The X-Mini Max II Capsule Speaker is an excellent option for anyone looking for an ultraportable speaker that offers great sound quality at a very reasonable price. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-6450_7-10409047-50.html” class=”origPostedBlog”iPod accessories/a/p
The Kicker EB51 earbuds are easy on the wallet and offer several color options, but we’re not convinced they’re enough of a step up from stock earbuds. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-6450_7-10409046-50.html” class=”origPostedBlog”iPod accessories/a/p
Nokia announces that it will cut back its smartphone portfolio by half in 2010 to have a more focused lineup for the new year. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://www.cnet.com/8301-17918_1-10409002-85.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Dialed In/a/p
Multi-purpose adapters aren’t anything new, but it’s often the simplest of the bunch that prove most useful. Take this bugger for instance, which is little more than a vanilla 3-port USB hub connected to an iPhone / iPod dock connector port. The purpose for its existence? To prevent you from having to haul Apple’s flimsily built charging cable and a USB hub with you each time you scurry out, and to just generally make your time on this planet entirely more enjoyable. Now if only it could recharge our prototype Volt that we’ve secretly got hiding in the Engadget Garage, we’d really be able to extol the $14.99 asking price.
Multifaceted adapter combines 3-port USB hub with iPod / iPhone connector originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | 
USB Fever | Email this | Comments
Time Warner, perhaps hip to the fact that I haven’t bothered to check my meat space snail mail mailbox in the last three weeks, took matters into their own hands and inserted this warning directly into my browser.
At this point, file sharing warnings via snail mail and e-mail are pretty commonplace. But this is the first time I’ve heard of an ISP taking the matter straight to the browser. At first I was worried, and then I was a bit annoyed, but I have to say, I give them credit for giving me the benefit of the doubt here.
The purpose of this email
and by email they mean the electronic message they forced onto my screen
is to remind you that the distribution of copyrighted material in this fashion may violate both copyright laws and Road Runner‘s terms of service, and to tell you a bit about peer-to-peer programs, the dangers they can pose to your computer and our network, and the steps you can take to protect yourself.
Considering all of the horror stories you hear, this was a pretty reasonable intervention. All I had to do was click, “I am aware of this issue and will take steps to resolve it,” and I was on my merry way. Whether those steps should be deleting all the copyrighted material off my computer, removing my P2P software, getting my shit together and using a private tracker, or just trying a little bit harder to resist the urge to download Nic Cage’s entire filmography on Mininova, they don’t say. But as Road Runner didn’t treat me like a criminal, I’ll respect them by not being one. Or at least being a sneakier one.
For some people, one copyright violation notice from their ISP is enough to scare them straight forever. Others wear their warnings like badges of honor. What are your experiences with ISPs and copyright infringement? Weigh in in the comments.
Don’t buy these one-trick ponies–unless you like gizmos that gather dust. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://news.cnet.com/8301-19882_3-10408188-250.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Rafe’s Radar/a/p
Maplock is a security device that latches onto a GPS unit and cables it to the steering wheel. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://ces.cnet.com/8301-31051_1-10408858-268.html” class=”origPostedBlog”30 Days of Innovation/a/p
You could get skilled with the piano after years of practice, but imagine how good you’d be at playing an instrument you invented.
A college course and the iPhone are making that possible for computer-science students at the University of Michigan.
Now, at the end of the course, the class ensemble of 11 students are preparing to put on a live concert — one where every musician’s instrument is an iPhone.
Taught by Georg Essl, an assistant professor of computer science and music, the course (titled “Building a Mobile Phone Ensemble“) trains students to code their own musical instruments for the iPhone, using the Apple-provided software-development kit.
“What’s interesting is we blend the whole process,” Essl said in a phone interview with Wired.com. “We start from nothing. We teach the programming of iPhones for multimedia stuff, and then we teach students to build their own instruments.”
“We don’t stop there,” he continued. “We don’t just see this as an engineering exercise. We want to do the whole process where we start from nothing, and then we go to performance next week in a live concert, where people can come and listen to the outcome of what students have learned in the course.”
The advantage of digital music can be seen in instruments as far back as the electric guitar: the flexibility to manipulate bits of code to create different sounds, superseding the limitations of a traditional analog instrument. Naturally, technological advancement keeps raising electronic sound to new heights. In recent years, musicians have been experimenting with gadgets ranging from laptops to high-tech cellos, and from cellphones to bent circuits.
Essl said he’s been playing music with mobile phones since 2005, but the iPhone is unique because it starts out as a highly sophisticated blank slate with multiple sensors: a full touchscreen, a microphone, GPS, compass, wireless sensor and accelerometer.
Using the iPhone SDK and some supplemental audio tools provided by Essl, students in the course learn to program the device to play different sounds, based on the information it receives from one of its multitude of sensors. Tapping the display, shaking the phone or blowing air into the mic, for example, can all translate into different sounds.
Students in the class are experimenting with the iPhone in a wild variety of ways, Essl said. One student’s instrument uses the iPhone’s video-savvy screen and microphone to synesthetically work the relationship between color and sound. Another student is exploring what the iPhone can do with feedback and distortion.
“I think it’s an interesting spread,” Essl said. “People come to it not with a literal sense of, ‘I know piano. I want to build a mobile phone piano.’ They have a concept.”
The Michigan Mobile Phone Ensemble will perform Dec. 9 at 8 p.m. in the university’s Britton Recital Hall. See a video of the ensemble in a practice session above, and a video overview of the class below.
See Also:
The British Library’s just taken the wraps off a new facility up in Leeds where they’ll now house some lesser used items (things like patent specs and Martin Amis’ diner receipts). The new digs are a £26 million (that’s about $43 million) building in West Yorkshire controlled by seven robot operators capable of pulling items and taking them to a retrieval area when they’ve been requested by librarians. Hit the BBC Source link to check out the futuristic system for yourself.
British Library packs its least requested items into new, robot-operated facility in Leeds originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Yorkshire Evening Post, BBC | Email this | Comments
Fans of the go-anywhere ContourHD wearable video camera have a whole lot of things to add to their wish lists. The company just announced four new accessories that let them bring the extreme sport camera into new situations.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
