Slashdot Mirror

Yes.

IBM & Citizen Watch develop Linux-based "WatchPad"
Watch This Wednesday: the Linux Watch
Et Cetera

Why, I'm not exactly sure.

Why will the traditional media be going anywhere?

I agree. I don't know about anybody else, but despite what the original article post says, I was pretty glued to my local news channel on 9/11 (here in New York). Is anyone actually going to sit there and tell me in all seriousness that their primary source of news and info on 9/11 was somebody's blog? Hell, if you were in a safe enough place to sit and blog about it, then you just weren't close enough to even know what was really going on.

Blogs are a terrible source of news, IMO. They are a better source of opinion, maybe, and for bantering about things like the latest gadgets, but anyone who's either sitting at home typing up a bunch of crap or worse, simply posting a bunch of links to some other "real" news site, is not doing anybody much good at all. And even for opinion, they really mainly exist for those who want to have their egos stroked by finding others whose opinions simply help confirm their own...

I read blogs, and I write one too (when I feel like updating it, which isn't often). But they're hardly a replacement for traditional news. The whole blog craze reminds me a lot of the dot-com era, where everybody thought these small little online startups were going to come in and sweep the big, old, crusty traditional companies out of the way... Then reality set in. The same thing's probably going to happen with blogs. Does that mean blogs serve no purpose? No - I mean, technically, Slashdot is a blog. Engadget is a blog. Gizmodo is a blog. I read these multiple times per day.

But for real breaking news, and for real informed opinion, there is no way for blogs to compete with traditional news media. After all, you generally at least need a college degree to get a job in the news industry - I'm not sure how much you can trust your average high school dropout with access to a PC and a free blogger.com account. (Of course, traditional media's had its own share of problems the past couple years, but then that's partly because they're actually held to some sort of ethical standard. Blogs are not held to any standards whatsoever, and any blogger can get away with pretty much anything they want, however erroneous or borderline slanderous their statements may be.)

I upgraded to Tiger so iSync isn't the issue anymore. The Nokia software allows you to convert MP3s to "true tones" and also allows you to use the Nokia LifeBlog software. I am using the PicoBlogger as a moblog solution but have not found a way to convert MP3s. These may seem like silly needs but it would be nice to have the option. Its part of my overall experience with my phone.

Overall, I am thrilled. I dumped Verizon Wireless because of their phone crippling tendencies and dumped my Treo for my 6620. I am very happy with my choice.

A ToshPod killer! I was wondering when the cloners would notice this device and try to take some of Toshiba's share of the pie.

The Rio Karma's gapless playback was awesome... but that device was a little hefty and its boxy shape made it unfriendly to the pocket, which is why I got rid of it. Unfortunately, that's the only MP3 player I know of that supports gapless. Still, there are a slew of nifty 1 GB flash players that can be had for $80 - $150. In addition to the iRiver:

iPod Shuffle (I picked up a used 1GB model for $80):
+ smallest and lightest of the bunch, iTunes integration, high build-quality, excellent sound, well-place controls, doubles as USB flash drive, recharges when plugged in
- no screen, non-replaceable battery, can't transfer music through mounted drive

Creative Muvo N200:
+ FM, AAA battery offers flexibility, voice recorder, line-in
- a little larger than iPod Shuffle, must juggle batteries

Creative Muvo V200 (I got a 1GB model on Ebay for $87 shipped):
Same as N200 but slightly larger and heavier, has integrated USB connector, no line-in

iPod Shuffle Knock-offs :
Not as easy to find, but like the shuffle but with more features (but sans iTunes integration). Mixed reviews as far as build quality goes.

JXD No-name Player :
The JXD is just one of many feature-rich no-name players on Ebay. Build and sound quality unknown; YMMV.

And there are several Rio, Samsung, and Sandisk models at Best Buy... and other more exciting ones at dynamism, like the tasty iRiver T10.

Then there's the iPod Mini, which has Apple's awesome clickwheel in a fairly small package. And the Rio Carbon, which is the most pocketable of the hdd players. Too bad neither of those have a built-in USB connector or FM.

As seen on engadget!

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000563046382/

Of couse, the linux crowd would make theirs out of duct tape and plastic....

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000470046345/

For those of you just juicing for a pic, you can see it at Engadget

D

As pointed out yesterday on engadget, these cameras have been out a few months -- it's just that the press release came out recently. Yep, it's from the same company that made the hacked still camera.

The community working on hacking this new camcorder is located at:http://camerahacks.10.forumer.com/viewforum.php ?f=13

These cameras seem to have an external program memory, so it might not be too hard to hack. The forum above also has dissection pictures.

BTW, last summer PureDigital came out with a still camera called the PV2. Unlike the one that was previously mentioned on slashdot, this new one has an LCD post-view screen and it's based on a completely different chipset. It has also been hacked. I figured out the authentication mechanism on this and most of the communications. Others got the camera to work with standard drivers and are figuring out the proprietary raw format. I wrote a disassembler and have published commentary on the built-in firmware, but you'll need a camera & firmware file to make sense of it. The firmware is protected by a checksum, but that was easy to find and correct.

main pv2 forums
PV2 FAQ from the forum - a great starting place
my FAQ's
unofficial devkit for writing your own programs.

# Apple will offer a Developer Kit, which includes 3.6GHz Pentium 4. OS X 10.4.1 for Intel (preview release). Order today; available in two weeks. [10:48 am]

10:33am PDT - "As a matter of fact, this system I've been using here..." the keynote's been running on a P4 3.6GHz all morning"

Wrong!!! Its true, engadget.com has a guy there blogging the keynote and Steve Jobs just admitted it. http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000137045772/

Actually, from all the forums and reviews I've read, the 20" Dell edges out the 20" Apple Cinema on all points but subjective style. Also, the Cinema apparently has big problems with a reddish/pink cast on the edges, that a bunch of people on the mac forums still rightly bitch about.

check comment #35
http://features.engadget.com/entry/411566734450076 7/

This story is important not only because Morse code is demonstrated, atleast in this fashion, to still be relevant 170 years later, but also because we are on the cusp of a new innovation in mobile phone text messaging technologies: Morse code cellphone input for text messaging. As another poster already pointed out there is third party app already available for symbian based phones to do text messaging with morse input and its only a matter of time before we start seeing this built into cellphones from the start bringing MORSE CODE BACK FROM THE GRAVE.

ALL CAPS. YES.

Its just so insanely interesting to me that cellphones are now on the cusp of reviving Morse code and I plan on doing everything I can to promote this idea to make sure the cellphone companies hear it. One for the love of Morse but two because I'd love to be able to both send and receive text messages in Morse-- imagine the cellphone vibrating out in Morse code the text messages you've just received so you don't have to take your eyes off the road, or look at the phone in the middle of a meeting. Interestingly enough Nokia has pioneered informative Morse code messages on cellphones-- their SMS alerts can be set to send ...--... or SMS when a text alert comes through and also there is a Nokia ringtone that has morse code in it as well. Further proof: Nokia has filed patents for morse code related technologies.

It's coming. Like it or not, Morse code is going to take over the world. Again.

Hahaha, I see. But, why everybody shows always the same image?

MakeZine
Engadget
and
Textually

Someone has another archive image? Not better, only different! :)

.
not only covered on Slashdot but Engadget http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000463042528 and probly a few K other places.

here was my uncommonly creative post on Engadget from the day:

-------------------
Posted May 6, 2005, 3:21 PM ET by KaiBeezy
.
if you learned morse code, why not just pick a couple of quickly enterable (is that a word?), easily distinguishable characters and let loose the dit dah fury?

here's how i would do it - set the case for all lower case - 4 and 7 are dots, 6 and 9 are dashes - space key is good - so SOS would be keyed as 474696474, and would text as pgpmwmgpg - this works quite nicely visually, where the round part of the p and g would start to look like dots, and the vertical lines of the m and w start to look like dashes - i bet a real morse coder could get the hang of it and whip things out on a phone pad just as fast as on a morse key

hm, maybe i should have patented that! i hereby release this "method of entering morse code via T9 pad as described in the paragraph above" under a creative commons license, 2005 qwepoi biotronics, some rights reserved: attribution, noncommercial, share alike
.
-------------------

Engadget is reporting that there's a Morse Text utility for Series 60 phones. the original story, Preview, download it here

Have you seen the Nokia 770? They're billing it as an "internet tablet", but it's small, light, and runs debian.

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000180020920/

http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/samsung-develops-t hin-crt-television-024892.php

You're here on slashdot. But you're really posting for engadget.com, aren't you? Aren't you???

http://www.engadget.com/entry/4351460713635569/

http://www.devicelink.com/mem/archive/05/04/004.ht ml

There's already a lot of discussion in this thread about privacy "rights", etc. I couldn't care less about those implications-- I just want a low power GPS receiver that I can unobtrusively carry around with me. That would rock.

I'd totally go for being a gargoyle in a minute. If there were practical technologies to let me record audio, video, and position data during all my waking hours, I'd strap 'em on in a second. Instrumenting my body for transmission of vitals would also rock. I'd be very interested in running an MRTG-like report of my blood pressure, heart rate, brain activity... That'd be sweet.

I was totally floored when I heard about the blood-powered fuel cells a few weeks ago. Gimmie some of those, some bluetooth-enabled sensors to poll my vitals, and a data logger that I can wear around on my belt w/ enough battery life and storage capacity to go a few days, and I'm set. Add in some GPS-enabled sneakers, and I'm thrilled.

How about a cellular phone that does morse code?
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000657035633/

It would be way better if it had a telegraph machine interface though.

Apple just charges more and calls it quality. Check out this hilarious thread:
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000020041567/

A friend of mine uses one of these

http://www.engadget.com/entry/6336767344488645/

he likes his, writing a novel or somesuch, but he leaves it in the truck & goes to it when something inspires him.

bad points:

* its not going to fit in your pocket, its just a little smaller than your standard laptop.

* small screen, more like a calculator, you can only see a few lines at a time.

* SRP is over $200, you could just go with a used lappy if your going to spend that much

good points:

* runs for months on AA batteries

* keyboard seems easy enough to touch-type on

* USB, just plug it in & upload your crap... er um.. literary creations.

* boots in miliseconds... theres no OS to boot.

BS
It's not about iPods, and it's not a fad.
How else would the screensavers be reunited, and be able to freely express their opinions?
How else would you listen to an opinionated summary of last week's gadget news?

If a podcast aggregator doesn't show you the potential of the technology (think TV broadcasts), you have no imagination.

"TiVo traded DirecTV for Comcast (a downgrade)"

Comcast is bigger than DirecTV. Plus, it's not true: http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000360038927/

DirecTV and TiVo are still together.

I don't see anything about TiVo's leadership quitting. Co-founder Mike Ramsay is still there: http://www.tivo.com/5.1.asp

My argument isn't based in the potential of new products. Those are just the icing. The primary argument is that TiVo continues to sign new customers. In particular, contrary to popular belief, not even the largest cable company is succeeding in offering alternatives to TiVo that customers want.

Because of The Power Supply burning up .

engadget version of story
bbc version of story

didn't Netflix go into a partnership with Amazon a while ago?

No, Amazon was shopping around for a partner but no final deal with anyone has been announced ... yet.

Here is one of many links to similar stories.

Sorry, but I'm surprised none of the people here who got 3+ for their comments have read this article.

They clearly say they are going to EMULATE the top titles.

That article says no such thing!

Emulation isn't even mentioned in the article. The interview is vague as Hell on how they are going to get bakcwards compatiblity and ends with "the execution [of XBox compatibility] will speak for itself".

So, have you read this article?

Sorry, but I'm surprised none of the people here who got 3+ for their comments have read this article.

They clearly say they are going to EMULATE the top titles.

That article says no such thing!

Emulation isn't even mentioned in the article. The interview is vague as Hell on how they are going to get bakcwards compatiblity and ends with "the execution [of XBox compatibility] will speak for itself".

So, have you read this article?

Sorry, but I'm surprised none of the people here who got 3+ for their comments have read this article.

They clearly say they are going to EMULATE the top titles. Now, they say that if they manage to emulate Halo2, there's good chance that games that use a subset of funcionality will also work. Hence, they target a few games, and they get collateral compatibility from these high-end titles.

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000597043723/

* Snippet *
Bach: Just to give you a specific example, wouldn't it be cool to have the game that has the person on the PC being the general who is driving the strategy and the person on the console on Xbox Live executing the strategy. That is a completely new genre, not sure what you would call it, but that's a completely different experience, and it leverages everything that steve talked about that we're putting in place. That's the kind of thinking that we're going to get people to, whether it's first party or third party.
Look past the gaming aspects of the console, how does the Xbox 360 serve as Microsoft's beachhead into the living room. A 20GB hard drive isn't a lot of space for storage, but since it does have this broadband connection, how is it going to integrated with IPTV, streaming video, and streaming audio?

Three things: Number one, who knows what configurations will be there by the time we're done. I think that's important to say. Number two, because you do have the network connectivity, whether you have a Media Center PC or not. You can put an awfully big hard disk on a regular PC and plug into this ecosystem, we have plenty of extensibility in terms of storage. And then number three, you take the IP TV work we're doing, and that technology can run on a PC, on a set top box, it can run on an Xbox. So there will be, in conjunction with the work we do with the video delivery companies, particularly the telcos, who have tended to be our strongest customers for our IPTV stuff, there will be yet another way to acquire and use video content. So you have set tops, you have the set top experience, you have the Xbox, you've got a big hard disk, you've got networked to the PC in the home, so I think there will be a lot of ways to get that media onto the Xbox.

link above bad http://www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/handycam/PROD UCTS/HDR-HC1/index.html
oh well... http://engadget.com/entry/1234000553043609/

The were featured on Engadget a while ago...

Because some of us would rather not reward greedy municipalities with oodles of tax money from taxing celphones. Plus, once you get it working with Vonage, you should be able to set up your own wi-fi based VOIP services, and get service for free in places where you control the infrastructure.

Oh please, the Xbox 360 is not a more "creative and liberal industrial design". It's a PC on it's side, and even looks like one:

Xbox 360

Dell Optiplex

The only way it even resembles the iPod is that it's not black.

You might want to check out the MiniMate... (Also visible on engadget.)

It's funny how the kotaku's brian got RSVP'd into the press conference, but, Joel from gizmodo got barred from entering. :)

Oh well, I think engadget's a better blog then gizmodo anyway :)

There's been change in plans. It's now six horsemen.

Xb0z cant make bike shadows!
http://img.engadget.com/common/images/211689281351 2113.JPG?0.07669504960150098

Perfect.
I want one in my pacemaker!

This really blows because people, like me, use a method of downloading TV shows via BitTorrent called broadcatching. I'm sure there are tons of people like me whose intention is not to do any harm to that particular show/network. I prefer downloading of TV shows because I cannot watch them when they air (usually). Though better solutions (Tivo) might exist, it is still super convenient for me to download TV shows (acutally my computer does it for me) and to watch them on the computer. Or I can quickly transfer them to my laptop and bring it to work/school with me. I can understand why the RIAA/MPAA might have a problem with people downloading music/movies, but it's television and it's broadcast all over the world -- for FREE. This is indeed another "scare" tactic. What's next, suing people for using BitTorrent all together? What about HTTP downloading? What about FTP? I can download my "warez" from those protocols too.

This really blows because people, like me, use a method of downloading TV shows via BitTorrent called broadcatching. I'm sure there are tons of people like me whose intention is not to do any harm to that particular show/network. I prefer downloading of TV shows because I cannot watch them when they air (usually). Though better solutions (Tivo) might exist, it is still super convenient for me to download TV shows (acutally my computer does it for me) and to watch them on the computer. Or I can quickly transfer them to my laptop and bring it to work/school with me. I can understand why the RIAA/MPAA might have a problem with people downloading music/movies, but it's television and it's broadcast all over the world -- for FREE. This is indeed another "scare" tactic. What's next, suing people for using BitTorrent all together? What about HTTP downloading? What about FTP? I can download my "warez" from those protocols too.

Except it will never run windows mobile, because that OS is horseshit. It will probably look more like the Sony Ericsson W800
[URL]http://www.engadget.com/entry/123400054 303603 7/%5B/URL%5D

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000377038931/

Your PDA with a hard drive. looks sweet.

Since Apple and Motorola are delivering a iTMS based player/phone here soon. If I were Bill, I would be a bit worried being late to market, again (Longhorn) ;-)
Get Ready To Call ITunes Dec 2004
Here is a pre-production picture of it

I think Bill is right: the iPod is on it's way out.

Apple isn't going to blow it this time though. I wouldn't be surprised to see an all-in-one device from the boys in Cupertino sometime in the next few years. The cell phone recently discussed on here by Nokia is an indicator of things to come.

It seems to me that Bill does get this concept (of not having a central PC), or at least he is starting to. According to this interview on http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000440041962/ that I read the other day. It doesn't seem like he requiring you to have a Media Center PC in order to enjoy some of the media capabilities of the next xbox, nor is he assuming that you will have all of your content on one machine. Here is part of the interview below:

How is the next Xbox going to fit into the rest of Microsoft's home entertainment strategy? Will it be able to double as a digital entertainment hub?

I'm not sure what you mean by the word hub there. Often we would think of the Media Center PC as being the hub and then the living room being able to connect up to all the music on the PCs in the house, all the photos on the PCs in the house, and having remote display capabilities so that if you've got video up on that PC, then great you can watch it, connect to it, set up to record it right with a remote control in the living room. So the high-end scenario for us is you've got Media Center PC, that's where your state is, but then you've got your Xenon out that are connecting up to that. Xenon itself will have some neat capabilities, but we're in pre-introduction here, and that group is brilliant about the unveiling. They've been very coy up 'til this point and I wouldn't want to steal any of their thunder.

But what if someone doesn't have a Media Center PC, will the Xbox have some of that same functionality?

It won't be a Media Center PC, so there's some things you won't be able to do. You'll be able to do a lot of media things including storing music, playing music, connect up your player. There's an overall media vision, and we certainly see households that just have Xenons in them, and we see households that have normal PCs and Xenons, and we see households that have media center PCs and Xenons. We're going to make all those do what you'd expect.