Let’s face it, iPod speakers are a cheap and cheerful group, but the market is about to get a boost of class, thanks to Parrot’s Zikmu stereo iPod speakers ($1,500 a pair).
The striking design, created by Philippe Starck, stakes out a new approach to iPod speakers. …
Originally posted at The Audiophiliac
Microsoft’s Media Center product is a great DVR, and a neat all-around way to enjoy your media…if you live in the United States, that is. But if you’re thousands of miles away in the remote country known only as Canada, you’re weirdly out of luck. That’s right, Microsoft hasn’t allowed Canadians access to ATSC broadcast–that’s over the air high-def TV, for those who don’t read tech acronym speak. But thanks to some fancy coding from the folks over at SiliconDust (the manufacturer of the popular HDHomeRun external tuner), the high-def dry spell looks to be coming to an end. That’s right: The latest drivers support ATSC broadcasts for Canadians.
A post on the manufacturer’s Web site highlights the quirkiness of it all: “Run through the TV Setup wizard in WMC… set your location to Canada. The tuner will detect as a ClearQAM tuner and the channel scan should pick up all the antenna channels.” In other words, the HDHomeRun pretends to be a QAM tuner (QAM is encrypted digital cable content) in order to get ATSC content into Windows Media Center. Pretty clever! And apparently, you’ve got enthusiast Peter Near to thank for it all.
Continue reading Microsoft cutting 5,000 jobs, sadface emoticons abound
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Microsoft cutting 5,000 jobs, sadface emoticons abound originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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HTC has announced the Touch Cruise, a new TouchFLO-enhanced Windows Mobile smartphone featuring HTC Footprints, a new geotagging feature that lets users tag photos with GPS location data and audio clips. The Touch Cruise also includes a car cradle that, when docked, automatically switches the device to a turn-by-turn navigation mode—a useful feature for anyone who has struggled with their handset’s UI and tiny buttons when getting in and out of the car.
The Touch Cruise comes with Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capability, a microSD card slot, and—oddly, for a TouchFLO device—just QVGA (320-by-240-pixel) resolution instead of full VGA mode. HTC will sell the device in the U.S. unlocked as a dual-mode (850/1900 MHz) HSDPA phone, with HSDPA 7.2 and 2100 MHz capability overseas.
I’m not a huge TouchFLO fan, since it sits somewhat uneasily on top of the usual Windows Mobile UI. But I look forward to checking out HTC Footprints and the Touch Cruise’s improved voice navigation mode. Expect it to hit stores in Spring 2009 for between $500 and $600.
Cruising across the open seas may seem like a great way to get close to nature, but take a look at the sheer quantity of fuel most boats suck down as they power through waves (and manatees) and you’ll realize the truth. Thus a new breed of eco-friendly boat has arisen, the latest entry being San Francisco’s Alcatraz Cruises Hornblower Hybrid ferry. The ship, which will take passengers on trips to the Rock and elsewhere in the Bay, uses two vertical wind turbines and a solar panel to power its on-board electronics, with any excess juice going to the boat’s propulsion systems — which still rely mostly on diesel to get the craft and its passengers where they’re going. Okay, so it’s perhaps not as green as other eco-boats we’ve seen, but a tour on this one should be a good bit more affordable when it enters service early this year.
[Via Inhabitat]
Filed under: Transportation
New eco ferry uses wind and solar to get you to the Rock — and hopefully back originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Nintendo Wii sold over 10 million units in the U.S. in 2008, the first game console ever to break that barrier, according to new NPD data relayed by the News Market.
The report said that the Nintendo Wii racked up 10.17 million sales in 2008, followed closely by the company’s sister portable console, the Nintendo DS, with 9.95 million. Both consoles broke the previous record set in 2007, when the Nintendo DS sold 8.52 million units.
As a result, the Nintendo Wii represented 55 percent of all home console sales in 2008, while the DS nailed 72 percent of all portable system sales, according to the report.
As expected, the newly-minted President Barack Obama ran into a major roadblock hours after moving into his new digs at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. For a man accustomed to living off of his Blackberry, life in his new home is like stepping into a technology museum. “It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton told The Washington Post.
The social networks, the smartphones–they’ve all been replaced by outdated software and disconnected phone lines. The Post paints a picture of a first day spent filling out paper work, attempting to patch up tech glitches, and generally being unable to update the administration’s new Website, as promised.
Braving a scarce number of notebooks and keyboards with letters missing (a complaint also issued when Bush’s team moved in, though rumor has it that all of those systems were missing the letter “W”), Obama staff have been using their personal cellphones, and routing e-mail through their own accounts, with the blessing of the White House.
Bundled with full seasons of Battlestar Galactica and Heroes, it's like getting the player for free.
(Credit: Frys)
Now, hear me out. No, you haven’t traveled back in time to 2007, when HD DVD was still a viable format. And, no, I haven’t lost the last …
Originally posted at The Cheapskate
A group of MIT researchers believe they have discovered the source of the moon’s magnetism, a puzzler that has baffled scientists since the 1970s when Apollo astronauts first brought moon rocks to Earth, Space.com reports.
“Earth’s rotating, iron core produces the planet’s magnetic field. But the moon does not have such a setup,” the report said. Instead, MIT scientists now believe that the Moon did in fact have a liquid core with a dynamo about 4.2 billion years ago. Most moon rocks lose their traces of magnetism when subjected to major shocks from impacts. But the scientists found their smoking gun by examining the oldest moon rock brought to Earth—by Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, the only geologist ever to walk on the moon, during the last lunar landing mission, Apollo 17, in 1972.
“Many people think that it’s the most interesting lunar rock,” said MIT’s Ben Weiss in the article; his team found traces of the original magnetic field using a commercial rock magnetometer equipped with a robotic system geared toward detecting faint traces of magnetism. The report said that the findings fit in with the prevailing theory that the moon was born when a Mars-sized body crashed into the Earth and blasted much of its crust into space, where it clumped together to form the moon.
Last year Lotte teamed up with Suntory whisky to produce Single Malt Chocolate. This year the confectioner is offering up its Ghana brand chocolate for a collaboration with popular ramen shop Menya Musashi. The result is chocolate flavored ramen (which we think is better than if it had ended up ramen flavored chocolate).
The name of the dish is Ghana Miso and it will be available from now until February 15, in honor of Valentine’s Day. This actually makes sense if you consider that in Japan women give men chocolate on Valentine’s Day and more men probably prefer ramen to chocolate. The chocolate only factors into the garnish, as it is used when cooking the ground pork that tops the otherwise ordinary miso-tonkatsu soup.
Actually chocolates posing as popular food items have been popping up for a few years.
Like these vaguely sexed-up boxes of instant hayashi rice and curry containing ordinary chocolates, pictured above.
We also found these beer bottles filled with chocolate candies on the same shelf, likely intended for “giri chocolate” (that women feel obligated to hand out to male friends and co-workers) as they effectively take the romantic edge off the traditional gift.
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