Microsoft OFfice is also the only program I know of that can *break* a PNG. I was working on a usage document for an app I had constructed and I used PNGs for the screenshot. Occasionally, after inserting the images into the document, it would claim that there was a problem reading the image, and it would refuse to open it in any other application.
Of course, I could still open it in Preview on the Mac, which indicates to me that either the MS implementation of the PNG library has it reading (and modifying) more data than it should be, or the Mac may be ignoring some sort of file-in-use flag which is throwing off Office. I say that because Windows wouldn't let me delete the affected images without rebooting.
At any rate, at the end of the day, I had to make backups of all my PNGs before trying to insert them into the document.
Kyocera's been making the SmartPhone series like this for some time. The QCP-6035 is superior to the m125 in features - It only lacks the SD Memory slot. The QCP-7135 has PalmOS 4.1, a color screen, smaller profile, the SD Memory slot, and a more ergonomic feel.
My fiancee has the QCP-6035 and it's really nice. EudoraWeb is decent, but I've since installed Blazer (from HandSpring) and it works great. The main downside is that the phones are PCS, meaning that you'll have to have service through Verizon or Sprint. The 7135 is available via ALLTEL, but you can transfer it over to a different CDMA network.
There's also a fairly large hacking and customization community over at SmartPhoneSource.com, that can give you all the tips and tricks to using your phone, as well as setting up your phone to switch providers, load OS updates (both phones use a custom version of the OS), and other cool stuff.
The only downside to the Apple mechanism? You need a Mac running OS X and you cannot 'sample' for free. On the other hand, that's what radio/movie/tv/cable does for you. And I cannot see Apple not doing something to fix that... perhaps a tie into Internet Radio, which iTunes *already* has a feature for... Perhaps 'on demand iTunes radio'?
iTunes does let you take 30 second samples of each and every track available for download. It says so on the iTunes Music Store webpage.
I think that for once, MS doesn't *have* to rush to push out a product, because the one they have right now is pretty damn good.
The fact that Windows 2000 is or is not a good product doesn't determine whether or not they *have* to rush to push out a product. The need to revitalize cash flow on sales of a new OS version to pacify shareholders, does.
Rez is an excellent demonstration of synesthesia. It's basically a track-shooter, but set to low-level trance music, and your actions in the world (enemies shot down, powerups gained, progress made) determine how the music is played, and what visual effects are presented.
The experience is really hard to quantify, but you have to sit down with it for a while to realize just how interesting it is.
The game is out of print, but you owe it to yourself to give it a shot if you know a friend with it. It was released on the Dreamcast in Japan and the EU, and later, an enhanced version for the PS2 was released for all three territories.
Bush lauded the work being done to restore basic services and order in Iraq after Saddam's ouster, but warned "the building of a new Iraq will take time." He said the United States will help Iraqis create a democratic society.
"America has no intention of imposing our form of government or our culture," he said. "Yet we will ensure that all Iraqis have a voice in the new government and all citizens have their rights protected."
My emphasis added. That's what Bush said in a speech in Michigan on Monday to Iraqi-Americans. Guess we're tossing that one out the window...
People with H1-B visa's are not your problem. I know too many people that got some dinky tech degree from ITT Tech, got paid great money during the Boom, and now bitch and moan about H1-B workers taking their jobs. Its capitalism at is best!
And quite to the contrary, I know too many people that got some dinky BS from a university in India or Malaysia or China, and they couldn't code Hello World to save their life.
That is what disgusts me about H1-B visas. It's easy enough for an American employer to check an American's credentials, since many universities have a 1-800 number you can call to verify degrees, but when dealing with foreigners, they can outright lie on their resumes, and the PHBs will think it's "too much trouble" to try and contact the university in question to verify this. Language barrier, cultural barrier, hell, it could even be that they just don't want to waste money making a long-distance call.
The Dominos here in town won't let you use your cellphone until you come by the store with it to "register" it. Basically, they'll want to tie it down to a particular house before they'll let you order pizza, so that it behaves like a land line.
But yeah...alternatively, you could order online. I've done so twice in the past week. Even better, many of the specials posted on the web are usually "pickup only", but they'll deliver them none the wiser if you order via the website.:)
Moron...SCO has no trademark right to UNIX. SCO owns IP rights to some parts of the former UNIX subsystem. Before that IP got sold to Novell, the prior corporation donated the UNIX trademark.
You know...Frankly I'm shocked, and not surprised. A lot of the replies here seem to be concerned with the idea that if you make it easier for voters to do their civic duty, you get people who really don't give a damn tilting the scales one way or the other.
But that is what democracy is all about! It's not about "power to the rich" or "power to the intellectuals"...which often wind up being synonymous.
If you stand against online voting because it would "dilute the vote", then you're essentially arguing the same position that the South argued before the American Civil War, that "all people should count for tax purposes, but they don't get a vote". You can argue against it for many other reasons (lack of security, infrastructure, etc)...but *please* don't pick that one.
You've never been involved in government contracts then. The idea of paying in the middle of contract fulfillment, or even afterward, is nothing new in the world of DoD contracts.
The research lab I work in actually had to furlough people for nearly a week because the money from two of our contracts was late in being transferred to us. Furthermore, my fiancee's father runs a business which does DoD contracting, and this has happened to them many times with their contracts.
I beg to differ about Logitech mice. Historically I've loved Logitech mice (I'm using a Trackman Marble FX right now, and my other system has a Marble T-op)...and those are great...but the MouseMan line has a distinct issue with their scrollwheels. I can sit there with my girlfriend's MouseMan and scroll down a page of Slashdot moving the wheel back and forth one position in each direction. What would happen is that I'd scroll the wheel down once, and it'd double-scroll, and then I'd move the wheel back up, and it'd only go once, or sometimes not at all. The scroll distance is variable (sometimes three lines of text, sometimes half the line of the page...), sometimes it doesn't register a scroll...sometimes it registers twice.
And this isn't just her mouse. It's *every* MouseMan from the last five years that I've tried (amounting to about fifteen of them or so).
I find the wheels on the MS mice to be much more accurate and tactile, personally.
Seriously... This is like the thirtieth or fourtieth story from Reuters this month that's been posted on CNN. I saw it on the website and read all of these articles hours ago, and yet they're still slowly rolling in. At this rate, CNN will have summarized each Reuters article in individually over the course of the day.
Can't people just go to Reuters and read the articles that interest them?
---------
Seriously...if you're coming here for "quality news reporting" (not meant as a slant against the editors), then you're wasting your time. Slashdot hasn't changed...The *readership* has changed, and they want things from Slashdot that aren't core to Slashdot's essence. Slashdot is the Bubble Sort of news sites, picking and choosing from articles that it believes its readership to be interested in.
Obviously, this was one you're interested in. Good for you. Perhaps the rest of the Slashdot audience doesn't get Wired, or check the website frequently (thanks to horrible full-screen Intel flash ads), so the rest of us might actually appreciate Slashdot effectively sifting through the irrelevant stuff and giving us what we want.
If you think that all Slashdot is lately is Wired articles, then I don't suppose you'll shed a tear if you stop reading Slashdot and stick to Wired, right?
Perhaps Slashdot should consider changing its slogan to: "By Geeks (and not English/Journalism majors), For Geeks (and not English/Journalism majors)"
The day you get 100 'free CDs' every day and have to foot the postage charge yourself, you might have a valid complaint.
And this comment within itself outlines how one can deal with the problem.
Simply put, you're not paying the postage...AOL is doing so pre-emptively. That means that you can mark all of your AOL CDs as "Return to Sender", and cost AOL even more money.
Keep it up. They'll stop. They did for me.:) The last straw for me was when I had a PO Box, and I had to wait in line at the Post Office for 20 minutes for an unexpected pickup notice, only to find the new AOL CD in a DVD case...too big to actually fit in my PO Box...
I hate AOL and all their users, but damn, this sounds great! Best of luck, AOL!
That's a rather broad brush that you're painting with. Some people here may be using AOL out of necessity. There are a lot of rural and small-town places I know of around here where no ISPs have POPs other than AOL.
They did? Did what? Made you use a controller instead of a mouse?
Tecmo was interested in the Xbox from the get-go. Microsoft never really had to court them to publish DOA3 on the Xbox...Tecmo wanted it to begin with. And DOAXBV. And Ninja Gaiden. And the forthcoming DOA4.
And at any rate, it's not like DOA3 was a system seller. Well, in Japan it was, but nowhere else, to be sure.
TIE Fighter did not simulate space physics. It was plainly a flight simulator without gravity and some adjustments to inertia. In TIE Fighter, can you rotate your craft with respect to your current path of travel and strafe a target while maintaining your (formerly) forward velocity? Nope. You'll steer right into whatever you're aiming at.
A lot of people are recommending Elite, Terminus, and Independence War. Another title to look at, from the Myst-era, is MANTIS. This game allows you to operate in either mode - Pure physics, or computer-driven thrust mechanics, basically putting in computer-controlled retro and maneuvering thrusters so that you would effectively steer your craft like a plane.
Even better, you can toggle this mode off and on, so you can do a pass-by on a capital ship, set your vector, turn off the computer, and strafe along the side of it. *Definitely* a fun tactic to employ.
Anyone interested in trying this game should look for the enhanced CD version, and not the floppy version. The linked article doesn't mention the existence of it, but it's out there. It came bundled in with a lot of "multimedia PC" kits.
Oh...and to expand on my MP3 comment...considering the parts/tech that was used in this thing, and its price, these guys are in the wrong business. Microsoft and Clarion never got the AutoPC to take off because they priced it *way* out of the market ($1000 on original release, IIRC), and it had very limited functionality, even with an open SDK. The GP32 is made for under $150, and could *easily* be remounted in a metal casing with a redesigned front-end and stuck in a dash. It'd be a *fabulous* base-unit for a car-computer, and at that price (Let's just say $200), I'd be willing to bet that they'd rack up 10,000 Slashdotters alone waiting, drooling, trying to get their hands on one.
I didn't even mention GBAx because it's hard to give any creedence to a review hosted by a site that sells what it reviews.
I'll definitely say that the hardware is intriguing and powerful...but I question the motives of the manufacturer and of those who review it on the basis of it being a "GBA-killer".
I would probably really appreciate this thing as an MP3 player more than anything, since it's solid-state...but I would prefer a storage medium that isn't as limited as SmartMedia. MMC cards have capacities up to 512 MB at this time, and don't have any DRM capability. CompactFlash gets even bigger, though it's larger and has a slightly higher power drain.
What I'd *really* like to see would be some audio tests of how well this could function as an MP3 player to compete against, say, the FrontierSoft NexII, which is the MP3 player I'd *like* to have. This thing costs about the same, and has visualization capability for showing off, but the NexII has a CF interface, and was intended from the get-go to be an MP3 player, and thus likely has better audio hardware.
and recieved the usual thrashing from members too busy to read the article but not too busy to post trashy ill-informed comments about it
It also received its fair share of unfair support by people who had never tried it, but 'Oooh'ed and 'Aaah'ed over it because of the theoretical possibilities of the thing. Hell...there's not been a public release of a GBA emulator for the thing yet, and in the last article, edrugtrader got modded through the roof because he claimed to have one that *did* play GBA games, though there's absolutely no proof of this.
SmartMedia has been out of the public spotlight for quite some time now, and if memory serves, limitations in the standard prevent it from ever going beyond 128 MB in size. Furthermore, its very thin and flimsy, thus easily broken or lost.
The size and layout does lend itself to the idea of running GameBoy/GBC/GBA emulation, but from what I've read (on the pages of the emulator authors themselves), the emulation isn't even up to par yet...most games run at about 50% framerate. Forget SNES emulation...even if the unit gets fast enough, you're lacking in the buttons department.
No Afterburner or backlighting kit is available for it yet. Furthermore, it's not compatible with GB/GBC/GBA 3rd party accessories, so no lighting options exist unless someone creates a side-lighting kit. In the last article, someone did mention it, but provided no links, and I can't turn up anything.
Finally, I just really have to point out that it's designed to run *downloaded* ROM images, DivX movies, and MP3s. Yes, you can run homebrewed ROMs, DivX rips of your own DVDs, and MP3 rips of your own CDs, but do you *really* think that's the point? Ignore the movies and the music for the time being - It's a *game console*. It's designed for games. More specifically, it's designed for *emulated* games. There's only a tiny handful of actual 1st/2nd/3rd-party Korean software support for the unit excepting the emulation community...and though there have been some good releases in the homebrew ROM community, you're kidding yourself if everyone's talking about how this thing can run GBA games, even though there's not even a GBA emulator out yet.
I think the reviews from sites like Hexus and GamersHell are a total farce. Rating this thing so highly because it *could* stomp the hell out of the GBA is like giving the SiS Xabre a 10/10 because, with enough driver improvements, it *could* beat the GeForceFX, two years down the road...
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft OFfice is also the only program I know of that can *break* a PNG. I was working on a usage document for an app I had constructed and I used PNGs for the screenshot. Occasionally, after inserting the images into the document, it would claim that there was a problem reading the image, and it would refuse to open it in any other application.
Of course, I could still open it in Preview on the Mac, which indicates to me that either the MS implementation of the PNG library has it reading (and modifying) more data than it should be, or the Mac may be ignoring some sort of file-in-use flag which is throwing off Office. I say that because Windows wouldn't let me delete the affected images without rebooting.
At any rate, at the end of the day, I had to make backups of all my PNGs before trying to insert them into the document.
Kyocera's been making the SmartPhone series like this for some time. The QCP-6035 is superior to the m125 in features - It only lacks the SD Memory slot. The QCP-7135 has PalmOS 4.1, a color screen, smaller profile, the SD Memory slot, and a more ergonomic feel.
My fiancee has the QCP-6035 and it's really nice. EudoraWeb is decent, but I've since installed Blazer (from HandSpring) and it works great. The main downside is that the phones are PCS, meaning that you'll have to have service through Verizon or Sprint. The 7135 is available via ALLTEL, but you can transfer it over to a different CDMA network.
There's also a fairly large hacking and customization community over at SmartPhoneSource.com, that can give you all the tips and tricks to using your phone, as well as setting up your phone to switch providers, load OS updates (both phones use a custom version of the OS), and other cool stuff.
The only downside to the Apple mechanism? You need a Mac running OS X and you cannot 'sample' for free. On the other hand, that's what radio/movie/tv/cable does for you. And I cannot see Apple not doing something to fix that... perhaps a tie into Internet Radio, which iTunes *already* has a feature for... Perhaps 'on demand iTunes radio'?
iTunes does let you take 30 second samples of each and every track available for download. It says so on the iTunes Music Store webpage.
Let us not forget the Super DMCA Hyper-Fighting Championship Edition EX plus Alpha Third Strike 2001 Match of the Millenium...
I think that for once, MS doesn't *have* to rush to push out a product, because the one they have right now is pretty damn good.
The fact that Windows 2000 is or is not a good product doesn't determine whether or not they *have* to rush to push out a product. The need to revitalize cash flow on sales of a new OS version to pacify shareholders, does.
Rez is an excellent demonstration of synesthesia. It's basically a track-shooter, but set to low-level trance music, and your actions in the world (enemies shot down, powerups gained, progress made) determine how the music is played, and what visual effects are presented.
The experience is really hard to quantify, but you have to sit down with it for a while to realize just how interesting it is.
The game is out of print, but you owe it to yourself to give it a shot if you know a friend with it. It was released on the Dreamcast in Japan and the EU, and later, an enhanced version for the PS2 was released for all three territories.
Bush lauded the work being done to restore basic services and order in Iraq after Saddam's ouster, but warned "the building of a new Iraq will take time." He said the United States will help Iraqis create a democratic society.
"America has no intention of imposing our form of government or our culture," he said. "Yet we will ensure that all Iraqis have a voice in the new government and all citizens have their rights protected."
My emphasis added. That's what Bush said in a speech in Michigan on Monday to Iraqi-Americans. Guess we're tossing that one out the window...
People with H1-B visa's are not your problem. I know too many people that got some dinky tech degree from ITT Tech, got paid great money during the Boom, and now bitch and moan about H1-B workers taking their jobs. Its capitalism at is best!
And quite to the contrary, I know too many people that got some dinky BS from a university in India or Malaysia or China, and they couldn't code Hello World to save their life.
That is what disgusts me about H1-B visas. It's easy enough for an American employer to check an American's credentials, since many universities have a 1-800 number you can call to verify degrees, but when dealing with foreigners, they can outright lie on their resumes, and the PHBs will think it's "too much trouble" to try and contact the university in question to verify this. Language barrier, cultural barrier, hell, it could even be that they just don't want to waste money making a long-distance call.
In case anyone wants to see the pics of that really cool guy in the glasses, I've mirrored all the pics on my uni account.
http://www.msstate.edu/~ajl3/cache/003mid.jpg
http://www.msstate.edu/~ajl3/cache/004mid.jpg
http://www.msstate.edu/~ajl3/cache/013mid.jpg
http://www.msstate.edu/~ajl3/cache/P0000381.gif
http://www.msstate.edu/~ajl3/cache/P0000387.jpg
http://www.msstate.edu/~ajl3/cache/bonifaciy.jpg
Oh yeah...the pics of that chick are there too, but I know none of you care about that...
Nice babe by the way. Wouldn't try to mess with her though....
:-)
If the article wasn't already Slashdotted, you bet it will be now...
Slashdot endorses Karma-whoring!
"If you haven't had the opportunity for a really self-rightous post in a while, Monster.com has made it simple for you."
The Dominos here in town won't let you use your cellphone until you come by the store with it to "register" it. Basically, they'll want to tie it down to a particular house before they'll let you order pizza, so that it behaves like a land line.
:)
But yeah...alternatively, you could order online. I've done so twice in the past week. Even better, many of the specials posted on the web are usually "pickup only", but they'll deliver them none the wiser if you order via the website.
Moron...SCO has no trademark right to UNIX. SCO owns IP rights to some parts of the former UNIX subsystem. Before that IP got sold to Novell, the prior corporation donated the UNIX trademark.
You know...Frankly I'm shocked, and not surprised. A lot of the replies here seem to be concerned with the idea that if you make it easier for voters to do their civic duty, you get people who really don't give a damn tilting the scales one way or the other.
But that is what democracy is all about! It's not about "power to the rich" or "power to the intellectuals"...which often wind up being synonymous.
If you stand against online voting because it would "dilute the vote", then you're essentially arguing the same position that the South argued before the American Civil War, that "all people should count for tax purposes, but they don't get a vote". You can argue against it for many other reasons (lack of security, infrastructure, etc)...but *please* don't pick that one.
You've never been involved in government contracts then. The idea of paying in the middle of contract fulfillment, or even afterward, is nothing new in the world of DoD contracts.
The research lab I work in actually had to furlough people for nearly a week because the money from two of our contracts was late in being transferred to us. Furthermore, my fiancee's father runs a business which does DoD contracting, and this has happened to them many times with their contracts.
I beg to differ about Logitech mice. Historically I've loved Logitech mice (I'm using a Trackman Marble FX right now, and my other system has a Marble T-op)...and those are great...but the MouseMan line has a distinct issue with their scrollwheels. I can sit there with my girlfriend's MouseMan and scroll down a page of Slashdot moving the wheel back and forth one position in each direction. What would happen is that I'd scroll the wheel down once, and it'd double-scroll, and then I'd move the wheel back up, and it'd only go once, or sometimes not at all. The scroll distance is variable (sometimes three lines of text, sometimes half the line of the page...), sometimes it doesn't register a scroll...sometimes it registers twice.
And this isn't just her mouse. It's *every* MouseMan from the last five years that I've tried (amounting to about fifteen of them or so).
I find the wheels on the MS mice to be much more accurate and tactile, personally.
Seriously... This is like the thirtieth or fourtieth story from Reuters this month that's been posted on CNN. I saw it on the website and read all of these articles hours ago, and yet they're still slowly rolling in. At this rate, CNN will have summarized each Reuters article in individually over the course of the day.
Can't people just go to Reuters and read the articles that interest them?
---------
Seriously...if you're coming here for "quality news reporting" (not meant as a slant against the editors), then you're wasting your time. Slashdot hasn't changed...The *readership* has changed, and they want things from Slashdot that aren't core to Slashdot's essence. Slashdot is the Bubble Sort of news sites, picking and choosing from articles that it believes its readership to be interested in.
Obviously, this was one you're interested in. Good for you. Perhaps the rest of the Slashdot audience doesn't get Wired, or check the website frequently (thanks to horrible full-screen Intel flash ads), so the rest of us might actually appreciate Slashdot effectively sifting through the irrelevant stuff and giving us what we want.
If you think that all Slashdot is lately is Wired articles, then I don't suppose you'll shed a tear if you stop reading Slashdot and stick to Wired, right?
Perhaps Slashdot should consider changing its slogan to: "By Geeks (and not English/Journalism majors), For Geeks (and not English/Journalism majors)"
The day you get 100 'free CDs' every day and have to foot the postage charge yourself, you might have a valid complaint.
:) The last straw for me was when I had a PO Box, and I had to wait in line at the Post Office for 20 minutes for an unexpected pickup notice, only to find the new AOL CD in a DVD case...too big to actually fit in my PO Box...
And this comment within itself outlines how one can deal with the problem.
Simply put, you're not paying the postage...AOL is doing so pre-emptively. That means that you can mark all of your AOL CDs as "Return to Sender", and cost AOL even more money.
Keep it up. They'll stop. They did for me.
I hate AOL and all their users, but damn, this sounds great! Best of luck, AOL!
That's a rather broad brush that you're painting with. Some people here may be using AOL out of necessity. There are a lot of rural and small-town places I know of around here where no ISPs have POPs other than AOL.
They did? Did what? Made you use a controller instead of a mouse?
Tecmo was interested in the Xbox from the get-go. Microsoft never really had to court them to publish DOA3 on the Xbox...Tecmo wanted it to begin with. And DOAXBV. And Ninja Gaiden. And the forthcoming DOA4.
And at any rate, it's not like DOA3 was a system seller. Well, in Japan it was, but nowhere else, to be sure.
TIE Fighter did not simulate space physics. It was plainly a flight simulator without gravity and some adjustments to inertia. In TIE Fighter, can you rotate your craft with respect to your current path of travel and strafe a target while maintaining your (formerly) forward velocity? Nope. You'll steer right into whatever you're aiming at.
A lot of people are recommending Elite, Terminus, and Independence War. Another title to look at, from the Myst-era, is MANTIS. This game allows you to operate in either mode - Pure physics, or computer-driven thrust mechanics, basically putting in computer-controlled retro and maneuvering thrusters so that you would effectively steer your craft like a plane.
Even better, you can toggle this mode off and on, so you can do a pass-by on a capital ship, set your vector, turn off the computer, and strafe along the side of it. *Definitely* a fun tactic to employ.
Anyone interested in trying this game should look for the enhanced CD version, and not the floppy version. The linked article doesn't mention the existence of it, but it's out there. It came bundled in with a lot of "multimedia PC" kits.
Understand that most Slashdotters may not get that joke, since many of them are American, and all of them are virgins... :-P
Oh...and to expand on my MP3 comment...considering the parts/tech that was used in this thing, and its price, these guys are in the wrong business. Microsoft and Clarion never got the AutoPC to take off because they priced it *way* out of the market ($1000 on original release, IIRC), and it had very limited functionality, even with an open SDK. The GP32 is made for under $150, and could *easily* be remounted in a metal casing with a redesigned front-end and stuck in a dash. It'd be a *fabulous* base-unit for a car-computer, and at that price (Let's just say $200), I'd be willing to bet that they'd rack up 10,000 Slashdotters alone waiting, drooling, trying to get their hands on one.
:D
I'd be one of them too.
I didn't even mention GBAx because it's hard to give any creedence to a review hosted by a site that sells what it reviews.
I'll definitely say that the hardware is intriguing and powerful...but I question the motives of the manufacturer and of those who review it on the basis of it being a "GBA-killer".
I would probably really appreciate this thing as an MP3 player more than anything, since it's solid-state...but I would prefer a storage medium that isn't as limited as SmartMedia. MMC cards have capacities up to 512 MB at this time, and don't have any DRM capability. CompactFlash gets even bigger, though it's larger and has a slightly higher power drain.
What I'd *really* like to see would be some audio tests of how well this could function as an MP3 player to compete against, say, the FrontierSoft NexII, which is the MP3 player I'd *like* to have. This thing costs about the same, and has visualization capability for showing off, but the NexII has a CF interface, and was intended from the get-go to be an MP3 player, and thus likely has better audio hardware.
and recieved the usual thrashing from members too busy to read the article but not too busy to post trashy ill-informed comments about it
It also received its fair share of unfair support by people who had never tried it, but 'Oooh'ed and 'Aaah'ed over it because of the theoretical possibilities of the thing. Hell...there's not been a public release of a GBA emulator for the thing yet, and in the last article, edrugtrader got modded through the roof because he claimed to have one that *did* play GBA games, though there's absolutely no proof of this.
SmartMedia has been out of the public spotlight for quite some time now, and if memory serves, limitations in the standard prevent it from ever going beyond 128 MB in size. Furthermore, its very thin and flimsy, thus easily broken or lost.
The size and layout does lend itself to the idea of running GameBoy/GBC/GBA emulation, but from what I've read (on the pages of the emulator authors themselves), the emulation isn't even up to par yet...most games run at about 50% framerate. Forget SNES emulation...even if the unit gets fast enough, you're lacking in the buttons department.
No Afterburner or backlighting kit is available for it yet. Furthermore, it's not compatible with GB/GBC/GBA 3rd party accessories, so no lighting options exist unless someone creates a side-lighting kit. In the last article, someone did mention it, but provided no links, and I can't turn up anything.
Finally, I just really have to point out that it's designed to run *downloaded* ROM images, DivX movies, and MP3s. Yes, you can run homebrewed ROMs, DivX rips of your own DVDs, and MP3 rips of your own CDs, but do you *really* think that's the point? Ignore the movies and the music for the time being - It's a *game console*. It's designed for games. More specifically, it's designed for *emulated* games. There's only a tiny handful of actual 1st/2nd/3rd-party Korean software support for the unit excepting the emulation community...and though there have been some good releases in the homebrew ROM community, you're kidding yourself if everyone's talking about how this thing can run GBA games, even though there's not even a GBA emulator out yet.
I think the reviews from sites like Hexus and GamersHell are a total farce. Rating this thing so highly because it *could* stomp the hell out of the GBA is like giving the SiS Xabre a 10/10 because, with enough driver improvements, it *could* beat the GeForceFX, two years down the road...