Feb 12
Vertu, the purveyors of luxury cell phones, has announced its latest waste of money. Called the Ti, it’s handmade in England and can be yours for the princely sum of $10,000. More »
Feb 12
Wrestling Dropped From Olympics: Source Says IOC Leaders Have Dumped Sport From 2020 Program
Posted in: Today's ChiliLAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — IOC leaders dropped wrestling from the program for the 2020 Olympics on Tuesday, an official familiar with the decision told The Associated Press.
In a surprise move, the IOC executive board decided to retain modern pentathlon — the sport considered most at risk — and remove wrestling instead, the official said.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision hadn’t been announced yet.
Feb 12
Starz may have started out as a premium cable network that only offered older movies after they were available on the more popular pay channels such as HBO and Showtime. However, Starz is now a network that offers films before other premium pay channels get them and has some cool original series such as Spartacus and others. Starz has announced a new multiyear agreement with Sony Pictures Entertainment.
The agreement between the two companies will give Starz exclusive pay television rights to Sony Pictures theatrical releases through 2021. The two companies had an agreement in place previously that would expire in 2016. Starz has been getting movies from Sony Pictures first since 2005. Sony Pictures owns some of the biggest movie studios out there including Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Classics, TriStar, and Screen Gems.
The new agreement covers movie content for all Starz platforms including Encore networks in SD or HD, subscription video-on-demand services, and online streaming services. That means the films will be able to be offered on Starz Play and Encore Play. Encore will be landing some very good movies first during 2013.
Among the movies that will come to Starz and Encore this year are The Amazing Spider-Man, 21 Jump Street, Zero Dark Thirty, The Vow, Men In Black 3, and Resident Evil: Retribution. Starz also has the exclusive rights to Disney theatrical releases including Disney’s newly acquired Lucasfilm titles and movies from Marvel and Pixar through 2017.
[via Starz]
Starz announces multiyear deal with Sony Pictures Entertainment is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Feb 12
In a continuing effort to be more of a discovery and recommendation engine, Foursquare has updated the mobile version of its place pages with more information for non-members. In the past, whenever users of the location-based app shared info about a place via Twitter, Facebook, email or text, friends without the app would be led to a relatively barebones link with details like the address, phone number and not much else. Now that mobile-friendly page is spruced up with all-important tips and photos, which makes that sharing function infinitely more useful for would-be shoppers and diners who aren’t into the whole Foursquare thing just yet. Of course, there’s that not-so-subtle “Download the App” hint at the top right to nudge them that direction, but that’s entirely unnecessary if all your friends want are suggestions on which kind of nigiri they should get at that hot new sushi bar.
Source: Foursquare Blog
Feb 12
Vuzix has been producing all sorts of video glasses for a number of years. One of the most recent products that the company has announced is called the Wrap 1200AR. These glasses are see-through augmented reality units providing lots of adjustability to allow wearers the ability to overlay video and other content on what they see in the real world.
These glasses were announced a while back and are now available to purchase for $1499. The Wrap 1200AR glasses are certainly not cheap. The little screens inside the glasses simulate a 75-inch screen as seen from 10 feet away. The display supports 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios and each has a resolution of 852 x 480.
When combined, the two display support resolutions all the way up to 720p. The glasses supports 60 Hz scan rates and have a 35° diagonal field of view. The small displays support 24-bit color and the glasses weigh about 3 ounces. The left and right camera systems can be independently adjusted and the glasses support 2-D and stereoscopic 3-D video.
The video glasses also offer a wide variety of adjustment allowing the user to adjust the eye separation, display angle, and to adjust the diopter. The glasses have tracking technology with 3° of freedom able to track head yaw, pitch, and roll. Connectivity options on the glasses include VGA, and USB. An adapter for DVI connectivity is included.
[via Vuzix]
Vuzix Wrap 1200AR augmented reality eyewear now shipping is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Feb 12
Ask a Sonos listener about flaws in the Controller app and you’ll often hear about three sticking points: favorites buried in separate sections, the absence of an official Android widget and an iOS version that still isn’t optimized for the iPhone 5. As of Tuesday, the company is cleaning house by curing all three hiccups at once. A new software update puts a source-independent Sonos Favorites section at the top of the menu system; Android users now have a playback widget to quickly skip tracks, and the iPhone app finally takes advantage of those 176 extra lines on the screen. All the official Controller releases should see their fixes appear at relevant app stores soon, if not by the time you read this.
Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, Tablets, HD
Via: Sonos
Source: App Store (iPhone), (iPad), Google Play
Feb 12
There can be no denying that designer Guillaume Binard’s “Oceanwings” look slightly ridiculous. But with the promise of letting you fly underwater, they’re a strangely tempting prospect, too. More »
Feb 12
American Express cardholders can now buy goods by tweeting special hashtags
Posted in: Today's Chili 
If driving to a store and waving your phone by a terminal puts too much sweat on your brow, American Express has launched a new way to part with your money in exchange for physical goods that’s even more effortless. Since last year, Amex Sync has let American Express cardholders earn discounts in return for posting tweets including hashtags about certain products, and now it’s letting them buy things just by tweeting similar codes. After signing up for the service (and linking their Twitter handle), users can send out a tweet with #BuyAmexGiftCard25, reply to the @AmexSync account to confirm their purchase and wait for the package to arrive via free 2-day shipping. As of now, the outfit is offering a $25 American Express gift card for $15, but will being offering up new products, ranging from a Kindle Fire HD to an Xbox 360, with sweetened prices starting February 13 at noon EST. Not a Twitter user? According to AllThingsD, Leslie Berland, Amex’s SVP of digital partnerships and development, says the solution will head to the likes of Facebook and other platforms at some point as well.
Filed under: Internet
Via: The Verge, AllThingsD
Source: American Express (1), (2)
Feb 12
This Is Why Chemistry Is Amazing
Posted in: Today's Chili
You were glad to see the back of chemistry at high school because it’s so dull, right? Wrong! Chemistry is amazing, and it helps explain what all the stuff around us is and where it comes from. More »
Feb 12
After a year of effort the Raspbmc team announced it has reached the 1.0 milestone. This means the team is confident they’ve delivered a stable distro to run the port of XBMC specifically designed to run on the Raspberry Pi, created by TeamXBMC, and the image is ready to be downloaded for free and copied to your ready and able SD card. If you were already enjoying the fruits of the early builds of Raspbmc, you’ll need to do a complete re-install but that shouldn’t be too much trouble since you probably store your content on a network drive or external USB.
Raspbmc 1.0 is based on the recently finished XMBC 12 Final and supports DTS decoding in software. This is in addition to many other codecs supported in software and you can purchase licenses from the Raspberry Pi Store for MPEG-2 and VC-1 hardware decoding for just a few bucks. A good move, since hardware decoding of today’s most popular video codecs is almost certainly a requirement for any proper XBMC setup. Now, if the Raspbmc team would release their own custom case for the RPi then everyone would know what’s going on just by looking under your TV.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Source: Raspbmc.com
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