005/09/19/blu-ray-vs-hd-d vd-state-of-the-s-union-s-division/

Umm.... Dec 13th

http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/13/wiimote-control -for-google-earth/

how to disable autorun

3rd party program prompts before executing unknown code/drivers, prevents hooks, etc

If Microsoft adds this stuff by default they are being anti-competitive. If they don't then they are selling an insecure OS. Basically they are damned if they do, damned if they don't. Windows has plenty of leaks but there are plenty of ways to plug them. The days of relying on Windows to include everything for you should have ended in 2001.

SOAP ???

The first famous report of a Wii strap breaking was on November 20th, the day after the system launched. The strap replacement program was announced on December 15th, almost a full month after the first reports came in. One can only assume that Nintendo though that people would only use the Wiimote as the manual said they should (i.e., not throwing it around and hoping that the strap will hold). That cannot possibly be negligence, as many products are extremely dangerous when used improperly.

Here's my post in simpler form for all the OffTopic modifiers.

Because I have a software induced decision to make right now, I will go with an Intel CPU chip. If no surprises appear, that is slated to be the first of their new 45NM process currently code-named Yorkfield. I learned about that here.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/29/gazing-down-int els-roadmap-quad-core-yorkfield-set-for-q3-2007/

Overall, I agree with the long term prospects of AMD's research by staying at fewer cores (I feel Quad is a good number), but buttressing that main core power with smaller dedicated assistant chips that take the brunt of specific tasks. The timelines I have seen indicate that AMD is still a chunk of time away from rolling out their 45NM process, which I feel is the milestone to finish out the decade. Their compound core-plus-support chips are not due out for about 3-4 years.

Am I back on topic now?

Captcha word: Latitude.
45NM process and related tech is supposed to be good for laptops, boosting battery life during times that less power is drawn for "ordinary-user" low power use.

Morse code is is faster than texting

What is a baseball bat, Alex? Not all bats have a grip on them.

The Wii remote is designed with a lip on the bottom where the B button is located. Using your index finger you should easily maintain control over the remote. If you can't, then it's your ineptness that is causing the damage and not the safety strap.

Seriously, why don't the sweaty people invest in gloves. Isn't that what the professional players wear?

I hate Microsoft because they aren't innovators. They piggyback off of others' great ideas and then employ their own special brand of legal/political/economic strongarming/weaseling/nepotism/FUD to gain advantage. Combine that with an incredibly arrogant marketing machine and you the recipe for odiousness.

I mean, can you name a single idea that originated within Redmond (i.e. was not acquired) that went on to become as successful as Microsoft claimed it would be? The Zune is a great example. All indications are it's a laughable piece of shit, and yet here you had that asshole Ballmer popping off for a year beforehand about what a kickass iPod crusher it's going to be. Let's see, more failures: WinFS, MS Bob, UltimateTV... oh damn, there's even a WikiPedia category for this, so I'll save my breath.

Such arrogance leads to complacency, and product quality suffers. All indications are Windows Vista is perhaps the largest clusterfuck ever to grace the commercial software industry. I'll bet a lot of people around here hate Microsoft in advance for the man-years of our lives we're going to lose fixing, deleting, and/or otherwise dealing with that piece of shit in situations where we have no choice: at work, at home, on Mom's computer, wherever. Just like we've been doing since Win 3.1. Cross-apply everything I just said to Internet Explorer, if you've ever designed web sites for a living.

I will give Microsoft credit for one thing: Office is pretty damn good. Whoever runs that division, props. There are some ludicrously half-baked features in there, like master/subdocuments in Word, the whole Word styling engine, all of Frontpage and Infopath, but the core apps are pretty good.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/23/researchers-hac k-rfid-credit-cards-big-surprise/

Seeing as companies don't really care about a consumers privacy (they sell the data as fast as they can anyways) its no surprise that the government wants in on the action.
GET YOU NEW IDENTITY HERE! NO APPLICATION NEEDED!

The tinfoil hat idea may be passe, but the tinfoil wallet may be the wave of the future.
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,61264,00. html?tw=wn_tophead_1
So long as the RFID signal is kept weak, atleast.

http://www.epic.org/privacy/dv/real_id.html
And of course it was added as a rider, and got through, as the REAL ID act was put into a "must pass" bill appropriating money for tsunami relief and defense. Pub. Law 109-13. REAL ID was added to this bill without any hearings.
Sometimes I -HATE- the fact that little bits of law can be added in as a rider and passed with otherwise "must pass" bills, even if the bits added in as a rider never would have passed on its own.

I would like to see a mac mini with TiVo-killer hardware and software, but I doubt it will exist as long as Apple is selling TV shows in their store.

The movies and TV shows are in crappy quality aimed at the iPod screen size too, so they're a gross ripoff given that they're priced like DVDs.

You mean this one? Apple demo'd it back in September 2006.

How about a 1700mm f/4 lens? I understand that Zeiss threw in a Jeep to mount it on as part of the accessory pack.

You must not have been looking very hard.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/05/21/how-to-create-b ackup-copies-of-your-xbox-360-games/

Also see xbox-scene.com for various tutorials.

It is actually sub-$300, better specced than an OLPC, several *gigs* of memory (512M in the OLPC) and a faster processor. This is beefier than an OLPC and built to survive a harsher environment than a standard notebook. It fits a need, IMO.

engadget's review from 2 months ago.

One has to ask, what has changed since: http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/16/bill-gates-has- his-say-of-things/

After reading the linked "details" article, I am at a loss to tell whether or not this will work with HD-Tivo. I've wanted to buy one of these for a long time (and they've recently hit the market, but at $700ish I can't justify the cost unless I have some way to archive my programing (and Tivo2Go is not offered for HDcontent). HD-DVD and BluRay are both non-starters at the moment, whereas HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, etc all play assloads of HD content all the time (including many movies that aren't out on DVD yet, as well as their own series such as Deadwood, Dexter, etc).

So can anyone tell me if this actually brightens the prospects of being able to use a series 3 HD Tivo to record HD shows and then archive them offline for storage? I did RTFA but the jargon about headers and address bytes and whatnot got a little heavy for me.

Citigroup rolled this out in Singapore a month or two ago, here's a pretty good overview

Their wish has been granted!

I've lost the ability to record FM on my Creative Zen with my last firmware update... ostensibly, though I can't confirm it because of industry pressure on Creative -- it was one of the features I bought it for.

They put it back. Not as good as not having removed it, of course, but at least they didn't have to get sued before restoring it.

Perhaps you were thinking of.... this?

iBuzz Doubles Your iPod Pleasure...

*grin*

There's the pink Zune and there's the ... ahem ... brown one reviewed here (slashdot's explicit URL printout gives it away though :-))

"Hmmm...here's an article about hacking into Linux on the PS3 but that's not negative enough... we need something negative about Sony!"

*phone rings*

"Hi Mr. Gates, yep, I accepted another anti-Sony story... thanks for the business. Don't worry, I'll throw in a few anti-Microsoft stories to fool them!"

Today, it almost seems that voice calls are the least-used function of most phones

Bullshit.

... while Wi-Fi and WiMax use ever-growing amounts of network bandwidth.

Double bullshit.

While cellphones/mobiles might have all sorts of ancillary functions they are still first and foremost telephones. That someone thinks otherwise indicates they need to stop reading Gizmodo & Engadget and get out in the real world for a few hours. As to WiMax taking up ever-growing amounts of network bandwidth, sure, if up from .00000001 to .00000002 percent is worth blathering about.

Find me a few production-level WiMax deployments with significant amounts of traffic and well talk. without such this is just so much empty talk wasting more bandwidth then WiMax has yet to carry.

Oh, and what to call mobile phones? How about mobiles like the rest of the planet? That wasnt so hard, was it?

Actually the sensor bar does not "sense" anything. It is simply a set of IR LEDs that are located by the remote. That tiny cable is just a 5V power source, and can be replaced with a 9V battery and resistor.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2006/11 /22/6063
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTGSkYRDpWY&eurl=
http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/24/diy-wireless-wi i-sensor-bar/

.... Affected by this recall, here's the list:

DSC-F88
DSC-M1
DSC-T1
DSC-T11
DSC-T3
DSC-T33
DSC-U40
DSC-U50

I got this from http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/24/sony-to-recall- eight-defective-cyber-shot-models/ which had SLIGHTLY more info than the original article.

These guys found out another way to dissasemble one also.
http://media.wii.ign.com/articles/745/745202/vid_1 742357.html

There have been several incidents of the remote strap breaking also and it does not seem like a durable piece of line.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/20/wiimote-strap-b reaks-controller-destroys-tv/

Check http://www.digg.com/ for some wii launch coverage. Also http://www.engadget.com/ has some story about wii launch. And BTW, it is interesting that slashdot is not covering launch - influenced by Sony ;-) ?

Guess Slashdot never picked this story up, ran on engadget 11/02.

Here's the link: http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/02/cheoptics360-th e-future-of-3d-video-is-here/

Actually, what really amused me were Engadget's account and pictures of the install process. The install screens started by looking like a Hugo Chavez rally, and then a bunch of random drunks.

And then when the install program crashed, the legendary picture of the cute oriental girl screaming like crazy. Some people said it looked like an orgasm, others said scream. I'm on the scream side personally.

I checked out the device at Wal*Mart and my view is that it looks cheap, especially compared to the iPod, and the advantages suggested in the promotional material were not significant. I'm surprised it's selling at all, but I guess some people just don't like Apple.

Finally, they seem to be awfully hard on their most loyal customers.

I find it inexplicable that they would not support existing music purchased through PlaysForSure stores. Sure, almost nobody bought it, but I would expect those people to have by far the greatest interest in a new Microsoft based music player. Rule one in customer service is not to make fools out of your best customers, who are precisely the people who bought into PlaysForSure.

And what's with not supporting Windows Vista? Who runs Windows Vista now but the few fans Microsoft has? Who would buy the Zune, and try to popularize it, other than the few people who have decided to put the Vista beta on their machines?

I know that if I were a Windows fan, I'd be running Vista today, and I'd be royally angry that my new Zune didn't work with it. Both those decisions are just plain hideous, and to the very users Microsoft should be pampering, not kicking in the teeth.

It's stuff like this that makes me very glad I'm a Mac user. I don't think Apple would ever make simple, elementary mistakes like this.

D

This is the same situation as in Holland. The new Dutch passport also contains RFID technology and security experts cracked the system even before it was released. See this article.

Weak encryption keys are the part of the problem.

Anyway, this project cost some millions euros, and solves nothing. It only creates new problems making identity theft much easier to accomplice.

Yes, it does run Linux. From Engadget:
Yes, according to Sony you can install any PowerPC-capable Linux build. Yellow Dog Linux, however, is the most prominently supported distro announced to date.

Yes, it does run Linux. From Engadget:
Yes, according to Sony you can install any PowerPC-capable Linux build. Yellow Dog Linux, however, is the most prominently supported distro announced to date.