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Well, here you go: http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000583063891/

Asking if the showbiz is biased towards showbiz is like asking, if the fat kid is biased towards candy.

I think John C. Dvorak has an inherent anti-showbiz attitude that I give him great credit for. If you visit This Week in Tech, Episode 22 you will hear from 7:30 on that he holds an ipod in his hands for the first time in his life and he says it's pretty cool. This is the effect this product has on many people and mostly people connect to this positive experience.
On another point - media is expected to cover events of interest to the general populace. As Apple tends to implement certain changes earlier in their finished, shipping consumer product (USB, WIFi, iTMS, ZeroConf, mac-mini-formfactor, Quad processors come to mind) they do provide a nice outlet of new and upcoming tech trends in consumer tech land. So while there may be a correlation between showbiz-loving cutting-edge consumers and their reports on a showbiz-cutting-edge consumertech corporation I do not think it is necessarily a causality.

hopefully with Apple's hiring of former VAIO Engineers http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000537052498/ this might be a future feature we'll see in the Macs?

But this one is..

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000560026083/

Are we going to suddenly see completely transparent vehicles driving around?

And what about transparent planes? The development of invisible stealth fighter technology results in UFO sightings of a flying hooker.

What about airplanes? Make much of the body out of this, making maintenance that much easier.

With the screen just an inch or so in front of your eyes, it's bound to appear HUGE! Just like those virtual reality goggles

Did you mean Virtual Boy?

So between this and the PSP's already-announced "virtual boy" addon, do you think we're starting to see a trend here?

.. given that he's also pressuring vendors like EBay not to sell stun guns and Tasers to people living in the Empire State - see http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000570062864/. You have to wonder what he's trying to accomplish, banning non-lethal weapons and closing down fantasy chatrooms - see http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/10/12/D8D6IBDO0 .html. Are there no more pressing matters demanding a state AG's attention? Oh, right - there's re-election. http://www.spitzer2006.com/ That trumps all other issues..

And now errrr... http://slashdot.org/

Why by a whole new friggin car? How about I just buy a stereo like this?

I like my Honda like it is. Old, beat up, fuel efficient, and best of all...paid for.

From the site: Status: We have been under a slashdot like effect all day. After being featured on http://www.engadget.com/ http://www.hackaday.com/ http://digg.com/ http://qj.net/ and a bunch of other sites or PSP crashes every couple of minutes.

Well now you get the Real Thing!

These are just rebadged Archos PVPs - which is no bad thing with Archos's laissez-faire approach to DRM! Echostar bought 25% of Archos for $10m. Vive la France.

These are just rebadged Archos PVPs - which is no bad thing with Archos's laissez-faire approach to DRM! Echostar bought 25% of Archos for $10m. Vive la France.

They already failed with WMA thanks to iPod.

This is the real bummer here. Without CableCard, or its satellite equivalent, we will never be able to build an HD PVR, let alone some PC-based system. And even WITH CableCard, we miss out on Pay-Per-View, On-Demand, and other services (at least until the probably-never-to-see-the-light-of-day CableCard 2.0 that should be out sometime in 2007). I have a Comcast HD PVR. It works ok, although compared to my Replay 5000, it is pathetic, in terms of conflict management, predictability, etc. However, the Comcast box lets me record 2 HD streams at once. The Replay is only standard-def. As far as I can tell, Comcast is trying its hardest to derail CableCard. As for Satellite, don't count on anything, even as lame and rudimentary as CableCard, in the near future.

Is it just me or are a number of "stories" on Slashdot nothing more than glorified advertisements? Phones with mult-megaplixel cameras and built-in Wifi are nothing new.

I would like to see what patents NTP has over RIM. I've spent hours looking at other patents recorded at USPTO. It's usually by companies that no one has heard of, or companies that haven't done a single thing with their 'innovation'.

What did NTP file? "The process of sending electronic mail via cellular wireless networks" ?? WTF? I'm having a little difficulty finding what NTP holds that RIM is infringing on. It's probably ridiculous/obvious innovation. 'Innovation' that would naturally come to mind while anyone competent is developing a new product.

Argh! - You don't reject a well established, world-wide known company's request to continue with the legal process, that's bad business for EVERONE. RIM and NTP should simply work on some pay-off deal to shut them up. Check this out: http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000573042005/

That's good. I'm sick of pretentious web pages with tiny fonts, like oh so many blogs. What ass decided that low-contrast 7-point Verdana was good enough to write a whole web site in?

You can disable the Windows autoplay functionality that's reinstalling the drivers by holding down the shift key when you insert the CD. Per this Engadget post. And, since you'll be ripping the tracks to MP3 you only need to do this once per new disc.

Engadget had someone dissect a Nano, -- and priced the components as best he could. He came up with a figure of 90 dollars. If he is correct, the Nano has a 100+ percent markup, ignoring marketing and shipping and so forth.

You mean like this?

And if you misbehave in class, forget being sent to the principal's office. RoboProf will just spit fire at you!

There was a blurb on engadget.com this morning saying that you could pick one of these up at Radio Shack. No word if those models include the subscription model or not.
Info is here

I dont think this has got anything to do with Google. Mayor Newsom had talked about it last year. I think all google is trying to do is cash on on his idea. If you dont want to use it don't.

I think we can summarise this HD-DVD to BD (Blueray) quite easily.

If you buy a Playstation 3 then you are going to get a BD player that will support DVD, CD and many other formats but not HD-DVD.

If you buy an Xbox360 then you are going to get a DVD player that will support other formats but not HD-DVD.

Err.. what game device here is going to use HD-DVD, unless Microsoft is going to provide one (at a price of course) at a later stage. Oh yes I can imagine Xbox360 buyers shelling out $$$ for a shiny new HD-DVD module to replace the now obsolete?? DVD module. Put yourself in Mr, Ms and Mrs (minimal tech knowledge) consumers place before answering.

Interesting read (looks like a civil war is brewing). Watch the spin doctors and FUD mongers come out of the woodwork.

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000623059130

I wonder if we could manage to take up that opportunity and create a market that is a little better for the artists and get rid of the dinosaurs. podshow is interesting, but they sound a little like they just want to replace one dinosaur with another. I currently have an eye on AMP since their approach somehow feels right. But yes, there are others.

Sorry I had to feed my pet peeve for a moment. Now were are we? Oh yes, the rec companies wanting their share on ipod sales - wouldn't be a something like the canadian music tax, imposed by some ASCAP-like organisation, be something like that?
In Canada it seems to be illegal, but is it here?

"Proven capacity" is somewhat of a vague term being that HD-DVD hasn't shipped yet, and Blu-ray has only shipped in Japan. Being that now the HD-DVD is delayed till 2006, from the consumers standpoint, nothing has really been proven yet, and for either format it's too early to tell.

As far as costs are concerned, they only talk of manufactering costs which tend to stabilize over time. Certainly, initially, Blu-ray should cost a lot more than HD-DVD if it needs retooling, however once econmies of scale are established manufactering cost tend to plateau, hence while this is short term concern, but perhaps not a long-term one. What isn't talked about however is liceencing cost, the main issue in contention that caused the split was that currently you have to pay the 6C ~4%-10% of the sale price of DVD hardware(depending on the cost of the machine), something that HD-DVD retains, I'm not sure how either format fares but ultimely this will be a massive cost when initial players are expected to cost $500-$1,000(maybe much more than manufactering differences).

Engadget has a great article on this:
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000623059130/

Also, the argument "Support for hybrid discs" is ridiculous. HD-DVD use "flippers" as hybrid disks. i.e. DVD on one-side and HD-DVD on the other (kinda like the old DVDs that had "widescreen" & "fullscreen"). JVC, has developed a Blu-ray disk that is a true hybrid, having a DL-DVD9 and a Blu-ray on one side.

http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/186/4

However, while MS/Intel are big names it seems irrelevant being that they don't actually have any products to market (and XB360 won't have HD-DVD standard; not even an option at this point, maybe a $500 system to fit above their "core" and "Premium" bundles). Only other impact that the deal seems to have is Media Center PCs, but 71% of MediaCenter PCs don't even come with a TV-tuners (which kinda makes the most important feature useless). Windows support can easily be cured w/drivers, and Dell and HP are Blu-ray supporters hence windows PCs from them will likely come with Blu-Ray. Seems to be more a PR-deal. Ultimetely it will be the Studios that decide the winner, and they will at the end choose the format that the consumers are buying.

http://www.mediacenterpcworld.com/news/502

Here's a sneak peak at the Treo 700W. And yes, the W stands for Windows. http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000867059961/ It has been suggested that they will come out with a 700p also (p, standing for PalmOS) but that is yet to be seen. Hopefully this fixes some of the god-awful problems with the bluetooth and volume controls we saw on the Treo 650.

Engadget also has coverage of the plans.

What wait? Samsung has already announced that they plan to produce combo HD-DVD/Blu-Ray players. And, knowing Samsung's record of being very competitive in terms of pricing (most evident in their HDTV selection), I wouldn't be surprised if their combo players launched at around the same price as single-format devices.

I think that combo players are going to end up being the standard and that the only "wars" are going to be fought a) trying to get content producers on board with a particular format (for the licensing fees) and b) in the recordable market (both PC and standalone).

From: http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000847060621/

Quote:

"OQO announced a long overdue update to their Model 01 ultrapersonal computer earlier today. As its name suggests, the new model 01+ isn't the Model 02 we've been waiting for (that's due out next year we hear) , but it is a solid upgrade and comes with 512MB of RAM, a 30GB hard drive, USB 2.0, a 1GHz processor, an internal speaker, and a 5-inch, 800 x 480 LCD screen. The Model 01+ we've been playing with definitely feels like a significant improvement over the original -- for starters, it's much snappier and just feels easier to use -- but it almost makes you wish they'd been able to release the 01 with these specs in the first place (we'll cut them slack since it was a first-gen product and just be happy that they got it right this time)."

So take this and some other news and do the math. Transmeta is officially out of the CPU market. OQO uses Transmetas. Where does that leave OQO? Well, the thought is that they might have some reserves... perhaps they bought up some of Transmetas final stock... but for a future device (as Engadget alluded to), they would be wise to switch to a CPU that will be around for a bit of the future... what that is is anyone's guess, but it would make sense to build their next device, if there is one, on a different CPU. I don't think they're in any jeopardy of being Osborned, anymore than Palm is regarding the 650 if people plan to wait 3 or 4 months for the 700.

Nope... not me. Engadget's comment(s)

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000847060621/

Before mine were, and I simply restated what Engadget said... that they've been looking forward to this and they're looking forward to yet another device. I'm looking forward to one to. Details, however, neither Engadget nor myself gave...

look at their board of directors

I wouldn't be so sure that that's a good indicator. As much as the media want to make this into a "war", the truth is that many of the companies involved are playing both sides. Disney and Universal, for instance, are members of both groups, as are a number of other notable companies.

Actually, this was taken out of context. The first list is the board members of Blu-Ray. The following is the list of HD-DVD board members.

Memory-Tech Corporation NEC Corporation Sanyo Electric Co.

Yep, just three, as opposed to the 16 board members of Blu-Ray. In comparison, the supporting member companies for BluRay total more than 119 members as opposed to the 100 for HD-DVD. Yes, both have a lot of support, but you were comparing apples and oranges, and it doesn't work that way. Try it on an even playing field next time. Blu-Ray has a much larger core of board members, and as you said, "some companies are in both sides". For a more detailed listing, see this site.

"but I know that Blu-Ray is supposed to be ..."

Yeah, "I know" - as in, I have read in the above link - "that Blu-Ray is supposed to be" - because there aren't any devices released yet to be able to say what it "is" or "is not".

From the tables in the Engadget article the capacities are 30GB to 50Gb, HD DVD to Blu-Ray.

• QWERTY keyboard
• touch screen
• runs a full version of Windows XP
• 20GB hard drive
• 256MB DDR RAM
• 1GHz processor
• built-in Bluetooth and WiFi
• 3D-accelerated 1280 x 1024 VGA video output
• very small size (4.9 x 3.4 x .9-inches), about the size of an iPod or PDA (scroll down for pictures)

Commercial Products and Services:

ReplayTV: TiVo's ancient nemesis, it also 'just works'. I can't say whether it is more user friendly than TiVo, but it is far more customer friendly.

Windows XP Media Center Edition: Yes, them. Choose from multiple manufacturers but expect to face Microsoft Corp's version of the 'personal' computing experience.

Hardware vendors are now pushing DVD/HD Recording devices quite a bit. RCA, Motorola and Panasonic have products available.

Service Providers like Comcast and DishTV are now providing time shifting hardware and tv-on-demand solutions. Check with your choice of cable or satellite service provider.

Hobbyist Solutions:

MythTV: The Open Source, Do-It-Yourself DVR. Expect to build your own machine and play around a bit before it works the way you want. (Linux)

Freevo: MythTV, but not. (Linux)

MediaPortal: Who ever said Open Source was limited to Linux software? (Windows)

Meedio: It was a community based freeware product (myHTPC) that morphed into a commercial product without warning. Still a reasonable alternative to Microsoft for PVR function on the Windows platform. (Windows)

eyeTV: This Mac product has me seriously considering picking up a Mini-Mac to use as a media center. (Apple)

SnapStream (Windows)

SageTV (Windows)

Chris-TV (Windows)

ShowShifter (Windows)

On a personal note, I purchased the ReplayTV when it was first released and am entirely satisfied with it. Plus, by purchasing early I have never had to pay a subscription fee for data that is freely available elsewhere. If there had been a subscription fee I would not have purchased it.

Dan

Engadget has pics of the new Windows Mobile Treo: http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000867059961/

But it seems like before too long we will all have to ride trains and planes in the nude

Close enough. The proposed installation of millimetre wave scanners on the London underground effectively makes you walk naked in front of their security people.

Think they leer at you now? Wait till they have these.

I do not think they want to use Bluetooth the transfer the files as much as use it to play the music through the stereo system like this http://www.engadget.com/entry/7054052283984716/.

The new Game Boy Micro (think GBA SP meets iPod Nano) has been noted for its much brighter display.
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000990043834/
I suppose Nintendo has decided to move the technology to the standard size SP as well...all of this development on what is basically a GBA I find puzzling. With the DS having been out for some time now I would think most people looking to buy a Game Boy device would look to the DS, especially considering it can be had for as little as $129 now.

Not a big deal, ppl at FT have nothing to write about, obviously...
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000527058629/

Pictures in stories here and here. Enjoy!

1. iTunes has a "hidden" component for handling video. 2. The Sony PSP can connect to and use a local network. 3. About a year ago, Jobs talked about Apple & Sony working together on the future of video. The Sony PSP as the "video iPod"? How big of a stretch would it be to load video from a computer running iTunes to a memory stick in a PSP if the capability was more obvious? My PSP will play content from QT 7 and AAC files, but I haven't moved anything to it wirelessly yet. Sony released a ceramic-white PSP in Japan about a week ago. It won't play UMD movies from Region 1, but if you need an idea about how a "video iPod" with a decent screen would look like, you could do worse. If it was an Apple-branded build with no UMD drive & replaced it with a 20G hard drive, I'd consider buying one. http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000997051360/ Just saying, is all...

Or you can just comapletly disable autorun. I prefer this method as it's "set it and forget it".

Simply put, Nintendo has never ever faltered in their controller design.

Simply put, this is wrong. Remember Virtual Boy, Power Glove, the giant bazooka thing, the stupid little robot, etc.

Whereas I agree the parent post is nonsense, I don't think these are particularly appropriate counterexamples. The virtual boy isn't a controller, the Power Glove is one of the most financially successful extensions in the history of gaming, and the stupid little robot - Robbie, it was called - was how Nintendo talked its way back into Sears, allowing the market crash caused by Atari's fundamental lack of quality control to be ignored in favor of the presentation of the NES as the controller for an electronic toy, rather than as the then-hated video game console, seen by myopic buyers as a deadly money pit.

The bazooka thing ... well, good call, there.

some failures (Power Glove), and some the jury is still out (Gamecube controller, DS).

What? The Power Glove is the third most profitable extension controller in console history, and the DS is outselling the PSP globally by almost 1.6 to 1, setting sales records on the way out the door. What makes you think there's a jury out?

The PS3 controller is very likely to look a lot like the Dual Shock.

Amusingly, Sony revealed the PS3 controller several months ago, and it's quite different than the Dual Shock. It looks like a batarang. (Whereas many people will tell you thanks to Kutaragi's suggestion that it's a concept controller that this is nonsense, it's important to remember that the PS3 controller has been in mass production for two months now; to replace it would be fantastically expensive.)

OTOH, I see this controller as a DIRECT snub to third-party developers, abandoning multiplatform releases almost entirely.

As a third party developer, I can firmly say that it's much more exciting to have this new venue for development than it would be to have yet another cookie cutter controller.

Well then let's hope that the elevators are made by Otis

No, I think the point was, as I said, "and be mediocre". The iPod actually has access to ALL of those features through add-ons without altering the basic iPod design. There aren't any real standout multifunction mp3 players YET. I'm sure they will be designed, but there isn't even another standout mp3 player yet that is as good as the iPod (some are close, but they need to nail down the physical design, UI, and software, and I think they at most nail 2 out of 3)

It's your OPINION that FM tuning, voice recording, gapless playback, replacable batteries, etc. somehow completely fuck up the interface of every other player. Why this doesn't apply to iPod accessories I don't know. And I don't know of any "accessory" that adds a replacable battery or gapless playback. Sure, you CAN get an extra battery, and an FM tuner, and lots of other accessories for the iPod but then you've lost the size, appearance, and design advantages of the iPod and spent a lot of money to get the same features as other, cheaper, players.

For the record, I personally don't give a fuck about FM tuning and voice recording, but I can understand that other people DO. For example, MY holy grail of MP3 player features is crossfade.

Price competition forcing the #2 manufacturer to actually LOSE money to compete (Compare the fact that because Apple is cutting prices to maintain dominance, Creative is losing money to 'keep up')

You are out of the loop. Unless of course you don't think Creative is number 2?

Repitition doesn't make something true. Yes, Creative has announced in their Q4 numbers that they've lost money in the MP3 sector. I can't FIND a Q4 announcement by Apple so I don't KNOW if they lost money in the MP3 sector or not. And even if I DID find such a report and even if the report said that Apple made money, you STILL haven't demonstrated that Creative lost money because of Apple. Creative could have lost money for any number of reasons (mismanagement, disaster, smoking crack, etc). So unless you have insider information from Creative, and can verify that, you're talking out of your ass.

Apple's pricing structure prevents Creative from charging enough to make a profit. Read the press release, and you'll see them say "We had set our targets higher for unit volume and average selling prices for our MP3 players than we achieved in the period."

They wanted to sell more and charge more. Apple stopped them.

Assuming your interpetation is correct (we simply don't know), why should I as a consumer consider this a GOOD thing? Microsoft having a monopoly on the OS market is bad, but Apple having a monopoly on the MP3 player market is good? What sense does that make?

If all you're trying to show is that iPods are popular, you're absolutely correct. But this is largely do to really good marketing.

Look it up. They are the first to do 2gb and 4gb of flash. The biggest anyone else has is 1gb.

Incorrect. Took me 30 seconds on Google to find this.
http://www.engadget.com/entry/3623064539673730/

Yes it was. The iPod mini was the first microdrive based mp3 player, with Creative being the second. Apple's mini was announced and released in February of 2004, while Creative's was October.

Can you find another microdrive based mp3 player that was earlier?

The eDigital MXP-100 was released in late 2001, YEARS before the iPod mini was available. Here's a review at cNet:
http://reviews.cnet.com/eDigital_MXP_100_340_MB_Mi crodrive/4505-6490_7-7820490-2.html?tag=top

So you can't deny that, in 2001, the iPod was the first mp3 player to upload data at 12mb/s, when everyone else using USB1 (2.0 didn't exist) was uploading at 1mb/s.

Whoopdie fucking do. Even if this is true (I won't bother to disprove it) it irrelavent because other equall

I'm no Nintendo Fanboy, and was at first extremely skeptical, but take some time to read reviews, watch the video, and imagine the possibilities.

Engadget has some more information here and IGN has looked at some of the possibilities for each type of game here.. As some parent post said, a mass amount of instant unchecked emotion flaming is about to come, but before you post, take some time to think about the possibilities.