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This is from a year ago...but it seems to contradict the 'flop'...

http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/13104/14128/iphone-o2-sales-figures-success.phtml

O2 has confirmed that the iPhone is the company's fastest selling device it has ever had in the UK, however stopped short of saying actually how many it sold in the first month and half on sale.

Nintendo has always played the legal card to the maximum extent possible, going all the way back to the days of draconian contracts that forbade you from making a game for anyone else if Nintendo published one of your games. They tried to control even how much you can advertise. It got ruled invalid eventually, but in the meantime, yes, they did try to put anyone out of business who no loner toes the Nintendo line.

Or here in Europe they tried to strong-arm the retailers into what they can and can't sell, and basically used the European market as an experiment in whether they can make more money with only a handful of games and restricting access to anything else. They actually got slapped with an anti-trust for that, and were found guilty. Worse yet, it turned out that they knew they're in violation of the law, and had planned to violate it, thinking they can make more money than the fine can possibly be. (Wrong guess.)

To get back to patents and to more recent times, they also patented or filed for patent:

- the XBox Live, basically

- emulation of its own consoles, again, to try to keep other people from doing it (and, yes, they tried to bully emulator developpers before)

- weird stuff, like comparing each other's avatars online, never mind that people have been holding costume contests in COH since the fucking launch in 2004

- something as broad as making a stage magician kinda game/sim

- a "wearable" controller to digitize body motions, never mind that motion capture has been done before like that for ages

- a rechargeable game controller never mind that chargers like that existed for mice, headsets, and everything for freaking ages before that

- just about anything you can put a motion detector into, from bikes to teddy bears

- horror games, or at least stuff like hallucinations or hearing voices in games, never mind that neither is new, and an insanity sim had even been made to train police in how to deal with dementia people

Etc.

Some of those seem to even exist just to keep others from doing it. E.g., they filed for a patent for console online gaming, at a time where they were publicly bashing it and saying they have no intention to do that.

Frankly, I don't get the hardon some people seem to get about Nintendo. While they do have a couple of talented designers, the management has an uninterrupted history of being evil fucks that make MS look good by comparison. They tried every possible way to lock competitors out, and developers in, some of which MS so far never even dreamed about. E.g., I don't remember MS suing anyone for developing for the Mac too. They too broke anti-trust laws. Etc.

And at least the previous management had no problem with even insulting its customers, especially if, god forbid, they're asking for a genre Nintendo isn't currently selling. Yamauchi publicly called RPG gamers "depressed gamers who like to sit alone in their dark rooms and play slow games", for example.

The only thing that changed that was the GameCube being the second dud in a row, which prompted a mellowing out of attitude. If they ever get back in a positio

Nintendo has always played the legal card to the maximum extent possible, going all the way back to the days of draconian contracts that forbade you from making a game for anyone else if Nintendo published one of your games. They tried to control even how much you can advertise. It got ruled invalid eventually, but in the meantime, yes, they did try to put anyone out of business who no loner toes the Nintendo line.

Or here in Europe they tried to strong-arm the retailers into what they can and can't sell, and basically used the European market as an experiment in whether they can make more money with only a handful of games and restricting access to anything else. They actually got slapped with an anti-trust for that, and were found guilty. Worse yet, it turned out that they knew they're in violation of the law, and had planned to violate it, thinking they can make more money than the fine can possibly be. (Wrong guess.)

To get back to patents and to more recent times, they also patented or filed for patent:

- the XBox Live, basically

- emulation of its own consoles, again, to try to keep other people from doing it (and, yes, they tried to bully emulator developpers before)

- weird stuff, like comparing each other's avatars online, never mind that people have been holding costume contests in COH since the fucking launch in 2004

- something as broad as making a stage magician kinda game/sim

- a "wearable" controller to digitize body motions, never mind that motion capture has been done before like that for ages

- a rechargeable game controller never mind that chargers like that existed for mice, headsets, and everything for freaking ages before that

- just about anything you can put a motion detector into, from bikes to teddy bears

- horror games, or at least stuff like hallucinations or hearing voices in games, never mind that neither is new, and an insanity sim had even been made to train police in how to deal with dementia people

Etc.

Some of those seem to even exist just to keep others from doing it. E.g., they filed for a patent for console online gaming, at a time where they were publicly bashing it and saying they have no intention to do that.

Frankly, I don't get the hardon some people seem to get about Nintendo. While they do have a couple of talented designers, the management has an uninterrupted history of being evil fucks that make MS look good by comparison. They tried every possible way to lock competitors out, and developers in, some of which MS so far never even dreamed about. E.g., I don't remember MS suing anyone for developing for the Mac too. They too broke anti-trust laws. Etc.

And at least the previous management had no problem with even insulting its customers, especially if, god forbid, they're asking for a genre Nintendo isn't currently selling. Yamauchi publicly called RPG gamers "depressed gamers who like to sit alone in their dark rooms and play slow games", for example.

The only thing that changed that was the GameCube being the second dud in a row, which prompted a mellowing out of attitude. If they ever get back in a positio

Nintendo has always played the legal card to the maximum extent possible, going all the way back to the days of draconian contracts that forbade you from making a game for anyone else if Nintendo published one of your games. They tried to control even how much you can advertise. It got ruled invalid eventually, but in the meantime, yes, they did try to put anyone out of business who no loner toes the Nintendo line.

Or here in Europe they tried to strong-arm the retailers into what they can and can't sell, and basically used the European market as an experiment in whether they can make more money with only a handful of games and restricting access to anything else. They actually got slapped with an anti-trust for that, and were found guilty. Worse yet, it turned out that they knew they're in violation of the law, and had planned to violate it, thinking they can make more money than the fine can possibly be. (Wrong guess.)

To get back to patents and to more recent times, they also patented or filed for patent:

- the XBox Live, basically

- emulation of its own consoles, again, to try to keep other people from doing it (and, yes, they tried to bully emulator developpers before)

- weird stuff, like comparing each other's avatars online, never mind that people have been holding costume contests in COH since the fucking launch in 2004

- something as broad as making a stage magician kinda game/sim

- a "wearable" controller to digitize body motions, never mind that motion capture has been done before like that for ages

- a rechargeable game controller never mind that chargers like that existed for mice, headsets, and everything for freaking ages before that

- just about anything you can put a motion detector into, from bikes to teddy bears

- horror games, or at least stuff like hallucinations or hearing voices in games, never mind that neither is new, and an insanity sim had even been made to train police in how to deal with dementia people

Etc.

Some of those seem to even exist just to keep others from doing it. E.g., they filed for a patent for console online gaming, at a time where they were publicly bashing it and saying they have no intention to do that.

Frankly, I don't get the hardon some people seem to get about Nintendo. While they do have a couple of talented designers, the management has an uninterrupted history of being evil fucks that make MS look good by comparison. They tried every possible way to lock competitors out, and developers in, some of which MS so far never even dreamed about. E.g., I don't remember MS suing anyone for developing for the Mac too. They too broke anti-trust laws. Etc.

And at least the previous management had no problem with even insulting its customers, especially if, god forbid, they're asking for a genre Nintendo isn't currently selling. Yamauchi publicly called RPG gamers "depressed gamers who like to sit alone in their dark rooms and play slow games", for example.

The only thing that changed that was the GameCube being the second dud in a row, which prompted a mellowing out of attitude. If they ever get back in a positio

Reminds me of the new Philips Ligt Blossom flower (pictures) running on sun- and windenergy. What is it that happy flowers - or actually, nature - are inspiring those designers? I think the future might be the a mixture of technology and natural looking devices.

I remember reading a year ago that some Toshiba Qosmios could recognize gestures. This is not the article I read, but the first I found.

Also, I don't think it's fair to kick Microsoft over this. It seems to be a bit of an experiment. I'd love to see this on Linux though, another step closer to the Minority Report world.

Spoke too soon. I knew some friends at TI had mentioned seeing prototypes of compact DLP projectors. Seems they're already marketing them to cell phone companies:
http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/9849/10873/hands-on-dlp-mobile-phone-projector.phtml

Soon... very soon we'll have our tricorders!

The article didn't list any specs but a little digging found this:

3M MPRO 110M
640x480 Resolution
LCoS Technology (supposedly similar to DLP)
VGA and composite in
150g weight

Considering how small 1080p DLP chips are, and now that they're using LEDs as lightsources, I was suprised that a DLP model wasn't first to market...

That said, 3M has a smaller model for cell phone use: here .

I've often wondered why Slashdot editors don't RTFA themselves, particularly, why they don't go back to the original source article when it's readily available on-line. The text (not the headline) of the article makes it clear that first of all, Griffiths isn't saying Blu-Ray ONLY has five years left. He's saying it has AT LEAST five good years left, but less than ten, in his opinion. Secondly, the business about OLEDs makes it clear that the thrust of the timeframe discussion is with respect to a profit stream. That is, there are five good years of profits left in Blu-Ray, but in the future, Samsung sees OLEDs as a long-term source of profits. Which is reasonable. After all, CD players are still around, and Sammy still makes 'em, but they're not a major revenue source at this point. From that perspective, of hardware profits, they're basically dead, although from a software perspective, CDs are still the #1 media delivery mechanism.

I'm very glad for China, but at the same time depressed. When I was younger, I used to think of the US as being a place that made THE FUTURE happen. I wanted the Internet come into being and if that wasn't THE FUTURE I didn't know what was. Now it seems feels like the US it focused on stasis. I can only hope now that the Chinese let us have some table scraps from their engineering marvels.

-Grey

Engineering marvels?

You mean this engineering marvel?

Or how about this one?

Though, I'll give them credit where it's due, the Olympic venues of the birds nest and water cube were pretty awesome.

Ah, time to reminisce; remember the last time a story without news behind it came out? Let me remind you as Wiki Takes on Google!

Or not, as the case proved.

Is Cuil a story without news, or is it funding without a product? Either way, I doubt anyone will remember it in 3 months time, but that won't stop me applying for a job there...

Not only is this story over 2 months old but it isn't even original! This Guy did it over a year ago while the current guys story was featured on ABC back in March.

Also, ECS has a sub-$500 Eee PC competitor coming, but it's probably too early in production to include in the CNET article. The ECS's key features: built-in HSDPA card, looks (from photos) slightly larger than Eee PC (but still ultraportable), MacBook-like keyboard. I think it "looks" better than the ultraportables in the CNET article, but I think I'd trust the MSI brand over ECS (or even ASUS).

Nice try. Engadget says, "What's an iPhone? 14.3m Windows Mobile phones sold in the past six months alone," but you can read it for yourself:
Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/11/whats-an-iphone-14-3m-windows-mobile-phones-sold-in-the-past-s/
Source article: http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/12780/13804/microsoft-windows-mobile-phone-sales.phtml

Ok, I first heard about Cringley being referenced on different boards, I thought he had some kind of inside scoop, or at the very least, keen insight. Only... here we are yet gain, leaning in to listen to an ENTIRE write up, predicated on misinterpreted information.

Was Stephenson sending Jobs a message by disclosing that the iPhone 3G was coming out in 2008?

Um, dude... read the paper much, blogs, ? Back in September, Steve Jobs commented publically that the 3G iPhone should be expected to arrive "later next year". Maybe Cringely only did a Google search on "iPhone 2008", and it didn't return "later next year", so he ran with it? This was the news from the O2 launch. Is Cringley memory a bit dusty?

Jobs Confirms 3G iPhone Coming 2008 - Sept 18 2008 http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/10212/11236/apple-iphone-3g-coming-2008.phtml

Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, has confirmed that there is a 3G iPhone in the works, although fell short of saying when we could expect to buy one. Making the comments at the "Mum is no longer the word" press conference at the Regent Street Apple store in London, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple said: "You can expect a 3G iPhone later next year". "We are working on the next iPhone already, the one after that and the one after that", Jobs said.

The worst part of this, is I see a title on my Slashdot feed saying "AT&T Playing Hardball with Apple?" and I lick my teeth for an interesting story... only to find an entire conversation based on one man's misinterpreted information. In Cringley's column "Faster iPhone faster! Kill!! Kill!!", he predicted a 3G iPhone by Christmas. I mean, then there was the built-in H.264 encoding on all Apple products, etc, etc. I mean, it might be fun to talley up if there are ANY correct predictions by Cringley, except I think we can almost assume he's probably running at 95/5 ration, in favor of poor prognosication.

They already did
http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/5092/ 6116/samsung-mobile-phone-camera-10mp.phtml

Absolutely. Geo Wars costs less than $5 and there is absolutely no excuse for every single 360 owner not to have to the full version.

You might be interested to know that Geo Wars developers "Bizzare Creations" are working on a new XBLA game for EA (boo!) which appears to be the bastard child of Geo Wars, DDR and Fantavision.

It looks rather nice.

Well, CNN had reported that Nintendo had shipped 2 million Wii units which is double expected if I remember correctly. Reportedly, The Wii is sold out everywhere. I can certainly attest to this fact. I tried 8 different stores in an 1 hour 30 min driving radius and failed at every turn. The closest I got was at my third try. A Toy 'R Us which I stood in line 90 minutes only to have them run out of tickets 5 people ahead of me...I can't find any solid game sales numbers, but the shelves have been pretty bare and Zelda's missing from most online retailers.

Sony's launch in Japan sold 88,400 units but only 0.98 games per machine...

Sony's US launch doesn't appear to have hit the intended 400,000 units. One group estimates a lowly 100,000 while others guess at closer to 150,000 to 200,000 neither of which are more than half the hoped shipping amount. We can safly say that all of them sold, but who knows how many games are being sold?

While the US launch certainly puts Nintendo in a good position this holiday season, the PS3 has the head start in Japan, since the Wii doesn't launch until December 2nd and even then, it'll only be 400,000 units. Personally, I can't wait to hear when the second US shipments start rolling in...

1. They must meet emission standards. European diesels currently can't be sold in the US as they are in the UE because our standards are much tougher (believe it or not).

2. They must be sexy.

Parent's experience is becoming more common. "Following a succesful trial in Westminster earlier this year, around 20 cameras will monitor and automatically fine vehicle owners who park in restricted areas or obstruct other road users. Some of central London's busiest streets will be covered, and the hope is that congestion will be eased and that video footage will both provide hard evidence against illegal parkers and reduce the volume of challenged tickets." pocket-lint (07 August 2006)

Supporters of ID cards please note: they're fining motorists who park on the pavement rather than e.g. people who walk on the grass because they can automatically identify the former, not the latter. Do you really think it will stop there when we're all RFID-chipped?.

It's interesting that this is a straight to DVD production. I'm not a huge fan of Babylon 5 but I am very interested to see what distribution method they seek.

The recent news is Warner Bros. is putting Babylon 5 on iTunes. That's right, you'll be able to purchase episodes of the sci-fi show on iTunes. Could they promote this service by releasing The Lost Tales a few weeks early on iTunes? I think they could probably garner quite a bit of money from Apple if they were willing to do that.

After all, what better fanbase for Apple to secure than the Babylon 5 tech/trek group? Old nerds with lots of money and few vices. I know some people at work that would buy a video iPod just to have copies of Babylon 5 on their person at all times.

This could probably be a television show that successfully bypasses all traditional forms of distribution which would set huge precedence for weaning the public from the glass teat.

Regarding manually changing PageRank, didn't Google delisted bmw.de in Febuary? Does this constitute manual tempering?

March 2006 -- http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news.php?newsId=2939

...start making the damn things.

I think they maybe already.

More info on the $100 laptop, as well as some good pictures, can be found here.

http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/newsimage.php?newsId= 1689&image=1

Funny though, the BBC article talks about in-theatre technology and this article talks about distributing to "universities, companies, Internet service providers and other network operators," which aren't movie theatres.

Personally, I'd rather we keep the pirates in order to combat global warming.

I played Balloon Fight yesterday, on my old 8-bit NES, finishing 30% of the single-player mode on my first life.

And Nintendo appears to own all w.r.t. compatibility with classic games. The company has announced an online ROM rental service, featuring classic NES, Super NES, and N64 titles, which looks like it will win a lot of converts to Revolution from the abandonwarez/emulation scene.

No, it's iPoo.

"A UK company started up by a distant relative of the inventor of the toilet, has created a new handheld GPS device that allows you to locate and then get directions to the nearest toilet in the UK."

Actually, I have here (somewhere) a rather tattered copy of the obscure book, "Where to Go in London". It's circa 1969(?) reviews about free toilet facilities in the city, and not about possible gay sex-friendly places as some might think. It's actually some guy's published opinions on the best and worst places in London to do a number 1 or 2.

And Google Cache finds something similar. I'm not sure if this type of research is anal-retentive or what.

iPod Shuffle 512M -- $99
Network Walkman NW-E105 512M -- $99.95

iPod Shuffle 1G -- $150
Network Walkman NW-E107 1G -- $149.95

Did you exclude these on purpose to strengthen your point? These models were mentioned in the article.

Sony unveils new MP3 playing screwdriver... Steve Jobs cowers in mock fear on way to bank...

Is anyone buying this?

However, as we all know, Sony are a music company too which means that however great this is, they'll crippled or fudge it up in some spectacular way meaning that, yet again, it'll be a flop.

My guess is that it'll be the required usage of SonicStage.

It doesn't get much more main stream as far as Apple products go.

I'm not that sure. First, it's easy to use (at least once the songs are loaded; I do this service for my relatives) and a non-techie person can use one right away. I bought one for my father and another one for my significant other. Second, if one could say that the clubbing scene is a sort of main stream for urban young people, then the iPod has already won the battle - at least in London. There are many interestung cultural phenomena related to iPod - such as the habit of offering someone opportunity to "jack-in" to your iPod to share musical tastes. Plus, partially thanks to clever product placement, partially just for virtue of the gagdet itself, it's actually ubiquitous in pop culture nowadays. It's the first product made by Apple - since the original Apple II computer - that managed to break out of the ghetto and get popular in the simplest meaning of the word.

Save yourself some time and jump to the full review, the verdict, or the reader reviews--doesn't look like readers agree with the 9/10 rating.

Save yourself some time and jump to the full review, the verdict, or the reader reviews--doesn't look like readers agree with the 9/10 rating.

Save yourself some time and jump to the full review, the verdict, or the reader reviews--doesn't look like readers agree with the 9/10 rating.

Not even in the same league. Game consoles run apps that utilize 100% of their power for a fully interactive experience.

Game consoles have operating systems, as do computers. When I run a game on my computer or my game console they both utilize the majority of the processing power of the hardware. Last time I checked a Windows/Linux/Mac OS based computer was also a "fully interactive experience".

Computers run apps of varying capability.

As do game consoles. Have you seen some of the new stuff Sony is doing with that eyeToy? Completely unrelated to gaming, strangely enough. They're launching a video chat service. Oh, wait, but I thought these console things were just for gaming?

So? Nobody has them. Your interface for something like this is a controller. That's what you got. That means when you create an online service, you have to deal with issues like 'how does one find another person's IP address?' Putting a keyboard into the mix is one way of doing it. But if you take the time to actually deal with it sans kb, you've done something innovative.

I use a mouse to find my online servers, can I patent that? And I never see the IP for a lot of games I play online. Hell, I think I've played games online that have allowed me to use my Gravis Gamepad to select servers. Again, how is this anything special? It's not even innovative. It's just a standard input device (gamepad, mouse, keyboard, etc) that allows you to input (hence the name input device). And it doesn't matter if a lot of people don't have keyboards for their consoles. I'm sure there aren't a lot, but I'm sure there are at least several thousand people who do.

Sharing similar internals does not make them the same any more than saying a woman and a man are the same just because they share most of the same organs.

Men and women are actually extremely similar. They're also both humans, just like consoles and personal computers are both computers.

You don't surf the web with consoles, and you don't play Super Mario Sunshine on your PC.

I play games on my computer and I use software that connects over the internet on my console. Just because a certain game or application isn't available on one or the other means nothing.

Honestly, trying to argue with you that game consoles are comptuers is getting a little tiring, because they are computers. It's a specialized computer. There are many different types of specialized computers. Everything from cash registers, to embedded systems that run weather stations, to super computers, to rendering clusters, etc. etc. etc. All of them are computers.

I'm waiting to see this USB device to hit the US market. Currently it looks like only the UK and others seem to have access to them.

It's a great toy. I never bothered upgrading the hard-drive, instead I stream all my media off several large drives on my linux box which is on 24/7 anyway. Had a bunch of folk round that were very impressed, imagine having entire runs of TV shows available on demand. Beats broadcast TV anyday.

The media giants missed the boat, much like the music industry. While they are still arguing about DRM and how to profit from it, people are simply making their own shit. And it's completely outwith their control. The BBC seem to be the only ones who have a clue to what's going on.

For anyone setting up an XBox for media, I recommend starting with the Slayer's EvoX installer, which you can get as an iso if you know where to find that sort of thing. It installs the EvolutionX dashboard with a whole load of useful applications.

Many die-hards out there will undoubtedly tell you that it's not the camera; it's the photographer. Thus, a waterproof point-and-shoot will work fun. That said, it's much more of a pain in the ass to try and figure out how the point-and-shoot will react... and you don't often see those die-hard professionals using point-and-shoots, anyway.

I'm assuming that by nature of the fact that you posted this question, you're concerned with your shots coming out well, so I'll ignore the disposables for now. Your next (and in my opinion, cheapest/easiest) option would be to use a small digital camera that you already have, or buy one that you'll be able to use later. Then get a waterproof case for it. You can get these in several styles.

This one, at $45 will let you shoot while it's in the case, and is not camera-specific. This type is camera specific and is a better choice, though considerably more expensive. ($100-$400, depending on the make/model of camera.) Pelican makes a series called the "Micro Case Series", which you also might want to take a look at. They're cheaper than the ones you can use the camera in ($10-$20), but will only keep the camera waterproof when it's in them.

However, since you mentioned that you're expecting floods with little warning, the last option is probably not the best. I'd recommend the first if you're on a budget, or the second if you're not. I use the third when sailing, but I usually have fair warning before conditions arise that I'll need to watch for. It sounds like you won't.

You can also get digital cameras that are inherently waterproof, like this one, and this one. However, I'd recommend against these, because it sounds like you only need it for this trip. I'd get a camera you can use normally, and a case for situations like these.

Well, the picture I found looks something like a modified 5.1 arrangement. You've still got the three front speakers, two back speakers, and subwoofer, but you also get two true side speakers for a total of seven. I guess this gives you a more distinct frontleft and frontright audio angle, but I doubt I could really hear the difference.