We finally have new equipment, and it sounds good. Well, except Cisco sounds like a super villain for some reason (maybe his true self coming through?). Download the mp3 below and tune in for one of the meatiest shows we've done yet.
Thanks to our summer intern, Errol Pierre-Louis, for this report!
Like Cisco and Sascha, Joel and I checked out the ATI event in Manhattan today and saw a couple cool new applications for the company's graphics chipset.
Windows Vista was running on a 3-monitor display from one CPU, using an integrated graphics card. This lets you split pictures, spread sheets, Word documents, or any other window between multiple screens. TV tuners equipped with ATI chips can pick up over-the-air HD signals, which can be used in USDTV's set-up boxes which you can also use to watch HD programs on your PC or laptop.
ATI also showcased its Radeon X1900 XT graphic card's physics processing ability (the card's shown at left; click to enlarge). My knowledge of physics begins and ends with the few textbook pages I flipped through on my way to the final exam, but gamers should be very interested in this new physics technology; it could bring gaming to the next level of realism, in what ATI calls "boundless gaming". Scenes with 20,000 to 30,000 distinct objects can be simulated and rendered at real-time frame rates, making for a much more immersive experience.
This tuner lets you pick up free and subscription-based over-the-air HDTV.
ATI's graphics card flexes its physics muscles on Junkyard.
ATI's Crossfire platform lets you use multi-GPU rendering. Displayed here are two IX1900 graphics cards and a motherboard, a configuration optimized to showcase the cards' physics processing power.
I know it's not gear or a gadget, but I'd like to take a moment anyway in honor of the official death of my youth. I just noticed on Slashdot that Quake officially turned 10 yesterday. That does it. I'm old. You too, pal, I'm not alone here, right? That does it. It's time to shape up, stop playing games, save some money, take things more seriously....all of which I'll do just as soon as I finish up this Unreal Tournament competition I've got going on. In the meantime, cue up the sappy music and the reminiscence.
Just the other day I was pulling out of the train station in my RAV4 when all of a sudden, the cars in front of me were stopping short. Luckily, I was a good distance behind the car in front of me, but my eyes were glued to my rear view mirror as I watched this girl behind me in a black car riding on my tail.
I knew she wasn't going to stop in time and would rear-end me (which would have been the second time in three months), so preventing an unpleasant accident and assuring my safety, I made a quick decision to pull over to the shoulder. That's when she starts honking her horn like a mad woman. I'm thinking to myself, "Okay, I just saved you from damaging my car, your car, and the cars behind you, and you're honking at ME? WTF?!?!" And you wanna know why cars were stopping so short? Because there was a tiny branch in the road--unbelieveable.
As I preceded to the exit ramp, she takes off like a bat out of hell into the left lane, hopefully on her way to get a speeding ticket. If only I could have given her a piece of my mind!!! But if I had the Drive-e-mocion, I very well could have!!
Developed by London-based AU-MY Limited, the Drive-e-mocion is "an electronic display that sticks to your back window; you operate it by remote control from the front seat. It can display a smiley face or a frowning face, along with the messages 'thank you' and 'back off.'" However, it only comes with four displays so far. Darn, I'll have to wait for the customizable version.
It sells for 9 pounds sterling, but it's currently out of stock until the new, revamped model ships. Want to be notified when the new model is ready? Just go to the AU-MY site and e-mail them.
I wonder though, would this kind of thing be legal to drive around with in the US?
At an ATI event in New York today I saw a demo of their Imageon 2380, their next-generation cell-phone 3D processor. It's pretty sock-knocking. The demo, on a Windows CE handheld, was of some 3D Korean adventure game, and moves were fluid and smooth, with clearly rendered backgrounds. It was beautiful.
The Imageon 2380 can also handle 5-megapixel cameras and 30-frame-per-second, 352x288 video capture. It's the next generation of the Imageon 2300, which appeared in the ground-breaking LG SV360 gaming phone in Korea and subsequently never made it to the US.
The big question: will we see the 2380 here? If so, it'll be in 2007. My hope is tempered by general skepticism - US carriers have never seemed that enthused about world-beating gaming-and-multimedia phones, and groundbreakers like the Nokia N80 have had to go their own way and appear carrier-free. Still, we can always dream ...
To those in the know on this wonderful island of Manhattan, the Shake Shack has become a point of obsession to midtown trendoids. The burgers, shakes, custards and Chicago-style hot dogs are really that good.
Thanks to the wonders of technology, the Shackers have installed a webcam to track the Disney-theme-park-like line. The website is nice, and even has a readout from weather.com if you're sealed in your office/glass tube. Predictably, this wasn't enough for the Mac-based denizens of Manahttan: Justin at worksperfectly.net put together a Mac Os X 10.4 widget for the ShackCam, and it is brilliant. It displays the webcam footage (with a 5 second refresh), counts down the daily opening and closing, and lists the current custard flavor of the day. It now takes up honored space on my Widget desktop.
SECAUCUS, N.J.—The first high-definition Blu-ray players are just now trickling to market, and Panasonic already has plans for Blu-ray car players. Just don't line up outside Circuit City tomorrow looking for one: They could be a year away.
Panasonic threw a coming-out party at its U.S. headquarters for a $20,000 high-definition Blu-ray home theater system, due in September. The company made over an 800-seat auditorium into a hip living room with S-curve couches and a plasma TV fireplace. Panasonic's U.S. chairman and CEO, Yoshi Yamada, said the company hopes to extend Blu-ray's reach beyond home theater to "video cameras … and mobile entertainment," including cars. Panasonic spent much of the press conference pointing to Blu-ray's self-proclaimed advantages over HD-DVD, such as more support from the electronics industry and Hollywood and higher potential for capacity—but no one knows for sure who's going to win out.
Blu-ray Car Player
Panasonic's chief technologist, Paul Liao, pointed out that there are no plans afoot for 7- or 10-inch mobile displays with 1920-by-1080-pixel progressive-scan; that would be overkill. The company doesn't think that 1080p makes much sense below 40 inches. But a ruggedized Blu-ray drive for in-car use is a strong possibility—one that allows you to start buying Blu-ray discs for the home, instead of DVDs, and also play them in your car.
It would also let you record dozens of hours of standard-definition TV on a home Blu-ray recorder, to keep the kids pleasantly occupied on a long drive. Standard-def pixel density on an in-car display is as good or better than high-def pixel density on a big-screen TV.
As an interim step, Panasonic has a 12.7mm-high mobile Blu-ray player and recorder, the UJ-210, in production. Think of it as a Panasonic notebook multi-drive that's able to read and write all technologies from CD through DVD-RAM, plus the ability to read and write Blu-ray single-layer (25GB) and double-layer (50GB) discs. That's not rugged enough for an in-car optical drive, though. A more durable version would come from a different Panasonic division.
Blu-ray Solution
Panasonic's "Blu-ray Home Theater Solution" (thankfully not spelled like the faux-British "home theatre") comprises its first 1080p plasma set, a 65-inch TV (the TH-65PX600U, $10,000 list); a Blu-ray disc player (the DMP-BD10, $1,300); a 7-channel, 100-watt-per-channel receiver with two HDMI inputs (the SA-XR700, $1,000); and a 5- or 7-channel surround sound speaker system with the "center" channels in each of the two front speakers, rather than a separate center speaker that would fit over or under the huge display ($3,000 for 5.1). The combination will be available in September and goes hand-in-hand with a new Plasma Concierge call center in Chesapeake, Virginia, that is meant to provide handholding and tech support for all level of plasma TV buyers who may wonder why, for instance, DVDs played on their HDTV don't look any better (answer: you need a high-def source, which DVD isn't).
Panasonic's other ease-of-use hook is its remote control: Press DVD (or Blu-ray) Play on the remote, and if you have all-Panasonic components, it turns the TV on and to the right input, switches on the receiver, and switches from TV to receiver-powered external speakers to correct the output. And then the optical disc starts playing.
Panasonic also showed its just-shipped line of personal video recorders, including the DMR-EH55 ($550). It has DVD-RAM recording, DVD playback, an 80GB hard-drive recorder, an SD slot, and a VHS VCR.
While Panasonic is the market leader in plasma displays, smaller competitors have leapfrogged the company on some plasma technologies. Samsung, for instance, trumpets anti-reflective coatings that make its plasma sets more usable in daylight. And Pioneer builds a network jack into its high-end plasma TVs, which lets you stream photos, music, and PC-based video to the TV. But Panasonic suggested that those technologies are about a year away on its TVs and receivers.
This is not for everyone, obviously, but if you're planning on taking a trip to Asia or have relatives who are still trying to master the English or Chinese language, the BBK AM99is the way to go. The beauty of this pint-sized handheld is that it helps you pronounce Chinese characters and phrases in authentic Mandarin Chinese, with an actual voice coaching you through it. It's equipped with commonly used Chinese phrases, and you can use the English to Chinese dictionary to look up more complicated words and phrases.
This device is clearly aimed at the traveler: It's loaded with a built-in alarm clock, calendar, unit and currency converter, and stopwatch. You might want to look through the manual thoroughly, because this thing is not easy to master. But once you do, you'll fit right in with the locals. The price of the BBK AM99 starts at $99.99, and you get a one-year parts-and-labor warranty.
For those of us who can't plunk down $108K for an electric car (like, say, George Clooney's Tango T600), affordable all-electric auto transportation is now available, thanks to Myers Motors NmG.
The NmG (for "no more gas") car is a single-passenger, three-wheel, all-electric vehicle priced at $24,900. It's a descendent of the Corbin Sparrow, a pint-size personal electric vehicle for commuters that was unveiled in April of 1996. Because of defects with the Sparrow and other financial woes, Corbin Motors filed for bankruptcy in 2003. Myers Motors resurrected the company in 2004 and set about revamping production on the personal electric vehicle.
Myers retained the design of the original Sparrow, but reengineered the transport, electronics, and charging systems, which improved the car's performance, longevity, and durability. The batteries recharge in 4 to 6 hours on a 110-volt outlet and 2 to 3 hours on a 220-volt outlet. Compared with gas vehicles that get 40 mpg, with gas priced at about $3, the NmG runs at a cost of around a penny per mile. The NmG reaches a top speed of 70 mph, but its range is just 30 miles per recharge, so it's not made for long drives.
The NmG comes equipped with power windows, AM/FM stereo, a CD player, power ports for laptops and cell phones, and a fan-operated heater/defroster. The car registers as and insures as a motorcycle, so it is completely legal to drive on the road. For more information on America's only all-electric, highway legal vehicle selling for less than $100,000, go to the Myers Motors Web site.
Gizmodo linked to a huge gallery of photos from the Sidekick 3 launch party on Tuesday night, of various young, female celebrities fondling their new SK3s.
But I had a mole at the party who told a very different story: of a sweaty inferno where the ice sculpture melted within minutes, stars and pseudo-stars elbowed each other in the scrum, the smoking patio glowed with an unholy light, entry came via an undignified cattle line and screams of "Don't you know WHO I AM?" abounded.
Aforementioned mole gave me another interesting fact, too: apparently, the more intellectually capable in young Hollywood are turning away from Sidekicks to ... Blackberries! The Blackberry 7100 and 8700 line are getting popular with producers, managers and stars looking for a sleek, low profile gadget. And getting a Blackberry 7105t or 8700g means you can stay with T-Mobile's low rates and cheerful customer service, while toting a somewhat more grownup gadget.
"The Blackberry works simply and totally unobtrusively, which carries a lot of weight, almost as much as the 'flashy factor' carried by the SK. If the SK is a Hummer with 22-inch wheels, the 'Berry is a sleek, black Benz." So says young Hollywood.
In traffic, your means of communicating with other drivers is pretty limited. You have no way of telling for sure if another driver saw your thank-you wave—or heard what you screamed at them from your window. The Drive-e-mocion is here to help.
Developed by London-based AU-MY Ltd., the Drive-e-mocion is an electronic display that sticks to your back window; you operate it by remote control from the front seat. It can display a smiley face or a frowning face, along with the messages "thank you" and "back off."
Say you're stuck in traffic; hit the frowney-face and invite fellow motorist to share in your frustration. Express your gratitude to the driver who waved you through with a flashing "thank you." Someone riding your bumper? Flick on the "back off" message and let them know who's boss. And a smiley could open a whole slew of new flirting opportunities for you.
The Drive-e-mocion only comes with these four displays, so far. If you're looking to use more colorful language, you'll have to wait for a version with customization options.
The good news? The price is about 9 pounds sterling, so if you can find one on eBay, you're in luck. The bad news? The company is revamping the product, and the company is officially out of stock until the new model ships in "early 2006".
I was over at an ATI event in New York and had the chance to take a look at some current technology using their graphics chipset. Nothing groundbreaking and nothing we haven't seen before. The one thing that really caught my eye was an Acer Aspire notebook equipped with an HD DVD drive. Even more interesting is that it's running Cyberlink's PowerDVD 6.5 HD DVD, as opposed to the buggy Intervideo software found on the Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV650 and the Sony VAIO VGN-AR190G. Playback on the Cyberlink's software seemed a lot smoother, though there were still problems navigating through the menus.
The notebook as a whole wasn't that impressive. It looked like a pre-production model, so we'll give Acer the benefit of the doubt. It's a 15.4 inch widescreen with a maximum resolution of 1280x800, which will only get you 720p playback. Still, image detail on the Last Samurai HD DVD was quite impressive. The system doesn't have an HDMI port, but it does have DVI-I. Depending on the price of this unit, this might be more of a miss than hit.
I stopped by an ATI event yesterday in New York and had a chance to play with the latest and greatest notebook from Acer, equipped with an HD DVD drive, as well as other impressive technology being showcased below
Below is PowerDVD HD DVD 6.5 up close
A Copy of The Last Samurai in HD DVD
Close look at how ATI plans to use secondary displays on cell phones
On the run this summer? Then it's always smart to take a buddy with you.
Design: Made by Digital Foci, the Media Buddy is a portable digital photo storage with a hard drive and memory card reader. With the memory card reader, you can copy and store photos directly from any digital camera card. It weighs 11 ounces (with hard drive and battery included) with dimensions of 5.8" (L) x 3.4" (W) x 1" (H). It comes in 3 colors: Powder Blue, Arctic Silver, and Pearl Gray.
Features: Media Buddy works with all media card formats, including CF I/II, MD, SM, xD-Picture Card, MMC, SD Card, miniSD, and Memory Stick. It's compatible with both Macs and PCs, can transfer up to 480 Mbps, and operates for 1.6 hours on a single charge.
How It Works: Insert the memory card from your digital camera into Media Buddy to download images. On the backlit text-based LCD screen you can view file information and operation status. Or, connect Media Buddy to a computer for storing images, documents and MP3s.
The Media Buddy comes with: -Ulead Photo Explorer image management software -USB cable -earphones -AC adapter -Lithium-Ion battery -carrying case -resource disk
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