Hasta La Gadget!

Sick of having to use your inconvenient mouse and keyboard to do “internet searches” for ROMs of your favorite retro games? Well a gentleman named Matthias might just have the answer to your prayers — a USB SNES cartridge adapter. The enterprising DIY’er has created a combo hardware and software solution that allows you to plug in your dusty carts directly to your rig, and see the ROMs appear as standalone files which you can then load into the emulator of your choice. Apparently there are still some kinks to work out (like getting data rates up for larger games), and Matthias already has plans underway for a multi-system solution. Still, this is impressive stuff, even if it means we’ll have to repurchase any titles we’re missing from reputable online auction houses. Hey, at least it’ll cut down our visits to “Russian porn sites.” Check out the video of the whole thing in action after the break.

Continue reading SNES USB cartridge adapter should set eBay aflame

Filed under: Gaming

SNES USB cartridge adapter should set eBay aflame originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 21 Jun 2009 10:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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T-Mobile’s Sidekick LX 2009 represented a huge leap forward in the hiptop sector. Not only was the swiveling motion as smooth as ever here, but this was the first Sidekick that seemed to really take its user interface seriously. To that end, we’re interested in knowing how you — the opinionated consumer — feel about Danger’s latest effort. Are you impressed by the grown-up features? Does the form factor still have a place in your life? Is the UI snappy enough? Do you still get enough stares from potential mates when you whip it out on the subway? The floor’s yours, make it good.

Filed under: Cellphones

How would you change T-Mobile’s Sidekick LX 2009? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 21 Jun 2009 07:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on February 29, 2008 by CyberNet.

The words YouTube and “high-resolution” have never really fit well in the same sentence. YouTube has always greatly limited the resolution of their videos to conserve on bandwidth, but going forward that may not always be the case. As it turns out there is a little something that you can add on to the end of a YouTube URL to have it play a high-resolution version of the same video.

The thing that you need to know, however, is that not every video has been re-encoded into the higher quality. In fact, I’ve tested this “trick” on about 40 videos, and only 7 of them had a higher quality version available. I’ve been reading around about this, and it looks as though newly uploaded videos are being converted a few hours after they’ve been added. And no one really seems to be sure as to whether it depends on the format of video (AVI, WMV, etc…).

I spent about 30 minutes trying to find a good video that has been converted to the higher resolution, and one that was also a good demonstration of why the higher quality matters. To really notice the difference I wanted to get something with a lot of motion, and I thought that there’s nothing better than the skateboarding dog made popular by the iPhone commercial!

Ready for the example? Just add &fmt=6 onto the end of any YouTube URL. Using the skateboarding dog as an example you would take the normal URL:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=CQzUsTFqtW0

and add the &fmt=6 onto the end:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=CQzUsTFqtW0&fmt=6

If the YouTube video just sits there loading then that is a sign that the video has not been converted to the higher resolution yet. To really see the difference you should view the video in full screen mode by clicking the button in the bottom-right corner of the player.

Note: Alternatively you can add &fmt=18 and it will play the high-resolution version when available, otherwise it will play the regular version. Here’s a Greasemonkey script that will automatically add &fmt=18 onto the end of each YouTube URL.

I took a still image from part of the video so that you can really compare the differences side-by-side:

I can’t wait for YouTube to start rolling this out to all of their videos, and hopefully they’ll add a button to their site where you can easily switch between the low and high quality versions on a per-video basis.

UPDATE: Since writing this article YouTube has incorporated a feature so that users can switch between videos of the different quality.

[via VideoHelp] Thanks to Yansky for the tip!

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Related Posts:

• Watch YouTube High Quality Videos by Default
• Helpful Tip: How to Watch Restricted YouTube Videos
• Hands-On with YouTubeDesktop
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• The YouTube Video Awards Winners Are…

Now that we know the iPhone 3G S and the Palm Pre share extremely similar 65nm ARM Cortex A8-based internals, it’s time to break out the stopwatches and see how these blood brothers stack up. Anandtech has the first head-to-head tests we’ve seen, and it seems like the 3G S has the slight edge, loading a series of web pages 11 percent faster and a whopping 54 percent faster than the iPhone 3G. Not too shabby, but not exactly a thorough drubbing either — especially when you consider webOS is still 1.0 and there’s likely some optimizations to come. Full results at the read link.

Update: Anandtech had some uncharacteristically bad math going on — the 3G S is actually 21 percent faster than the Pre, which is quite notable considering the similar hardware and WebKit-based browsers.

Filed under: Cellphones

iPhone 3G S and Pre head-to-head benchmarks: iPhone wins originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Taking aim at Microsoft’s recently unveiled Project Natal, Stephen Colbert unveiled a new-new console on The Colbert Report the other night. The XXbox (or Ex-Xbox, one of our readers cleverly pointed out) bests Natal’s lack of controller by at least one point, lacking a console and games. For about 500 bucks, it sounds like a steal. But you know, we’ll buy any new gadget. Video is after the break.

[Via Joystiq]

Continue reading Video: Stephen Colbert unveils the Microsoft XXbox

Filed under: Gaming

Video: Stephen Colbert unveils the Microsoft XXbox originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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