fidzu : Nerd news

Windows only: The free Orca Browser is a web browser based on the Firefox 3 core with the same speed and features of Firefox in addition to a handful of extra features. Those extra features include a built-in ad blocker, flash blocker, auto form-filler, and perhaps most useful, an online storage account that syncs your bookmarks, auto-form information, and more with an online account. Orca is made by the same folks who developed the freeware Avant Browser, which is based on Internet Explorer with an emphasis on speed and improved features.

Orca has a consolidated chrome to optimize screen real estate and comes boxed with several different themes. The biggest drawback I've noticed off the bat is that it doesn't seem to support Firefox extensions. (It appeared to be working when I tried installing some extensions, but still no luck after restarting.) If you're attracted to Firefox because of its extensibility, this is sort of a deal-breaker. On the other hand, if you use Firefox for the security and speed, don't want to install extensions yourself, but want more functionality, Orca may be worth a look. The Orca Browser is a freeware, Windows only. It's currently in alpha, but a more official release is slated for August.

23 Jul 2008 10:00pm GMT

Knol is Google's approach to wikis that focuses on genuine content from verified authors-and paying said authors for their time. The new product is drawing attention and scrutiny from nearly every possible angle, and now it's open to the world.

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23 Jul 2008 9:09pm GMT

DIY weblog Hackosis details how to fix your scratched LCD monitor after a scarring encounter with a sharp object. The post offers two different methods for addressing the LCD scratches, from a temporary fix involving a little petroleum jelly to a more difficult but permanent solution that involves removing the scratch and re-lacquering your monitor. I've also heard the pencil eraser method works for simple scratches, though I haven't tried it. If all this LCD talk has got you in the mood for more LCD maintenance, check out how to clean an LCD monitor, fix your LCD's stuck or dead pixels, and remove LCD image burn-in. Photo by liewcf.

23 Jul 2008 9:00pm GMT

ydrol writes "After building my new Core 2 Quad Q6600 PC, I was ready to unleash video conversion activity the likes of which I had not seen before. However, I was disappointed to discover that a lot of the conversion tools either don't use SMP at all, or don't balance the workload evenly across processors, or require ugly hacks to use SMP (e.g. invoking distributed encoding options). I get the impression that open source projects are a bit slow on the uptake here? Which open source video conversion apps take full native advantage of SMP? (And before you ask, no, I don't want to pick up the code and add SMP support myself, thanks.)"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

23 Jul 2008 8:54pm GMT

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner delves into the ill-defined realm of 'cloud computing,' providing a deeper look at four shared services: Amazon EC2, Google App Engine, GoGrid, and AppNexus. Offering wildly divergent amounts of hand-holding at various layers in the stack, the services simplify your workload but force you into a set, 'ball-and-chain-computing' routine that you may not prefer. Sure, the services allow you to pull CPU cycles from thin air whenever you need to, but they can't solve the deepest problems that make it hard for applications to scale gracefully, Wayner writes. He describes these 'clouds' as an evolving experiment, rife with potential but 'far from clear winners over traditional shared Web hosting.' The sobering look at the trend includes a QuickTime tour of each service - EC2, App Engine, GoGrid, AppNexus (those links all .MOV)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

23 Jul 2008 8:04pm GMT

If you've ever used Microsoft Access or Excel, you have likely used a product that Mike Gunderloy had a hand in developing. The irony is that Gunderloy himself doesn't use those products anymore. He's given up Microsoft for open source -- and he's not going back.

23 Jul 2008 8:00pm GMT

Google's Wikipedia competitor, Google Knol, officially opens its doors today. The site is already populated with several knols (definition: "an authoritative article about a specific topic"), but anyone can create their own knol as of today. The major difference between Google Knol and Wikipedia-as we pointed out in our original post-is that knols aren't collaboratively written in the same way Wikipedia articles are. Instead, a single user creates and moderates a knol.

Any topic can have several knols written on it, so the featured knol is based on your credentials and the authority of the article. There's also no anonymous editing of knols, so you'll need to sign in with your Google account to get started. Currently knols are limited (most of my search results turned up empty), but take a look at the lung cancer articles on Google Knol and on Wikipedia for some comparison browsing. Now that you can officially take a look, let's hear if you think Google Knol has the chops to overtake your Wikipedia obsession in the comments.

23 Jul 2008 8:00pm GMT

A study that examined the web sites of financial institutions ranging from local banks to national investment firms finds that many fail their users on the most basic level: they make it difficult to understand when a given action is secure.

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23 Jul 2008 7:55pm GMT

Barence writes "Google's Blogger service is responsible for 2% of the world's malware hosted on the Web, according to a new report from security firm Sophos. The company claims hackers are setting up pages on the free blogging service to host malicious code, or simply posting links to infected websites in other bloggers' comments. 'Blogger accounts for around 2% of malware,' according to Sophos's senior technology consultant, Graham Cluley. 'It's head and shoulders above the rest [of the blogging services].'" Sophos believes that Blogger is favored because, being part of Google, it gets spidered early and often.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

23 Jul 2008 7:18pm GMT

Motorola, Sony, Hitachi, and Samsung have formed a consortium to back the Wireless Home Digital Interface. Another HD-over-wireless technology may not seem helpful, but the standard itself could be a significant step forward over the point-to-point technology we've seen thus far.

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23 Jul 2008 7:10pm GMT

Web-based music search tool Mix Turtle creates playlists of songs you find online. Working from an index of millions of songs, Mix Turtle supplies suggestions to your search terms as you enter them. Covering a broad spectrum of time and tastes, Mix Turtle returned impressive results for diverse searches such as Miley Cyrus, Robert Miles, and Miles Davis. Once you find songs you would like to listen to, you simply click on them to start playing or click on the plus symbol next to the song to add it to your playlist. Create an accoung and log in to save your playlists, but a login is not required to use the service. The playback applet has no control for volume or jumping about within the track that is playing, but otherwise the playback is clean and the quality of the tracks high. While not a replacement for more robust service like Pandora, song selection was easy and playback enjoyable. Mix Turtle is free to use.

23 Jul 2008 7:00pm GMT

Our brothers in gadgetry over at Gizmodo make the case for why jailbreaking your iPhone is worth it even with the App Store open. Here's why we still need the iPhone app black market.

23 Jul 2008 6:45pm GMT

Chromodromic writes "Apress's newest Django offering, Practical Django Projects by James Bennett, weighs in lightly at 224 pages of actual tutorial content, but trust me, they're dense pages. Filled with pragmatic examples which directly address the kinds of development issues you will encounter when first starting out with Django, this book makes an important addition to the aspiring Django developer's reference shelf. In particular, the book's emphasis on demonstrating best practices while building complete projects does an excellent job of accelerating an understanding of Django's most powerful features - in a realistic, pragmatic setting - and which a developer will be able to leverage in very short order." Read below for the rest of Greg's review.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

23 Jul 2008 6:30pm GMT

MySpace has joined the OpenID initiative and plans to make its already-existing logins available for use with other websites. This is another great boost for OpenID, but without more big names allowing others to log into their services with OpenID, there's still a ways to go before we achieve single sign-on nirvana.

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23 Jul 2008 6:30pm GMT

The DRM-free retailer will introduce major new features over the next few months as it incorporates media from social outlets like YouTube, Flickr, and Wikipedia. This is certainly a good start, but the company has a ways to go before we welcome it to the social.

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23 Jul 2008 6:15pm GMT

Jon Travis, principal engineer for Hyperic, explains the company's new CloudStatus utility in this video interview. CloudStatus is free, it's open source, and you can access it through your Web browser. Right now it works only with Amazon's cloud computing services -- which currently dominates this market niche -- but Hyperic has plans to expand the service to other up-and-coming cloud computing providers.

23 Jul 2008 6:00pm GMT

Windows only: Free, open-source application Halite is a BitTorrent client with a focus on a small memory footprint. With Halite running and actively downloading on my system, I never saw the memory usage crest 10MB of RAM-which, as BitTorrent weblog TorrentFreak points out, is about half the memory consumption of the popular-for-its-small-footprint uTorrent. Granted, Halite doesn't have near the advanced features of uTorrent, but it does support most basic features, like encryption and selective file downloading. If all you want is a no-nonsense BitTorrent client that can grab your downloads with the best of them, Halite may be just what you need. Halite is free, Windows only.

23 Jul 2008 6:00pm GMT

KentuckyFC writes "Earlier this year, Paris-based Aldebaran-Robotics picked up $8 million in venture capital funding to help commercialize its NAO humanoid robot. The target market for this device is research labs working on the next generation of robotic hardware and software. Today, the company has posted a detailed spec of NAO on the arXiv saying that it expects the robot to cost about $15,000 each. That's cheap compared to other humanoids. Fuitsu's HOAP humanoids cost $50,000 each and various estimates price Honda's Asimo at $1 million per bot, although they are not for sale. Aldebaran-Robotics says that NAO's cost should come down to about $6,000 as production ramps up."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

23 Jul 2008 5:48pm GMT

Filed under: Gaming

Sony and Microsoft may have sorted things out with Anascape (otherwise known as the self-proclaimed ruler of all analog sticks) before things got too out of hand, but Nintendo has been busy fighting it out with the company in court, which resulted in them being ordered to dish out a hefty $21 million earlier this year -- a ruling that Nintendo naturally appealed. The big N is now facing another setback, however, as a US District Judge has rejected Nintendo's request for a new trial, which could potentially result in a ban on sales of Wii Classic Controllers, WaveBirds, and GameCube controllers (not to mention GameCube systems). To avoid that, Nintendo will apparently either have to post a bond or put royalites from the controllers into an escrow account. For its part, Nintendo seems to be remaining defiant, saying that it "was already planning to appeal this case to the Federal Circuit court," and that this new ruling "does not impact that decision."

[Via Slashdot]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

23 Jul 2008 5:47pm GMT

It's down to the wire on the XM/Sirius merger now that FCC Commissioner Adelstein has voted no. The merger decision appears to rest with a single FCC Commissioner.

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23 Jul 2008 5:37pm GMT

Filed under: Displays

Even if you're not exactly in the market for a new flat-panel, Samsung's still hoping to snag a bit (or all) of your latest paycheck with its Touch of Color LCD monitors. Hinted at during CES and officially unveiled back in April, these displays boast a 5-millisecond response time, transparent plastic bezel, 10,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, twin 3-watt speakers, a built-in ATSC / ClearQAM TV tuner (!) and an optical digital audio port for channeling 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound. As for resolutions, the 24-inch T240HD and 26-inch T260HD both offer full 1080p, while the 22-inch T220HD gets a 1,680 x 1,050 panel. Snag whichever one suits your fancy right now for $429, $549 or $599 from smallest to largest.Permalink | Email this | Comments

23 Jul 2008 5:18pm GMT

bigsmoke writes "So, all your servers run on RAID. You back up religiously. You're even sure that your backups are recoverable. But do you also need a UPS? According to Halfgaar (on Slashdot before to promote better Linux backup practices), yes, usually you do. He argues that despite technological advancements such as file system journaling, power failures can still cause data loss in most setups."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

23 Jul 2008 5:03pm GMT

Carbon nanotube integrated circuits may take us closer to near-terahertz processing and other advancements.

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23 Jul 2008 5:01pm GMT

A German court has found that a Qualcomm patent on GSM cellphone technology is invalid, potentially freeing Nokia from significant licensing fees.

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23 Jul 2008 4:55pm GMT

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Peripherals, Wireless

Ever since we got our hands on Samsung's Media Center Extender at CES last year, we've wondered how the CE giant's rendition would stack up against the rest. Rather than build the Media Center Extender functionality into a TV the way HP has, or make a completely separate set-top-box like Linksys or D-Link, the $200 MediaLive Media Center Extender is designed to be a companion product for Samsung HDTVs. It can be mounted to the back of certain Samsung sets, and with the help of HDMI-CEC, the TV's remote will control the box even while it's out of sight -- of course, this begs the question of whether or not it will work with other TVs, but we'll just have to wait and try it ourselves when it launches next month. Oh, and in case you don't know already, Media Center Extenders are not just another media streamer, because it will allow you to have the full (almost) Vista Media Center experience -- including the ability to watch live HD from CableCARD tuner -- on any TV (connected wired or wirelessly) in your house.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

23 Jul 2008 4:53pm GMT

Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

Might want to slow down there, Samsung -- don't want to pull anything by cranking out too many new HDTVs at a time. Yep, Sammy's letting loose a few more sets today alongside the Series 7 plasmas and Series 9 LCDs: the September-bound Series 8 LCD HDTV line. The Series 8 850 (rose accents) and Series 8 860 (deep blue accents) only differ in color, while they both pack a 1080p Ultra Clear panel, Auto Motion Plus 120Hz technology, a 50,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, InfoLink RSS reader, DLNA certification, 4-millisecond response time and twin down-firing speakers with an integrated subwoofer. You'll also find a built-in NTSC / ATSC / ClearQAM TV tuner, a DNIe Pro video processor, swivel stand and four HDMI-CEC ports (among others). The pain? $2,699.99 for the LN46A850, $3,399.99 for the LN52A850, $2,799.99 for the LN46A860 and $3,499.99 for the LN52A860. Got all that?Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

23 Jul 2008 4:37pm GMT

Filed under: Displays

The boys and girls at Microsoft Research are getting set to publish a report detailing a competing (and in their perspective, superior) technology to replace the LCD monitors we've grown to know and love heart with reservations. By using pixels that boast "a pair of mirrors to block or transmit light," displays could theoretically be created which are "faster, brighter, and more power efficient than liquid crystal displays." Dubbed telescopic pixels, the devices would be able to turn off and on in under 1.5-milliseconds, which is quick enough to put "red, green, and blue light-emitting diodes behind each pixel." Furthermore, these pixels are way brighter than those used in LCDs, which means users would see less power draw and be able to view the screen more easily in direct sunlight. Sounds solid from here, but could you not humor us with a release time frame or something?

[Via TG Daily]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

23 Jul 2008 4:31pm GMT

A new deal between EA and United Talent Agency might turn the game publisher into a multimedia giant. I hope you like movies based on video games.

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23 Jul 2008 4:15pm GMT

chareverie writes "A law just passed in New York now requires labels for violent content in video games that are already rated, as well as having parent-controlled lockout features installed in consoles by 2010. The law has caused an uproar with civil rights groups who claim that such a law is unconstitutional. A legal challenge is already in the works by the New York Civil Liberties Union who cite that similar laws that have been brought to courts in California, Illinois, Minessota, and Washington state have been deemed as unconstitutional. NYCLU legislative director Robert Perry also says that the 'new law is a "back door" way of regulating video game content.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

23 Jul 2008 4:12pm GMT

Filed under: Laptops

Freshfaced AMD CEO Dirk Meyer hyped the firm's upcoming Atom-challenging processor the other day, calling it "Bobcat," and promising a November reveal. We'd think he'd be the guy to know, but now we're hearing seemingly conflicting words from AMD's Chief Marketing Officer, Nigel Dessau. Dessau says AMD is "watching... rather than playing" to see what becomes of the netbook segment. As Ars Technica points out, Dirk Meyer was only promising to announce a chip in November, not release one, so perhaps both of these statements are in step with each other, or maybe they're just thinking of different processor applications altogether, but for a company that's lacked a clear focus and a true Intel killer for the past couple of years, this sort of potential doublethink isn't helping anything.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

23 Jul 2008 4:10pm GMT

There's a reason there's still so much paper around in this hyper-connected, everything-online age: the stuff is cheap, portable, compatible with all your applications, and everyone masters the interface by the time they're out of the first grade. Ingenious hackers and productivity thinkers, however, have taken paper to the next level in a huge variety of ways, creating templates for pocket organizers, super-handy calendars, thoughtful gifts, and even makeshift tools. Fire up your printer and let's take a stroll through some of the best printable productivity tools out there. Photo by Cirofono.

Note: Don't waste paper! Use recycled paper whenever possible, and preview your work before you hit print to reduce mistakes and unnecessary tree deaths.

10. Print out in-a-pinch graph paper or rulers.

Sometimes it's just easier to write or sketch out your thoughts when there's guidelines on your paper, as you may remember from grade school. If your office or home office doesn't keep a stack of it handy, there are many DIY solutions. Printable Paper keeps a virtual Staples aisle of graph and lined paper on hand, while PrintFreeGraphPaper.com lets you click to determine your sheet's parameters. If you just need to know whether an object or life-sized picture is 4.5 inches but you're missing a ruler, try a collection of the paper version.

9. Turn PDFs into a palm-held booklet.

If you've got reading to do on your commute, or anywhere you're on the go, it's a lot more convenient if it fits in your pocket. Spare yourself staple-torn sheets and awkward folding with BookletMaker, which takes in PDFs and reprints them as readable, multi-page booklet(s) you can order and customize. Note that PocketMod (you'll see it below) and Adobe itself have a similar capability baked-in, but without the multi-booklet convenience.

8. Print a custom CD case.

As replacements for busted jewel boxes or containers for thoughtful gift mixes, a paper CD case is an attractive, value-added way to keep scratches and thumbs off your loose tunes or programs. The link above shows how to fold and decorate your paper sheath; for a more straight-forward artist/album/track listing, check out paper CD case.

7. Fold a paper wallet.

We're obviously big fans (in gawking at, if not always assembling) of DIY wallets of all types, but the durable paper wallet detailed at Instructables is truly cheap, conversation-starting, and, if made out of Tyvek film, durable and water-proof. It's also super-thin, which your well-worn back pockets will thank you for.

6. Fold a 3D, 12-sided desk calendar.

Admittedly, a dodecahedral, AD&D-style calendar isn't as useful as your standard at-a-glance models, but it sure outdoes your fellow cubicle workers for ingenuity. Generate your own print-and-fold PDF at Ole Arntzen's site, and check out illustrated assembly instructions at simplehuman.

5. Plan with a "Candy Bar" calendar.

Add a timeline to your project notebook or wallet for a computer-free date reference with Dave Seah's Compact Calendar-an Excel worksheet you download and mark off important dates on (original post). The "candy bar of time" layout of continuous days makes highlighting blocks of dates easy. For those who want an at-a-glance calendar at their desk, a monitor strip calendar offers similar no-click convenience.

4. Template your note-taking.

Many college graduates couldn't look back at their notes from any lecture and make much sense of them at this point-unless they took them right the first time. Whether you're in academia or just need better notes from your meetings, the Cornell Method of note-taking breaks down raw sentences into workable concepts and items. Once you've learned the basics, you can pre-print Cornell-formatted templates at Cornell-Notes to force your hand, and your brain, to do the right thing.

3. Print out a personal CEO with the Printable CEO.

When you don't have an actual CEO making sure you're working on the important things in the business of your life, you can print one out. The Printable CEO is a simple checklist that constantly asks "When is something worth doing?" Geared to those building sales-based services, you can easily re-purpose the Printable CEO for any goals or decisions, as Lifehacker alumnus Keith Robinson found out.

2. Print your own PocketMod mini-organizer.

PocketMod, a free webapp that creates slick-looking printouts you fold a few times into a mini-organizer, embraces the very reason paper is still around in this ultra-digital age-it's portable, it's cheap and recyclable, and you don't need special tricks to embed daily/weekly/monthly planners, a calendar, RSS feeds, notes, or anything else into it. The original design will keep you busy for some time, but you can also track your mileage and workout schedule, keep the kids (hopefully) entertained, and create walk-around maps. The PocketMod is a truly extendable system that anyone can use.

1. Configure your own planner with the D*I*Y Planner 3.0.

You can drop some serious cash on expensive paper planners at the fancy stationary store, but they always have too many pages of this but never enough of that. Instead, configure and refill your planner with the wide range of printable D*I*Y Planner templates, a collection of more than 100 lists, calendars, task management, thought trees, and other helpers in all the standard paper sizes. They've also added a Hipster PDA edition (here's more on clever little hack), stylish covers, and much more.

There are many, many cool uses for ink on paper-or even just paper itself, in the case of opening beer bottles-so let's hear what bits of pulp make your day more productive, more fun, or just come in handy for you on a regular basis. Share your links and ideas in the comments.

23 Jul 2008 4:00pm GMT

Filed under: Gaming

We weren't terribly impressed with Nintendo's recently unveiled MotionPlus add-on, but we're even more disappointed by this. Reportedly, scads of third-party developers revealed at E3 that the Big N's latest Wiimote accessory was just as much a surprise to them as it was to any of us. In other words, Nintendo didn't bother giving its external devs any advance notice in order to get the ball rolling on compatible titles, or so it seems. Unfortunately, this also means that we probably won't see any MotionPlus-ready games hitting shelves from anyone not named Nintendo for months to come, but it's not like Wii Sports Resort can't hold our attention for a solid year, right?

[Via Nintendo Wii Fanboy]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

23 Jul 2008 3:52pm GMT

Filed under: Gaming

PSP hacker "FreePlay" has turned his gaze to the PS3, and come up with a method for the first PS3 homebrew outside of Linux and that little "hello world" proof of concept a few months back.. The minimal devkit doesn't seem built to take advantage of the PS3's wiles, however, and is instead working with the Java prowess built into the Blu-ray playback end of the PS3. Who knows how much power that'll lend to homebrew developers, but it's Java, so we're not expecting great things either way. Wake us when we can play PS2 games, would you?Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

23 Jul 2008 3:31pm GMT

Windows only: Backup utility Double Driver lists all the hardware drivers installed on your system and creates backups of both the actual drivers and lists of the driver names. While handy with any computer, Double Driver really shines if you have a computer that came with pre-installed drivers that are hard if not impossible to come by. With a few clicks you'll have those archaic laptop drivers backed up and ready to put back to work after a fresh install. Double Driver is a free download for Windows only.

23 Jul 2008 3:30pm GMT

snydeq writes "Jailed IT admin Terry Childs relinquished his hold over San Francisco's multimillion-dollar FiberWAN, handing his administrative passwords over to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who was 'the only person he felt he could trust.' Childs is still being held on $5 million bail for his lockout of the city's FiberWAN, a case that has been called into question since an insider came forward with details about both the network and Childs himself. The case hinges on No Service Password Recovery commands Childs allegedly configured onto several Cisco devices, as well as dial-up and DSL modems the SFPD has discovered that would allow unauthorized connections to the FiberWAN. Childs intends to 'expose the utter mismanagement, negligence, and corruption at DTIS, which if left unchecked, will in fact place the City of San Francisco in danger,' according to his motion. The Department of Telecom and IS has cut 200 of its 350 IT positions since 2000 - pressure that may have contributed to Childs' actions, according to interviews with current and former DTIS staffers. Newsom secured the passwords without first telling the DTIS that he was meeting with Childs."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

23 Jul 2008 3:25pm GMT

Filed under: Household

Think your house is green? Think again. Japan's own Nihon Telecommunication System has just revealed a line of windowpanes that actually include integrated photovoltaic cells. The windows are aimed at the (ritzy) residential housing market, and folks that snag a few will reportedly be able to power a PC and recharge their cellphones simply by tapping into the energy generated by these units. Additionally, the glass is designed to shun most of the sunlight from coming into your abode, thereby lowering air conditioning costs and satisfying your needs as an introvert. So, what's the pain for helping out Mother Earth? Around $1,900 per square meter of windowpane -- ouch.

[Via CrunchGear]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

23 Jul 2008 3:10pm GMT

Network Security Toolkit is one of many live CD Linux distributions focusing on network monitoring, analysis, and security. NST was designed to give network security administrators easy access to a comprehensive set of open source network applications, many of which are among the top 100 security tools recommended by insecure.org.

23 Jul 2008 3:00pm GMT

Nintendo seems to be on a losing streak with its fight against patent-holder (and apparent one-man shop) Anascape. With Anascape's patents being so broad, without any actual products on the market, this is a case every one in the gaming industry needs to be watching.

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23 Jul 2008 2:55pm GMT

Firefox with Greasemonkey: The Google Reader for Wider Screens Greasemonkey script uses all the horizontal space available in GReader for better viewing on wide monitors. Install the script to take advantage of a wide browser window and scroll up and down less than you have to. The Google Reader for wider screens user script is a free download for Firefox with the Greasemonkey extension installed. Thanks, Andy!

23 Jul 2008 2:51pm GMT

Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

Not a huge fan of the LCD HDTV? Is plasma more your style? Fantastic, because Samsung just took the (official) lid off of the already spotted 7 Series plasma lineup. Featuring the outfit's Touch of Color design, a 1,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, daytime / nighttime calibration options and a DNIe Pro video processor, this trio makes no bones about which rival it's gunning for. The entire crew also features InfoLink RSS access, a USB 2.0 port (WiseLink Pro), DLNA compatibility, four HDMI-CEC jacks and 1080p panels. Read up on the full rundown of specs in the read link, and prepare to hand over $2,799.99 for the 50-inch PN50A760, $4,499.99 for the 58-inch PN58A760 or $5,499.99 for the 63-inch PN63A760 sometime next month.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

23 Jul 2008 2:50pm GMT

Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

Can't say we're surprised to see 'em, but Sammy has done its due diligence by pumping out the official verbiage for the 9 Series LCD HDTVs that were leaked late last week. These second-generation LED-backlit sets feature 1080p Ultra Clear panels, Auto Motion Plus 120Hz technology, 1,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratios, the familiar Touch of Color design and a smattering of networking technologies like InfoLink (RSS access) and WiseLink Pro. Additionally, both the 46-inch LN46A950 (pictured) and 55-inch LN55A950 feature 4-millisecond response times, down-firing speakers with a built-in subbie, an integrated NTSC / ATSC / ClearQAM tuner, four HDMI-CEC ports, a PC input, Ethernet socket and a pair of component jacks. Look for each to land next month for $3,199.99 and $4,199.99, respectively.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

23 Jul 2008 2:38pm GMT

the4thdimension writes "MySpace has joined a coalition of other big-name e-services in support of OpenID. If you aren't familiar with the OpenID coalition, they are a group that seeks to allow users to create a single account/password set to be used on a number of services. Such services already signed up include: Google's Blogger, Wordpress, AOL, Yahoo, Vox, LiveJournal, and others." Reader gbjbaanb adds a link to the BBC's coverage and points out that MySpace's 100 million users would mean nearly a doubling of the approximately 120 million OpenID accounts now in use, writing: "Initially support is to use MySpace OpenIDs as providers only - i.e. you cannot logon to MySpace with an OpenID created elsewhere, but that policy will change in the future. This should help to make OpenID the de-facto login mechanism for the Internet, now if only Microsoft would support it, there are plenty OSS OpenID libraries available."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

23 Jul 2008 2:35pm GMT

Filed under: GPS

For those who spend just as much time getting lost in the forest as they do on the highways, Garmin's nüvi 500 holds quite a bit of promise. Combining four modes covering cycling, boating (optional), driving and walking, this waterproof navigator has nearly every walk of life covered. GPS Magazine recently got to spend some time with the Q3-bound unit, and not surprisingly, it came away very impressed. On the roads, this device performed just as admirably as any other Garmin unit. When traveling off the beaten path, things were just as great. The only real knocks on this were the added bulk / weight and the omission of text-to-speech, but true adventurers aren't apt to care about that when consolidating four GPS devices into one.

[Thanks, Fletch]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

23 Jul 2008 2:26pm GMT

Windows only: Free virtual archive tool Pismo File Mount can help you cut down on unnecessary CD burning and folder space by mounting compressed and ISO files as virtual drives. There are lots of utilities and means to do this, of course, but Pismo offers the simple route. Just right-click on a disc image or zipped file and choose "Mount" or "Quick Mount," and you can assign the folder to, say, drive Z:, or just have its contents pop up in a window. Grab what you need, close it down, and you're done. Pismo File Mount is a free download for Windows systems only.

23 Jul 2008 2:07pm GMT

Filed under: Desktops

Shuttle's SN78SH7 was briefly caught struttin' its stuff at CES this year, but after months on end of waiting, the thing is just about ready to start shipping to eager consumers. Hailed as the first small-form-factor PC to support NVIDIA's Hybrid SLI technology, this block can be equipped with AMD's Phenom X4 processor, 4GB of RAM and Windows Vista (among other things). No word on a price, but it should be quite apparent come Friday.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

23 Jul 2008 2:04pm GMT

oliderid writes "The first official image of a Russian-European manned spacecraft has been unveiled. It is designed to replace the Soyuz vehicle currently in use by Russia and will allow Europe to participate directly in crew transportation.The reusable ship was conceived to carry four people towards the Moon, rivaling the US Ares/Orion system. This project is the Plan A for the European Space agency. The plan B is an evolution of the ATV proposed by a consortium of European companies led by Astrium."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

23 Jul 2008 1:47pm GMT

Filed under: Laptops

MSI has been pretty successful with the Wind, wouldn't you say? Yeah, so would LG. Reportedly, LG is hoping to solicit MSI's services in order to craft its own X110 netbook. The mini laptop will purportedly boast an 8.9-inch panel, 120GB hard drive, 2GB of RAM and Windows XP runnin' the show. Interestingly, the price is expected to hover between $625 and $790 as it focuses on "design and material quality" rather than low cost. Anxious to see how that move plays out, aren't you?Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

23 Jul 2008 1:42pm GMT

• How do I make Microsoft Word 2007 include the date a document was created within the document itself?
• Software solutions to download from links en masse?
• Why am I waking up dehydrated?
• What is the easiest and best way for me to share my large iTunes multimedia library amongst four Macs?
• What kinds of food plants will grow inside by a window?

23 Jul 2008 1:30pm GMT

A House bill would delete the "Rosemary's Baby" of FCC regulations: the infamous "deemed granted" forbearance proceeding rule.

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23 Jul 2008 1:28pm GMT

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Cowon just loosed raw PMP sex into the marketplace with its new P5 media player. We're talking 800 x 480 pixels spread across a 5-inch touchscreen display featuring Cowon's Widget+Haptic UI riding a 700MHz RMI Alchemy AU1250 processor. The P5 packs standard USB and USB-host jacks, T-DMB broadcast TV, FM radio, Bluetooth, TV-out (component, S-Video, and composite), stereo speakers, and up to 80GB of storage in a 138.8 x 88.5 x 20.0-mm slab of "Luxury Hairline Metal" (which sounds like brushed aluminum to us). It comes pre-installed with a Win CE Internet browser (a clumsy WiFi dongle can be added via the USB jack), MS Office document viewer, electronic dictionary, and support for AVI, ASF, WMV, MPG, OGM, DivX, Xvid, MPEG4, WMV9, MP3, WMA, AC3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC and a few more media formats/codecs with a battery capable of about 9-hours of video or 14-hours of straight audio. No price announced but the P5 should hit Korean hands on the 29th of July in choice of black, red, or platinum.

Gallery: Cowon's 5-inch P5 touchscreen media player brings the haptic happy sauce

[Via PMP Today and I4U]

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23 Jul 2008 1:21pm GMT

KuKu Klok is a pretty straightforward webapp-you set a time for an alarm to go off, you choose a sound to wake up to, and you hit "Set Alarm." Kind of like the Online Alarm Clock, but the neat part is that the Flash-based app goes off even if your internet connection drops altogether. Add in the selection of sounds to rise and shine to-including the "Slayer Guitar"-and it's a pretty nifty tool for when the cell phone's out of reach, or you're napping near your laptop.

23 Jul 2008 1:10pm GMT

Filed under: Storage

We're not too sure how the advertising director that green lit Hitachi's bizarro perpendicular recording video is still on staff, but sure enough, he / she has been cut loose again as evidenced by the latest spot. We knew the outfit was pushing this whole "Dawn of the Tera Era" slogan with the introduction of its Deskstar 7K1000.B, but this is just taking things entirely too far. Fair warning: the video hosted after the jump contains cartoon scenes that could easily be used by D.A.R.E. officials looking to keep kids from trying drugs, but somehow we get the impression its just a plug for having lots of (Hitachi-branded) storage space. Hmmph.

[Thanks, Frederick]

Continue reading Hitachi promotional video highlights Tera Era, effects of hallucinogens

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23 Jul 2008 1:01pm GMT

Incon writes "Builder AU reports that Brian Aker, MySQL's director of architecture, has unveiled Drizzle, a database project aimed at powering websites with massive concurrency as well as trimming superfluous functionality from MySQL. Drizzle will have a micro-kernel architecture with code being removed from the Drizzle core and moved through interfaces into modules. Akers has already selected particular functionality for removal: modes, views, triggers, prepared statements, stored procedures, query cache, data conversion inserts, access control lists and some data types."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

23 Jul 2008 1:00pm GMT

Windows only: Windows Search 4.0, an updated version of the d